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Driven by WHO, the Geneva UN Medical Directors (UNMD) group has just issued a CONSENSUS STATEMENT for UN staff in Geneva that is essentially warning UN staff of stricter measures to be taken, such as mask wearing in the office when 2-meter distances could not be respected, as well as increased working from home again, when as recently as in June these conditions were relaxed. Working from home means separating colleagues from each other, connecting them by Zoom, but NO HUMAN CONTACT. That’s the name of the game.

The UNMD refers to the Canton of Geneva’s new regulations, based on Switzerland’s claim of a steady increase in Covid-19 “infections”. Since the beginning of July new “cases” have surpassed 100 a day and reached even way beyond 200 at the end of July and above 250 in mid-August. The testing positive has allegedly steadily increased and often by close to 10% per day. Now, surprisingly – they say – 40% of the “cases” concern people between 20 and 40 years of age. But who checks? – Is it a mandate by WHO to diversify the statistics, so as to better justify universal vaccination and another total lockdown?

We know by now that nothing of this, masks, “cases / infections”, quarantine, lockdown, vaccination, or any other repressive measure have anything to do with covid. They are means and instruments for the New World Order (NWO) to “train” the population for total obedience and control by the invisible super power, or deep dark state. WHO plays a key role in this nefarious plans, as it still is regarded by most people and governments as an authority, as far as world health is concerned which sadly, it has ceased to be decades ago.

The Canton of Geneva, where, incidentally, WHO and the UN are located, is the “worst” Canton of Switzerland, counting for about a third of all “infections”. So, say the Swiss authorities. A spokesperson of the Swiss Ministry of Health remarked, “if Geneva were a separate country, anybody coming from Geneva to the rest of Switzerland would have to go into quarantine.”

How scary!

That’s the level of fearmongering going on – justifying obliging face masks in public places and shops and closed areas. Never mind that there is a strong protest of small shop keepers and retail corporations, since they are losing rapidly customers. People do not want to shop with masks. They also find it useless. So, they migrate to online shopping, much of it abroad. Retail losses are estimated at least at 30%. There is already talk of forcing a masquerade also in the streets. Likewise, new emphasis is put on ‘social distancing’. People are to be trained and reminded at every corner to stay away from each other. A masquerade with people walking – in lockstep – or standing two meters apart.

If a Martian would see the human race, no backbone, no self-esteem, just following orders for what most serious scientists consider human history’s worst hoax – he or she, the Martian, would think “the human race has gone mad, let them lockstepping themselves into oblivion. Let’s the hell get out of this lovely blue but crazy planet.”

And the population zombies along because the authorities order them to do so, under threat of fines – against all common sense. But zombies have been deprived of any common sense to resist in masses. Such restrictions and more are now in place until at least 1 October 2020. That’s about the beginning of the 2020 / 2021 flu season which will be conveniently mixed up with covid-19 – and justifies another lockdown – not to forget – with mass vaccination, for covid and flu. Quarantine, livelihood destruction – an economic skyfall into more poverty, more misery, more deprivation, more famine – more death. Not covid- death, but socioeconomic death. That’s exactly what the eugenics fanatics are dreaming of. A decimation of the world population.

WHO is part and parcel of the party, recommending these steps, if and when they are told to do so. By the invisible monsters, of course. The UN is going along. Or, is it the UN who has forced these increasing covid figures in Geneva, so they may prepare first their staff, then the population in general – worldwide – for a new lockdown in October-November? – All is possible.

We are in for the long haul; the UN paper suggests. And so do authorities (sic-sic), not only in Switzerland, but all around the world. Look at the tyrannical oppressive measures of Melbourne, the Department of Victoria in Australia; similar in New Zealand; South Africa; Thailand has hermetically closed all her borders – Germany is preparing for a new lockdown, though they say the contrary (not withstanding a strong popular resistance), so is France – and the US, State by sorry State, as they are battling racial unrest, Woke protests, Black Lives Matter (BLM) movements, and anti-police riots. All organized and paid for by the Soroses, Rockefellers, Fords, Gates and more oligarchic “philanthropic” humanitarian foundations. The mainstream cannot even keep up anymore with covering the US city chaos.

All this talk, predictions, projections, threats, contradictions, anarchy in the cities – is fabricated on purpose not only to confuse, but also to repress and depress people. Hopelessness is an effective weapon. It’s a weaponized narrative.

The “Consensus Statement of the Geneva UN Medical Directors network” starts by saying – “The recent surge in new cases” – without ever describing what NEW CASES entail.

New infections? Newly tested positive, but no symptoms? Sick people? Hospitalized people? People who died? – In fact, the death rate has not gone up whatsoever. Nobody has died from these “new cases” or “new infections”. But nobody reports on this important fact.

It sounds dramatic: a case, an infection — but nobody dares ask the so-called pathetic and corrupted authorities such crucial questions. Nobody asks for an explanation what these “increased figures” really mean? – Are they increased as a function of increased testing? How is testing performed? Does anybody ever ask how the infamous and controversial polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests are performed and analyzed, and the results reported into the annals of statistics, so as to produce ever more “virus-cases”?

The website “Virology Down Under” reports a comment of Professor Martin Haditsch, writing in ProMed-mail:

As to my knowledge “infection” is defined as the proof of an infectious agent AND the proof of multiplication of this agent inside the body (OR associated inflammatory response that can be linked to this agent). Therefore, my question is: where was the specimen taken from the “asymptomatic” nurses? PCR, as we all know, just detects nucleic acids. So, if multiplication cannot be proven and no local or systemic inflammatory response is given, how was “contamination” (no matter whether due to inactivated parts of MERS-CoV or even complete virus particles) ruled out? This is not a semantic question only but should impact the reported number of “cases”.

Does the surge in “new cases” coincide with a surge of new tests?

Who makes the tests?

Is there an independent entity that controls the tests, monitors the tests, as to who is tested and when and with what frequency tests are carried out – and the results reported? For example, are people who are tested several times, also reported several times?

The UNMD CONSENSUS STATEMENT is nothing but a support to the globalized fearmongering. It fits an agenda, a huge sinister agenda. The compulsory mask wearing is the most detested measure imposed by the deep dark state – the invisible masters that are pressuring us into a NWO scheme. They know it. They love it. They are psychopaths. And mask-wearing is dangerous, dangerous for one’s health and well-being.

In most places in Europe, the new school year just began. Students in many places are forced to wear masks, where “social distancing” in class rooms cannot be respected. Many students have been interviewed throughout Europe – and probably on other Continents too. Their response is almost unanimous – masks are uncomfortable, concentration is faltering after about two hours, we are exhausted in the evening and often have headaches. No wonder, breathing your own CO2 instead of oxygen cannot be very healthy.

The forced mask-wearing is an important agenda in the Great Transformation or the Great Reset, predicted by both the IMF and the WEF (World Economic Forum), to be officially “rolled out” in Davos, Switzerland in January 2021. It is an agenda of re-education by rituals. The mask wearing is a ritual on behavioral acceptance. It’s a ritual of initiation towards obedience. The faster and easier you accept the mask, the faster you are accepted – accepted in society. Most people want to be accepted. It makes them comfortable, no matter how much this acceptance is uncomfortable and based on lies.

Watch the first 4 min. of this video.

Then there are the few who will resist, who don’t care about acceptance. They fiercely resist. The system of tyranny makes sure they are socially discriminated and excluded from “society” they are social no-goes. They are looked at as if they were monsters, spreaders of disease, discriminated against, excluded. It is the old “divide to conquer”. Your friend for years has suddenly become your enemy. Families, groups, clubs, entire societies are divided and made to despise each other – division along the ‘ritual line’.

Amazing how it works for masks. Wait until you see how it works for vaccination – another ritual being prepared, as we are oblivious to what’s awaiting us in the next 5 to 10 years. Think Agenda ID2020 and Agenda 2030 – under the UN disguise of Sustainable Development Goals.

We are not doomed yet. But we have to act fast and decisively and in unison – in solidarity. Let’s reinvent solidarity.

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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; New Eastern Outlook (NEO); RT; Countercurrents, Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; Greanville Post; Defend Democracy Press; The Saker Blog, the 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. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Closing down the Global Economy as a means to combating the Virus.

That’s what they want us to believe.

If the public had been informed that Covid-19 is “similar to Influenza”, the fear campaign would have fallen flat…

The data and concepts have been manipulated with a view to sustaining the fear campaign.

The estimates are meaningless.

The figures have been hyped to justify the lockdown and the closure of the national economy, with devastating economic and social consequences.

The Virus is held responsible for poverty and mass unemployment. 

Video: What is Covid-19. The Fear Campaign has no Scientific Basis. Michel Chossudovsky

With Excerpts from Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s Speech to a Mass Protest Movement in Berlin

Note: According to scientific opinion, Covid-19 is akin (similar) to Seasonal Influenza (Flu) (Viruses A, B), Covid-19 is a coronavirus.

The common cold is often triggered by a coronavirus. “Common human coronaviruses, including types 229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1, usually cause mild to moderate upper-respiratory tract illnesses, like the common cold.”

Seasonal influenza is not a coronavirus.

We hope that by publishing diverse view points, submitted by journalists and experts dotted all over the world, the website can serve as a reminder that no matter what narrative we are presented with, things are rarely as cut and dry as they seem.

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COVID19 PCR Tests Are Scientifically Meaningless

By Torsten Engelbrecht and Konstantin Demeter, September 07, 2020

Lockdowns and hygienic measures around the world are based on numbers of cases and mortality rates created by the so-called SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR tests used to identify “positive” patients, whereby “positive” is usually equated with “infected.”

But looking closely at the facts, the conclusion is that these PCR tests are meaningless as a diagnostic tool to determine an alleged infection by a supposedly new virus called SARS-CoV-2.

The U.S. Is Determined to Make Julian Assange Pay for Exposing the Cruelty of Its War on Iraq

By Prof. Vijay Prashad, September 07, 2020

The hearing that Assange will face has nothing to do with the reasons for his arrest from the embassy of Ecuador in London on April 11, 2019. He was arrested that day for his failure to surrender in 2012 to the British authorities, who would have extradited him to Sweden; in Sweden, at that time, there were accusations of sexual offenses against Assange that were dropped in November 2019. Indeed, after the Swedish authorities decided not to pursue Assange, he should have been released by the UK government. But he was not.

Julian Assange: Future Generations of Journalists Will Not Forgive Us if We Do Not Fight Extradition

By Peter Oborne, September 07, 2020

Indeed, Assange’s extradition hearing at the Old Bailey next week marks a profound moment for British journalists. Assange faces 18 charges under the US Espionage Act, which carry a potential sentence of 175 years – put away for the rest of his life.

But his case represents an attack on journalism and democratic accountability. If Britain capitulates to Trump’s America, the right to publish leaked material in the public interest could suffer a devastating blow.

The “Stalinist” Trial of Julian Assange

By John Pilger, September 07, 2020

If the powerful lie to us, we have the right to know. If they say one thing in private and the opposite in public, we have the right to know. If they conspire against us, as Bush and Blair did over Iraq, then pretend to be democrats, we have the right to know.

It is this morality of purpose that so threatens the collusion of powers that want to plunge much of the world into war and wants to bury Julian alive in Trumps fascist America.

Sweden Now Has a Lower COVID-19 Death Rate than the US. Here’s Why It Matters

By Jon Miltimore, September 07, 2020

Experts and media around the world all seemed to agree, with a few notable exceptions, that lockdowns were the sound approach to the COVID-19 pandemic.

There’s been much less talk about Sweden of late. The reason, it would seem, is that Sweden’s strategy appears to have tamed the virus. While countries around the world are experiencing a resurgence of COVID-19 outbreaks, Sweden’s COVID-19 deaths have slowed to a crawl.

As British Judge Made Rulings Against Julian Assange, Her Husband Was Involved with Right-wing Lobby Group Briefing Against WikiLeaks Founder

By Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis, September 07, 2020

Westminster chief magistrate Lady Emma Arbuthnot made two key legal rulings against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in February 2018, which ensured he would not be able to take up his asylum in Ecuador.

Around this time, her husband, Lord James Arbuthnot, a former Conservative defence minister with links to the British military and intelligence establishment, was working closely with the neo-conservative Henry Jackson Society (HJS), a pressure group with a strongly anti-Assange agenda. Lord Arbuthnot has hosted and chaired events for the HJS at the House of Lords and long sat on its “political council”.

Australian Government’s Own Website Admits COVID Tests Are Totally Unreliable

By Dr. David James, September 07, 2020

They know their PCR tests are dodgy and the serology tests are useless, so they are hiding it in plain sight in the hope that no-one picks up on it.

Yet testing positive is what is being called a ‘case’ (a word that usually applies people who are obviously sick) and the rise in so-called ‘cases’ is being used as the rationale for abusive and absurd lockdowns in Melbourne (where this writer lives).

As the Israel-Palestine conflict grinds on with no end in sight, Israel and the US have launched an all-out push to resolve the conflict once and for all, on Israel’s terms. If the manoeuvre is successful, Israel will end up with all of the territories it conquered during the 1967 war, including all of the Golan Heights and Jerusalem and most of the Palestinian Territories, including the best sources of water and agricultural land. The West Bank will find itself in the same situation as the Gaza strip, cut off from the outside world and surrounded by hostile Israeli military forces and Israeli settlements.

Palestine in the regional and international geopolitical context

The current economic, political and social situation in Palestine must be considered in the regional context. Two aspects are of most immediate relevance in this sense: the first is the long running confrontation between the US, Israel, the Saudis and the UAE (along with their other allies and associates) and the ‘Axis of Resistance’.

The second geopolitical development that is of fundamental significance for the Palestinian people is the attempt by Israel (with the emphatic support of the Trump administration and most of the US Congress) to resolve the ‘Palestinian question’ by normalizing relations with as many Arab and Muslim countries as possible while at the same time proceeding with the plan to annex large chunks of Palestinian territory and keeping the Palestinian inhabitants in conditions of severe deprivation and isolation.

In each instance there are broad similarities but also some significant differences in the postures of different countries and international organizations to these two key topics. There are also the superimposed bilateral and multilateral confrontations and rivalries, of which the mutual antagonism between Iran and the US, Israel and the Saudis is one of the most important. There is also the rivalry between Turkey, the Saudis and Iran to be considered the ‘leader’ of the Muslim world, and a deepening enmity and confrontation between Turkey and Egypt. All of these elements and opposing forces are also deeply involved in the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen.

The ‘Axis of Resistance’ comprises the countries and groups determined to confront the efforts by the US and Israel to impose their hegemony over the course developments take, the core of which consists of Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah. Other Muslim and Arab countries are not willing to directly confront the US and Israel, or are allied to greater or lesser degree with them against Iran and the other members of the resistance (the Saudis in particular).

The topic of the normalization of relations with Israel prior to a conclusive peace agreement with the Palestinians has also polarized the region since the deal concluded between the UAE and Israel. Most Arab and Muslim countries have stated that they will not be normalizing relations with Israel as yet, and that they remain committed to the Arab Peace Initiative, notwithstanding that many already have significant unofficial and semi-covert relations with Israel.

While Russia and to a lesser extent China are cooperating with the members of the Axis of Resistance in Syria to defeat the foreign-backed terrorist groups that continue to occupy and ravage some parts of the country, most now concentrated in Idlib province, they are understandably reluctant to become directly involved in the military confrontation with the US and Israel that is taking place there. While the European Union generally goes along with the US and Israel on many issues, most of its member countries have clearly stated that they do not and will not support Israel’s annexation of occupied Palestinian territories.

A broader consideration of each country’s reactions to these parallel developments – the emergence and consolidation of the ‘Axis of Resistance’ and the normalization of relations with Israel – also provides important insights into the current political trajectory and objectives of the dominant political factions in each country in the region, though the nature and configuration of the opposing social and political forces and the internal dynamics that have produced that trajectory must be considered separately in each instance.

This is just and true and revealing in the case of the internal politics of the predominantly Judaeo-Christian denominated Western countries – United States, Israel and Europe (as well as Australia and New Zealand) – as it is in the predominantly Arab and Muslim countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

In the United States, the Israel-Palestine conflict and associated disputes in the Middle East is one of the most polarizing political issues in terms of international events, and each side can find support among a wide range of social sectors, political organizations and social movements. While most of the Congress and the White House invariably support Israel, the Palestinian cause can count on the support of a small number of members of Congress and numerous civil society organizations and social movements.

Two first-term Congresswoman in particular, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, have drawn the ire of the corporate press and many of their political opponents (including from their supposed allies in the Democratic Party). In 2019 Israel barred them from entering Israel or the Palestinian territories, a decision that was encouraged and applauded by the Trump administration and by Donald Trump personally.

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said the US “supports and respects” Israel’s decision to deny entry to Tlaib and Omar.

“This trip, pure and simple, is nothing more than an effort to fuel the (boycott movement) engine that Congresswomen Tlaib and Omar so vigorously support,” Friedman said in a statement released Thursday evening.

Slamming the boycott movement as “economic warfare designed to delegitimize and ultimately destroy the Jewish State,” Friedman defended Israel’s right to deny entry to those who support a boycott of the country. LINK

The criticism and condemnation of their strong statements in support of the rights of the Palestinian people in ‘the corridors of power’ in Washington and the US corporate media is probably matched only by their popularity on ‘the Arab street’.

The two main contenders for the presidency in November’s elections, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, are both ardent supporters and promoters of Israel, and the Palestinians can only expect vocal opposition to recognition of their rights from that quarter unless a surprise candidate emerges in the meantime.

Many people are trying to persuade ex-Navy SEAL and former governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura to run for the presidency; if that were to occur, it might be possible that he could garner sufficient popular support to challenge what appears set to be a one horse race between the Republicans and Democrats at this stage.

The Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement has been an attempt by civil society groups to contest and counteract the clear favouritism for Israel against Palestine that exists within the upper echelons of the two main political parties, and therefore the White House, the Congress, the Pentagon, and high-level State officials.

The BDS movement is present worldwide, and faces basically similar conditions in all Western countries (in Europe, Australia and New Zealand) – that is, very pro-Israel ruling political parties which determine all government policies on the matter, which do not reflect a much more non-partisan, evenly split (between ‘pro-Israel’ and ‘pro-Palestine’ sentiments) or even pro-Palestinian rights attitude within society more generally. The BDS movement has been strongly condemned by most members of the Congress and the corporate media, as well as by many state legislatures in the US.

The entrenched bipartisan pro-Israel attitude in the US includes commitments to provide at least $3billion of financial and military support annually for consecutive 10-year periods, close military and technological cooperation and support in all fields, and the promise to ensure that Israel maintains a ‘qualitative edge’ over any and all possible opponents in the Middle East, irrespective of Israel’s foreign policies and objectives and what Israel does with the weapons the US provides. Nothing at all is offered to the Palestinians.

The US also provides strong diplomatic support for Israel, taken to new levels during the Trump administration which has moved the US embassy to Jerusalem after recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and endorsed the Israeli occupation of and assertion of sovereignty over the Golan Heights, both decisions in contravention of all international laws and over forty years of almost unanimous UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions on the matter (usually, the only votes against being the US, Israel and a small number of tiny US-dependent countries). The US has vetoed all resolutions in the Security Council critical of Israel regardless of the circumstances, with one exception towards the end of Obama’s presidency which called on Israel to withdraw from all occupied Palestinian territories and emphasized that all Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories are illegal.

Closer to the location in Europe, civil society groups and some politicians – rarely from the ruling parties – have formed alliances and campaigns to support the rights of the Palestinians, including the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment movement. The Freedom Flotilla, which has attempted to breach Israel and Egypt’s strict economic and physical blockade of Gaza and deliver food and medicines on several occasions, is one significant example. The flotilla that attempted to breach the blockade in 2010 was intercepted, the crew and passengers accompanying them in an act of solidarity were arrested and imprisoned, and the ships and cargos confiscated.

The Gaza flotilla raid was a military operation conducted by Israeli commandos against six civilian ships of the ‘Gaza Freedom Flotilla’ on 31 May 2010 in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea. Ten activists were killed during the raid and many more wounded. Ten Israeli soldiers were wounded, one seriously.

Numerous other attempts have been made to deliver food and medicine, however none have succeeded in breaching the blockade. Plans to send another Freedom Flotilla to Gaza in May of this year were interrupted by the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic, however the organizers still intend to set sail for Gaza when global health and travel restrictions permit. LINK

The situation in Gaza

The Palestinian territories have been rocked by extremely asymmetrical clashes and fighting since the 1980s, in which Israel has not hesitated to deploy the full weight of its vastly superior firepower against the occupants of the Gaza strip in particular. The first round of sustained open conflict broke out in 1987:

Intifada, also spelled intifadah, Arabic intifāḍah (“shaking off”), refers to two popular uprisings of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip aimed at ending Israel’s occupation of those territories and creating an independent Palestinian state. The first intifada began in December 1987 and ended in September 1993 with the signing of the first Oslo Accords, which provided a framework for peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

The second intifada, sometimes called the Al-Aqṣā intifada, began in September 2000. Although no single event signalled its end, most analysts agree that it had run its course by late 2005. The two uprisings resulted in the death of more than 5,000 Palestinians and some 1,400 Israelis. LINK

Israel imposed a strict physical and economic blockade on Gaza in 2007 after HAMAS won the legislative elections in the Gaza strip. The PLO won the elections in the West Bank, and Mahmoud Abbas was declared president. For almost the entire period since then Egypt has also closed its border with Gaza and prevented the movement of all people and goods.

The Palestinian economy had already been devastated during the second Intifada, and the strict blockade and isolation imposed by Israel and Egypt has ensured that there has been no significant economic recovery. With a population of just under 5 million in the Palestinian territories (with well over a million more Palestinians living in impoverished refugee camps in neighbouring countries), average annual GDP per capita has hovered around $2000 per capita in the West Bank and closer to $800-900 per capita in Gaza.

Agriculture accounts for approximately 10% of GDP, light industry 23% and services around 65% of total GDP and broadly similar proportions of employment. Palestine’s main exports are olives, citrus fruit, vegetables, limestone, flowers and textiles. The main imports are food, consumer goods and construction materials. Unemployment has been estimated at around 20-30% of the workforce since the start of the second Intifada, and youth unemployment has usually been significantly above 40%. The Palestine economy and society have been pushed into a condition of stasis and dependency on foreign ‘aid’.

Palestine GDP 1995-2020

Palestine GSP per capita 2010-2018

Unemployment rate in Palestine 1995-2020

Youth unemployment in Palestine

Top 10 Trading Partners (2018)

Palestine exports:

Palestine imports:

Source: Trading Economics

The already crippled Palestinian economy received another devastating blow in 2008-2009 when the Israeli leadership launched ‘Operation Cast Lead’, a period of massive air and artillery strikes against the entire Gaza enclave. The Institute for Middle East Understanding summarized the impact of the prolonged military operation on Gaza’s infrastructure, population and economy:

• According to investigations by independent Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations, between 1,385 and 1,419 Palestinians were killed during Cast Lead, a majority of them civilians, including at least 308 minors under the age of 18. More than 5000 more were wounded. Thirteen Israelis were also killed, including 3 civilians.
• According to the UN, 3,540 housing units were completely destroyed, with another 2,870 sustaining severe damage.
• More than 20,000 people – many of them already refugees, some two or three times over – were made homeless.
• Attacks on Gaza’s electricity infrastructure caused an estimated $10 million in damage, according to the Israeli advocacy group Gisha.
• 268 private businesses were destroyed, and another 432 damaged, at an estimated cost of more than $139 million, according to an assessment by the Private Sector Coordination Council, a Palestinian economic group. A separate report found that 324 factories and workshops were damaged during the war.
• According to the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), which provides services to Palestinian refugees, the offensive damaged almost 20,000 meters (approx. 12 miles) of water pipes, four water reservoirs, 11 wells, and sewage networks and pumping stations. Israeli shelling also damaged 107 UNRWA installations.
• Eighteen schools, including 8 kindergartens, were destroyed, and at least 262 others damaged. Numerous Palestinian government buildings, including police stations, the headquarters of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and part of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ compound, were also destroyed.

Ten years later, a report in The Guardian reviewing the context of the military operation surmised:

On 27 December 2008, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, pounding the densely populated strip from the air, sea and land for 22 days. It was not a war or even “asymmetric warfare” but a one-sided massacre. Israel had 13 dead; the Gazans had 1,417 dead, including 313 children, and more than 5,500 wounded. According to one estimate 83% of the casualties were civilians. Israel claimed to be acting in self-defence, protecting its civilians against Hamas rocket attacks. The evidence, however, points to a deliberate and punitive war of aggression. Israel had a diplomatic alternative, but it chose to ignore it and to resort to brute military force.

For its part, the Jewish Virtual Library states of developments leading up to the military operation:

Hamas seized power from the Palestinian Authority (PA) in what amounted to a coup in June 2007. This allowed them to confiscate armored vehicles and weapons given to the PA by Israel, the United States and other countries. In addition, the group manufactured its own mortars and rockets while smuggling in from Egypt more sophisticated rockets provided by Iran.

Between 2005 and 2007, Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza fired about 2,000 rockets into Israel, killing four Israeli civilians and injuring 75 others. The bombardment continued in the first half of 2008.

On June 19, 2008, Egypt brokered a six-month pause in hostilities that required Hamas to end rocket and mortar attacks on Israel. Hamas was also expected to halt its military buildup in Gaza and release an Israeli soldier it was holding hostage. In exchange, Israel agreed to ease the blockade of Gaza and to halt military raids into Gaza. As part of the deal Egypt promised to stop the smuggling of arms and weapons from its territory into Gaza.

Throughout the fall, Israel and Hamas accused each other of violating the Egyptian-mediated truce. Rocket fire from Gaza never stopped entirely and weapons smuggling continued. Hamas insisted Israel never allowed the expected amount of goods to flow into Gaza and of conducting raids that killed Hamas fighters.

Despite discussions by both sides aimed at extending the cease-fire, violence continued. On December 24, an Israeli airstrike targeted terrorists who had fired mortars at Israel. Hamas subsequently fired a barrage of rockets and mortars into Israel and warned it would put thousands of Israelis “under fire.”

The next day, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Hamas to stop attacking Israel, but the terrorists responded with another salvo of rockets.

At 11:30 a.m. on December 27, 2008, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead. It began with a wave of airstrikes in which F-16 fighter jets and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters simultaneously struck 100 targets within a span of 220 seconds. Thirty minutes later, a second wave of 64 jets and helicopters struck an additional 60 targets. The air strikes hit Hamas headquarters, government offices and 24 police stations.

Israeli Air and Naval Forces struck Hamas terrorist cell headquarters throughout the Gaza Strip including a Hamas training base and outposts as well as Hamas government complexes. They also attacked rocket launchers and Grad missile stockpiles. Houses of senior Hamas and Jihad terrorists were targeted along with dozens of tunnels that have been used to pass weaponry into Gaza.

Hamas was caught by surprise. The Israeli government had leaked information to the Israeli press suggesting an attack was not imminent. Many Hamas terrorists had come out of hiding; consequently, approximately 140 members of the group were killed the first day, including Tawfik Jaber, head of Hamas’ police force. The Israeli attack was the deadliest one-day death toll in 60 years of conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, a day that was called the “Massacre of Black Saturday” by Palestinians in Gaza. Hamas responded with a rocket barrage on southern Israel.

The Palestinian economy is still languishing under the Israeli/ Egyptian blockade and the Palestinian territories continue to be rocked by intermittent intensification of the permanent condition of ‘low-intensity’ conflict, the most recent escalation in military attacks against the enclave lasting for about two weeks in August during which hundreds of explosives-laden and incendiary balloons were released toward Israel and Israel conducted nightly bombing raids on the besieged Palestinian enclave.

A ceasefire was announced at the end of the month pursuant to which Hamas promised to attempt to prevent any more fire kites or incendiary balloons from being released and Israel promised to let some essential goods into Gaza including fuel for Gaza’s sole power plant which has often only been operating for a few hours a day due to chronic fuel shortages.

Whether coincidental or not, the announcement of the ceasefire coincided with the first official Israel/ US delegation to the UAE to discuss details of the ‘normalization’ of relations. On the same day, Israel sent military bulldozers into Gazan territory to clear land and build earthen barricades along the border.

Normalization for the people of Gaza: less Israeli airstrikes, more Israeli bulldozers?

CAPTION Normalization for the people of Gaza: less Israeli airstrikes, more Israeli bulldozers?

A recent analysis of the fishing sector by Palestine Chronicle provides a Palestinian perspective on the impact the Israeli blockade and military attacks have had on the Palestinian economy and people.

Gaza’s fishermen are true heroes. Against numerous odds, they brave the sea every day to ensure the survival of their families.

In this scenario, the Israeli navy represents modern-day pirates opening fire at these Palestinian men – and, in some cases, women – sinking their boats sometimes and driving them back to the shore. In Gaza, this has been the routine for almost 13 years.

As soon as Israel declared the complete closure of Gaza’s fishing zone it prevented thousands of fishermen from providing for their families, thus destroying yet another sector in Gaza’s decimated economy.

The Israeli military justified its action as a retaliatory measure against Palestinian protesters who have reportedly launched incendiary balloons into Israel in recent days. The Israeli decision, therefore, may seem rational according to the poor standards of mainstream journalism. A slight probe into the subject, however, reveals another dimension to the story.

Palestinian protesters have, in fact, released incendiary balloons into Israel which, reportedly, cause fires in some agricultural areas adjacent to occupied Gaza. However, the act itself has been a desperate cry for attention.

Gaza is almost completely out of fuel. The Strip’s only power generator was officially shut down on August 18. The Karem Abu Salem Crossing, which allows barely limited supplies to reach Gaza through Israel, has also been closed by an Israeli military order.  The sea, Gaza’s last resort, has, recently, turned into a one-sided war between the Israeli navy and Gaza’s shrinking population of fishermen. All of this has inflicted severe damage to a region that has already endured tremendous suffering.

Gaza’s once healthy fishing sector has been almost obliterated as a result of the Israeli siege. In 2000, for example, the Gaza fishing industry had over 10,000 registered fishermen. Gradually, the number has dwindled to 3,700, although many of them are fishermen by name only – as they can no longer access the sea, repair their damaged boats or afford new ones.

Those who remain committed to the profession do so because it is, literally, their last means of survival – if they do not fish, their families do not eat…

When the Oslo Accord was signed between the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993, Palestinians were told that one of the many fruits of peace would be the expansion of Gaza’s fishing zone – up to 20 nautical miles (approximately 37 km), precisely.

Like the rest of Oslo’s broken promises, the fishing agreement was never honoured, either. Instead, up to 2006, the Israeli military allowed Gazans to fish within a zone that never exceeded 12 nautical miles.  In 2007, when Israel imposed its ongoing siege on Gaza, the fishing zone was reduced even further, first to six nautical miles and, eventually, to three.

Following each Israeli war or violent conflagration in Gaza, the fishing zone is shut down completely. It is reopened after each truce, accompanied by more empty promises that the fishing zone will be expanded several nautical miles in order to improve the livelihood of the fishermen.

Israel’s annexation plan and the push for normalization of diplomatic relations

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing for the formal of annexation of all Palestinian territories occupied by illegal Israeli settlements, as well as the Golan Heights captured from Syria in the 1967 war. Illegal Israeli settlements have expanded rapidly over the years, occupying some of the most fertile areas that remained to the Palestinians and cutting off their access to most water sources. 

In addition, Netanyahu intends to annex most of the Jordan Valley as well, which would cut off the Palestinians in the West Bank from Jordan completely and leave them as isolated and vulnerable to Israeli punitive attacks as the Gaza strip has been since Egypt sealed off its border. While the Trump administration seems willing to recognize all of the blatant land grabs carried out by Israel over time irrespective of the circumstances and the rights of the Palestinians, the latter being recognized emphatically by a unanimous UN Security Council resolution just before Trump assumed the presidency which also condemned all illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian Territories, the Trump administration has hesitated to give an official endorsement of the plan to annex the Jordan Valley.

The agreement between the UAE and Israel to normalize relations takes on immense significance in this context. It is an attempt by the Israeli government to nullify and extinguish the rights of the Palestinians once and for all, and get as much international recognition as possible of the status quo.

US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien said on Sunday 30 August that more Arab and Muslim countries were likely to follow Abu Dhabi’s move.

“We believe that other Arab and Muslim countries will soon follow the United Arab Emirates’ lead and normalise relations with Israel,” he told reporters after talks at Netanyahu’s residence.

He did not name the states, but Israeli officials have publicly mentioned Oman, Bahrain and Sudan. Recent news reports have suggested Morocco may also be considering a similar agreement with Israel in exchange for military and economic aid, citing a long history of semi-covert relations and joint activities.

However, Moroccan Prime Minister Saad Eddine el-Othmani said last week, “We refuse any normalisation with the Zionist entity because this emboldens it to go further in breaching the rights of the Palestinian people”. LINK

In the aftermath of the announcement of the normalization of relations between Israel and the UAE, the leaders of Iraq, Jordan and Egypt met in Jordan and made a belated attempt to restore the Arab Peace Initiative on the international geopolitical agenda. At a trilateral meeting in mid-August, the leaders of the three countries reiterated their determination to forge a new regional Arab strategic partnership and become a proactive participant in geopolitical developments in the region.

Meeting for the third time in a year, Jordan’s King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi agreed to deepen cooperation on a wide range of topics and sectors including regional security, health, education, trade and food security.

The three leaders, whose countries account for about a third of the total Arab population, called for the Arab Peace Initiative for the Palestine-Israel conflict to be reactivated, stating that the only viable resolution would be in accordance with relevant UN resolutions and “in a manner that fulfils all the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”

The three countries also emphasized the need to “stop Israeli steps to annex Palestinian lands and any measures to undermine prospects to achieve a just peace or seek to alter the historical and legal status quo in Jerusalem”. LINK

However, given the notorious inability of the Arab countries and political factions to maintain a united front and remain committed to the pursuit of strategic objectives in the long term in recent times, the onus is clearly on the leadership of the respective countries to demonstrate that the meeting was not just a ‘photo op’ and opportunity to posture on the international stage.

Late last month, the Saudis also denied media speculation that they were inclining towards normalizing relations with Israel. Prince Faisal bin Farhan said the Kingdom remains committed to peace with Israel “as a strategic option basis on the Arab Peace Initiative”, in the Saudis’ first official comment since the United Arab Emirates agreed to normalize relations with Israel.

“The Kingdom considers any Israeli unilateral measures to annex Palestinian land as undermining the two-state solution,” the Saudi Minister said in an event in Berlin, in comments reported on Saudi’s foreign affairs ministry Twitter page…

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan affirmed his country’s commitment to the Arab Peace Plan in comments following a meeting with his German counterpart Heiko Maas in Berlin.

Prince Faisal added that Israel’s unilateral actions concerning colonies are thwarting chances for peace.

“Saudi Arabia considers Israel’s unilateral policies of annexation and building of settlements as an illegitimate (way forward) and (as) detrimental to the two-state solution,” the Saudi foreign ministry quoted Prince Faisal as saying.

Presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said that “abiding by the Arab Peace Initiative (API) is the real test for Arab states’ positions on Jerusalem and a test for the seriousness of the Arab joint action.”

Azzam el-Ahmad, a member of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah central committee, welcomed on Thursday the Saudi position on peace with Israel on the basis of the longstanding Arab Peace Initiative.

“The Saudi position is important because it adheres to Arab consensus, the Arab Peace Initiative, and plays a central role in the region,” Ahmad said.

First adopted by the Arab League in 2002, the Arab Peace Initiative calls for full diplomatic ties between Israel and the entire Arab and Muslim world in exchange for a “full Israeli withdrawal from all the Arab territories occupied since June 1967,” the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a “just” and “agreed upon” solution to the right of return of Palestinian refugees based on UN Resolution 194. LINK

The Arab Peace Initiative: a complete copy of the text is available here.

After the Arab Peace Initiative (API) was first adopted by the 22 member states of the Arab League in 2002, it was subsequently endorsed by the 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

At a meeting in April 2013 hosted by Secretary of State John Kerry, a delegation representing the Arab League further displayed Arab states’ interest in peace when they scaled back the API’s demands upon Israel by accepting a two-state solution with mutually agreed upon land swaps.

Endorsing land swaps was a meaningful step taken by the Arab League as it is a concept that allows a two-state outcome to remain realistic.

While the API has been unable to gain traction or support among the world’s ‘major’ powers, until the UAE-Israel ‘normalization’ deal most proposals on how to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process took the API as a framework or key reference in negotiating a solution.

The significance of the API is that it was the first collective Arab effort that was unanimously agreed to by all Arab states.

Acknowledging the magnitude of such a proposal, former President Shimon Peres summarized it best in late 2008 when he described the API as the reversal of the “3 No’s” at the Arab League’s Khartoum summit in 1967.

API Obligations Towards Israel:

1. Withdraw from all disputed territories to return Israel’s borders to the June 4, 1967 lines including the Golan Heights and addition of southern Lebanon.
2. Reach a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem as prescribed by UN Resolution 194.
3. Accept the establishment of a Palestinian state composed of the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.

API Obligations Towards Arab States:

1. Deem the Arab-Israeli conflict finalized and commit to peaceful relations with Israel guaranteeing security to all regional states.
2. Establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel. LINK

Former IDF Intelligence Director Amos Yadlin has reaffirmed the Israeli intention to neutralize the Arab Peace Initiative, asserting in late August that it is no longer relevant now that Israel and the United Arab Emirates are set to normalize ties.

“The Arab Peace Initiative principle of having the veto on normalization between Israel and the Arabs, this is gone,” Yadlin told The Jerusalem Press Club during a virtual meeting on the US-brokered deal.

He spoke of what he claimed was the demise of the Arab Peace Initiative, which for 18 years has been one of the cornerstones of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. The initiative was an attempt by the Arab states to reach a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 lines. It is referenced in most international documents.

The announcement of the deal between the UAE and Israel marks the first break from the Arab Peace Initiative since its inception, upending almost entirely the principles of peace making between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel’s 1979 agreement with Egypt and its 1994 accord with Jordan, were signed prior to that 2002 Initiative.

Yadlin, who is currently the Executive Director of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, speculated that Bahrain could be the next Arab country to make a deal with Israel, because its ‘covert’ relations with Israel were similar to those of the UAE.

He also noted that last summer Bahrain hosted a summit that related to the economic portion of the US President Donald Trump’s plan.

“But they [Bahrain] will look over their shoulder to see what the Saudis are saying,” Yadlin said. He imagined that the Saudis had given the UAE its silent consent to a deal with Israel, but that didn’t mean it would immediately. The “Saudis will not hurry to join [a deal with Israel]… They will be very cautious,” Yadlin said.

The other countries who might join are Sudan and Morocco, Yadlin said. These countries will look to see what price the UAE might have to pay for a deal with Israel, he added. LINK

The United Arab Emirates appears somewhat disconcerted by the regional reactions to its normalization deal with Israel, claiming that it remains committed to the establishment of a Palestinian state and to the terms of the Arab Peace Initiative. The claim was made by a senior official who spoke with The Times of Israel, in rare on-the-record remarks to Israeli media.

Hend al-Otaiba, the director of strategic communications at the UAE’s Foreign Ministry, was commenting hours after the UAE’s agreement to normalize relations with Israel was announced, and shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he still intended to extend Israeli sovereignty to parts of the West Bank.

Asked for clarification of the UAE’s position on the Arab Peace Initiative, a spokesperson subsequently replied: “A two-state solution is at the heart of the Arab Peace Initiative. In the absence of a freeze on annexation, a two-state solution will quickly cease to be a possibility.”

Mohammad Issa Abu Shehab, UAE ambassador to the EU, told Emirates TV the step was most important for its success in “freezing all Israeli plans for Palestinian land.”

However, a senior Israeli official said Netanyahu’s annexation plan was only “temporarily suspended” to allow for the signing of the agreement with the Emirates.

Netanyahu himself later insisted during a press conference that annexation remained on the table, though he acknowledged that Trump had asked that the move be put on “temporary hold” for now.

“I said I would extend sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. There is no change in my plan to extend our sovereignty in Judea and Samaria with full coordination with the United States,” he said. “I am committed to that, and it hasn’t changed… I will never compromise on our rights in our land.” LINK

The US representatives accompanying the first Israeli delegation to the UAE made clear that Israeli annexation of Palestinian land is an intrinsic part of the normalization deal. Speaking with the embedded journalists on the flight to the UAE, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner addressed the Trump peace plan and its allowing for Israel to extend its sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria.

Annexation was included in the plan because it was clear that “in the context of any agreement, Israel wasn’t going to give up that territory,” and the US “had to make sure Israel’s security was protected.”

He claimed that recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and potentially recognizing Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank would “take those provocative issues off the table.” LINK

The statements confirm that all affirmations claiming otherwise are merely spin, made as part of the campaign to promote the bilateral deal and convince other Arab and Muslim leaders to normalize relations with Israel.

In spite of earlier comments by the UAE and a joint statement by the three countries that indicated the annexation plan would be ‘suspended’, senior UAE official Omar Ghobash has admitted his government did not “have any guarantees as such” that Israel would not annex occupied Palestinian territory in the future.

Palestinian reactions to the normalization deal

In comments about the ‘deal of the century’ being pushed by the Trump administration The Guardian noted that many younger Palestinians are disenchanted with the legacy of Oslo and angry that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, still serves in effect as a ‘security subcontractor’ for Israel in the West Bank. Abbas did respond to the plan by threatening to suspend security coordination with Israel, but he has threatened that countless times before. LINK

Palestinian reactions to the Israel-UAE were emphatic.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh slammed the flight as “very painful” and “a clear and a blatant violation of the Arab position towards the Arab-Israeli conflict”.

“We had hoped to see an Emirati plane landing in a liberated Jerusalem, but we live in a difficult Arab era,” he said.

Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassen said the UAE-Israel deal went against the position of the Emirati people, and was “in Zionist interests only … fuelling disagreements in the region”.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, said Kushner and his team were “scrambling to convince as many Arab and Muslim leaders as possible” to give Trump an election boost.

“They will be a prop at the backdrop of a meaningless spectacle for a ridiculous agreement that will not bring peace to the region,” she said.

Conclusion

As the Israel-Palestine conflict moves into a new phase, some of the battle lines are clearly drawn, others remain obscured by the fast pace of developments after so many years of stalemate and stagnation.

While the Axis of Resistance has grown and strengthened considerably over the last decade, the same could be said of the forces of annexation and normalization, albeit that most of the normalization has occurred in covert and semi-covert meetings and joint activities that cannot be officially acknowledged as yet.

The brutal fact remains that the Palestinians are isolated and living in conditions of extreme deprivation, and none of the latest geopolitical developments gives them cause to think that there will be any change in the foreseeable future.

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The US unilaterally imposes its own sanctions universally as much as it can becoming the self-appointed global policeman. Many countries obey because of the financial and military power of the US.

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US must prove oil is from Iran and going to Venezuela

The US seized the cargo of four tankers that the US claimed were carrying oil from Iran to Venezuela violating US sanctions. The sanctions do not apply to either Iran or Venezuela. The US simply uses its global power to force other countries to obey the sanctions or face punishment by the US. However, even given that the US may often have the power to enforce its will it still must show where the oil in the tankers came from and where it was bound. Otherwise, the US actions will still face problems as it now does after seizing four tankers.

The US has already sold the oil to another UAE company and allowed it to be shipped to Trinidad. The companies filing the suit claim it was still their oil. At the time of the seizure, Iran’s ambassador to Venezuela, Hojad Soltani called US President Trump a terrorist and denied that the tankers were Iranian saying In a tweet: “The ships are not Iranian, and neither the owner nor its flag has anything to do with Iran.” The owners said the ships were bound for Trinidad and had been sold to UAE-base CIti Energy FZC and were to be sold to customers in Peru and Colombia. The owners were to be paid only on delivery of the cargoes to Trinidad.

Three companies file lawsuits

The owners of the four tankers include UAE-based Mobin International, Sohar based in Oman, and UK-based Oman Fuel. The three companies claim ownership of the tankers and claim the claim the cargo was never for Iran or bound for Venezuela as the US claims. They add that the US claims and actions have harmed their businesses. The lawsuit is substantial with four ships and $40 million in cargo at stake.

The US position

The US claims that the fuel was being shipped by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) that it has designated a foreign terrorist organization and that the fuel was being shipped to Venezuela. The US says this is the largest ever seizure of fuel shipments from Iran.

The legal basis for the seizure is explained in a recent article: “On July 2, 2020, the United States filed a complaint seeking to forfeit all petroleum-product cargo aboard four foreign-flagged oil tankers, including the M/T Bella with international maritime organization (IMO) number 9208124, the M/T Bering with IMO number 9149225, the M/T Pandi with IMO number 9105073, and the M/T Luna with IMO number 9208100 (all pictured below). A seizure order for the cargo from all four vessels was issued by U.S. District Court Judge Jeb Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.” Note that this is an order by a US court. It is not explained how such an order is consistent with international law.

US sanctions should apply only to US companies trying to carry on trade not to Venezuela and Iran which are sovereign countries who should be able to carry on legitimate trade with one another without interference by a third country. It is surely not illegal for one sovereign nations to sell fuel to another. The US is apparently a global government which can apply its own laws globally.

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Featured image is from InfoBrics

Wars by hot and other means are all about Washington’s main strategy to advance its imperium — seeking dominance over other nations, their resources and populations by brute force if other methods don’t achieve its objectives.

From inception, the US has been addicted to war, glorifying it deceptively in the name of peace.

In 1982, founder of the Pentagon’s nuclear navy Admiral Hyman Rickover explained the risks to Congress in the age of super-weapons able to end life on earth if used in enough numbers, saying the following:

“The lesson of history is when a war starts every nation will ultimately use whatever weapons it has available” to win, adding:

“I think the human race is going to wreck itself, and it is important that we get control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it.”

Rickover regretted his role in what became a nuclear arms race.

“I would sink…all” US nuclear powered ships, he said. “I am not proud of the part I played in” their development.

“That’s why I am such a great exponent of stopping this whole nonsense of war.”

Bertrand Russell noted the risk, saying:

“Shall we put an end to the human race, or shall mankind renounce war.” It’s the only way to live in peace. The alternative risks annihilation.

World powers have a choice. End wars or sooner or later they’ll end us.

Russia is a prime US target. In 1961, hardline US Air Force chief of staff General Curtis LeMay believed nuclear war with Soviet Russia was inevitable and winnable — at the time, calling for preemptive war on the country with overwhelming force.

Joint Chiefs chairman Lyman Lemnitzer at the time urged a surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet Union during a National Security Council meeting.

Expressing disgust, Jack Kennedy walked out of the session, telling then-Secretary of State Dean Rusk:

“And we call ourselves the human race.”

JFK’s Defense Secretary Robert McNamara rejected what LeMay and Lemnitzer called for.

Their recklessly dangerous ideas never went away. In an age when super-weapons can end life on earth in days if detonated in enough numbers, the risk of mass annihilation is real.

Weeks earlier, Russia’s Defense Ministry accused US-led NATO of conducting “provocative” military drills near its borders — what goes on with disturbing regularity. See below.

In June, Russian Colonel-General Sergey Rudskoy, head of its General Staff sent NATO a letter that called for scaling down military exercises by both countries.

With US-led NATO drills in the Barents Sea at the time, he accused the Pentagon of simulating strikes on Russian territory and intercepting its retaliatory ICBMs.

According to Rudskoy, provocative Barents Sea drills at the time were the first of their kind by US-dominated NATO since Soviet Russia’s 1991 dissolution.

He also criticized increasing numbers of flights by Pentagon nuclear-capable strategic bombers near Russia’s borders — at times forcing its military to scramble warplanes and put air defense forces on high alert.

Since the Obama regime’s 2014 coup d’etat in Ukraine, replacing democratic government with neo-Nazi infested fascist tyranny on Russia’s border, bilateral relations  sank to a post-Cold War low.

Moscow considers the deployment of US-led NATO forces near its borders a destabilizing threat to its national security.

Rudskoy said “(t)he US and its allies are continuing to destroy Europe’s security system under the guise of a perceived ‘Russian aggression’ ” that doesn’t exist.

The US refused Moscow’s offer for dialogue to reduce tensions and the risk of conflict by accident or design.

On Sunday, Rudskoy again highlighted the threat of provocative US-led NATO actions near Russia’s borders, including increased surveillance and aerial operations to test its air defenses.

In August, provocative US/NATO aerial maneuvers increased about 30% over the comparable 2019 period, he explained, including simulated missile strikes on Russian targets.

Shoigu called what’s going on “alarming,” notably because several incidents occurred close to Russia’s borders.

Last week, Russia scrambled warplanes to intercept three US nuclear-capable B-52 bombers over Ukraine and the Black Sea near Crimea, a statement saying:

“Violations of the state border of the Russian Federation by American aircraft were prevented.”

Two weeks earlier, a similar incident occurred in international airspace over the Black Sea.

Days earlier, Moscow slammed the US for holding live-fire exercises in Estonia near its border.

A statement by its Washington embassy said the following:

“Russia has repeatedly proposed to the United States and its allies to limit training activities and to divert the exercise zones from the Russia-NATO contact line,” adding:

“Why do this demonstrative saber-rattling? What signals do the NATO members want to send us?”

“Who is actually escalating tensions in Europe? And this is all happening in the context of (a made-in-the-USA) aggravated political situation in” Belarus.

“(H)ow would the Americans react” if Russia conducted similar provocative exercises near its borders?

According to NATO, the following US-led military exercises are ongoing or soon to begin in Europe (and near Iranian waters the Mediterranean):

Operation Dynamic Move II 20 — ongoing through September 10 in waters near Italy, explaining:

“To exercise naval mine warfare (NMW) tactics and procedures, the Allied Worldwide Navigational System (AWNIS), and Naval Cooperation on and Guidance for Shipping (NCAGS) procedures in order to enhance participant’s ability to conduct littoral and amphibious operations.”

Operation Steadfast Pyramid 20 — begun in Latvia on Sunday will continue through September 11, NATO explaining:

“An Exercise Study focused on further developing the abilities of commanders and senior staff to plan and conduct operations through the application of operational art in decision making based on the ACO Comprehensive Operations Planning Directive (COPD) and utilizing a complex, contemporary scenario.”

Operation KFOR III 20 will be held from September 8 – 16 in Herzegovina, explaining:

“Conducted to familiarize future Key Leaders of HQ KFOR with their new tasks, the overall situation in KFOR AOR (Area of Responsibility), and to prepare a smooth transition without loss of continuity.”

Operation Ramstein Guard 9 20 is scheduled for Romania from September 13 – 17, explaining:

“The NATO Electronic Warfare Force Integration Program is a means to exercise the NATO designated regional elements of NATO’s Integrated Air and Missile Defence System conducted through the CAOCs (Combined Air Operation Center) while also including some national systems and assets.”

“It is designed to train Air Command Ramstein and subordinate units on the reporting/coordination requirements while exposing them to a wide variety of EW (electronic warfare) tactics and techniques in a controlled environment.”

Operation Steadfast Pinnacle 20 is scheduled for Latvia from September 13 – 18, explaining:

“An Exercise Study focused on further developing the abilities of commanders and senior staff to plan and conduct operations through the application of operational art in decision making based on the ACO (Allied Command Operations) Comprehensive Operations Planning Directive (COPD) and utilizing a complex, contemporary scenario.”

Operation Ramstein Guard 10 20 is scheduled for Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania from September 20 – 24, NATO explaining:

“The NATO Electronic Warfare Force Integration Program is a means to exercise the NATO designated regional elements of NATO’s Integrated Air and Missile Defence System conducted through the CAOCs (Combined Air Operation Center) while also including some national systems and assets. It is designed to train Air Command Ramstein and subordinate units on the reporting/coordination requirements while exposing them to a wide variety of EW (electronic warfare) tactics and techniques in a controlled environment.”

Exercises like the above go on at all times near the borders of Russia, China, Iran, and other nations on the US target list for regime change.

From now through yearend 2020 near the borders of Russia and Iran alone, other US-led NATO military exercises will be held in Turkey, France, the UK, Kosovo, the Mediterranean Sea, Spain, Lithuania, Estonia, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia, Poland and Norway.

Instead of prioritizing world peace, stability, and cooperative relations with the world community of nations, US-dominated NATO is preparing for greater wars than already ongoing in multiple theaters by its forces.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

In the immediate aftermath of the Beirut port blast last month, we have seen concerted efforts by principal political actors in Lebanon to diffuse and deflect responsibility. 

Different parties have accused one another of corruption in relation to the mishandling of the ammonium nitrate shipment at the port. The prime minister (who has now resigned) denied previous knowledge of the situation. The president’s son-in-law, Gebran Bassil – who has strong connections with the head of the customs department, Badri Daher – quickly sought to focus attention on those outside of Lebanon involved in the initial shipping of the chemicals.

A month after the blast, around 25 people have been arrested or placed under investigation, including the head of the customs department and his predecessor, as well as officers and employees in the port authority and, lately, the three workers who were called to do the maintenance in warehouse 12.

The investigation is clearly limited to the port and, up until now, none of the ministers of work and travel, or the prime ministers or presidents who were fully aware of the presence of explosive materials, have been called for interrogation, let alone arrested.

More questions

One month into the investigation, there are more questions than answers.

On Tuesday, the judge overseeing the investigation questioned four security officials who were based at the port and issued arrest warrants for them, the state-run National News Agency said.

The four are an army intelligence brigadier general, a major with the State Security agency and two majors with the General Security Directorate.

A Lebanese official told Reuters last month that the initial investigations indicated that years of inaction and negligence over the storage of highly explosive material caused the explosion.

In a Guardian article published earlier last month, Professor Laleh Khalili argued that one should look beyond the Lebanese state and society to the world of international shipping in order to understand where the core responsibility for this disaster lies.

The article is very informative on how the world of international shipping works, but the analysis offers little on the specific case of Lebanon – and, in fact, risks misplacing responsibilities.

While understanding global capitalism is always helpful in sharpening our analyses of phenomena shaped by this system, sometimes – as in this case – such analysis can end up diffusing responsibility and make it harder for people in specific localities to act.

In her article, Khalili argues that

“while attention and anger has focused on the incompetence and dysfunction of the Lebanese government and authorities, the roots of the catastrophe run far deeper and wider – to a network of maritime capital and legal chicanery that is designed to protect businesses at any cost”.

This directly shifts attention away from Lebanon to a world of shipping that is global in scope. The only place that Lebanon figures into this analysis is through its incompetence and dysfunction, with the “incompetence” of Lebanese authorities repeatedly emphasised.

Enforcing laws

It is not actually clear that this argument about a lawless world of international shipping fully holds. In the case of Beirut, port authorities successfully enforced the law through impounding the ship in question, and Lebanese courts successfully secured the release of the sailors caught in the middle of the conflict within a year of the case beginning.

The lawlessness of international shipping seems to be relevant mostly outside of Lebanon, with the ease of the shipowner declaring bankruptcy, abandoning the ship and avoiding responsibility.

One underlying assumption in Khalili’s article is that the ship carrying ammonium nitrate from Georgia to Mozambique had no strong ties to Lebanon, besides making a brief stop in Beirut. This might or might not be true, and there are many questions that must be asked and investigated before we accept this assumption.

Was the ship really going to Mozambique? Lebanese authorities claim they contacted the government of Mozambique several times, and the latter declared it had no information about the ship. When the ammonium nitrate was unloaded in Beirut, port authorities in Mozambique denied any knowledge of the ship.

What role did the Russian businessman, Igor Grechushkin, who is regarded as the ship’s de facto owner, play? He bought the ship in the same year and made its only trip from Georgia to Turkey, and then to Beirut. Who are the creditors who hired the law firm Baroudi and Associates and filed legal claims against the vessel, which were responsible for keeping the ammonium nitrate in the port of Beirut?

Who orders this amount of a valuable product and then does not seek to claim it back? Do any of these actors have substantive links with groups in Lebanon, or is the fact that this played out in Beirut purely incidental, with the population of Beirut suffering collateral damage from a system that, as Khalili suggests, is principally global in nature and not directly linked to the internal political conflicts of Lebanon?

Political control of the port

A further set of questions must be asked about the political control over the Port of Beirut, and the relationship of local political agendas and actions to the 4 August disaster.

In Khalili’s article, the only Lebanese actors named are Lebanese port authorities and the judge who ordered the release of the ship’s crew. But if we are to understand how the world of international shipping plays out in Lebanon, our analysis cannot stop at the port of Beirut.

Legally, we know that the Lebanese transport ministry, as well as port management, play a direct role in decisions around the port. We also know that informally, other groups also play a strong role. There is a presence of the Lebanese army and, lately, state security.

Hezbollah denies having anything to do with the port.

“We do not manage the port, we do not control it … we do not interfere with it, we do not know what was going on inside it or what is there,” the movement’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, said in a televised address.

Yet, at least four of the customs regional directorate of Beirut are related to the party and the Amal Movement headed by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

Other port officials belonged to former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s Future Movement and President Michael Aoun’s party, the Free Patriotic Movement.

The investigation should have looked into the roles, interests and agendas of the various actors within Lebanon regarding the ship. Is there any evidence that any of them took advantage of the international world of global shipping, as described by Khalili, in pursuit of their own local, national and regional interests?

We know that port authorities sent more than five letters to the Judge of Urgent Matters, ministers and political leaders to request the removal of the ammonium nitrate. Why was nothing done? Was it just about incompetence?

Perhaps. But it is also entirely possible that other agendas were involved. We know that port authorities had the legal right to sell the ammonium nitrate. If it was a question of profit, then why not sell the stored ammonium nitrate for millions of dollars? Is this just local incompetence in the context of global lawlessness?

Diverting blame

Finally, there is the question of the ammonium nitrate itself: if the ship had been carrying a cargo of ladies’ gloves or children’s bath toys, then all of the workings of the world of international shipping would presumably never have had the same significance as they did in this case.

It is notable that in Khalili’s article, which ties the responsibility for the disaster to the world of international shipping, the discussion of ammonium nitrate is linked with the world of global terrorism: the 1993 London bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. It was also used in the IRA’s Manchester bombing of 1996 and many other places.

Is it certain that the ammonium nitrate arrived in Beirut purely accidentally and remained there purely through local incompetence and international shipping lawlessness? Or was political agency involved? At this point, we don’t know, but the question needs to be asked and carefully investigated.

Were any Lebanese groups involved in the initial shipping of the ammonium nitrate? Or were any groups acting on their own interests around ammonium nitrate once they became aware of its presence in the Port of Beirut?

As the investigation proceeds slowly, we might never know what exactly happened on 4 August at the port.

And while we do need to consider the role played by the international shipping regime in this disaster, it must be in combination with a close and careful consideration of how this global system interacted with actors in Lebanon itself.

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Dr Mayssoun Sukarieh is a senior lecturer in Middle Eastern Studies at King’s College London (KCL).

Featured image: A damaged car and building are seen after a fire at a warehouse with explosives at the Port of Beirut led to massive blasts in Lebanon, 14 August 2020 [Enes Canli/Anadolu Agency]

Serbian President Vucic just discredited his own over-hyped “balancing” act between Russia and the West over the weekend after he de-facto recognized the NATO-occupied Province of Kosovo & Metohija under the cover of “economic normalization” and then committed to moving his country’s embassy in “Israel” to Jerusalem, both of which are extremely pro-US policies that exposed his “balancing” act as the empty slogan that it’s always been.

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Let’s imagine a foreign dissident was being held in London’s Belmarsh Prison charged with supposed espionage offences by the Chinese authorities.

And that his real offence was revealing crimes committed by the Chinese Communist Party – including publishing video footage of atrocities carried out by Chinese troops.

To put it another way, that his real offence was committing the crime of journalism.

Let us further suppose the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture said this dissident showed “all the symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture” and that the Chinese were putting pressure on the UK authorities to extradite this individual where he could face up to 175 years in prison.

The outrage from the British press would be deafening.

There would be calls for protests outside the prison, solemn leaders in the broadsheet newspapers, debates on primetime news programmes, alongside a rush of questions in parliament.

The situation I have outlined above is nearly identical to the current plight of Julian Assange.

There is one crucial difference. It is the US trying to extradite the co-founder of Wikileaks.

Yet there has been scarcely a word in the mainstream British media in his defence.

The fact that the US is an ally of Britain is perhaps one reason why. That should make no difference as far as the British media is concerned.

Indeed, Assange’s extradition hearing at the Old Bailey next week marks a profound moment for British journalists. Assange faces 18 charges under the US Espionage Act, which carry a potential sentence of 175 years – put away for the rest of his life.

But his case represents an attack on journalism and democratic accountability. If Britain capitulates to Trump’s America, the right to publish leaked material in the public interest could suffer a devastating blow.

The British authorities have it within their power to refuse this extradition. Indeed, more than 160 legal experts wrote to the UK government last month, claiming they are obliged by international law to refuse the US request.

These lawyers are joined by human rights campaigners and health professionals, who have been shocked by Assange’s treatment in British custody and fear his rights will be further violated if he is sent to the US.

The National Union of Journalists supports Assange. General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet has warned that the charges pose a threat that could “criminalise the critical work of investigative sources”.

And yet there has hardly been a sound from the British press.

There are many reasons for this relative silence, but before addressing them, the gravity of the situation at hand must be highlighted in the clearest of terms.

Assange is accused by the US of conspiring with whistleblower Chelsea Manning to hack a Pentagon computer. The US indictment says Assange agreed to attempt to crack a password (an attempt which was unsuccessful). Crucially, the indictment also charges Assange with actions that are no different to the standard practices of journalism.

For example, the indictment alleges that “Assange and Manning took measures to conceal Manning as the source of the disclosure of classified records”, as any professional journalist would.

It claims that “Assange encouraged Manning” to provide the information. Again, this is how a journalist would act.

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, made the situation clear:

“It is dangerous to suggest that these actions are somehow criminal rather than steps routinely taken by investigative journalists who communicate with confidential sources to receive classified information of public importance.”

To criminalise the protection of sources will stop whistleblowers coming forward and will put journalists and publishers at risk.

We need look no further than Manning’s own leaks to realise what a loss this would be. It was Manning who provided the so-called Iraq and Afghanistan war logs published by Wikileaks in 2010 and revealed the atrocity of US helicopter gunmen laughing as they shot at and killed unarmed civilians in Iraq.

Fifteen individuals were killed in the attack, including a Reuters photographer and his assistant. The US military refused to discipline the perpetrators of this grotesque crime. This was a story of momentous importance.

There is another, perhaps even more pressing issue that emerges in the use of the Espionage Act to charge Assange.

As Alan Rusbridger, former editor of the Guardian and one of Assange’s few defenders in the British media, told Press Gazette last month:

“It’s quite a disturbing thing that we should send somebody to another country for supposedly breaking their laws on secrecy. If journalists are not concerned by that, then I think they should be.”

I couldn’t agree more. The US is asserting the right to prosecute a non-US citizen, not living in the US, not publishing in the US, under US laws that deny the right to a public interest defence.

It’s not difficult to imagine how this precedent could be abused by authoritarian foreign powers. Imagine Saudi Arabia prosecuting a journalist in London for revealing details of the Jamal Khashoggi murder. Or China citing their Official Secrets Act to charge a publisher responsible for disseminating footage of the horrific treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

The press would be up in arms and I cannot believe the UK would extradite the individuals concerned. So why the lack of support for Assange?

For one thing, the Assange saga is protracted and complex. He was sentenced to 50 weeks by British courts last year for breaching the Bail Act after he was dragged from Ecuador’s London embassy. He had taken refuge there in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations.

This rightly led to questions surrounding Assange’s character. Assange denies the allegations and insists he was happy to be questioned in London.

The Swedish authorities discontinued their investigation into Assange without him ever being charged. Assange’s lawyers argue that fleeing to the embassy was an act of desperation to avoid being passed to the United States.

Another contributing factor to Assange’s pariah status is that he is not judged to be a journalist by a large part of the industry. Reference is often made to Wikileaks’ decision to publish huge amounts of unedited documents, which the US has claimed put the lives of sources at risk. I don’t deny that makes me uneasy – and that he has ethical questions to answer.

But it is also true that his case could have a devastating, chilling effect on journalism and the UK government has the ability to prevent this happening. Future generations will never forgive the current generation of journalists unless we raise our game and fight to stop the extradition of Julian Assange.

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Having reported the long, epic ordeal of Julian Assange, John Pilger gave this address outside the Central Criminal Court in London on September 7 as the WikiLeaks Editor’s extradition hearing entered its final stage. 

When I first met Julian Assange more than ten years ago, I asked him why he had started WikiLeaks. He replied:

“Transparency and accountability are moral issues that must be the essence of public life and journalism.”

I had never heard a publisher or an editor invoke morality in this way. Assange believes that journalists are the agents of people, not power: that we, the people, have a right to know about the darkest secrets of those who claim to act in our name.

If the powerful lie to us, we have the right to know. If they say one thing in private and the opposite in public, we have the right to know. If they conspire against us, as Bush and Blair did over Iraq, then pretend to be democrats, we have the right to know.

It is this morality of purpose that so threatens the collusion of powers that want to plunge much of the world into war and wants to bury Julian alive in Trumps fascist America.

In 2008, a top secret US State Department report described in detail how the United States would combat this new moral threat. A secretly-directed personal smear campaign against Julian Assange would lead to “exposure [and] criminal prosecution”.

The aim was to silence and criminalise WikiLeaks and its founder. Page after page revealed a coming war on a single human being and on the very principle of freedom of speech and freedom of thought, and democracy.

The imperial shock troops would be those who called themselves journalists: the big hitters of the so-called mainstream, especially the “liberals” who mark and patrol the perimeters of dissent.

And that is what happened. I have been a reporter for more than 50 years and I have never known a smear campaign like it: the fabricated character assassination of a man who refused to join the club: who believed journalism was a service to the public, never to those above.

Assange shamed his persecutors. He produced scoop after scoop. He exposed the fraudulence of wars promoted by the media and the homicidal nature of America’s wars, the corruption of dictators, the evils of Guantanamo.

He forced us in the West to look in the mirror. He exposed the official truth-tellers in the media as collaborators: those I would call Vichy journalists. None of these imposters believed Assange when he warned that his life was in danger: that the “sex scandal” in Sweden was a set up and an American hellhole was the ultimate destination. And he was right, and repeatedly right.

The extradition hearing in London this week is the final act of an Anglo-American campaign to bury Julian Assange. It is not due process. It is due revenge. The American indictment is clearly rigged, a demonstrable sham. So far, the hearings have been reminiscent of their Stalinist equivalents during the Cold War.

Today, the land that gave us Magna Carta, Great Britain, is distinguished by the abandonment of its own sovereignty in allowing a malign foreign power to manipulate justice and by the vicious psychological torture of Julian – a form of torture, as Nils Melzer, the UN expert has pointed out, that was refined by the Nazis because it was most effective in breaking its victims.  

Every time I have visited Assange in Belmarsh prison, I have seen the effects of this torture. When I last saw him, he had lost more than 10 kilos in weight; his arms had no muscle. Incredibly, his wicked sense of humor was intact.

As for Assange’s homeland, Australia has displayed only a cringeing cowardice as its government has secretly conspired against its own citizen who ought to be celebrated as a national hero. Not for nothing did George W. Bush anoint the Australian prime minister his “deputy sheriff”.

It is said that whatever happens to Julian Assange in the next three weeks will diminish if not destroy freedom of the press in the West. But which press? The Guardian? The BBC, The New York Times, the Jeff Bezos Washington Post?

No, the journalists in these organisations can breathe freely. The Judases on the Guardian who flirted with Julian, exploited his landmark work, made their pile then betrayed him, have nothing to fear. They are safe because they are needed.

Freedom of the press now rests with the honourable few: the exceptions, the dissidents on the internet who belong to no club, who are neither rich nor laden with Pulitzers, but produce fine, disobedient, moral journalism – those like Julian Assange.

Meanwhile, it is our responsibility to stand by a true journalist whose sheer courage ought to be inspiration to all of us who still believe that freedom is possible. I salute him.

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For months, Sweden was the punching bag of the world’s media and politicians.

For foregoing a lockdown, Sweden was declared a “cautionary tale” by The New York Times.

“Sweden is paying heavily for its decision not to lockdown,” President Trump tweeted.

“They are leading us to catastrophe,” said The Guardian in March, quoting a virus immunology researcher.

Experts and media around the world all seemed to agree, with a few notable exceptions, that lockdowns were the sound approach to the COVID-19 pandemic.

There’s been much less talk about Sweden of late. The reason, it would seem, is that Sweden’s strategy appears to have tamed the virus. While countries around the world are experiencing a resurgence of COVID-19 outbreaks, Sweden’s COVID-19 deaths have slowed to a crawl.

As a result, many nations are catching up to Sweden in per capita deaths, and some are passing it. Italy recently popped back ahead of Sweden. Chile passed the Swedes next. Then came Brazil, which surpassed Sweden in per capita deaths on Wednesday.

Finally, on Thursday, the United States joined the group. The United States currently has 578 COVID-19 deaths per million compared to Sweden’s 577 per million, according to the global statistics web site Worldometers.

#Sweden fell below Chile and Brazil in #Covid_19 deaths per capita this week. Today they pass the US.

With every passing week the Swedish strategy looks stronger.

The lockdowns failed. pic.twitter.com/iXz6LbAfPx

— Jon Miltimore (Parler: @Miltimore79) (@miltimore79) September 4, 2020

More nations are likely to follow in the weeks and months ahead.

Meanwhile, the man behind Sweden’s herd immunity strategy, Johan Giesecke, just got by promoted by the World Health Organization.

The Lockdown Lesson

State-enforced lockdowns have ravaged economies and humans alike. Stay-at-home orders caused a massive decline in economic output and caused serious disruptions to the global supply chain. Tens of millions of jobs were lost, millions of businesses were shuttered, and extreme global poverty increased for the first time in more than two decades. Meanwhile, countries witnessed surges in drug overdoses, suicide, domestic violence, and depression.

For months, media, policy experts, and politicians claimed that these unintended consequences were necessary collateral damage in the war against COVID-19 (when they acknowledged them at all).

“Scientists say lockdowns have likely prevented hundreds of millions of infections around the world,” CNN reported in June. “A modeling study published in the scientific journal Nature last month estimated that by early April, shutdown policies saved 285 million people in China from getting infected, 49 million in Italy and 60 million in the US.”

Professor Solomon Hsiang, the director of the Global Policy Laboratory at Berkeley, called lockdowns one of the greatest endeavors ever taken by humans.

“I don’t think any human endeavor has ever saved so many lives in such a short period of time,” said Hsiang. “There have been huge personal costs to staying home and canceling events, but the data show that each day made a profound difference.”

Recently published research appears to blow a hole in this thesis.

In a new Wall Street Journal article titled “The Failed Lockdown Experiment,” Donald L. Luskin, the chief investment officer of TrendMacro, a global investment strategy consulting firm, says data show lockdowns are actually correlated with a greater spread of the virus.

“TrendMacro, my analytics firm, tallied the cumulative number of reported cases of Covid-19 in each state and the District of Columbia as a percentage of population, based on data from state and local health departments aggregated by the Covid Tracking Project. We then compared that with the timing and intensity of the lockdown in each jurisdiction. That is measured not by the mandates put in place by government officials, but rather by observing what people in each jurisdiction actually did, along with their baseline behavior before the lockdowns. This is captured in highly detailed anonymized cellphone tracking data provided by Google and others and tabulated by the University of Maryland’s Transportation Institute into a “Social Distancing Index.”

Measuring from the start of the year to each state’s point of maximum lockdown—which range from April 5 to April 18—it turns out that lockdowns correlated with a greater spread of the virus. States with longer, stricter lockdowns also had larger Covid outbreaks. The five places with the harshest lockdowns—the District of Columbia, New York, Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts—had the heaviest caseloads.

It could be that strict lockdowns were imposed as a response to already severe outbreaks. But the surprising negative correlation, while statistically weak, persists even when excluding states with the heaviest caseloads. And it makes no difference if the analysis includes other potential explanatory factors such as population density, age, ethnicity, prevalence of nursing homes, general health or temperature. The only factor that seems to make a demonstrable difference is the intensity of mass-transit use.”

The efficacy of lockdowns (or the lack thereof) will likely be a subject of debate for years.

What’s clear is that COVID-19 is not as deadly as researchers originally thought and nations and states that did not lockdown did not see an explosion of deaths and cases (though they suffered far less economic destruction).

The fact that Sweden did not lockdown and now has fewer deaths per capita than the US, which did experience economic lockdowns in most of the country, doesn’t prove that lockdowns don’t work. Just like the fact that Sweden had more deaths than Scandanavian neighbors like Finland and Norway doesn’t prove that lockdowns saved lives.

It’s simply more evidence that the correlation between lockdowns and COVID-19 deaths is extremely weak. And to the extent a correlation exists, it’s actually negative.

Indeed, if you subtract three lockdown states from the US totals—New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts, which account for 31 percent of all COVID-19 deaths in the US—the United States’s numbers suddenly plummet to 399 per million, below Bolivia and slightly above Columbia.

The year 2020 will go down in history as a historic calamity. But this was not because COVID-19 struck (deadly respiratory viruses have existed as long as humans have), but because central planners erroneously believed the best way to protect humanity from an invisible respiratory virus was to order healthy people to remain in their homes under almost all conditions, in many cases under threat of fine or imprisonment.

Planners made the fatal mistake of ignoring F.A. Hayek’s famous advice, delivered in his 1974 Nobel Prize-winning speech, to act humbly with their awesome power.

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design,” Hayek later wrote in The Fatal Conceit. “To the naive mind that can conceive of order only as the product of deliberate arrangement, it may seem absurd that in complex conditions order, and adaptation to the unknown, can be achieved more effectively by decentralizing decisions and that a division of authority will actually extend the possibility of overall order. Yet that decentralization actually leads to more information being taken into account.”

The results of lockdowns have indeed been fatal. But it’s not too late to learn the truth of Hayek’s important lesson.

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Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune.

Featured image is from Shutterstock

The husband of the chief magistrate overseeing Julian Assange’s extradition case was closely associated with a lobby group publicly criticising the WikiLeaks founder around the time his wife was ruling against Assange, it can be revealed.

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Westminster chief magistrate Lady Emma Arbuthnot made two key legal rulings against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in February 2018, which ensured he would not be able to take up his asylum in Ecuador.

Around this time, her husband, Lord James Arbuthnot, a former Conservative defence minister with links to the British military and intelligence establishment, was working closely with the neo-conservative Henry Jackson Society (HJS), a pressure group with a strongly anti-Assange agenda. Lord Arbuthnot has hosted and chaired events for the HJS at the House of Lords and long sat on its “political council”.

The HJS has called Assange “bonkers and paranoid” and described the asylum given to him by the government of Ecuador as “the last seedy bolthole to which Mr Assange thinks he can run”.

Priti Patel, the current UK home secretary who will sign off Assange’s US extradition if ordered by the court, has also been closely involved with the HJS, including receiving financial benefits from the group.

On 6 February 2018, Lady Arbuthnot dismissed the request by Assange’s lawyers to have his arrest warrant for skipping bail withdrawn, after the Swedish investigation into sexual assault allegations was dropped.

If this request had been granted, Assange may have been able to negotiate safe passage to Ecuador to prevent his persecution by the US government.

A week later, in a second ruling, Lady Arbuthnot said: “I accept that Mr Assange had expressed fears of being returned to the United States from a very early stage in the Swedish extradition proceedings but… I do not find that Mr Assange’s fears were reasonable.”

Lady Arbuthnot also rejected the findings of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, commenting: “I do not find that Mr Assange’s stay in the Embassy is inappropriate, unjust, unpredictable, unreasonable, unnecessary or disproportionate.” She added: “I give little weight to the views of the Working Group.”

Lady and Lord Arbuthnot attend the Queen’s garden party at Buckingham Palace in May 2017. Anonymisation by Declassified. (Photo: Instagram)

‘Political council’

At the time of Lady Arbuthnot’s rulings, as well as before and since, Lord Arbuthnot has been closely associated with the HJS. According to the HJS’s archived web pages, Lord Arbuthnot has sat on the organisation’s “political council” for several years.

The earliest page impression Declassified could access, from June 2013, confirms his position on the council. The last page impression available, from December 2016, shows he was still a member—one of four Conservative peers on the council.

The HJS and Lord Arbuthnot did not respond to Declassified’s questions regarding whether he was still on the council—or what membership involves. Arbuthnot has, however, continued to partake in HJS events and is seen as a spokesperson for the organisation.

In July 2016, Lord Arbuthnot chaired a HJS event at the House of Lords and in July 2017 provided a quote for the HJS to mark the release of its report on Chinese investment in the UK.

Then, in November 2017, at the time Arbuthnot’s wife had begun preparing the Assange case, the HJS released a report calling for an increase in the UK military budget for which Lord Arbuthnot provided a supportive quote.

On 2 April 2019, days before Assange was seized from the Ecuadorian embassy, the HJS launched a report on the Indo-Pacific at the House of Lords “by kind invitation of the Rt Hon. the Lord Arbuthnot of Erdom [sic]”.

Neither the HJS nor Lord Arbuthnot responded to Declassified’s questions about whether the political council had been consulted on the HJS’s position on Julian Assange or WikiLeaks. The HJS has been exposed in WikiLeaks releases.

The HJS is closely aligned with the neo-conservative movement in the US and has access to the highest levels of the American government and its intelligence community.

During his visit to the UK in July, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke at a roundtable hosted by the HJS with whom the Washington Post described as “hawkish” members of the Conservative Party. UK Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, who also met with Pompeo, was previously on the HJS’s political council.

As director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in April 2017, Pompeo had launched a blistering attack on WikiLeaks calling the media organisation a “hostile intelligence service” that makes “common cause with dictators”. Pompeo did not provide evidence but added a threat: “To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now.”

One of the HJS’s “international patrons” is James Woolsey, the director of the CIA from 1993-95, while one signatory to its “Statement of Principles” – which promote Western military power – is Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6.

HJS and Assange

HJS staff have been repeatedly critical of Assange and WikiLeaks in the British media since 2011 when its then associate director, Douglas Murray, engaged in a combative debate with Assange.

The following year, the HJS posted a video of Murray stating on Al-Jazeera English: “There is not a witch-hunt of WikiLeaks. An organisation illegally obtained, or stole as we used to call it, a whole set of government documents and published them with consequences which are still not fully understood.”

Murray continued: “I think Mr Assange has been bonkers and paranoid for years, it’s part of his alleged political makeup, and indeed I would allege that of many of his supporters.”

Murray added that Assange’s mindset was “almost messianic in its delusional belief that it can override every single norm of international law, every single norm of criminal law, and of national law”. He concluded: “Ecuador is not a Mecca of freedom of speech, it isn’t the world capital of decency, it’s the last seedy bolthole to which Mr Assange thinks he can run”.

Over the following years, the HJS and its staff continued to be among the most active civil society voices for impugning the motives and reputation of Assange, in contrast to most human rights and media organisations which argue that extraditing the WikiLeaks publisher to the US would be a grave blow to press freedom.

In October 2016, the HJS released a statement to the media, which claimed: “Mr Assange has a long track record of stealing and distributing information, peddling conspiracy theories, and casting aspersions on the moral standing of western democratic governments. He has done this whilst supporting, and being supported by, autocratic regimes.”

No evidence was supplied to support the assertions. At the time, Lord Arbuthnot sat on the group’s political council.

Providing a quote for the statement, Douglas Murray, who remained as the HJS’s associate director until 2018, was described as “an early critic of Mr Assange’s views, challenging him directly on his anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories, and the assistance his work has provided to those seeking to undermine Western security”. No evidence was supplied for these claims.

Later in the same month, after Ecuador cut Assange’s internet connection inside its embassy, Davis Lewin, a “political analyst” at the HJS, told US-government funded outlet Voice of America: “I do hope that this is the precursor to them coming to their senses and finally forcing this man to face justice in the way that he should.”

Murray then wrote a column for The Times in January 2017 titled: “No, Mr Trump, you were right the first time — Assange is a wrong ’un”.

HJS personnel—including spokesperson Sam Armstrong, chief of staff Ellie Green, and research fellow Paul Stott—have all made anti-Assange interventions in the British media.

In April 2019, after Julian Assange was seized from the embassy by British police, HJS director Alan Mendoza was put up as the counterweight against Assange’s lawyer on BBC’s flagship Newsnight programme. Posted to the HJS Youtube channel, Mendoza told the national broadcaster: “Journalists are not allowed to break the law in obtaining their materials.” He added: “I think it’s quite clear Mr Assange has spent many years evading justice, hiding in a room in Knightsbridge… Isn’t it time he actually answered questions in a court of law?”

Lady Arbuthnot’s rulings were also scathing about Assange’s perceived personal failings. She noted in her 2018 judgment: “He [Assange] appears to consider himself above the normal rules of law and wants justice only if it goes in his favour.” The judgment added: “Mr Assange has restricted his own freedom for a number of years. Defendants… come to court to face the consequences of their own choices. He should have the courage to do so too.”

Priti Patel

Home secretary Priti Patel, who would sign off the US extradition if ordered by the court, sat alongside Lord Arbuthnot on the HJS’s political council from 2013 to 2016. For some of this time, she was in government, having become treasury minister in July 2014.

In July 2013, the HJS paid £2,500 for Patel to fly to Washington DC to be a delegate at a forum organised by Israel lobby group AIPAC, as well as a HJS-organised “programme” in the US Congress. Six months later, in December 2013, Patel hosted a breakfast in the UK parliament for the HJS.

Soon after becoming an MP in 2010, Patel was appointed a parliamentary officer of another powerful right-wing lobby group, Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), while Lord Arbuthnot was acting as its parliamentary chairman. CFI has been described by Channel 4 as “beyond doubt the most well-connected and probably the best funded of all Westminster lobbying groups”.

US Attorney General William Barr, left, and UK Home Secretary Priti Patel, right, sign the Cloud Act at a ceremony at the British Ambassador’s residence in Washington, DC, US, 3 October 2019. (Photo: US Department of Justice)

In October 2019, as home secretary, Patel visited Washington DC to meet William Barr, the US Attorney General who is now in charge of the Assange case as head of the Department of Justice. Together they signed the Cloud Act which makes it easier for American and British law enforcement agencies to demand electronic data on targets as they undertake investigations.

In July, Assange’s defence team raised the concern in court that Barr may be using Assange’s extradition case in the UK for political ends.

Declassified has previously revealed that Sajid Javid, who as home secretary in 2019 certified the initial US extradition request for Assange, attended six secretive meetings organised by a US institute which has published calls for Assange to be assassinated or taken down.

Conflicts of interest

Declassified recently revealed that the HJS, which does not disclose its funders, had been given £80,000 by the UK Home Office to produce a report on UK connections to Islamist terrorism. The HJS was alsorevealed by the Sunday Times in 2017 to be receiving £10,000 a month from the Japanese embassy in London “to wage a propaganda campaign against China” in the British media.

The latest revelations come as the British judiciary gave its first formal statement to Declassifiedconcerning allegations of conflicts of interests on the part of Lady Arbuthnot. In an email to Declassifiedfor this article, they claimed “there has been no bias demonstrated by the chief magistrate” in the Assange case.

However, Declassified has repeatedly revealed that Lady Arbuthnot’s position is mired in conflicts of interests involving her husband and son. Declassified previously revealed that Lady Arbuthnot personally received financial benefits from secretive “partner” organisations of the UK Foreign Office, which in 2018 called Assange a “miserable little worm”.

As far as is known, Lady Arbuthnot has never declared any conflicts of interest in the case and has never formally recused herself. It has been reported that Arbuthnot stepped aside from directly hearing the case because of a “perception of bias”, but it was not elucidated what this related to. This refusal means Assange’s defence team cannot revisit her previous rulings.

A Freedom of Information request sent by Declassified to the UK Ministry of Justice (MOJ) in August asking what this “perception of bias” pertained to — and whether Lady Arbuthnot had played a role in appointing the junior judge now ruling in the case — was rejected.

The MOJ said the information could not be disclosed because the request was “asking for an explanation” rather than “recorded information”. It further told Declassified it “does not hold any information” on what date the decision was made for Lady Arbuthnot to step aside from the case. The same questions put to Westminster Magistrates Court also went unanswered.

Declassified previously revealed that the MOJ has blocked the release of basic information about the current presiding judge in the case, Vanessa Baraitser, in what appears to be an irregular application of the Freedom of Information Act. Baraitser, who was likely chosen by Lady Arbuthnot, has a 96% extradition record, according to publicly available information.

The Henry Jackson Society, Priti Patel, Lord Arbuthnot, and Lady Arbuthnot, all did not respond to requests for comment.

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Matt Kennard is head of investigations, and Mark Curtis is editor, at Declassified UK, an outlet covering Britain’s role in the world. 

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Pompeo reinvented China beyond where other US Chinaphobes have ever gone before.

Falsely calling its ruling authorities Washington’s greatest foreign threat, he recited a litany of fake news about the country days earlier.

Spending a small fraction on its military compared to the US, he falsely claimed Beijing “is building out its military” menacingly (sic).

He ignored China’s cooperative relations with other countries, confrontation with none — polar opposite how the US operates worldwide.

Beijing “infiltrated the US in ways that Russia has not (sic),” he roared.

It “destroyed tens of thousands of jobs all across the heartland of America (sic).”

No one in Beijing forced US companies to offshore jobs to China and other low-wage countries.

No one in Washington offered tax or other incentives for companies to maintain operations domestically or imposed penalties for moving them abroad.

The misnamed “Wuhan virus” was made in a US biolab, exported to China and other countries.

Pompeo and other US hardliners consistently blame other countries for crimes and other wrongdoing by Washington — victimized nations notably blamed for US crimes against them.

According to Reuters on Saturday, the Trump regime may add China’s top chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) to the US Entity List, adding:

The blacklisting move “would force US suppliers to seek a difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to the company.

The Pentagon urged other US agencies to target SMIC this way, Reuters saying it’s unclear if State, Commerce, and Energy departments support the move.

The company is China’s top chipmaker, but it’s “second-tier to rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the industry’s market leader,” said Reuters.

Blacklisting Chinese firms adversely affect US high-tech suppliers.

Reuters said the Pentagon didn’t explain why it wants SMIC blacklisted, adding that the Trump regime focuses on firms that supply China’s military.

In the case of Huawei and its affiliate companies, blacklisting the them is all about wanting US telecom and communications companies to have a competitive advantage.

According to an SMIC spokesperson, the company doesn’t understand why it may be blacklisted in the US, indicating that it broke no laws and isn’t tied to China’s military, adding:

Company officials are “open to sincere and transparent communication with US government agencies in hope of resolving potential misunderstandings.”

According to telecom analyst Ma Jihua, the move against SMIC if comes will aim to stop the firm from supplying chips to Huawei, adding:

“(I)t’s impossible for SMIC to cut supplies to Huawei, and US action against SMIC will come sooner or later” — part of US war on China by other means that keeps escalating dangerously.

Ma indicated that if SMIC is blacklisted by the US, it can still buy raw materials for making chips from Japan and South Korea — unless Washington pressures them to cease supplying the company.

What’s going on increases the urgency for China and its enterprises to become self-sufficient by reducing and eliminating the need to rely on foreign suppliers in the US and other countries it can pressure to cut off supplies.

According to analysts following SMIC, blacklisting the company by the US will adversely affect China’s efforts to develop its integrated circuit and software industries.

Semiconductor research firm Isaiah Capital & Research head Eric Tseng said adding SMIC to the US Entity List “could disrupt (its) supply chain, affecting its production in CMOS sensors, smartphone fingerprints products, and power management integrated circuits-related products.”

SMIC and Huahong are the only Chinese firms able to produce chips by the most advanced technology in the country.

Shanghai-based Intralink consultancy’s Stewart Randall said blacklisting Chinese firms by the US means that any enterprises in the country able to compete with US companies worldwide may be threatened the same way.

“China has no choice but to try somehow to develop all equipment (domestically and) have a closed system.”

In August, Pompeo called for what he called a “clean network to safeguard America’s assets (by forming an) “end-to-end communication path that does not use any transmission, control, computing, or storage equipment from untrusted IT vendors, such as Huawei and ZTE.”

Given what’s going on, China and its enterprises need to free themselves from dependency on US suppliers by becoming self-sufficient.

Whether Republicans or Dems control things, the trend in Washington to isolate China and cut off its enterprises from the US market continues to escalate.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Amidst the escalating tensions with China, the United States should have kept the troubled relationship with Russia on an even keel. But the opposite is happening. For the first time since the presidential election in Belarus on August 9, Washington has openly sided with the protests in Minsk and dared Russia to intervene. 

Berlin has simultaneously announced that the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by Novichok nerve agent. Curiously, Germans went public with the explosive information without even notifying Moscow first. Presumably, the US was in the loop, given Navalny’s standing in Russian politics. 

Most certainly, Washington and Berlin have moved in tandem over Belarus and Navalny respectively. A major confrontation is brewing. The warning over Belarus came at the level of the US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun who conveyed a harsh message to the Kremlin via the cold war era megaphone Radio Liberty:  

“The last four years has been very challenging for U.S.-Russian relations, but it is possible that it could be worse. And one of the things that would limit the ability of any president, regardless of the outcome of [the U.S. presidential election in November], in developing a more cooperative relationship with Russia, in any sphere, would be direct Russian intervention in Belarus.”

Within hours, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stepped in “demanding an immediate end” to the Belarus government’s moves to curb the protests and warning of “significant targeted sanctions” in consultation with Washington’s transatlantic partners.

This is a direct challenge to President Vladimir Putin who had stated last week that Russia is obliged to intervene in Belarus under the Russia-Belarus Unity Pact of 1998 and the Collective Security Treaty. (See my blog Anatomy of coup attempt in Belarus, August 30, 2020) 

The US intention is to put Russia on the dock with the simultaneous diplomatic offensives on two fronts. The Russian ambassador to Germany was summoned to the foreign ministry in Berlin a few hours ago; meanwhile, the protests in Minsk are enjoying a fresh lease of life. 

The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov today condemned the “attempts made by several foreign states” to fuel the protests in Minsk and noted “a rise in NATO activity near Belarusian borders.” The Russian and Belarusian intelligence agencies are in touch. 

The Belarus foreign minister Vladimir Makei visited Moscow today for talks with Lavrov. The chiefs of the General Staffs of Russia and Belarus discussed on the phone today “the state and the prospects of bilateral military cooperation and also the pace of preparations for the Slavic Brotherhood joint drills.” A visit by Belarus President Alexander Lukashenka to Moscow is expected shortly. 

While the Navalny affair is more of the stuff of propaganda to smear Russia’s reputation in the western opinion, Moscow will focus on the Belarus situation. Putin underscored last week that amongst the former Soviet republics, Belarus “perhaps is the closest, both in terms of ethnic proximity, the language, the culture, the spiritual as well as other aspects. We have dozens or probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of direct family ties with Belarus and close industrial cooperation.” 

Lavrov didn’t mince words when he hit back today,

“Moscow will provide an adequate and firm response based on facts to those who are trying to derail the situation in Belarus…(and) to turn the republic away from Russia and undermine the foundations of the Union State.”  

What is Washington’s game plan? Indeed, it suits President Trump’s campaign if his administration is seen as hanging tough on Russia. In substantive terms, Washington probably chose to go on the offensive considering that Russian intelligence has zeroed in on the CIA blueprint to stage a colour revolution in Belarus. 

In fact, there has been a dizzying array of standoffs involving Russia in the most recent days. The US and Russian military clashed six days ago when a vehicle forming part of a Russian convoy in north-eastern Syria rammed an American armoured vehicle injuring 4 US soldiers, prompting Biden to taunt Trump, “Did you hear the president say a single word? Did he lift one finger? Never before has an American president played such a subservient role to a Russian leader.”

On August 31, the US military announced that over the next 10 days it will be conducting live-fire exercises just 70 miles from Russian border. On August 28, the US flew six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers over 30 NATO countries in a major show of force. Two of them flew over the Black Sea and were intercepted by two Russian fighter jets, which crossed within 100 feet of the nose of one of the bombers, reportedly disrupting its ability to maintain its bearing.

On August 27, the Russian guided missile submarine Omsk surfaced off the coast of Alaska and participated in live-fire exercises in the Bering Sea. Also on August 27, NORAD sent two F-22 jets to intercept three groups of Russian military maritime patrol aircraft off the Alaskan coast.

With growing signs of Russia digging in, the Plan B over Belarus is surfacing. Both Belarus and Navalny are noble causes that come handy for Washington to rally Europe and re-establish its transatlantic leadership, which has been in tatters lately with the EU, France, Germany and UK joining Russia and China to block the Trump administration’s attempt to impose “snapback” sanctions against Iran. 

Above all, Washington feels frustrated that its clumsy attempts to create daylight between Russia and China have floundered. China has voiced support for Lukashenka; the Sino-Russian juggernaut is puncturing holes from all sides in Trump’s maximum pressure strategy against Iran, 

In a feature article entitled China, Russia Deepen Their Ties Amid Pandemic, Conflict with the West, Radio Liberty recently listed several new Russia-China economic projects in the pipeline to boost the relations further. 

These include one of the world’s largest polymer plants that Russia is building in Amur, near the Chinese border costing $11 billion in collaboration with China’s giant Sinopec Group; commencement of natural gas supply to China through the 2,900-kilometer Power Of Siberia pipeline; plan to start work on a second pipeline, Power Of Siberia 2; plans to more than triple Russian gas deliveries to China; new scientific cooperation testing vaccines for COVID-19; concerted “de-dollarisation” plan aimed at limiting the use of dollar in bilateral transactions and so on. 

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Featured image: Russian Su-27 Flanker jets crossing within 100 feet of the nose of a nuclear-capable US B-52 bomber in Black Sea, August 28, 2020

An Iranian report has warned against “undeclared aims” in the UAE-Israel normalisation agreement, which could include the establishment of an Israeli military base in the United Arab Emirates in order to help it gain a foothold in the Gulf and be closer to Iran.

Although not declared in the 13 August agreement, the report inJadeh Iran said that this aim was “clear in the geopolitical sense.”

The report also argued that the agreement is not, as it claims, for peace in Israel-Palestine, as relations between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv have been conducted in secret for years.

“Abu Dhabi fired neither a shot nor a threat” against Israel since its inception, the piece added.

The report claimed that the agreement’s top priority is to attack Iran, and logically it could “lead to the establishment of Israeli military and security bases facing Iran.”

This poses a serious risk to Iranian security as most of its important oil fields, ports and nuclear reactors have been built on the Gulf coast.

The piece claimed that Israel’s interest in the normalisation agreement stemmed from the UAE’s geographic proximity to Iran, “which puts an Israeli eye, and perhaps even a hand as well, a few kilometers away from strategic Iranian installations.”

For many years, Israel and the Gulf states have been cooperating in security and other matters, in part to counter Iranian aggression, seen as a threat to both the Gulf kingdoms and the Jewish state.

Several days after the normalisation agreement was announced, reports surfaced of a historic US arms sale to the UAE, including F-35 jets, including F-35 fighter jets, Reaper drones and EA-18G Growler jets – electronic warfare planes that can conduct stealth attacks by jamming enemy air defences.

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Wednesday, 2 September – all German TV channels – mainstream media were focused unilaterally on the alleged Novichok poisoning of Russian opposition critique, Alexei Navalny. This “breaking-news” poison discovery was made in Germany two weeks after he has been flown from Tomsk in Siberia to Moscow, when he fell ill on the plane and the airliner had to return to Tomsk for an emergency landing.

Navalny was hospitalized in Tomsk, put in an artificial coma and closely observed. His family wanted him immediately to be flown out of Russia to Berlin, Germany, to get western attention and western treatment. So, the story goes. At first the medical staff at Tomsk hospital said that Navalny’s health was not stable enough for a transport of this kind. A few days later they gave the green light for flying him to Germany. Berlin sent a hospital plane – at German taxpayer’s cost – to fly the “poisoned” political patient to Berlin, where during the last 14 days he has been in an artificial coma in Berlin’s University Hospital “Charité”. At least that’s what the government reports.

After 11 days, finally “scientists” – supposedly military toxicologists, have discovered that Navalny was poisoned with military grade nerve gas Novichok.

Military grade! – It reminds vividly of the other bizarre Novichok case – Sergei and Yulia Skripal, father and daughter, who were found on March 12, 2018 on a park bench in Salisbury, Britain, unconscious. The location was about 12 km down the road from the British top-secret P-4 security military lab Porton Down in Wiltshire, one of the few labs in the world that still are capable to produce Novichok. The immediate reaction of Britain and the world was then, like today: Putin did it! Sergei Skripal was a Russian double agent, who was released from Russia more than a decade earlier and lived peacefully in England.

What interest would Mr. Putin have to poison him? However, the UK and Big Brother Washington had all the interest in the world to invent yet another reason to bash and slander Russia and President Putin. The same as today with Alexei Navalny.

Isn’t it strange that the Skripals as well as Navalny survived? And that after having been poisoned with what military experts claim to be the deadliest nerve agent ever? Although nobody has seen the Skripals after they were hospitalized 2 years ago, it seems they are still alive. Were they perhaps given US-British shelter under the guise of the so-called US-witness protection program – a full new identity, hiding in plain view?

The immediate question was then and is today, why would Mr. Putin poison his adversaries? That would be the most unwise thing to do. Everybody knows much too well that Mr. Putin is the world’s foremost perceptive, incisive and diplomatic statesman. Alexei Navalny wasn’t even a serious contender. His popularity was less than 5%. Compare this with Mr. Putin’s close to 80% approval rating by the Russian population. Navalny is known as a rightwing activist and troublemaker. Anybody who suggests such an absurdity, that the Kremlin would poison Navalny, is outright crazy.

If there would have been a plot to get rid of Navalny – why would he be poisoned with the deadliest nerve gas there is – and, as he survives, being allowed to be flown out to the west- literally into the belly of the beast? That would be even more nonsensical.

Yet the mainstream media keep hammering it down without mercy, without even allowing for the slightest doubt – down into the brains of the suspected brainwashed Germans and world populations. But the German population is the least brainwashed of all Europe. In fact, Germans are the most awaken of the globe’s wester populace. It clearly shows when they resist their government’s (and the 193 nations governments’ around the world) covid tyranny with a peaceful Berlin protest of 1 August of 1.3 million people in the streets and a similar one on 29 August.

Nevertheless, Madame Merkel’s reaction was so ferocious on September 2 on TV and with the media, as well as talking to leaders from around the world on how to react to this latest Russian atrocity and how to punish and sanction President Putin, that even conservative politicians and some mainstream journalist started wondering – what’s going on?

It’s a debateless accusation of Russia. There is no shred of evidence and there are no alternatives being considered. The simplest and most immediate question one ought to ask in such circumstances is “cui bono” – who benefits? – But no. The answer to this question would clearly show that President Putin and Russia do not benefit from this alleged poisoning at all. So, who does?

The evolving situation is so absurd that not a single word coming out of the German Government can be believed. It all sounds like a flagrant lie; like an evil act of smearing Russia without a reason, and that exactly at the time when Europe, led by Germany was about to improve relations with Russia. The gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 is a vivid testimony for closer relations between Germany, and by association Europe – with Russia – or is it?

One of Joseph Goebbels (Hitler’s propaganda Minister) famous sayings was, when a lie is repeated enough it becomes the truth.

Peculiarly enough, and without any transit-thought, the German rightwing, the CDU-party in particular, came immediately forward with recommending – no, demanding – an immediate halt of the Nord Stream 2 project – canceling the contract with Russia. The “biggest punishment” for Putin. “It will hurt Russia deep in their already miserable down-trodden economy”, were some comments. Those were angry anti-Russian voices. Another lie. The Russian economy is doing well, very well, as compared to most western economies, despite covid.

What do Russian health and toxicology authorities say, especially those who treated Mr. Navalny in the hospital of Tomsk?

RT reports, according to Alexander Sabaev, the chief toxicologist who cared for him in Siberia, if Alexey Navalny’s condition were caused by a substance from the ‘Novichok’ group, the people accompanying him should also be suffering from the fallout. Instead, Dr. Sabaev believes that Navalny’s condition was caused by an “internal trigger mechanism.” Novichok is an organophosphorus compound, and, due to its high toxicity, it is not possible to poison just one person. He explained, “As a rule, other accompanying people will also be affected.”

Doctors in the Tomsk Emergency Hospital, where activist Navalny lay in a coma for almost two days, found no traces of toxic substances in his kidneys, liver, or lungs, Alexander Sabaev, leading the investigation, concluded that Navalny was not poisoned.

So – why was Dr. Alexander Sabaev not interviewed on German TV – or by the western mainstream media?

Neither were members of other German parties interviewed, for example Die Linke (the Left), or the SPD – the Social Democratic Party. None. None of the medical doctors or “scientists” who were treating Alexei Navalny at Charité, and who allegedly discovered the deadly poison (but not deadly enough) in Navalny’s body, were interviewed.

Nor was the former Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder (Ms. Merkel’s predecessor, 1998-2005) interviewed about his opinion. Schroeder, a member of the SPD, is one of the master minds of Nord Stream 2 and is currently the chairman of the board of Nord Stream AG and of Rosneft. Would he think that Mr. Putin was as foolish as to kill this German-Russia unifying project by poisoning a right-wing activist, a non-adversary?

Of course not.

Therefore, who benefits?

The United States has for years been objecting vividly and voraciously against this pipeline. Trump: “Why should we pay for NATO to defend Germany, when Germany buys gas from Russia and makes herself dependent on Russia?” – He added, “We offer Germany and Europe all the gas and energy they need.” Yes, the US is offering “fracking gas” at much higher cost than the Russian gas. There are countries in Europe whose Constitution would not allow buying fracking gas, due to the environmentally damaging fracking process.

Is it possible that this was another one of those brilliant acts of the CIA or other US intelligence agencies? – Or a combination of CIA and the German Bundesnachrichtendienst (German Federal Intelligence Service) – or an EU-NATO trick? By now it’s no longer a secret that NATO runs Brussels, or at least calls the shots on issues of US interests concerning the European Union or its member states.

Is it possible that Angela Merkel was chosen by the deep-deep state to combat President Putin and Russia? This time by bashing and smearing them with lies – lies as gross as poisoning an opposition activist? To kill the pipeline? What will it be next time?

Today, the first time, official Germany through Mr. Heiko Maas, Foreign Minister, has questioned and threatened the Nord Stream 2 German-Russian joint venture – “if Moscow does not collaborate.” Mr. Haas knows very well, there is nothing to collaborate, as Russia was not involved. It is the same argument, if Moscow does not collaborate (in the case of the Skripals) that was used by Theresa May, then British PM, to punish Russia with further sanctions.

Indeed, all is possible in today’s world, where the Washington empire is faltering by the day and the Powers that Be are desperate that their international fraud base – the US-dollar – may be disappearing. Because, not only are Nord Stream 1 and 2 delivering Russian gas to Germany and Europe, but the gas is traded in euros and rubles and not in US-dollars.

Think about it. Killing (or – so far – poisoning) a Russian opposition leader to demolish the German-Russian Nord Stream 2 project? – This is certainly a crime within the realm and “competence” of the US Government and its western allies.

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This article was originally published on New Eastern Outlook.

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; New Eastern Outlook (NEO); RT; Countercurrents, Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; Greanville Post; Defend Democracy Press; The Saker Blog, the 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. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Featured image is from Land Destroyer Report

Imagine going to a doctor suspecting you may have a serious illness and being told that there are 2 tests available. With the first test, a swab, they do not know, should you record a positive result, whether or not you have the disease. With the second test, a blood test, they know for certain that the test is of no value in detecting the disease.

Would a patient find that situation satisfactory? Obviously not.

Yet that is exactly what the Australian government is admitting is the situation with its coronavirus testing. It is on the Therapeutics Goods Administration web site for “health professionals”:

The extent to which a positive PCR result correlates with the infectious state of an individual is still being determined.”

And:

There is limited evidence available to assess the accuracy and clinical utility of available COVID-19 tests.”

[We also have a screenshot, just in case they take the info down – ed.]

In other words, what are risibly described as the health ‘authorities’ do not know whether, if a person tests positive, they are infected or not. The TGA also admits that the ‘reliability of the evidence’ is uncertain because of the ‘limited evidence base’.

They know their PCR tests are dodgy and the serology tests are useless, so they are hiding it in plain sight in the hope that no-one picks up on it.

Yet testing positive is what is being called a ‘case’ (a word that usually applies people who are obviously sick) and the rise in so-called ‘cases’ is being used as the rationale for abusive and absurd lockdowns in Melbourne (where this writer lives).

Worse, most of the population has believed the propaganda and is more than willing to turn on any fellow citizens who have a different view, demonising them as ‘so selfish’ and cheering when they are subjected to fines of tens of thousands of dollars.

Meanwhile, the number of serious and critical patients (which should be the real definition of a ‘case’) has not risen above 70 in Australia since the pandemic scare started – in a population of 24 million. The per capita deaths are about 26 per million over a six month period, a fraction of the toll in other countries.

Worse, the same dodgy practices about causes of death have been followed in Australia as happened elsewhere. The chief health officer in Victoria admitted that they were not testing for the virus, just assuming that if there were flu-like symptom it must be COVID-19. Deaths by flu in Australia, it should be added, are running unusually low.

The blood tests are even worse. The Doherty Institute has tested about half a dozen of the serological (blood) tests and concluded in each case:

Overall, our findings continue to support recent position statements by the Public Health Laboratory Network (PHLN) and the Royal College of Pathologists Australasia (RCPA) that serological assays have limited, if any, role in the diagnosis of acute COVID-19 infection.”

This conclusion has been replicated elsewhere. Beaumont Health in Michigan ran a longitudinal study, starting in mid-April, which was supposed to look at the rates of infection in health workers exposed to the virus. It was based on large scale serological testing.

So what did the study’s conclusion (which was not easy to locate):

Higher quality clinical studies assessing the diagnostic accuracy of serological tests for covid-19 are urgently needed. Currently, available evidence does not support the continued use of existing point-of-care serological tests.”

Same result: the blood tests are useless. You have to wonder why. The first explanation that comes to mind is that they don’t have the information they need about the virus to reliably test for its existence.

The Doherty Institute in its test of a Chinese PCR kit used an artificially created virus. Why are they creating it artificially?

There are some serious questions to be answered here but the Australian so-called journalists are, with some exceptions, not of a mind to ask any of them. They are too busy generating traffic by scaring people. So they mindlessly parrot the politicians’ and health advisor’s reasons for turning Victoria into a medical police state.

In Melbourne there are lockdowns between 8 pm and 5 am, people being sent to jail for not wearing masks, police patrolling public places to ensure the health officer’s dictates are being followed, violently if necessary, and other outrages.

The premier, Daniel Andrews wants to extend the state of emergency for another 12 months so he can hand all decisions over to the Chief Health Officer and claim he is doing the right thing.

Both the politicians and the mainstream media quack endlessly about ‘evidence-based policy’ and ‘following the science’. That is a lie.

They are relying on tests that, by the government’s own admission, are not reliable. This is not conflicting views amongst ‘experts’. This is the government itself. It is an extraordinary scandal and if there was a functioning media, the government would be exposed for gross incompetence and political aggression.

Victorian citizens who try to organise peaceful protests are being arrested in their homes and charged with ‘incitement’, whatever that means. The police have descended into total hypocrisy.

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David James has been a business and finance journalist, editor, and satirical columnist for over 30 years. He has PhD in English Literature and his web site is bardbitesback.com

Featured image is from OffGuardian

This really should be one of the biggest public health scandals of the decade, but instead it’s given little attention – mainly because of the high-profile nature of the people and organisations involved.

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The United Nations has been forced to admit that a major international vaccine initiative is actually causing a deadly outbreak of the very disease it was supposed to wipe-out.

While international organisations like the World Health Organization (WHO) will regularly boast about ‘eradicating polio’ with vaccines—the opposite seems to be the case, with vaccines causing the deaths of scores of young people living in Africa.

Health officials have now admitted that their plan to stop ‘wild’ polio is backfiring, as scores children are being paralyzed by a deadly strain of the pathogen derived from a live vaccine – causing a virulent wave of polio to spread.

This latest pharma-induced pandemic started out in the African countries of Chad and Sudan, with the culprit identified as vaccine-derived polio virus type 2.

Officials now fear this new dangerous strain could soon ‘jump continents,’ causing further deadly outbreaks around the world.

Shocking as it sounds, this Big Pharma debacle is not new. After spending some $16 billion over 30 years to eradicate polio, international health bodies have ‘accidentally’ reintroduced the disease to in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and also Iran, as the central Asia region was hit by a virulent strain of polio spawned by the a pharmaceutical vaccine. Also, in 2019, the government of Ethiopia ordered the destruction of 57,000 vials of type 2 oral polio vaccine (mOPV2) following a similar outbreak of vaccine-induced polio.

The same incident has happened in India as well.

It’s important to note that the oral polio vaccine is being pushed by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), a consortium which is supported and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

All of this should be cause for concern, especially with western governments and transnational pharmaceutical giants all rushing to roll-out their new Gates-funded experimental coronavirus vaccine for the global population.

Currently, the first experimental COVID-19 vaccine is being tested on the African populationthrough GAVI Vaccine Alliance, another organization funded by the Gates Foundation. A large round of human trials is taking place in South Africa, run by the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg—another Gates-funded institution.

This latest revelation from Africa should prompt journalists and health advocates to ask harder questions about the efficacy and safety of the much-hype COVID ‘miracle’ vaccine.

AP News reports…

LONDON (AP) — The World Health Organization says a new polio outbreak in Sudan is linked to an ongoing vaccine-sparked epidemic in Chad — a week after the U.N. health agency declared the African continent free of the wild polio virus.

In a statement this week, WHO said two children in Sudan — one from South Darfur state and the other from Gedarif state, close to the border with Ethiopia and Eritrea — were paralyzed in March and April. Both had been recently vaccinated against polio. WHO said initial outbreak investigations show the cases are linked to an ongoing vaccine-derived outbreak in Chad that was first detected last year and is now spreading in Chad and Cameroon.

“There is local circulation in Sudan and continued sharing of transmission with Chad,” the U.N. agency said, adding that genetic sequencing confirmed numerous introductions of the virus into Sudan from Chad.

WHO said it had found 11 additional vaccine-derived polio cases in Sudan and that the virus had also been identified in environmental samples. There are typically many more unreported cases for every confirmed polio patient. The highly infectious disease can spread quickly in contaminated water and most often strikes children under 5.

In rare instances, the live polio virus in the oral vaccine can mutate into a form capable of sparking new outbreaks.

Last week, WHO and partners declared that the African continent was free of the wild polio virus, calling it “an incredible and emotional day.”

On Monday, WHO warned that the risk of further spread of the vaccine-derived polio across central Africa and the Horn of Africa was “high,” noting the large-scale population movements in the region.

More than a dozen African countries are currently battling outbreaks of polio caused by the virus, including Angola, Congo, Nigeria and Zambia.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, many of the large-scale vaccination campaigns needed to stamp out polio have been disrupted across Africa and elsewhere, leaving millions of children vulnerable to infection.

In April, WHO and its partners reluctantly recommended a temporary halt to mass polio immunization campaigns, recognizing the move could lead to a resurgence of the disease. In May, they reported that 46 campaigns to vaccinate children against polio had been suspended in 38 countries, mostly in Africa, because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Some of the campaigns have recently been re-started, but health workers need to vaccinate more than 90% of children in their efforts to eradicate the paralytic disease.

Health officials had initially aimed to wipe out polio by 2000, a deadline repeatedly pushed back and missed. Wild polio remains endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan; both countries also are struggling to contain outbreaks of vaccine-derived polio.

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Featured image is from VCG

The report, set to be filed in federal court this week, confirms reporting from ProPublica and The Texas Tribune that found portions of the wall were in danger of overturning if not fixed due to extensive erosion just months after it was built.

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It’s not a matter of if a privately built border fence along the shores of the Rio Grande will fail, it’s a matter of when, according to a new engineering report on the troubled project.

The report is one of two new studies set to be filed in federal court this week that found numerous deficiencies in the 3-mile border fence, built this year by North Dakota-based Fisher Sand and Gravel. The reports confirm earlier reporting from ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, which found that segments of the structure were in danger of overturning due to extensive erosion if not fixed and properly maintained. Fisher dismissed the concerns as normal post-construction issues.

Donations that paid for part of the border fence are at the heart of an indictment against members of the We Build the Wall nonprofit, which raised more than $25 million to help President Donald Trump build a border wall.

Former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, We Build the Wall founder Brian Kolfage and two others connected to the organization are accused of siphoning donor money to pay off personal debt and fund lavish lifestyles. All four, who face up to 20 years in prison on each of the two counts they face, have pleaded not guilty, and Bannon has called the charges a plot to stop border wall construction.

We Build the Wall, whose executive board is made up of influential immigration hard-liners like Bannon, Kris Kobach and Tom Tancredo, contributed $1.5 million of the cost of the $42 million private border fence project south of Mission, Texas.

Last year, the nonprofit also hired Fisher to build a half-mile fence segment in Sunland Park, New Mexico, outside El Paso.

Company president Tommy Fisher, a frequent guest on Fox News, had called the Rio Grande fence the “Lamborghini” of border walls and bragged that his company’s methods could help Trump reach his Election Day goal of about 500 new miles of barriers along the southern border.

Instead, one engineer who reviewed the two reports on behalf of ProPublica and The Texas Tribune likened Fisher’s fence to a used Toyota Yaris.

“It seems like they are cutting corners everywhere,” said Alex Mayer, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Texas at El Paso. “It’s not a Lamborghini, it’s a $500 used car.”

Since Fisher’s companies embarked on construction of the Rio Grande fence, the Trump administration has awarded about $2 billion in federal contracts to the firms to build segments of the border wall in other locations.

Fisher agreed to the inspection as part of ongoing lawsuits against Fisher Sand and Gravel filed last year by the National Butterfly Center and the International Boundary and Water Commission. They unsuccessfully sought to convince a federal judge to stop the construction of the project until the potential impacts of the wall on the Rio Grande could be determined.

Mark Tompkins, an environmental engineer hired by the wildlife refuge, noted in his report that widespread erosion and scouring occurred after heavy rain events such as Hurricane Hanna in July, but that the fence has yet to experience a flood of the Rio Grande.

“Fisher Industries’ private bollard fence will fail during extreme high flow events,” concluded Tompkins, who specializes in river management.

Fisher Industries has installed a 10-foot-wide road made with rocks to help address erosion issues while allowing access by Border Patrol agents. (Courtesy of Fisher Industries)

“When extreme flow events, laden with sediment and debris, completely undermine the foundation of the fence and create a flow path under the fence or cause a segment of the fence to topple into the river, unpredictable and damaging hydraulics will occur,” he added in an affidavit to be filed in court.

Experts have said the fence will face a never-ending battle with erosion given its proximity to the water and the sandy, silty material of the banks. In the Rio Grande Valley, the federal government usually builds sections of the wall miles inland on top of existing levees, partly due to erosion concerns.

A second report, based on a geotechnical and structural inspection by the Millennium Engineers Group of Pharr, Texas, also hired by the National Butterfly Center, found that the fence was stable for now, but that it faces a host of issues. They include soil erosion on the river side — in some areas gaps up to three feet wide and waist deep, concrete cracking, construction flaws and what the firm concluded was likely substandard construction material below the fence’s foundation.

The Millennium engineers called for a clay covering to protect the embankment from erosion, as well as closely monitoring the project.

Its conclusion: “The geography at the wall’s construction location in comparison to the river bend is not at a favorable location for long-term performance.”

According to a copy of an operation and maintenance plan, Fisher Sand and Gravel plans quarterly inspections of the fence as well as extra checkups after large storms. The company had also said it would plant grasses that better hold in place the sandy riverbank and add a layer of rocks to lessen erosion. New soil will also be “treated and seeded” to help fill ground cover.

Tompkins called the maintenance plan “completely inadequate” and a “haphazard and unprofessional approach to long-term maintenance.”

Tommy Fisher said Tuesday that he couldn’t comment on the reports because he hadn’t reviewed them. But he added that his company has fixed all of the erosion, in part by adding a 10-foot-wide road made out of rocks for the Border Patrol to drive over that his crew considered big enough so it wouldn’t be as easily displaced. He estimates it will cost up to $150,000.

“Bottom line, if you want border security on the border you have to think outside the box,” he said. “I feel very comfortable with what we’ve done.”

In July, Fisher appeared on a podcast hosted by Bannon, who called Fisher “kind of a mentor” who “taught me really about how you actually have to build a wall.”

Asked about the engineering concerns, which Bannon said were part of a “hit piece,” Fisher called them “absolutely nonsense.”

“I would invite any of these engineers that so-called said this was gonna fall over, I’ll meet ‘em there next week. … If you don’t know what you’re talking about, you probably shouldn’t start talking,” he said. “It’s working unbelievably well. There’s a little erosion maintenance we have to maintain.”

But to experts, Fisher’s planned fixes are inadequate.

“To me, it’s almost like putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound,” said Adriana E. Martinez, a Southern Illinois University Edwardsville professor and geomorphologist who reviewed the reports on behalf of ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.

Officials with the International Boundary Commission have said that they too have found “significant erosion,” but spokeswoman Sally Spener said she couldn’t elaborate on that or on mitigation plans due to pending litigation. The binational body regulates building in the floodplain between the U.S. and Mexico because structures can worsen flooding and alter the course of the river, potentially violating international water treaties.

The Mexican section of the commission has said it worries the wall could obstruct the river’s flow or be knocked down by the force of the water, according to Spener.

Trump tried to distance himself from the private fence after the ProPublica/Tribune stories, saying that he had never agreed with it and that it had been done to make him look bad. He again distanced himself from the project and We Build the Wall after the charges against Bannon and the others.

“When I read about it, I didn’t like it,” he said. “It was showboating and maybe looking for funds. But you’ll have to see what happens.”

Last November, We Build the Wall representatives met with Customs and Border Protection officials about donating the group’s first border wall project — a half-mile fence in Sunland Park, New Mexico, just outside El Paso. According to a memo obtained by The Nation, CBP called it an “overall positive meet and greet.”

But the federal agency identified several areas of concern with the Sunland Park project, including the possibility that it would require an environmental assessment, but also the fact that Fisher Industries had inflated the speed with which it could complete the project.

“Their performance on this small project shows that some claims may have been inflated due to lack of experience with this type of work,” the memo states.

Fisher has said he wants to donate the Rio Grande fence to the federal government as well, although it’s unclear whether the government will take it. The fence likely will come with a hefty tax bill if not donated, after Hidalgo County recently appraised the land’s value at more than $20 million, which Fisher said his company will fight.

The next court hearing regarding the pending federal lawsuits is scheduled for Sept. 10.

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Jeremy Schwartz is an investigative reporter for the ProPublica-Texas Tribune Investigative Initiative.

Perla Trevizo is a reporter for the ProPublica-Texas Tribune Investigative Initiative.

Featured image: The 3-mile border fence along the shore of the Rio Grande will fail during extreme flooding, according to an engineering report that is set to be filed in federal court this week. (Brenda Bazán for The Texas Tribune)

Protests in Belarus since longtime President Lukashenko was legitimately reelected on August 9 were made in the USA.

Despite his authoritarian rule, most Belarusians support him over an unacceptable alternative — transformation of the country into a neo-Nazi US vassal state like neighboring Ukraine. 

Vladimir Zelensky’s landslide May 2019 triumph over US-installed puppet Petro Poroshenko was heralded at the time as a new dawn for the nation, a return to democratic rule.

Instead, US controlled fascist tyranny grips the country and its long-suffering people.

In its latest human rights report on Ukraine (published in March 2020), even the State Department admitted that significant human rights abuses under Zelensky are no different from his predecessor, including the following:

• Unlawful arbitrary killings,
• Torture and other abuse of detainees by law enforcement personnel,
• Harsh life-threatening conditions in prisons and detention centers,
• Arbitrary arrests and detentions,
• Substantial problems with the independence of the judiciary,
• Restrictions on freedom of expression, the press, and internet, including violence against journalists, censorship, and blocking of websites,
• Refoulement (forced return of refugees and asylum seekers), a breach of international law,
• Widespread government corruption,
• Crimes involving violence or threat of violence against persons with disabilities, ethnic minorities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons.

The State Department noted that the ruling Kiev regime “failed to take adequate steps to prosecute or punish most officials who committed abuses, resulting in a climate of impunity,” adding:

“Human rights groups and the United Nations noted significant deficiencies in investigations into alleged human rights abuses committed by government security forces.”

Left unexplained was that all of above followed the Obama regime’s 2014 coup in the country, ousting democratic governance for US-controlled fascist tyranny.

This is what bipartisan hardliners in Washington have in mind for Belarus that would make its people yearn for the good old days under Lukashenko’s authoritarian rule.

According to new Ukraine-based Razumkov Center polling data on the country, around half the population lost confidence in Zelensky because his regime operates like his widely despised predecessor.

Controlled by his imperial master in Washington, he’s manipulated to do its bidding — including continuation of endless conflict in Donbass and hostility toward neighboring Russia.

In June, a Razumkov Center poll indicated that only about one-fourth of Ukrainians would vote for Zelensky again — because he failed to fulfill pre-election promises.

Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Trump regime Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun.

According to Russia’s Valdai International Discussion Club’s Foundation chairman Andrei Bystritsky, Lavrov “dr(ew) certain boundaries” on Belarus, saying:

“Let us not cross this (red line). This is the border.”

“We are setting a perimeter for the development of the situation in Belarus.”

“(T)his was the main goal of (talks) between Lavrov and Biegun” for Moscow, said Bystritsky, adding:

“(I)f the United States has a certain view on Belarusian democracy, some ideas about this, great, but let us not interfere with what is called the political process in Belarus.”

“It is impossible to fully protect it against external influences, but certain boundaries can be drawn.”

“This is the goal of yesterday’s speech by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov after a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart Vladimir Makei – to determine the boundaries that nobody should overstep in order not to worsen the situation.”

Events in Belarus over the past month are all about Washington’s aim for another imperial trophy on Russia’s border — what Moscow wants prevented.

Last week, US envoy to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) James Gilmore called for Lukashenko to step down, saying:

“(W)e have…to persuade (him) that he cannot be the president of a country under these circumstances (sic).”

“He thinks that a fraudulent election (sic) followed by brutal suppression of the people is good enough (sic).”

Lukashenko was legitimately reelected on August 9 by an unnecessarily inflated margin.

After a few days of harsh crackdowns against (made-in-the-USA) protests, Belarusian security forces have largely acted with restraint.

Last week, Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko told his Russian counterpart Mikhail Mishustin that foreign elements are trying weaken Moscow/Minsk relations, adding:

After failing politically, “some (foreign) forces are trying to shatter the (Belarusian) economy.”

“But we are used to external challenges, particularly as we feel the support of our ally, Russia.”

Moscow wants Belarus’ sovereignty and territorial integrity preserved and protected.

Days earlier, Vladimir Putin said “(w)e believe (what’s going on in the country is) first and foremost, an internal matter for Belarusian society and the people of Belarus.”

In responding to the situation, Moscow is acting with restraint according to international law — polar opposite Washington’s aim for regime change, breaching the UN Charter.

As Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member states, Russia and Belarus are obligated to help each other, including militarily, if threatened by foreign aggression.

Putin hopes things in Belarus can be resolved “peacefully,” intending not to send Russian security forces to the country unless conditions spiral “completely out of control.”

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Six US Air Force B-52 bombers arrived at RAF Fairford on Saturday. Official sources describe it as ‘a long planned training mission’, carrying out theatre and flight training across Europe and Africa. But local news site GloucestershireLive describes it as a ‘surprise deployment’.

Yesterday the much respected expert Hans Kristensen from the Federation of American Scientists posted a picture of all six bombers on twitter, describing it as ‘a pointed message to Russia’. He went on to note the ‘interesting timing of deployment’, given what’s happening in Belarus, observing that these exercises normally take place over Poland and the Baltic states – Belarus’s neighbours.

Such a mobilisation raises serious concerns, not least because some B-52s are nuclear capable. To bring these into an already tense mix seems ill-advised to say the least but this appears to be what is happening: Kristensen points out that two of the B-52s in the image are nuclear-capable.

General Jeff Harrigian, U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa commander, describes the deployment thus:

“B-52s are back at RAF Fairford, and will be operating across the theater in what will be a very active deployment. Our ability to quickly respond and assure allies and partners rests upon the fact that we are able to deploy our B-52s at a moment’s notice.”

Maybe he is just talking about training exercises, but that actually sounds rather menacing.

Let’s not forget the active bombing role that B-52s flying from RAF Fairford have played in the relatively recent past: during the first Gulf War in early 1991 – at the time Cruisewatchers saw bombs being wheeled across the road from the bomb store; in March 1999 they were used in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia; and in the Iraq war in 2003, there were 100 plus bombing sorties.

Reports from friends in Nukewatch also indicate that B-1 and B-2 stealth bombers exercise at Fairford while news reports show the recent US deployment of three B-2 stealth bombers, also capable of carrying nuclear weapons, on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia – an ‘overseas territory’ of the United Kingdom. The focus here is clearly China not Russia. Indeed the B-2s arrived on the island – which also hosts 6 B-52 bombers – at the same time as the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier arrived in the South China Sea.

Whatever is going on is exceptionally dangerous. The build up of offensive military capacity – particularly nuclear capable bombers – in two areas of high political tension is potentially disastrous. These may well be understood as aggressive measures towards two countries that Trump has identified, in no uncertain terms, as strategic competitors against which he is prepared to wage war and win.

Once again Britain is being sucked into US military activities, with the potential for either deployment – from Fairford or Diego Garcia – to become part of a military attack. Serious questions must urgently be asked of government: Have they sanctioned these actions? Are US nuclear-armed sorties taking place from Fairford? And have the British people agreed to be drawn into more US wars?

Whatever the question, nuclear bombers are not the answer.

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Kate Hudson has been General Secretary of CND since September 2010. Prior to this she served as the organisation’s Chair from 2003. She is a leading anti-nuclear and anti-war campaigner nationally and internationally.

Featured image is by Airman 1st Class Victor J. Caputo – US Air Force/Public Domain

Almost every product and material we refer to as “plastic” is made from fossil fuels. Most of it hasn’t been around for long — a little over 70 years for the most common products. North American grocery stores didn’t start offering plastic bags until the late 1970s.

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Over that short time, plastics have become ubiquitous. A Center for International Environmental Law report says global plastic production exploded 200-fold between 1950 and 2015 — from two million to 380 million tonnes. Plastic is everywhere, from the ocean depths to mountaintops, from Antarctica to the Arctic — even in our own bodies.

As the report points out, almost every piece of plastic begins as a fossil fuel. This creates greenhouse gas emissions throughout its life cycle, from extraction and transport to refining and manufacturing to managing waste and impacts. The report projects these emissions could reach 1.34 gigatons per year by 2030 — “equivalent to the emissions released by more than 295 new 500-megawatt coal-fired power plants.”

There are good reasons for plastic’s popularity. It’s lightweight, durable, inexpensive, easily shaped and can be used to safely store many materials, from water to chemicals. That it’s long-lasting is part of the problem.

Plastics don’t decompose like organic substances. Instead, they break down into smaller and smaller pieces, much of which ends up in oceans, where it is consumed by marine life and birds. These “microplastics” work their way through the food web and eventually to humans.

There’s still much to learn about microplastic’s health effects, but exposure in animals has been linked to liver and cell damage, infertility, inflammation, cancer and starvation. The 50,000 plastic particles that each of us breathes and eats every year and the microplastic pollution falling on some cities undoubtedly have an impact, especially as many of the chemicals in plastics are known to cause a range of health problems.

A recent study also shows the ocean plastics problem is worse than thought — although with tonnes of plastic debris and particles swirling in massive ocean gyres, it’s hard to imagine it could be. The study, from the U.K.’s National Oceanography Centre, found the Atlantic has 10 times more plastic than had been estimated. Researchers previously calculated the amount entering the Atlantic between 1950 and 2015 to be from 17 million to 47 million tonnes. New measurements show it’s closer to 200 million.

Another report, from the World Economic Forum, Ellen MacArthur Foundation and McKinsey and Company, estimated the oceans could hold more plastic by weight than fish by 2050 if trends continue. Because most plastic doesn’t get recycled, researchers also estimated that 95 per cent of plastic packaging value — worth $80 to $120 billion annually — is lost.

It also found that by 2050, the entire plastics industry will consume 20 per cent of total oil production, and 15 per cent of the world’s annual carbon budget.

The study, “The New Plastics Economy,” outlines steps whereby circular economy principles could resolve many issues around plastics in the environment. These require eliminating all problematic and unnecessary plastic items, innovating to ensure the plastics are reusable, recyclable or compostable, and circulating all plastic items to keep them in the economy and out of the environment.

And while individual efforts are helpful, they don’t go far enough. As Carroll Muffett, lead author of the CIEL report, argues, we can’t “recycle our way out of the plastics crisis.” Instead, we must stop producing fossil fuels and unnecessary disposable plastic items. Reducing use is key, but shifting to plant-based plastics and other products is also crucial.

As we’ve written before, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed flaws in our outdated economic systems, but it’s also provided an opportunity to pause and figure out how to build back better. Our constant rush to exploit resources, burn fossil fuels and create disposable plastic products for the sake of short-term profits is putting all life and health at risk.

We should have started phasing out fossil fuels and their byproducts decades ago when we realized they were creating massive amounts of air, water and land pollution and heating the planet to temperatures that put our health and survival at risk. The longer we delay, the more difficult change becomes. It’s time for new ideas. It’s time for a just, green recovery.

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Featured image is by KasH via Pexels

On 23 July, the vast majority of the Left Group (GUE/NGL) in the European Parliament approved, together with the social democratic (S&D), Green and rightist (EPP, Renew) parties, a resolution which opposes the ‘European deal’ of 21 July, in which the Council of the European heads of state and government reached an agreement on a European recovery plan and the multi-annual budget.

There is indeed much to be said against this deal, which was a compromise to meet the concerns of the ‘frugal’ member states, led by the Netherlands, which explain the problems of southern states like Italy and Spain as the consequence of their ‘irresponsible’ budgetary policy. The deal implied the reduction of a number of items of the recovery plan and the EU budget, including health and climate. That is a valid reason for opposition, also from the left. But the resolution of the European Parliament requests not only the restoration of the original amounts of money for socially responsible causes, but also for absolutely indefensible ones. The two most reprehensible items are the European Defence Fund and the Integrated Border Management Fund.

The Defence Fund is a surreptitious way of channelling European money to the military industry under the guise of ‘industrial policy’. The 21 July deal grants ‘only’ 7 billion for this fund. The military-industrial lobby is of course disappointed, because initially 13 billion € was foreseen. We cannot accept that left and progressive parties support a request for more money for the militarization of Europe.

And there is the ‘Integrated Border Management Fund’. By endorsing the Parliament resolution, the left-wing group calls for the strengthening of Frontex, the EU’s increasingly militarised approach to migration and asylum policy, responsible for thousands of drowning people in the Mediterranean, for outsourcing border surveillance to dictatorial regimes. This policy that has already been condemned by several humanitarian organisations, and can in no way be supported by progressive forces.

We conclude that the resolution fundamentally contradicts progressive views in general, and the programmes of left-wing parties in the EU in particular. By approving it, the already severely weakened left in Europe makes itself superfluous.

The signatories of this call  urge the left fraction in the European Parliament and its member parties to seriously reconsider their strategic options. We also  appeal to the progressive forces in the social democratic, green and other parties  to resist the militarization of Europe and an increasingly inhuman and antisocial policy.  

Signatories

Signed as an organisation:

Agir pour la Paix (Belgium), Belgische Coalitie stop uranium wapens, Bruxelles Panthères, Comité Surveillance OTAN, (Belgium), Communist Party of Finland, International Coordinating Committee of “No to war – no to NATO”, Leuvense Vredesbeweging (Belgium), Links Ecologisch Forum (LEF, Belgium), Mouvement Citoyen Palestine (Belgium), Socialist Democracy (Ireland), Stop Wapenhandel(Netherlands); Vredesactie (Belgium), Vrede vzw (Belgium)

Individual signatories:

Dirk Adriaensens, Brussells Tribunal (Belgium); Tassos Anastassiadis, member TPT, journalist (Greece); Karel Arnaut, antropologist, KU Leuven (Belgium); Jean Batou, solidaritéS/Ensemble à Gauche, member Geneva  Parliament (Switzerland); Reiner Braun,Kampagne Stopp Air Base Ramstein (Germany); Ingeborg Breines, former president International Peace Bureau  (Norway); Bob Brown, All-African People’s Revolutionary Party  (USA); Marijke Colle,  ecofeminist, member SAP (Belgium); Filip De Bodt, Climaxi (Belgium); Ludo De Brabander, Vrede (Belgium); Lieven De Cauter, Philosopher, RITCS, School of Arts, &  Department of Architecture KULeuven;  Herman De Ley, Em. Professor, Ghent University (Belgium); Klaus Dräger, former policy advisor of the GUE/NGL on employment & social affairs (Germany); Yannis Felekis, member TPT, immigrant support activist (Greece); Pierre Galand, former senator Parti Socialiste (Belgium); Eloi Glorieux, former member Flemish Parliament, peace and ecological activist; Kees Hudig, editor Globalinfo.nl (Netherlands); Anton Jäger,  University of Cambridge/Université Libre de Bruxelles; Ulla Jelpke, member of German Parliament (DIE LINKE); Dimitris Konstantakopoulos, editor defenddemocracy.press, former member of the Secretariat of SYRIZA (Greece); Stathis Kouvélakis; Costas Lapavitsas, Prof. of Economics, SOAS (London), former member of the Greek Parliament; Tamara Lorincz, PhD candidate, Wilfrid Laurier University, (Canada); Herman Michiel, editor Ander Europa (Belgium); Anne Morelli, honorary professor ULB (Belgium); Karl-Heinz Peil, Friedens- und Zukunftswerkstatt (Frankfurt, Germany); Lucien Perpette, member Fourth International (Slovenia); Stefanie Prezioso, member Swiss Parliament; Matthias Reichl, press speaker, Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence (Austria); Nordine Saïdi, decolonial activist (Belgium); Catherine Samary, Alter-European economist (France); Ingeborg Schellmann, member Attac (Germany); Rae Street, activist against NATO (UK); Daniel Tanuro, ecosocialist, author, member Gauche Anticapitaliste (Belgium); Eric Toussaint, spokesperson CADTM International; José Van Leeuwen, Docp/BDS, Netherlands, Willy Verbeek, president Beweging.net Herent (Belgium); Andy Vermaut, climate and peace initiative Pimpampoentje, president PostVersa (Belgium); Marie-Dominique Vernhes, in the name of 12 members of the working group ‘Europa’ of Attac Germany; Asbjørn Wahl, author and trade union adviser (Norway); Prof. David Webb, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (UK); Andreas Wehr, Marx-Engels-Zentrum Berlin; Thomas Weyts, member SAP (Belgium); Thodoris Zeis, member TPT, lawyer, refugees and immigrant support (Greece); Bob Zomerplaag, Enschede voor Vrede (Netherlands).

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Ugly.  Rough.  The police of the Australian state of Victoria muscling their way in.  The father and children watching.  It had all arisen because the pregnant mother in question had engaged in conduct defined as incitement.  In a post on her Facebook page, Zoe Buhler had urged Victorians to protest the coronavirus lockdown rules over the weekend.  She encouraged the practising of social distancing measures to avoid arrest and the wearing of masks, subject to medical exceptions.  “Here in Ballarat we can be a voice for those in Stage 4 lockdowns [in metropolitan Melbourne].  We can be seen and heard and hopefully make a difference.”   

Social media sniffers in the state police picked up the scent and repaired to her Ballarat home in Miners Rest.  Buhler promised to take down the post.  “I didn’t realise I was doing anything wrong. I’m happy to delete the post.  This is ridiculous.”  She noted the presence of her children; the fact that she was due for an ultrasound appointment in an hour.  She inquired about clarification about the term “incitement”, a word she genuinely did not comprehend.

Subsequently, she claimed the police had shown some basic courtesy. “Sorry about my bimbo moment,” she stated on reflection.  But she refused to resile from her view that the conduct had been “too heavy handed, especially [to arrest me] in front of my children and to walk into my house like that.”  She remains ignorant about the meaning of incitement. 

The Buhler arrest was coarse, incautious, suggesting a tone-deafness prevalent in law enforcement.  It was unusual in ploughing common furrows across the political divide.  The Australian was assuredly predictable in its denunciation, having never quite taken the virus that seriously (deaths we shall have, but managed responsibly), though it was hard to disagree with associate editor Caroline Overington’s plea.  “You can accept lockdown and support saving lives but you should still oppose cuffing anyone – much less a pregnant woman.”

Janet Albrechtsen took matters into another register with her school girl claim of fascism, a term she had no inclination to define.  Albrechtsen has never been troubled by forensic details, but she was correct to assume that Buhler will not necessarily be seen as hero or martyr.  Protesters are approved or repudiated depending on the flavour of the moment, and the ducking stools would be out. “Maybe she’s into crystals?  Maybe she’s an anti-vaxxer?”  She certainly did not share views “common with rich hippies in Byron Bay.”

The legal fraternity were more than a touch unsettled. The Victorian Bar was deeply unimpressed by a police operation that seemed, not merely rough in execution but untutored, and said so in its media release on September 3.  “We recognise,” its president, Wendy Harris QC explained, “the importance of compliance with the law, but enforcement of those laws needs to be proportionate and consistent.”  Arresting Buhler and handcuffing her in her home in front of her partner and children “appeared disproportionate to the threat she presented.”  Case law in Victoria – Slaveski v Victoria and Perkins v County Court of Victoria – had held “that a police officer is not entitled to use handcuffs on a person merely because an arrest is made.”

Another thing also niggled the Victorian Bar Association.  “Consistency in the enforcement of the law is also critical; without it, confidence in the rule of law is undermined.”  This was a less than subtle swipe at mixed responses from the police: the enforcement measures taken against Buhler were “apparently at odds with other reported and more measured responses by authorities to organisers and protesters of similar protesters planned or carried out in contravention of public health directives.”

Greg Barns, National Criminal Justice spokesman of the Australian Lawyers Alliance, was similarly shaken. Writing in The Age, he was baffled by the views of Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius, who claimed that the police had been “polite” and “professional”.  Police were good enough to assist Buhler to contact the hospital to make another appointment for the ultrasound.  Hardly the point, fumes Barns.  “They should not have arrested her in the first place.” The result of such muscular policing has been to gift Buhler the PR campaign and ensure “greater sympathy for those who are wanting to launch protests against the Premier [Daniel Andrews] and his government’s draconian laws.”

The mild mannered Rosalind Croucher, president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, also took to the debate, “dismayed” by the Buhler arrest. “In times of crisis, such as this pandemic, our rights are as important than ever.”  Temporary measures to limit rights and freedoms to control the spread of infection might have been necessary but “must always be proportionate to the risk – and managed appropriately.”

Buhler’s case is one of several arrests conducted this week, some of which would have caused fewer twangs of sympathy or outrage.  James Bartolo decided to mix reality television with pandemic law enforcement, filming his own arrest and posting it to Facebook.  Unlike Buhler, Bartolo is your traditional figure of practiced conspiracy, claiming to have better insight into the world of manipulated wickedness than most. Through The Conscious Truth Network, he chest-thumpingly advertises his credentials as “truth seeker, freedom fighter, utopian advocate”. 

This fine former specimen of the Australian army and addled body builder is convinced that COVID-19 is but a Trojan horse, the fiendish, fictional product of a “treasonous and corrupt network of filth” intent on enslaving us.  A truculent Bartolo, in his three-minute long video, is seen arguing that the police was unlawfully trespassing on his property.  “You don’t have authorisation to be on the property.”  But the paperwork was in order; the police duly made their way in, arresting the 27-year-old for alleged incitement, possession of prohibited weapons and two counts of resisting them.  An advertising stunt had been successfully executed. 

These displays have caught the Victorian Police flatfooted.  It was always bound to resonate with some politicians.  On September 4, David Limbrick of the Victorian Legislative Council and member of the Liberal Democrats wrote an open letter to Victorians expressing his shock and disappointment with the state government’s response, claiming that those authoritarians who had forced Victorians to wear masks “and their enablers have been unmasked.”  While not explicitly pointing out specific acts of the Victorian police, the theme of his note was clear enough.  “The intrusion into our lives gets more personal and more extreme every day.  The Government has given the police free reign [sic], so no wonder their behaviour just gets more outrageous.”

Limbrick has also encouraged protests, but suggests forms that do not breach the regulations.  “It’s simple – bring your pots and pans, beep your horns at 8pm, and let your neighbourhood know that we don’t have to suffer in silence.”  An even sounder suggestion is advanced by Barns.  Make better laws, avoid sloppy drafting which leaves “enormous discretion in the hands of the police” and “educate and try to reduce tension and stress in the community.”  As for Buhler’s case, they could have made things simple and civil: take her up on the offer to remove the Facebook post, explain why it was in breach, and be on their way.  A sensible thought for an insensible time.

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

Featured image: A woman walks her dogs in Fitzroy Gardens park as police and defence force officers patrol in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia [David Crosling/EPA]

A Columbia Journalism Review expose reveals that, to control global journalism, Bill Gates has steered over $250 million to the BBC, NPR, NBC, Al Jazeera, ProPublica, National Journal, The Guardian, the New York Times, Univision, Medium, the Financial Times, The Atlantic, the Texas Tribune, Gannett, Washington Monthly, Le Monde, Center for Investigative Reporting, Pulitzer Center, National Press Foundation, International Center for Journalists, and a host of other groups. To conceal his influence, Gates also funneled unknown sums via subgrants for contracts to other press outlets.

His press bribes have paid off. During the pandemic, bought and brain-dead news outlets have treated Bill Gates as a public health expert—despite his lack of medical training or regulatory experience.

Gates also funds an army of independent fact checkers including the Poynter Institute and Gannett —which use their fact-checking platforms to “silence detractors” and to “debunk” as “false conspiracy theories” and “misinformation,” charges that Gates has championed and invested in biometric chips, vaccine identification systems, satellite surveillance, and COVID vaccines.

Gates’s media gifts, says CJR author Tim Schwab, mean that “critical reporting about the Gates Foundation is rare.” The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation declined multiple interview requests from CJR and refused to disclose how much money it has funneled to journalists.

In 2007, the LA Times published one of the only critical investigations on the Gates Foundation, exposing Gates’s holdings in companies that hurt people his foundation claims to help, like industries linked to child labor. Lead reporter Charles Piller, says, “They were unwilling to answer questions and pretty much refused to respond in any sort of way…”

The investigation showed how Gates’s global health funding has steered the world’s aid agenda toward Gates’ personal goals (vaccines and GMO crops) and away from issues such as emergency preparedness to respond to disease outbreaks, like the Ebola crisis.

“They’ve dodged our questions and sought to undermine our coverage,” says freelance journalist Alex Park after investigating the Gates Foundation’s polio vaccine efforts.

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Featured image is from CHD

The southern part of Greater Idlib remains the main point of instability in Syria. The military situation, which had temporarily stabilized after the end of the Turkish attack on the Syrian Army codenamed “Operation Spring Shield”, is once again deteriorating. And this time it seems that even the Turkish leadership, who have made extensive efforts to defend the so-called ‘moderate opposition’, incidentally consisting mostly of al-Qaeda terrorists, from the bloody Assad regime, is forced to admit this.

On March 5, Turkey and Russia signed a de-escalation deal that put an end to the open military confrontation in Idlib between the Syrian Army and the Turkish Army and formally created a demilitarized zone along the M4 highway between the towns of Saraqib and Jisr al-Shughur.

Under the deal, heavy weapons and radical militant formations had to be withdrawn from the demilitarized zone, Russia and Turkey launched joint patrols along the M4 and the highway was to be reopened for civilian traffic. The south part of the M4 highway was formally the zone of Russian responsibility, whereas the north part was the Turkish one. As of early September however, the majority of the points of this deal have not been implemented. Radicals, members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other al-Qaeda-linked  groups such as the Turkistan Islamic Party and Houras al-Din still remain deployed in the supposed demilitarized zone. No heavy weapons were withdrawn and the M4 highway has not been reopened. Artillery duels and firefights regularly erupt on the contact line between the Syrian Army and militants protected by Turkey. Joint Russian-Turkish patrols regularly become targets of attacks by Turkey’s own proxies.

On September 1, Russia and Turkey even started a series of drills simulating the repelling of attacks on joint patrols on the M4, including the neutralization of subversive groups, the evacuation of damaged equipment and the provision of medical help to injured personnel.

Clearly, this does not look like a successful implementation of the March 5 deal. At the core of the issues are the contradictions existing between Turkey and the Iranian-Syrian-Russian alliance. Ankara is not interested in neutralizing the Idlib terrorists because they are the core of its influence in northwestern Syria. Without these groups, even the current Turkish military contingent deployed in Idlib would not be enough to keep the territories they have seized under control. Expansion into northern and northwestern Syria are open goals of President Erdogan and his Neo-Ottoman project. The neutralization of terrorists, the political settlement of the conflict and the stabilization of Syria promoted by the other side of this deal goes contrary to Turkish tactical interests.

In these conditions, it does not look like joint drills along the M4 will be enough to deal with the situation. Further to these, the sides could agree on several long- and mid-term steps that would allow for progress in the demilitarization and de-escalation processes to be achieved. These could include the following elements:

• To assign two officers, one Turkish and one Russian, to their own zone of responsibility  where they would be jointly responsible for the implementation of the March 5 agreement on the ground. This should remove potential barriers and bureaucratic hurdles in their communication.
• To avoid potential duplication or clashing in the actions of the sides during the implementation of the demilitarized agreement, each side should identify one authorized officer to make decisions and be responsible for the implementation of the deal on the ground.
• To form a joint military, diplomatic and information group to work on the development of a joint Russian-Turkish position regarding the situation in the M4 zone, to release official comments on developments, including attacks and other incidents and to develop ways to implement the deal.

In a 3 month perspective these steps might offer a chance of avoiding a new round of escalation, at least partly stabilizing the situation on the M4 highway and improving Russian-Turkish coordination in the area. If the situation develops in a positive direction and further, the mid-term goal would be the start of coordinated pin-point operations against irreconcilable armed groups, including those involved in terrorist or organized criminal activity, on both sides of the contact line. The neutralization of these groups would open the way for a potential diplomatic settlement of the situation. The format of this settlement would depend on the regional and global situation at the moment of the implementation of this scenario, and, in any case, would involve the creation of a political group representing Turkish interests in Idlib.

At the same time, the inability of Turkey and Russia to implement the March 5 deal in the long run would inevitably lead to a new round of military confrontation in Idlib. This scenario potentially includes Turkish attempts to push back the Syrian Army further and to annex northwestern Syria under the pretext of the alleged inability of the Assad government to guarantee stability and security in the region. However, this kind of Turkish action could easily backfire. In February-March 2020, the Turkish Armed Forces already failed to deliver a devastating blow to the Syrian Army. A new open military confrontation with Syria may cost even more and lead to even more dire results. Given the growing Russian-Iranian military cooperation and the developing conflict with Egypt and France, Turkey would immediately find itself caught between two stools. Therefore, at best, Turkey would be able to keep the current status quo in southern Idlib or its forces might even be forced to retreat, especially in the event of  direct Iranian involvement in the battle.

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US-NATO continue building “momentum” behind Navalny incident – hope to end Nord Stream 2 pipeline before facts emerge, the pipeline is completed, and as all other options have so-far failed.  

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Alexei Navalny is the ideal opposition figure for any incumbent government – he is ineffective, unpopular, and transparently compromised by malign foreign interests.

According to a poll carried out by the Lavada Center – a polling organization funded by the US government itself  via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – a mere 9% of all Russians look favorably on him and his work, with most Russians unaware of who he even is.

Germany was the one place the US and NATO needed Navalny to be the most – and in a condition of poor health the US and NATO needed him to be in. 

His continued existence and his monopoly over Russia’s equally unpopular opposition ensures that an effective opposition never takes root in grounds choked by his presence.

For Moscow – Navalny’s continued existence is not only not a threat, he occupies space where a real threat might otherwise emerge.

For the United States and its NATO partners who have dumped millions of dollars and political capital into Navalny’s dead-end opposition in Russia – Navalny’s continued existence is an underperforming investment at best.

“Coincidentally” just as the German-Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline nears completion – a pipeline project that will expand Russia’s hydrocarbon exports, increase revenue, and provide cheap energy to Europe in a business deal that would also help draw Europe and Russia closer diplomatically – Navalny was “poisoned.”

He wasn’t just “poisoned.” He was allegedly poisoned with nerve agents called “Novichoks” alleged to be available only in Russia. Navalny was rushed by a shadowy NGO with opaque funding called “Cinema for Peace” to Germany – of all places.

Delivered right to the heart of what is surely one of Russia’s most important economic and diplomatic projects at the moment – it is the perfect excuse for the US and NATO to pressure Germany to abandon Nord Stream 2 – an objective Washington has struggled and failed to achieve for years.

The US and NATO wasted no time accusing Russia even with no evidence presented that Russia was responsible – not to mention lacking any conceivable motive for the alleged “assassination” attempt of such an unpopular opposition figure at such a crucial time for Russia, its economy, and its ties with Western Europe and Germany in particular.

German state media, Deutsche Welle (DW), in an article titled, “Navalny, Novichok and Nord Stream 2 — Germany stuck between a rock and a pipeline,” indirectly lays out not only the real motive behind Navalny’s alleged poisoning, but the most likely culprit as well.

The article admits just how close to completion Nord Stream 2 is, noting (emphasis added):

Many are looking to Germany, whose Nord Stream 2 pipeline is a prominent example of selective cooperation with Russia despite concerns about the country’s approach to human rights both domestically and internationally.

The Nord Stream 2 project, which is more than 90% complete, aims to double Russia’s supply of direct natural gas to Germany. Running under the Baltic Sea, the pipeline bypasses Eastern European states, sending gas from Russia’s Narva Bay to Lubmin, a coastal town adjacent to Merkel’s constituency in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

It’s noted that the pipeline bypasses Eastern Europe where the US has repeatedly toppled governments and installed client regimes hostile to Russia – complicating Russia’s delivery of hydrocarbons to Western Europe – Ukraine being a recent example.

The DW article then admits:

Critics do not view Nord Stream 2 as purely a business affair, instead calling it a major win for Russia’s image and standing at the international level. The Navalny poisoning, which draws strong parallels to the 2018 Novichok attack on a former Russian double agent that the United Kingdom has accused the Kremlin of orchestrating, further complicates Germany’s efforts to keep politics out of Nord Stream 2.

“After the poisoning of Navalny we need a strong European answer, which Putin understands: The EU should jointly decide to stop Nord Stream 2,” tweeted Norbert Röttgen, an outspoken Russia critic in Merkel’s conservative party. 

His voice carries particular weight, as Röttgen chairs the Bundestag’s Foreign Affairs Committee and he is currently running for the party’s leadership.

It doesn’t take an expert in geopolitics to have understood that an attempt on Navalny’s life would have provided a mountain of political ammunition for the US and NATO in its ongoing attempts to sabotage Nord Stream 2 and prevent “a win for Russia’s image and standing at the international level.”

This is the most compelling reason why the Kremlin would not have ordered it – especially so close to completing Nord Stream 2.

It must also be remembered that Navalny was flown directly to Germany after the alleged attack.

Germany was the one place the US and NATO needed Navalny to be the most – and in a condition of poor health the US and NATO needed him to be in. With Nord Stream 2 over 90% complete – there is little time left to threaten, coerce, and pressure Germany to otherwise abandon the project.

The alleged presence of “Novichok” nerve agents – had the attack been the work of the Kremlin – would have been a smoking gun and a virtual calling card left – all but guaranteeing immense pressure from across the West and in particular – pressure placed on Germany to cancel the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

The DW article covers what the US has already done to pressure Germany, noting (emphasis added):

 The Trump administration wants to sell Germany its own gas, which critics say is more expensive than gas from Russia. Sanctions have bipartisan support in Washington, and the US has already imposed them against companies laying pipe in the Baltic Sea, prompting the Swiss-Dutch company Allseas to pull out of the project in 2019. More sanctions are awaiting the US president’s signature.

Then DW quoted Sarah Pagung – a specialist on German-Russian relations for the German Council on Foreign Relations. The article would note her saying (emphasis added):

“We can’t rule [the canceling of Nord Stream 2] out as an option, but it’s unlikely,” Pagung told DW, although she said Germany could use the Navalny poisoning as an “opportunity” to shift its position on the pipeline without appearing to be caving to US pressure. 

DW all but spells out the true motive of Navalny’s alleged poisoning and his “serendipitous” delivery to Germany for treatment – to serve as a catalyst for the cancellation of Nord Stream 2.

Since Moscow has absolutely nothing to gain from this – it is the least likely suspect.

Since it not only fits into the US and NATO’s openly declared agenda of coercing Germany into cancelling the Nord Stream 2 project, it also fits a pattern of staged attacks and fabricated claims used by the US and NATO to advance their collective foreign policy – they are the most likely suspects.

Consider the much worse and absolutely verified crimes against humanity the US and NATO are guilty of – with the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 2011-onward military interventions in Libya and Syria as just two examples. Poisoning Navalny – a failed investment as a living, breathing opposition figure and turning him into a martyr – is a relatively small act of false-flag violence to create a difficult impasse for the German government regarding Nord Stream 2.

The fact that the US and NATO are rushing to conclusions without evidence – as they’ve done many times before when pushing now verified lies – only further incriminates both as the most likey suspects in Navalny’s poisoning.

For Navalny himself – his fate – if he was actually poisoned – is tragic. The very people he worked for and whose agenda he served seem to find him more useful dying than healthy in terms of advancing Western foreign policy against Russia.

There are too many “coincidences” surrounding this incident:

• The attack itself at such a sensitive time for Russia, its economy, and its ties with Germany in particular;
• The fact that Navalny was flown by a shadowy NGO to Germany itself;
• The fact that the US has been openly trying to sabotage the German-Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline all along and;
• The fact that the “attack” was allegedly carried out in such a clumsy, ineffective, and incriminating way specifically to implicate Russia.

The question is why are people still falling for it? Will Germany fall for it, or at the very least, cave – costing itself economic opportunities in exchange for a deeper and more costly role in US-NATO aggression against Russia? Only time will tell.

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This article was originally published on Land Destroyer Report.

Tony Cartalucci is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from LDR

The World Bank’s Poverty Illusion

Ever tried living on $1.90 a day? That is the World Bank’s “International Poverty Line (IPL).” If your income is at or below that figure, you are living in “extreme poverty.” In fact, it’s a political benchmark, low enough that the Bank can claim global poverty has been reduced significantly. Which also means that if you’re making two or three times that amount per day, you’re supposed to be overcoming poverty.

From a critical and human-interest perspective, the IPL is nonsense. Anyone living on $1.90 a day—the World Bank for many years used $1 a day to define extreme poverty—cannot possibly live a meaningful life no matter how defined. A figure even double or triple $1.90 cannot possibly address inadequate nutrition, schooling, and health care, for example. By setting the figure so low, the Bank, other international lending agencies, and governments can pretend that citizens making the Bank’s next levels of income, $3.20 and $5.50, are poor but still better off than their poorest cousins. In short, the figure evades responsibility to act on behalf of the billions of people living in extreme poverty, including those in rich nations.

Fortunately, we have an impeccable source for calling out the World Bank’s claim: Philip Alston, who recently left his post as the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. In his final report to the UN in early July, Alston said:

Even before COVID-19, we squandered a decade in the fight against poverty, with misplaced triumphalism blocking the very reforms that could have prevented the worst impacts of the pandemic. COVID-19 is projected to push hundreds of millions into unemployment and poverty, while increasing the number at risk of acute hunger by more than 250 million. But the international community’s abysmal record on tackling poverty, inequality and disregard for human life far precede this pandemic. Over the past decade, the UN, world leaders and pundits have promoted a self-congratulatory message of impending victory over poverty, but almost all of these accounts rely on the World Bank’s international poverty line, which is utterly unfit for the purpose of tracking such progress.¹

The reality about global poverty, which the World Bank would prefer that we forget, is that extreme poverty has hardly improved at all in recent decades. “Even before the pandemic,” Alston says, “3.4 billion people, nearly half the world, lived on less than $5.50 a day. That number has barely declined since 1990.” Alston called the Bank’s $1.90 poverty line, which it uses to claim that over 1.1 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty between 1990 and 2015, “scandalously unambitious.” “The best evidence shows it doesn’t even cover the cost of food or housing in many countries,” he said. “The poverty decline it purports to show is due largely to rising incomes in a single country, China. And it obscures poverty among women and those often excluded from official surveys in many countries, such as migrant workers and refugees.”

The COVID Connection

In the spring 2020, the World Bank estimated that 40 million to 60 million people will fall into extreme poverty (under $1.90/day) in 2020, compared to 2019. Again, the Bank used the same flawed measurement, which means we have to add in (by the Bank’s account) anywhere from 70 to 180 million more people in the $5.50 a day category.² These dire conclusions are consistent with trade trends. Two analysts write in Foreign Affairs that it will probably take several years for the global economy as a whole to recover from the contraction brought on by the pandemic. They cite a massive decline in exports (2020 will be “the worst year for globalization since the early 1930s”), very high unemployment, and an especially harmful impact on low-income people, who lack the education, job security, and health to survive without government support that will not be available in struggling economies. In the less well off countries, there are no stimulus payments because they are going to be even more debt-ridden than ever.³ So far, it seems that only China has avoided this prediction on export decline.

Just as Alston charged, women will bear a particularly heavy burden because of COVID-19. An Oxfam report notes:

Although the virus appears to be killing men at a higher rate than women, cutting down on child and elderly care and public health systems traps women at home, a home that is not always safe: girls who are forced to stay home from school are at increased risk of sexual violence and early pregnancy women will suffer more in other ways. Some 70% of the world’s health workers – the most exposed to the virus – are women. Women workers are most likely to have precarious jobs without labour protections. In the poorest countries, 92% of women workers are employed informally. Women also provide 75% of unpaid care, a burden that is expanding exponentially in the face of stay-at-home orders. The problem will also be compounded if this pandemic were to be followed by austerity, as with the 2008 financial crisis. Reports are already showing that domestic violence has doubled in provinces in China where restrictions have been imposed– and this pattern is being repeated all over the world.⁴

Enter the Climate Crisis

The process of scientific discovery seems unable to keep pace with the crisis before us. As the world scientific community warned in November 2019: “we declare, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world, clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency.”:

Despite 40 years of global climate negotiations, with few exceptions, we have generally conducted business as usual and have largely failed to address [the climate crisis]. The climate crisis has arrived and is accelerating faster than most scientists expected. . . . It is more severe than anticipated, threatening natural ecosystems and the fate of humanity. . . . Especially worrisome are potential irreversible climate tipping points and nature’s reinforcing feedbacks (atmospheric, marine, and terrestrial) that could lead to a catastrophic “hothouse Earth,” well beyond the control of humans. . . . These climate chain reactions could cause significant disruptions to ecosystems, society, and economies, potentially making large areas of Earth uninhabitable.⁵

As environmental security worsens, so does human security. The reason is simple: the intersection of worsening climate conditions and the pandemic. Flood, drought, and other calamities compound the vulnerability of populations already hit by the virus, especially the poor, the elderly, the unemployed, ethnic minorities, and health care workers.⁶ Governments are put under intense pressure in terms of emergency preparedness, public health facilities, long-term unemployment, and internal security.

Food security is likely to be especially hard hit by the combination of climate change and COVID-19. Arif Husain, chief economist for the World Food Program, writes that “the pandemic could drive 130 million more people [beyond the tens of millions already facing ‘acute hunger’] into that state by December. More than a quarter of a billion people are likely to be acutely hungry in 2020.”⁷ People working in the informal economy and export industries; people dependent on remittances from relatives working abroad; people in the fossil fuel sector—these are among the groups whose access to food will be deeply affected by COVID-19. And if they also happen to live in conflict zones, or areas hard hit by climate change, they face insecurity that goes well beyond food.⁸ 

The East Asia Picture

In general, the East Asia region’s economic development, measured by human development indicators, was improving somewhat before COVID-19. I chose nine countries at various levels of economic development to represent the region (see Table 1). Most of the nine improved their human development index (HDI) ranking between 2009 and 2019—for example, Thailand, from 87 to 77; China from 92 to 85; and Malaysia from 66 to 61.⁹ (Australia and Japan slipped, while Vietnam and Philippines hardly changed.) Poverty, reflected in the rich-poor gap, remained a serious problem, however, despite the overall fairly low Gini coefficient.10 The income share of the richest ¹⁰ percent of populations was much greater than the poorest 40 percent (Table 1, columns 2, 3 and 4), with the gap rising in four countries and falling in five.¹¹

COVID-19 has severely impacted East Asia as it has every other region. The East Asia and Pacific region (fifteen countries and territories, including six added to those in Table 1) has had its share of infections and deaths, though as a proportion of world totals (as of mid-August 2020), the numbers are very low: about 2.6 percent of cases and 2 percent of deaths.¹² But infection and death tolls do not display the links between a health crisis and poverty. For East Asia and the Pacific, the World Bank estimates that COVID-19 will have a devastating effect on regional economic growth and therefore on poverty rates. The last five years of gains will all be erased, it says. Specifically, the Bank reports that whereas before the pandemic 35 million people in East Asia and the Pacific would have escaped poverty (at $5.50), now some 25 million additional people will fall into poverty, plus another 11 million if economies continue to go downhill.¹³Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand are all predicted to experience major economic contractions before recovering in 2021.¹⁴

In East Asia specifically, average life expectancy and schooling were improving before the pandemic. As the last column in Table 1 shows, every country experienced growth in the HDI between 2010 and 2018, with China leading the way and the emerging middle-income countries such as Indonesia and Thailand also improving significantly. Even so, we are all aware that average figures may obscure as much as they reveal. Improvements in human development typically are not evenly distributed in any society because political elites allocate resources to favored groups and locales, which are expected to return the favor in loyalty to officials. When the next Human Development Report is published, we can expect that income gaps will widen and other human development indicators for all countries in the region (with the possible exception of China) will reflect the pandemic’s impact on everything from public health and childhood education to overseas remittances and small businesses. It is already clear that food and income poverty in particular have worsened. A World Vision survey in 2020 of nine Asian countries, for example, found that “currently the most serious effects [of the pandemic] are increased food insecurity and poverty for vulnerable children and their families impacted by the pandemic. As families are struggling to cope with loss of income and livelihoods, meeting basic household needs is a growing challenge.” The survey found that over 60 percent of households—an estimated 85 million—in those countries were in deep trouble finding food, work, and income.¹⁵

Winners and Losers

A major omission from the World Bank’s assessment is indicators of who benefits from poverty.

The fortunes of the richest 1 percent and 10 percent never fall, nor do the tax havens that enable multinational corporations to hide a large percentage of their profits disappear. Again, Philip Alston, in his final report: “Instead, multinational companies and investors draw guaranteed profits from public coffers [such as through tax havens], while poor communities are neglected and underserved. It’s time for a new approach to poverty eradication that tackles inequality, embraces redistribution, and takes tax justice seriously. Poverty is a political choice and it will be with us until its elimination is reconceived as a matter of social justice.”

Alston’s parting shots resonate with critical scholarship on globalization. For example, a recent study done for the Asian Development Bank affirmed Alston’s conclusions on rising poverty even before COVID-19. The three authors found that although income in Asia generally was rising, its potential benefits were being undermined by growing inequality in income distribution; that globalization was mainly benefiting people with skills, education, and regional resource advantages; and that inequality was adversely affecting economic growth, mainly by limiting productivity and consumption among low-income households, and by increasing the likelihood of social unrest.¹⁶ Clearly, these trends were, and are, the result of political decisions.

We in the United States understand the politics of poverty very well. Robert Reich, the former labor secretary who often writes on inequality in America, says: “Over the last four decades, the median wage has barely budged. But the incomes of the richest 0.1% have soared by more than 300% and the incomes of the top 0.001% (the 2,300 richest Americans), by more than 600%. The net worth of the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans almost equals that of the bottom 90% combined. This grotesque imbalance is undermining American democracy.”¹⁷

It does not take much imagination to come up with solutions to the current wave of poverty. Oxfam, for example, advocates direct cash grants to the poor, debt relief, subsidies to small businesses, and taxes on both private and corporate wealth. Similarly, the Asian Development Bank study urges government targeting of poor populations and poor districts within countries for educational, health, and work opportunities. But if “poverty is a political choice,” as Alston says, redistributing wealth and providing the ingredients of human security will require nothing short of a political revolution. Quick fixes and “reforms” cannot correct the “grotesque imbalance” that is truly global in scope.

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Mel Gurtov is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University and Senior Editor of Asian Perspective. His latest book is America in Retreat: Foreign Policy Under Donald Trump (Rowman & Littlefield). You can find out more about him in his blog, “In the Human Interest.”

Notes

¹ See the full report.

² World Bank, “Macro Poverty Outlook,” n.d.

³ Carmen Reinhart and Vincent Reinhart, “The Pandemic Depression,” Foreign Affairs, September-October 2020.

⁴ See this report.

⁵ See this report.

⁶ C.A. Phillips, A. Caldas, R. Cleetus et al., “Compound Climate Risks in the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Nature Climate Change (2020).

⁷ Arif Husain, “After the Pandemic, a Global Hunger Crisis,” New York Times, June 12, 2020.

⁸ Netherlands Institute of International Relations, “World Climate and Security Report 2020,” February 13, 2020.

⁹ United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2009; United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2019.

¹⁰ Economists seems to consider that the worst cases of inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient are Brazil (53.3 between 2010 and 2017) and South Africa (63.0). In that case, none of the nine East Asian countries examined here comes close, with the range from Malaysia (41.0) to South Korea (31.6). Human Development Report 2019, Table 3.

¹¹ Only in Thailand did the income share of the richest 1 percent exceed that of the poorest 40 percent. However, no figures were reported for the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Human Development Report 2019, Table 3.

¹² Compiled from the New York Times coronavirus data set. The additional countries and territories are Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Cambodia, Taiwan, and Myanmar.

¹³ World Bank, “East Asia and the Pacific in the Time of COVID-19.”

¹⁴ World Bank, “Global Economic Prospects,” June 2020.

¹⁵ Ellie Wong, Carolyn Kabore, and Angeline Manzara, “Out of Time,” Devpolicy, July 10, 2020.

¹⁶ Bihong Huang, Peter J. Morgan, and Naoyuki Yoshino, eds., Demystifying Rising Inequality in Asia(Tokyo: Asian Development Bank Institute, 2019, pp. 1-5.

¹⁷ Robert Reich, “State of Disunion: Democrats Must Not Give In to Trump’s Hateful Speech,” The Guardian, February 4, 2019.

Featured image is from OneWorld

As so many of us ask when we commemorate an anniversary of decades: where have all the years gone? Have we done all we can? Have we been of true service? Did we do right?

We also may wonder on these occasions what might the future hold. Will our dreams – our Moroccan dreams – come true? Will every village and neighborhood come together, with every young person, every elderly, every woman and man from all circumstances and be part of designing and deciding the future course of their community? And will the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) be of the best service it could as the Moroccan people create the change they seek?

It is the 20th year anniversary of the High Atlas Foundation and its mission in Morocco–an organization born from the service of Peace Corps Volunteers and dedicated Moroccan friends.

With every entity that endures across time, there seems to be a miraculous component–that through unpredictable events, there remains continuity. The mission of HAF is as fixed as the universal principle upon which it is based: the people – those who are impacted by development decisions and actions – are the drivers of lasting change. We are dedicated to the premise that sustainability is manifested by and for local communities. This means that HAF commits to: inclusivity and empowerment so that people are confident as they make decisions that reflect what they need; projects that are the priorities of the people and that cut across the different sectors of life; and partnerships–because the wider and deeper the commitment, the greater the likelihood of implementation and endurance.

After some millions of growing trees later, thousands of families drinking clean water, thousands of people experiencing capacity-building so that they manifest change around them, we have also learned abiding lessons. Ripples of good intentions and of people’s projects over time create outcomes that, when observed, help us to realize there is an incalculable amount of impact out there. Impact is experienced by children and grandchildren and will be experienced by generations to come. Development, like planting a tree, is an endeavor that naturally seems to cross into faith.

Sustainability is an operational concept involving the consideration of a multiplicity of factors that require consideration in the planning of development–economic, cultural, technological, financial, environmental, geographic, historical, and gender-based factors. However, sustainability may very well be, after all, the ongoing generation of good effects that are so widespread and so deep in the heart and so across time that they belong to no one but to the people who feel the bounty, power, and ability in the moments of their lives.

As President of the Board of Directors for the Foundation’s first 10 years and President of its operations throughout its second decade, and as the one who carried the idea of what became HAF for some years prior to when it was founded in 2000, I am more grateful than I can say for the marvel of people to whom we owe everlasting gratitude. Since there are too many to mention here, and I cannot do justice by mentioning just a few, I will express my gratitude to one person who has made Morocco a potential sustainable development bastion on earth, making the participatory work of HAF and others potentially fully scalable throughout the nation. That person is His Majesty King Mohammed the VI.

The Moroccan Frameworks that guide the people’s development are replete with the highest principles of people’s driven change and their empowerment. They together form a synergistic powerful pathway forward for lasting development and, yes, prosperity. They are thoughtful, creative, and strategic in their formulation that one finds it seriously challenging to improve upon their design. The existential challenge before the people of Morocco is the fulfillment of the integrated Frameworks that promote sustainable local development.

The opportunity to create bottom-up community development movements that federate and transform public-civil-private sector relationships with sustainable prosperity in the wake, is real and Moroccan. And it is up to its people and agencies to fulfill. I, for one, appreciate the grand, continental, and totally meaningful opportunity – and commit HAF to its life of service to this Moroccan cause, and as a precedent for the world.

To 20 years, to 100 more, and to all we are able to do throughout,

Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir – President of the High Atlas Foundation in Marrakech, Morocco

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The case of the alleged assassination attempt of the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny has generated much controversy and discussions worldwide. In Germany, where Navalny is currently, the political controversy surrounding the case is taking on particularly large proportions. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline construction project is clearly not related to the Navalny case, but according to Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Soder, the incident brought new circumstances that make Nord Stream 2 something “negative”.

Soder, is a member of the Christian Social Union and part of the conservative-centrist alliance that appointed Angela Merkel to the post of federal chancellor. He believes that the case has had a negative impact on Russia and that Nord Stream 2 would be surrounded by such controversies. Although Soder’s prestige has given him a greater voice, this has become a common discourse among some German and European politicians in general.

The opposition Greens party has made a strong call in Parliament for Nord Stream 2 to be stopped immediately. For this party, it is unacceptable to continue any international cooperation project with Russia due to the suspicion of an attempt on Navalny’s life.

“The apparent attempted murder by the mafia-like structures of the Kremlin can no longer just give us cause for concern, it must have real consequences”, Green parliamentary group leader Katrin Goering-Eckardt said.

In fact, the Greens have long opposed the construction of the gas pipeline due to ideological agendas and national projects that are irreconcilable with the German government and with the political and congressional wings favorable to Russian cooperation. However, with the Navalny case, these opponents achieved a “humanitarian justification” for their anti-Russian and pro-Western discourses.

Even the renowned parliamentarian and government ally Norbert Roettgen commented on the case condemning the normality of the agreement for the construction of the gas pipeline:

“diplomatic rituals are no longer enough (…) After the poisoning, we need a strong European answer, which Putin understands (…) The EU should jointly decide to stop Nord Stream 2”, said the German politician on a social network.

For his part, Bundestag’s vice-president Wolfgang Kubicki, stated that the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline should not be questioned at the current stage of the investigation of the alleged poisoning of Navalny, also claiming to be skeptical on the possibility of making any changes to the project. “I’m skeptical that we should question a project of this magnitude at this stage”, he told Deutschlandfunk radio.

Similarly, the position of German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel was reasonable. She recently commented that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline should be completed soon and that it should not be linked to the Navalny case, thus removing opposition speech and maintaining firm cooperation between Russians and Germans as a major opinion.

The construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline has divided German politics in recent years. Designed to diversify Russian gas supply routes to Europe, escaping the Ukrainian and Polish routes, the agreement aims to increase energy security in the region. However, works for the construction of the gas pipeline were suspended in December last year, after Washington threatened to impose various commercial and tariff sanctions on the Swiss company Allseas, which carried out the construction’s works. Since then, international pressure has only grown. In addition to the pressure against the project made by US, Ukraine and Poland, the governments of Lithuania and Latvia have also threatened to break economic ties with Germany.

On September 2, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert reported that toxicological tests carried out by a German Armed Forces laboratory revealed that Russian opponent Alexei Navalny, who is currently receiving treatment at Berlin’s Charité Universitätsmedizin University Hospital, was poisoned with a Novichok substance. The big problem is that the discovery of the poisoning was the reason for the start of a great information war, where the Russian government was accused, without any evidence, of planning the murder of an opposing politician. To date, there is no evidence to link the government or government agencies to the alleged attack on Navalny’s life. The mere fact that he is a political opponent does not mean that his assassination attempt is necessarily for political reasons. The spread of rumors, fake news and lies about the case is immense and an imaginary has already been created in the West that the attack was in fact committed by members of the Russian government, even though no investigation has been carried out.

The intention behind the disinformation is clear: to undermine Russia on the geopolitical scenario. Nord Stream 2 is showing this. The objective is to disseminate as much as possible any type of information that damages Russia’s image, simply to favor countries whose interests clash with those of Moscow.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

Featured image is from InfoBrics

“We have no money to fight hydro so we’ve got to fight back with words and with words we can fight back. By telling the truth about what really is happening in these communities.”

– Gerald McKay, Fisher Grand Rapids, MB

 Wa Ni Ska Tan in Cree means  ‘Wake Up’ or more precisely To “Rise up’ representing a movement of First Nations and Indigenous Communities

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In Manitoba, residents in the southern community of Winnipeg have benefitted from effort to harness the raw power of those Northern flowing rivers. The surging torrents of water have plowed through dams releasing countless watts of electricity for a growing populace. Lights, motors, machines and, of course, computers depend on these outlets to thrive. Dam power as the champion of ‘clean’ energy is typically recommended as one of the chief replacers of the insidious fossil fuel depots. [2]

One slight problem: the land and people situated at the other end of the hydro-power train are enduring a wide diversity of suffering and developments that have degraded communities. Flooding caused in the wake of the dams damage burial grounds, trapping trails and medicinal tracts on which Indigenous people have endured for hundreds and even thousand of years. Once upset, this complex mix of social, environmental and cultural cohesion starts to unravel adversely impacting generations to come. [3]

Enter Wa Ni Ska Tan. This group is a mix of researchers in academic institutions and community members in these affected communities who forged alliance based on respect for hydro-impacted communities, the high level research the impacts have had on nature and on Indigenous communities, and as a force for social and environmental change. [4]

The group has had annual gatherings at various locales in Manitoba. The last annual gathering took place at the University of Winnipeg from November 8 to November 10, 2019. That event included visitors not only from Manitoba First Nations, but from similar communities across Canada as well as regions around the world, including Latin America and South Asia. [5]

This episode of the Global Research News Hour hopes to delve into some of the dynamics of hydro development, not only from the direct experience of the people on the front lines, but from the role of major investors and corporations profiting in ways not spelled out in popular messaging.

In our first component, Karleen Keeper, Leslie Dysart, and Dr. Ramona Neckoway provide a preview of life in the communities of Tataskwyak Cree Nation, South Indian Lake, and Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation respectively.

In our next installment, Senator Mary Jane McCallum, one of the keynotes, expands on her beliefs of hydro-impacts aligning with other colonial initiatives such as residential schools to essentially erase the identity of Indigenous people.

Then we get perspectives from two Latin American countries:  Isabel Cristina Zuleta Lopez from Colombia and Elisa Estronioli from Brazil about the impacts of hydro-power in their communities.

Finally, we get a more in depth conversation with keynote speaker Dr. Deepa Joshi about the forces operating even on the scientific level to corrupt a process of research and activist capacity initiatives springing from water-energy policy, sanitation, irrigation and other policies.

Karleen Keeper is a youth coming from Tataskwyak Cree Nation.

Leslie Dysart is from the Community Association of South Indian Lake. He also sits on the Executive Community and on the Research Steering Committee of Wa Ni Ska Tan.

Ramona Neckoway, PhD is a Professor from the University College of the North, and comes from the community of Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation. She also sits on the Executive Community and on the Research Steering Committee of Wa Ni Ska Tan.

Senator Mary Jane McCallum is a citizen of the Barren Lands First Nation in Brochet, Manitoba. She went to Guy Hill Residential School in The Pas, and then trained as a dental assistant, dental nursing, dental therapy and ultimately Doctor of Dental Medicine. She worked as a Regional Dental Officer from 1996-2000. She has spoken to vast communities about the residential school experience. She was appointed to the Senate of Canada in 2017.

Elisa Estronioli is an activist representing Brazilian Movement of Communities Affected by Dams.

Isabel Cristina Zuleta Lopez is an activist representing the Colombian collective Movimento Rios Vivos.

Deepa Joshi, PhD is a Senior Research Fellow at Coventry University. She is a feminist political ecologist whose work analyses shifts in environmental policies and how these restructure contextually complex intersections of gender, poverty, class, ethnicity and identity. She leads several bilateral projects in South and South East Asia and Africa and she currently coordinates two longitudinal projects on the themes of environmental justice and climate change in the Eastern Himalayas and in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (India, Bangladesh and Nepal).

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The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca . 

Notes:

1.  http://hydroimpacted.ca/1-community-stories/
2. Richard Heinberg (2003), pg. 149, 150, ‘The Party’s Over: Oil, Water, and the Fate of Modern Industrial Societies’, New Society Publishers
3. http://hydroimpacted.ca/more-information/
4. http://hydroimpacted.ca/wa-ni-ska-tan-2/
5. http://hydroimpacted.ca/2019-conference-new-page-draft/

Houve época em que a Índia vendia orgulhosamente a noção de que estabelecia uma Nova Rota da Seda só dela – a qual, partindo do Golfo de Omã para a intersecção da Ásia Central e do Sul, permitiria acesso de Irã, Afeganistão e Ásia Central ao Mar da Arábia – competindo com a Iniciativa Cinturão e Estrada (ICE) da China.

Hoje, é como se a Índia se autoesfaqueasse pelas costas.

Teerã e Nova Delhi assinaram acordo em 2016 para construir ferrovia de 628 quilômetros, do estratégico porto iraniano de Chabahar até a cidade de Zahedan, no interior, muito perto da fronteira afegã, com uma extensão crucial para Zaranj, no Afeganistão, e adiante.

Estavam envolvidas nas negociações as companhias Iranian Railways e Indian Railway Constructions Ltd. Mas nada aconteceu, devido à morosidade indiana. Assim, Teerã resolveu construir a ferrovia, fosse como fosse, com $400 milhões de dólares de seus próprios fundos e conclusão marcada para março de 2022.

Previa-se que a ferrovia viesse a ser o principal corredor de transporte ligado a substanciais investimentos indianos em Chabahar, seu porto de entrada para o Golfo de Omã, como Nova Rota da Seda alternativa, para o Afeganistão e Ásia Central.

A modernização de infraestrutura das ferrovias e estradas a partir do Afeganistão para seus vizinhos Tajiquistão e Uzbequistão seria o próximo passo.

Toda a operação estava inscrita num acordo trilateral Índia-Irã-Afeganistão assinado em 2016 em Teerã pelo Primeiro Ministro Narendra Modi, o Presidente iraniano Hassan Rouhani e o então Presidente afegão Ashraf Ghani.

As desculpas não oficiais de Nova Delhi giram em torno do medo de que o projeto fosse atacado pelos EUA, com sanções. Nova Delhi conseguiu que o governo Trump suspendesse as sanções contra Chabahar e contra a ferrovia até Zahedan. O problema foi convencer uma gama de investidores parceiros, todos aterrorizados pelo risco de sofrerem sanções.

A verdade é que toda a saga tem mais a ver com o pensamento desejante de Modi, que conta com receber tratamento preferencial, nos termos da estratégia do governo Trump para o Indo-Pacífico, que se baseia de fato num Quad (“Quarteto”) – EUA, Índia, Austrália e Japão,  estrutura destinada a conter a China. Esta é a causa de Nova Delhi ter decidido cortar as importações de petróleo do Irã.

Assim, para todos os efeitos práticos, a Índia jogou o Irã debaixo do ônibus. Não é de admirar que o Irã tenha resolvido avançar por conta própria, especialmente agora que está escorado pelo “Plano Abrangente de Parceria Estratégica entre a República Islâmica do Irã e a República Popular da China” (ing. Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between I.R. Iran, P.R. China), acordo de $400 bilhões de dólares e duração de 25 anos, e que sela a parceria estratégica entre China e Irã.

Neste caso, podem ficar sob o controle chinês duas “pérolas” estratégicas no Oceano Índico, a apenas 80 quilômetros de distância uma da outra: Gwadar, no Paquistão, entroncamento chave do Corredor Econômico China-Paquistão (ing. China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, CPEC) de $60 bilhões de dólares; e Chabahar.

Até agora, Teerã nega que o porto de Chabahar venha a ser arrendado a Pequim. Mas há possibilidade real, além dos investimentos chineses numa refinaria de petróleo perto de Chabahar, e, mesmo, no longo prazo, no próprio porto, de uma ligação operacional entre Gwadar e Chabahar. Essa ligação seria complementada pelos chineses que operariam o porto de Bandar-e-Jask, no Golfo de Omã, 350 quilômetros a oeste de Chabahar e muito perto do hiperestratégico Estreito de Ormuz.

Corredores são sempre atraentes

Nem alguma divindade indiana em surto de ressaca conseguiria imaginar “estratégia” mais contraproducente para os interesses indianos, caso Nova Delhi realmente recue da decisão de cooperar com Teerã.

Consideremos o essencial: Teerã e Pequim estarão trabalhando no que, de fato, é expansão massiva do Corredor Econômico China Paquistão, com Chabahar conectado a Gwadar e a seguir à Ásia Central e ao Mar Cáspio, pelas ferrovias iranianas. Estará também ligado à Turquia e ao Mediterrâneo Oriental, via Iraque e Síria, diretamente até a União Europeia.

Esta progressão capaz de mudar o jogo acontecerá no coração de todo o processo de integração da Eurásia – unindo China, Paquistão, Irã, Turquia e, claro, a Rússia, que já está ligada ao Irã pelo Corredor de Transporte Internacional Norte-Sul (ing. International North-South Transport Corridor).

Por enquanto, dadas as reverberações potentes em múltiplas áreas – melhoramento da infraestrutura energética, reformas de portos e refinarias, construção de um corredor de conectividade, investimentos na indústria manufatureira e suprimento pesado de petróleo e gás (questão de segurança nacional para a China) – não há dúvidas de que o acordo Irã-China está mesmo, no momento, sendo minimizado por ambos os lados.

Legenda: Vista aérea do porto iraniano de Chabahar que pode mudar de patrocinador: da Índia para a China.

As razões são autoevidentes – evitar que a ira da administração Trump suba a níveis ainda mais incandescentes, dado que ambos os atores são considerados pelos EUA como “ameaças existenciais”. Mesmo assim, Mahmoud Vezi, chefe de gabinete do Presidente Rouhani, garante que o acordo final Irã-China será assinado em março de 2021.

Enquanto isso, o Corredor Econômico China-Paquistão vai de vento em popa. O que Chabahar supostamente faria para a Índia, já está a pleno vapor em Gwadar. O trânsito comercial para o Afeganistão começou há dias, com cargas a granel vindas dos Emirados Árabes Unidos. Gwadar já começou a estabelecer-se como entroncamento chave no trânsito para o Afeganistão, muito adiante de Chabahar.

O fator estratégico é essencial para Cabul. O país depende de rotas por terra a partir do Paquistão – e algumas podem ser muito inseguras – assim como de Karachi e Porto Qasim. Especialmente para o sul do Afeganistão, a ligação por terra desde Gwadar, cruzando o Baluquistão é muito mais curta e segura.

O fator estratégico é ainda mais vital para Pequim. Para a China, Chabahar não seria prioridade, porque o acesso para o Afeganistão é mais fácil via Tadjiquistão, por exemplo.

Mas a história muda completamente, quando se trata de Gwadar – que se vai convertendo, lenta, mas firmemente, no principal entroncamento da Rota da Seda Marítima, conectando a China e o Mar da Arábia, o Oriente Médio e a África. Islamabad já está recolhendo recursos robustos, em impostos e taxas de passagem.

Resumindo, é jogo de ganha-ganha, mas sempre considerando que desafios e protestos a partir do Baluquistão não vão simplesmente desaparecer, e exigem de Pequim e Islamabad gestão muito cuidadosa.

Para a Índia, o caso de Chabahar-Zahedan não é o único retrocesso recente. O Ministro de Relações Exteriores indiano admitiu recentemente que o Irã desenvolverá “sozinho” o enorme campo de gás Farzad-B no Golfo Pérsico; e que a Índia pode vir a juntar-se à República Islâmica “de forma apropriada em estágio posterior”. O mesmo tipo de “estágio posterior” aplicado por Nova Delhi para Chabahar-Zahedan.

Os direitos de produção e exploração de Farzad-B já foram garantidos há anos para a empresa estatal indiana ONGC Videsh Limitada. Mas aí, mais uma vez, nada acontece, por efeito do proverbial fantasma das sanções.

Vale lembrar que essas sanções já estavam ativadas no governo de Barack Obama. Mesmo assim, naquela época Índia e Irã pelo menos comerciavam bens por petróleo. Projetava-se que Farzad-B voltaria a operar depois da assinatura do JCPOA (chamado “Acordo do Irã”) em 2015. Mas então as sanções de Trump, outra vez, tudo congelaram.

Não é preciso ser mestre e doutor em Ciência Política para saber quem pode acabar por tomar Farzad-B: a China, especialmente depois que, ano que vem, for assinado o acordo de parceria para os próximos 25 anos.

Contra seus próprios interesses energéticos e geoestratégicos, a Índia na realidade ficou reduzida ao status de mero refém da administração Trump. O objetivo verdadeiro dessa política de dividir para reinar aplicada contra Irã e Índia é impedir que os dois países comerciem usando as respectivas moedas, deixando o EUA-dólar fora do processo, especialmente nos negócios de energia.

O grande quadro, no entanto, sempre tem a ver com o avanço da Nova Rota da Seda através da Eurásia. Com evidências crescentes de integração cada vez mais forte entre China, Irã e Paquistão, o que se vê claramente é que a Índia só permanece integrada com as próprias inconsistências.

Pepe Escobar

Artigo original em inglês : 

India Implodes Its Own New Silk Road

Asia Times, 2 de Setembro de 2020

Traduzido ao português, com permissão do autor. Tradução por Roberto Pires Silveira

For years now Western media and governments have maintained an almost ceaseless barrage against China over what they claim are networks of “internment camps” built and used in China’s western Xinjiang region to persecute the Uyghur ethnic minority.

These claims are a mix of half-truths, truths taken out of context, and outright fabrications and lies.

Yet the biggest lie of all is a lie of omission – hyping, exaggerating, and even fabricating stories about China’s abuse of Uyghurs – while downplaying or entirely omitting the very real terrorist problem China faces in Xinjiang.

The BBC in a 2020 article, “China Uighurs: Detained for beards, veils and internet browsing,” would claim (emphasis added):

Predominantly Muslim, the Uighurs are closer in appearance, language and culture to the peoples of Central Asia than to China’s majority ethnicity, the Han Chinese.

In recent decades the influx of millions of Han settlers into Xinjiang has led to rising ethnic tensions and a growing sense of economic exclusion among Uighurs.

Those grievances have sometimes found expression in sporadic outbreaks of violence, fuelling a cycle of increasingly harsh security responses from Beijing.

It is for this reason that the Uighurs have become the target – along with Xinjiang’s other Muslim minorities, like the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz – of the campaign of internment.

The term “sometimes found expression in sporadic outbreaks of violence” is a deliberate and spectacular understatement with the BBC itself having previously documented the grisly terrorism extremists in Xinjiang have carried out.

Xinjiang is the Epicenter of Bloody Terrorism Protected by Western Media Silence 

The BBC’s 2014 article, “Why is there tension between China and the Uighurs?,” reported that (emphasis added):

In June 2012, six Uighurs reportedly tried to hijack a plane from Hotan to Urumqi before they were overpowered by passengers and crew. 

There was bloodshed in April 2013 and in June that year, 27 people died in Shanshan county after police opened fire on what state media described as a mob armed with knives attacking local government buildings

At least 31 people were killed and more than 90 suffered injuries in May 2014 when two cars crashed through an Urumqi market and explosives were tossed into the crowd. China called it a “violent terrorist incident”. 

It followed a bomb and knife attack at Urumqi’s south railway station in April, which killed three and injured 79 others. 

In July, authorities said a knife-wielding gang attacked a police station and government offices in Yarkant, leaving 96 dead. The imam of China’s largest mosque, Jume Tahir, was stabbed to death days later. 

In September about 50 died in blasts in Luntai county outside police stations, a market and a shop. Details of both incidents are unclear and activists have contested some accounts of incidents in state media.

Some violence has also spilled out of Xinjiang. A March stabbing spree in Kunming in Yunnan province that killed 29 people was blamed on Xinjiang separatists, as was an October 2013 incident where a car ploughed into a crowd and burst into flames in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

These are hardly “sporadic outbreaks of violence” but rather a concerted campaign of terrorism. It is terrorism that has plagued Xinjiang and wider China for years.

Also rarely mentioned or linked to China’s policies in Xinjiang is how many thousands of Uyghur extremists have travelled abroad fighting in Western proxy wars in places like Syria and who will eventually attempt to return to China.

US State Department-funded and directed Voice of America (VOA) in its article, “Analysts: Uighur Jihadis in Syria Could Pose Threat,” would admit (emphasis added):

Analysts are warning that the jihadi group Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) in northwestern Syria could pose a danger to Syria’s volatile Idlib province, where efforts continue to keep a fragile Turkey-Russia-brokered cease-fire between Syrian regime forces and the various rebel groups. 

The TIP declared an Islamic emirate in Idlib in late November and has largely remained off the radar of authorities and the media thanks to its low profile. Founded in 2008 in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang, the TIP has been one of the major extremist groups in Syria since the outbreak of the civil war in the country in 2011. 

The TIP is primarily made up of Uighur Muslims from China, but in recent years it also has included other jihadi fighters within its ranks.

The TIP has claimed responsibility for the 2011 Kashgar attacks in Xinjiang killing 23 people.

Reuters would note in its article, “China envoy says no accurate figure on Uighurs fighting in Syria,” that (emphasis added):

The Syrian ambassador to China told Reuters last year that up to 5,000 Uighurs are fighting in various militant groups in Syria.

Terrorism within China and a small army of terrorists honing their skills with US cash and weapons in a proxy war against Syria eventually to return to Chinese territory is certainly justification enough for China to take serious measures against extremism in Xinjiang.

But by now downplaying or omitting the terrorist threat in Xinjiang, the BBC and the rest of the Western media are attempting to decouple current Chinese policy in Xinjiang from the very real and extensive terrorism that prompted it.

Washington’s Role in Supporting Xinjiang Extremism 

Worse still is that China’s terrorism problem in Xinjiang is the direct result of US funding and support.

Not only did the US arm and train militants in Syria Uyghur extremists are fighting alongside, separatist groups like the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) who openly seek Xinjiang “independence” have literal offices in Washington DC and are funded by the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

In fact, the US NED’s grant money to subversion in China is divided into several regions with their own dedicated pages on the NED website. Xinjiang is is listed by NED as “Xinjiang/East Turkestan” – East Turkestan being the fictional country extremists seek to create.

Much of the extremism in Xinjiang is also linked to extensive support from US ally Saudi Arabia and NATO member Turkey.

While the US funds political subversion and Turkey aids Uyghur extremists fighting in Syrian territory, US ally Saudi Arabia funnels money and resources into Xinjiang itself to radicalize Muslim communities with Riyadh’s politically-motivated and extremist Salafism.

The LA Times in a 2016 article titled, “In China, rise of Salafism fosters suspicion and division among Muslims,” would reveal:

Salafism is an ultra-conservative school of thought within Sunni Islam, espousing a way of life and prayer that harks back to the 6th century, when Muhammad was alive. Islamic State militants are Salafi, many Saudi Arabian clerics are Salafi, and so are many Chinese Muslims living in Linxia. They pray at their own mosques and wear Saudi-style kaffiyehs.

The article also noted (emphasis added):

Experts say that in recent years, Chinese authorities have put Salafis under constant surveillance, closed several Salafi religious schools and detained a prominent Salafi cleric. A once close-knit relationship between Chinese Salafis and Saudi patrons has grown thorny and complex.

And that:

…Saudi preachers and organizations began traveling to China. Some of them bore gifts: training programs for clerics, Korans for distribution, funding for new “Islamic institutes” and mosques.

This invasive radicalism transplanted into Xinjiang by the US and its Saudi allies has translated directly into real violence – a fact repeatedly omitted or buried in today’s coverage of Xinjiang and left out of US and European condemnations of China for its policies there.

The US and Europe has waged a 20 year “war on terror,” invading entire nations under false pretexts, killing hundreds of thousands, displacing tens of millions, carrying out systematic torture, and building a global-spanning surveillance network – all while more covertly arming and funding real terrorism in places like Libya, Syria, and even in China’s Xinjiang.

All of this has been done with the help of a complicit Western media bending truths or entirely fabricating lies – but also by omitting truth.

It should then come as no surprise that US and European media has chosen to lie about China’s current policies to deal with what is clearly a real and dangerous terrorism problem in Xinjiang.

But the world can choose not to believe these lies.

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Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from NEO

Was Putin critic Alexey Navalny’s illness aboard a flight to Moscow a naturally occurring metabolic disorder as diagnosed by Russian doctors or something more sinister?

If the latter, was the incident manufactured to blame Russia for what no motive or evidence indicates it had anything to do with.

What happened to Navalny is reminiscent of the elaborate March 2018 father and daughter Sergey and Yulia novichok nerve agent poisoning hoax — an anti-Russia false flag.

Whatever caused their reported illness wasn’t from a reported military-grade nerve agent — the most toxic of known chemical substances, exposure causing death in minutes.

The same holds for Navalny. If poisoned by a novichok nerve agent before boarding a flight to Moscow, he’d have died in the airport terminal.

Others he came in contact with would have been contaminated, becoming seriously ill and perishing.

None of the above happened, and after two weeks since falling ill, Navalny is hospitalized at Berlin’s Charite hospital in a medically induced coma — alive, not dead.

When taken to Omsk for treatment, 44 hours of heroic efforts by Russian doctors saved his life.

In response to Germany saying that toxicologists in the country identified novichok traces in Navalny’s system, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the following:

“Instead of a thorough investigation and scrupulous joint work with the aim of obtaining authentic results, our partners prefer to make more public statements without presenting any facts,” adding:

“All this is another (Russophobic) information campaign.”

“What is most important and sad…is that our partners openly neglect — today it was demonstrated very clearly — the available mechanisms of legal interaction for obtaining genuine results.”

“The German government turned the microphone on and said what it said.”

“As far as we understand, the target audience of (Wednesday’s) statements were the European Union and NATO.”

“The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was mentioned for some reason as well.”

“All this was done instead of what should have been done first thing — a reply to the query from the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office.”

Last Thursday, Germany’s Justice Ministry received a request from Russia for legal assistance in getting to the bottom of what happened to Navalny.

Earlier this week, Moscow’s prosecutor general’s office asked German doctors to share their clinical findings on Navalny with their Russian counterparts.

In Omsk, they found no traces of poison or other toxins in his blood or urine, saying his illness was caused by abnormally low glucose in his blood because of a metabolic imbalance.

Putin critic Navalny is a minor irritant with scant public support.

Nothing remotely suggests that Russia would want him eliminated or otherwise harmed. No plausible motive exists.

If what happened to Navalny wasn’t natural, anti-Russia elements most likely were involved — a false flag similar to what harmed the Skripals in March 2018.

A the time, not a shred of evidence suggested Russian involvement, the same highly likely true about Navalny.

US-led Russophobes have everything to gain from his illness if determined to be from foul play, Moscow the loser under this scenario.

Based on findings by Russian doctors, his illness appears natural, but anti-Russia foul play can’t be ruled out until a thorough joint investigation is undertaken by Russian and German experts.

Until completed and findings made public, conclusions drawn by German sources are premature.

They’re highly suspicious for claiming that Navalny was poisoned by a novichok nerve agent that would have killed him — and others he came in contact with — in minutes if exposed to the toxin.

A Final Comment

Belarusian President Lukashenko claimed his government intercepted a phone call between Berlin and Warsaw, showing that Angela Merkel’s claim that Navalny was poisoned by a novichok nerve agent, what she called “attempted murder,” was false.

According to Sputnik News, “Telegram channel Pul Pervogo (aired) a video (of) Lukashenko” sharing the above information with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin during a meeting in Minsk, the Belarusian president saying the following:

“I have to tell you that yesterday or the day before yesterday before Merkel made a statement (saying) they wanted to silence Navalny, we intercepted a conversation.”

“As far as we understand, it’s Warsaw talking with Berlin — two persons on the line.”

“Our radar intelligence intercepted it…There was no poisoning of Navalny.”

“The specialists prepared facts and maybe statements (prepared) for Merkel…”

“They did it to make sure that Putin would not interfere in Belarusian affairs.”

Lukashenko added that his government will send the intercepted recording to Russia’s Federal Security Service for further analysis.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

JB reports in:

I just got home from back surgery where I spent 4 days in the hospital to start the recovery process. I was able to have some really good conversations with the nurses that were caring for me.

First off, the hospital was empty (in Alaska).

I asked one nurse if I could ask a few questions that I just needed answers for.

First, ‘Do masks do anything to stop a virus?” She looked at me shocked, then said “no, they don’t do anything, the N95 does stop a percentage of a virus when you wear one, but overall they don’t do a thing”.

So I asked why are there so many mandates then? We are we being bombarded with wearing a mask to save grandma?

At this time another nurse said,

“Well, when this all started we were pressured to report everyone who was admitted into the hospital as a covid case. We were also told that we were to report every death as a covid death, and to do our best to get people on a ventilator, even though we knew that it seemed to actually make things worse for the patient.”

Bottom line, most of them refused, and several were fired.

I asked what they suggested was the best way to fight the virus, and was told, the same things you would do to fight the flu.

It was pretty intense, and they were very upset when they started talking about it. Upset as in mad.

I didn’t wear a mask while I was there and was only asked one time if I would put one on when a certain nurse was coming to that section of the hospital to generally check on patients. So, I did, as it seemed important to the people I was working with. No sense in getting them in trouble. When that person left, I took it back off.

There was more conversation, including their thoughts on schools requiring masks, kids committing suicide “in one month more than we’ve had in a year”.

They had strong opinions on lockdowns when “the very thing we need to fight a virus is fresh air and the vitamin D we get from sunlight.”

One fun thing, when I was being wheeled through the hospital, the nurse stopped a few times to introduce me to other nurses working there, and she would simply say, “Hey so and so, I want you to meet Joshua, he thinks like we do”.

So there is a resistance in some of these hospitals!

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For 24 straight weeks, over a million working-age Americans applied for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits.

What’s been going on since March is unprecedented in US history, likely more of the same ahead and perhaps the worst of times to come.

Based on how economic data were calculated pre-1990, US unemployment is around 30%, not the falsely reported 9.8% BLS figure.

At a time of unprecedented economic collapse, near-unprecedented unemployment off its April low, growing food insecurity, millions of households that lost health insurance, the risk of mass evictions, and overall human deprivation, the stock market reached new highs until pulling back sharply on Thursday.

According to a Bloomberg News estimate, “more than 50 million” Americans will experience “hunger” by yearend — in the world’s richest country run by a ruling class that’s indifferent toward public health and welfare.

Well over 60 million Americans filed initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits, hundreds of thousands more swelling their ranks weekly with no near-term end to what’s going on.

During my formal working life spanning four decades from 1960 through the 1990s that included good and bad economic times, never once did I imagine needing unemployment benefits to get by.

The thought never entered my mind nor did the need arise.

Today it’s the stark reality for growing millions in the country at a time of economic collapse and no renewal of $600 weekly benefits for the unemployed that expired at end of July.

On Thursday, a fake news Labor Department report claimed 881,000 new UI applications were processed — according to its new seasonally adjusted methodology.

According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), “1.6 million workers applied for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits” last week, using non-seasonally adjusted raw data that most accurately reflects reality.

Besides 881,000 applying for state UI, another 759,000 “applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA),” EPI explained.

UI claims over the last seven days exceeded the previous week as mass layoffs continue.

EPI noted that for 24 straight weeks, “total initial (UI) claims were far greater than the worst week of the (2008-09) Great Recession.”

This year, at least 12 million US households also lost health insurance coverage along with employment.

EPI also noted that claims of state UI filings dropping by 130,000 week-over-week — from 1.01 million to 881,000 — are “wrong because it’s comparing two seasonally adjusted numbers that were calculated using two different methods (the old way and the new way).”

Comparing apples to apples, new state UI claims rose week-over-week — “using not seasonally adjusted data.”

Since Republicans let $600 in weekly UI benefits expire at the end of July, millions of jobless Americans have been hard-pressed to get by.

EPI estimates that unemployed US workers still getting state benefits “are typically (receiving) around 40% of their pre-virus earnings,” adding:

“It goes without saying that most folks can’t exist on 40% of prior earnings without experiencing a sharp drop in living standards and enormous pain.”

It’s why food insecurity exploded higher in the US and mass evictions loom because of inadequate financial resources to pay rent or service mortgages.

Trump’s executive order that authorized $300 or $400 in weekly benefits to eligible recipients was an exercise in mass deception.

EPI explained that the benefit is only available to limited numbers of jobless Americans and only “for a few weeks,” adding:

His order’s “main impact was to divert attention from the desperate need for the real relief that can only come through legislation.”

“Congress must act, but Republicans in the Senate are blocking progress.”

Voting the bums out in November will assure news bums replacing them, continuity certain like after all farcical US elections.

The state of the nation for the vast majority of its people has never been more dismal with no relief in prospect likely any time soon.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

image Berlin August 1 protest

On March 21, 1933, the Nazi-controlled Reichstag passed a law making it a crime to speak out against the government. The “Regulations of the Reich President for Defense from Treacherous Attacks against the Government of the National Uprising” made even the slightest expression of dissent from Nazi ideology a criminal offense.

This new law, among other totalitarian measures, was part of a process known as Gleichschaltung … the process of achieving rigid and total ideological coordination and uniformity in politics, culture, and private communication by forcibly repressing (or eliminating) independence and freedom of thought and expression.

GloboCap hasn’t done anything that heavy-handed in the course of rolling out the New Normal totalitarianism, but that’s mainly because they do not have to. When you control the vast majority of the global corporate media, you don’t need to pass a lot of ham-fisted laws banning all dissent from your totalitarian ideology. This isn’t the 1930s, after all. Over the last ninety years, the arts of propaganda, disinformation, and perception management have advanced to a point that even Goebbels couldn’t have imagined.

The skill with which GloboCap and the corporate media delegitimized the anti-New Normal demonstrations in Berlin, London, and other cities last weekend is a perfect example of the state of those arts. I’ll focus on Berlin, as that’s where I live, and the so-called “Storming of the Reichstag” incident, but it works pretty much the same way everywhere. I believe there was a curious incident involving a person with a fascist flag in London, and that the UK media have now officially chosen David Icke to be the movement’s figurehead.

In Berlin, in the days leading up to the protests, government officials and corporate media propagandists did what officials and propagandists do … they relentlessly repeated their official narrative; namely, that anyone protesting the New Normal (or doubting the official Coronavirus narrative) is a “violent neo-Nazi extremist,” or “conspiracy theorist,” or some other form of existential “threat to democracy.”

This official narrative was originally disseminated following the August 1 protest in Berlin, the scale of which took the authorities by surprise. Tens or hundreds of thousands of people (depending on whose narrative you believe) gathered in the city to protest the New Normal and its increasingly absurd “emergency measures.” The German media, CNN, The New York Times, and other “respectable news outlets” uniformly condemned them as “neo-Nazis,” or insinuated that they were “neo-Nazi-sympathizers.”

Despite the finding of Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution that only “individual members of far-right-groups” had taken part in the August 1 protest, and that “far-right extremists had no formative influence on the demos,” both the German and international corporate media pumped out story after story about the ultra-violent neo-Nazi hordes that were about to descend on Berlin, again!

Der Tagespiegel, a major German newspaper, reported that the demo was being “infiltrated by Nazis.”

Die Tagesschau, the German BBC, shrieked that “neo-Nazis are mobilizing!” RBB, another public broadcaster, reported that the “traveling circus of Corona-deniers” was heading straight for the city! (N.B. Any reference to any kind of “deniers” in Germany evokes Holocaust deniers; i.e., Nazis).

Ver.di, the German journalists union, warned their members that they were expecting reporters to suffer “double-digit physical attacks.” And these are just a few of countless examples.

The American and UK corporate media also did their Gleichschaltung duty, disseminating the official “Nazis are Coming!” narrative. (I don’t need to do the citations, do I?) And, of course, Antifa joined in the chorus.

On Wednesday, three days before the demo, having successfully whipped the New Normal masses up into a state of wide-eyed panic over the imminent neo-Nazi invasion, the Berlin government banned the protests. The New Normal masses celebrated. A few concerns about … you know, democracy, were perfunctorily voiced, but they were quickly silenced when Interior Senator Andreas Geisel explained that abrogating the people’s constitutional right to freedom of assembly, and freedom of speech, and to petition their government, was not in any way a totalitarian act, but was purely a matter of “protecting the public health.”

For good measure, Geisel also added:

I’m not willing to accept a second time that Berlin is being abused as a stage for Corona deniers, Reichsbürger, and right-wing extremists.

Then, in a particularly Orwellian twist, although the protest itself had now been banned, the Berlin government decided to approve a “counter-protest” against the banned protest. I’m not quite sure how that was supposed to work.

The night before the demo, an administrative court overturned the protest ban. It didn’t really matter, as the authorities knew they couldn’t stop the demo in any event. Banning the protest was just part of the show (and the Gleichschaltung process the show was part of), meant to emphasize the existential threat posed by the bloodthirsty Nazi legion that was on its way to sack the city.

On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of protesters (the overwhelming majority of whom were not neo-Nazis, or Nazi-sympathizers, or any other kind of monsters) poured into the streets of central Berlin. The police surrounded them, trapping them on the avenues, closed off the side streets so they couldn’t get out, and, once again, tried to ban the protest on the grounds that they weren’t “social distancing.” Everyone sat down in the street. Cops stalked around in their masks and body armor, sweating heavily, and occasionally pushing people. Lawyers made phone calls. It was very hot. This went on for quite a while.

Eventually, the court instructed the police to let the demonstration go ahead. And the rest is history … except that it isn’t. According to the official narrative, there were no hundreds of thousands of protesters. There were “tens of thousands,” and they were all “neo-Nazis,” and “Nazi-sympathizers,” and “Coronavirus deniers,” and “stark-raving mad conspiracy theorists.” (Full disclosure: I was there with them, and, yes, indeed, there were some neo-Nazis among the hundreds of thousands in the streets, but, just like at the August 1 protest, these far-right boneheads were a small minority and not at all welcomed by the majority of the participants, no more than the Trotskyists and anti-Semites were welcomed at the 2003 anti-war protests before the US invasion of Iraq, although, yes, they were definitely there.)

In any event, hundreds of thousands of protesters made their way down Unter den Linden, through the iconic Brandenburg Gate, and onward to the main demonstration, filling the Straße des 17. Juni from the Brandenburg Gate to the Siegessäule. By now, I assume you’ve seen the pictures. Or maybe you haven’t. It’s actually fairly hard to find any photos in the media that give you any real perspective.

And, finally, we have come to the main event … which, of course, was not this enormous gathering of totally non-violent, non-Nazi people peacefully protesting the New Normal totalitarianism, nor the speech of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. No, the “story,” the official main event, was the “Storming of the Reichstag building by Nazis.”

I’ll let Mathias Bröckers handle this part. Here’s an excerpt from his recent blog post:

Storming of Reichstag Averted – Democracy Saved!

How do you manage to delegitimize a peaceful mass protest against the corona measures in such a way that the media report not about a protest by hundreds of thousands, but about the “storming” of the Reichstag?

Quite simply: you approve an application by a group of Reichsbürger to assemble directly in front of the Reichstag (N.B. the official applicant for this assembly was Ex-NPD-member Rüdiger Hoffmann) and station only three policemen in front of the west entrance despite the large police presence everywhere in the area. Then you let a crazy Q-Anon-chick scream into the microphone that “Donald Trump has declared freedom,” that “the police have laid down their weapons,” and that “everyone should now occupy the steps of the Reichstag,” and, presto, you have the images you need to dominate the coverage … a mob of a few dozen people with Reichsbürger flags “storming the Reichstag.”

Never mind the fact that the massive demonstration at the Siegesäule (i.e., Victory Column) organized by Querdenken 711 had absolutely nothing to do with this incident, which was carried out by a right-wing-extremist splinter group. The demonstration had already been delegitimized as a protest staged by Reichsbürger extremists and tin-foil-hat lunatics in the days leading up to it, and now the visual confirmation was provided.

In a video of the lead-up to the “Reichstag storming” incident, Tamara K., a natural health practitioner, and pretty obviously a far-right wacko, is the “crazy Q-Anon-chick” in question. You can clearly hear her advising the crowd that “there are no more police here,” which the video confirms.

Or rather, the few police that were there had left the building completely unguarded and pulled back to well behind this assembly of obviously far-right-extremist-type clowns (who, remember, had been granted official permission to stage their assembly at the steps of the Reichstag). This, despite the days and weeks of warnings of a “neo-Nazi invasion” from government officials and the corporate media.

Anyway, once the Reichstag steps were thoroughly occupied by far-right loonies and the Reichsflagge were in the right positions (approximately four minutes into the video), the police finally arrived to mount their defense. It was touch-and-go there for a while, but at the end of the day, democracy triumphed. Naturally, there were plenty of journalists on hand to capture this historic drama and broadcast it all around the world.

And there you have it, the official narrative, which Saskia Esken, SPD co-leader, succinctly squeezed into a tweet:

Tens of thousands of far-right radicals, Reichsbürger, QAnon followers, Holocaust deniers, anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists, and esoterics, who declare the media, science, and politicians ‘guilty’ and openly call for the storming of the Reichstag and a coup d’état. That is the 29 August Berlin demonstration.

Oh, and yesterday, as I was writing this column, I saw that the Berlin Senate had passed a new regulation requiring the participants of any future protests to all wear masks … so I take back what I wrote in the beginning. It looks like GloboCap, or at least its German branch, has some ham-fisted totalitarianism left in it.

I’ll keep you posted on the Gleichschaltung process, and the advance of the New Normal totalitarianism, generally. In the meantime, remember, this is just about a virus! And the Nazis really are coming this time! And looting is a powerful tool to bring about real, lasting change in society … oh, yeah, and the chocolate ration has been increased!

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C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. His dystopian novel, Zone 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volume I of his Consent Factory Essays is published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Content, Inc. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org.

Featured image is from Reuters

A Green New Deal for Workers

By Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker, September 04, 2020

The COVID pandemic and economic collapse have highlighted the race and class inequalities in our society. With more than 35 million jobs lost, millions have lost their employer-connected health insurance in the middle of a pandemic. COVID-19 deaths are disproportionately afflicting working-class people, particularly Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people. The case for universal healthcare through a publicly-funded Medicare for All has never been stronger.

UN Says New Polio Outbreak in Sudan Caused by Oral Vaccine

By Maria Cheng, September 04, 2020

In a statement this week, WHO said two children in Sudan — one from South Darfur state and the other from Gedarif state, close to the border with Ethiopia and Eritrea — were paralyzed in March and April. Both had been recently vaccinated against polio. WHO said initial outbreak investigations show the cases are linked to an ongoing vaccine-derived outbreak in Chad that was first detected last year and is now spreading in Chad and Cameroon.

Focus: Fears Grow over China’s Possible Massive Sales of U.S. Debt as Weapon

By Tomoyuki Tachikawa, September 04, 2020

With Sino-U.S. tensions escalating over several security and economic issues, fears are mounting in the financial markets that China may massively sell U.S. government debt it holds as a weapon to choke the world’s biggest economy.

If Beijing, which owns more than $1 trillion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds, really takes such action, that would push down debt prices and drive up interest rates in the United States, stifling investment and consumer spending at home.

Important Questions and Answers on the COVID-19 Crisis. Saving Lives?

By Dr. Pascal Sacré, September 03, 2020

To “save lives”?

The media say that it is the COVID-19 disease that causes all these consequences, unemployment, economic disasters, pathogenic containment?

NO!

It is the management of your government, of these “experts” that is the cause!

How an “Act of God” Pandemic Is Destroying the West

By Prof Michael Hudson, September 03, 2020

Before juxtaposing the U.S. and alternative responses to the corona virus’s economic effects, I would like to step back in time to show how the pandemic has revealed a deep underlying problem. We are seeing the consequences of Western societies painting themselves into a debt corner by their creditor-oriented philosophy of law. Neoliberal anti-government (or more accurately, anti-democratic) ideology has centralized social planning and state power in “the market,” meaning specifically the financial market on Wall Street and in other financial centers.

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, September 03, 2020

Millions of people have lost their jobs, and their lifelong savings. In developing countries, poverty and despair prevail. We are told the it is V the Virus which is responsible for the wave of bankruptcies and unemployment.

The unspoken truth is that the novel coronavirus provides a pretext and justification to powerful financial interests and corrupt politicians to precipitate the entire World into a spiral of  mass unemployment, bankruptcy and extreme poverty.

The Reason Why Italy Deploys Its Fighters in Lithuania

By Manlio Dinucci, September 03, 2020

This large exercise called “Allied Sky” – said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg – demonstrates “the powerful commitment of the United States to the Allies and confirms that we are able to deter aggression.” The allusion to “Russian aggression” in Europe is evident.

The B-52s, that were transferred on August 22 from North Dakota Minot Air Base to Fairford in Great Britain, are not old Cold War planes used only for parades. They have been continuously modernized, and retain their role as long-range strategic bombers. Now they are further enhanced.

Can you help us keep up the work we do? Namely, bring you the important news overlooked or censored by the mainstream media and fight the corporate and government propaganda, the purpose of which is, more than ever, to “fabricate consent” and advocate war for profit.

We thank all the readers who have contributed to our work by making donations or becoming members.

If you have the means to make a small or substantial donation to contribute to our fight for truth, peace and justice around the world, your gesture would be much appreciated.

Author’s note

The following article was first published by Global Research 17 years ago on the 9th of September 2006, in the context of the 2006 commemoration of the tragic event of September 2001.  We are now commemorating the 22nd anniversary of 9/11. May the Truth Prevail.  

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“Going after bin Laden” has served  to sustain the legend of the “world’s most wanted terrorist”, who  “haunts Americans and millions of others around the world.”

Donald Rumsfeld has repeatedly claimed that the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden remain unknown:  “It is like looking for a needle in a stack of hay”.

In November 2001, US B-52 bombers carpet bombed a network of caves in the Tora Bora mountains of eastern Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden and his followers were allegedly hiding. These caves were described as “Osama’s last stronghold”.

CIA “intelligence analysts” subsequently concluded that Osama had escaped from his Tora Bora cave in the first week of December 2001. And in January 2002, the Pentagon launched a Worldwide search for Osama and his top lieutenants, beyond the borders of Afghanistan. This operation, referred to by Secretary of State Colin Powell as a “hot pursuit”, was carried out with the support of the “international community” and America’s European allies. US intelligence authorities confirmed, in this regard, that

“while al Qaeda has been significantly shattered, … the most wanted man – bin Laden himself remains one step ahead of the United States, with the core of his worldwide terror network still in place. (Global News Wire – Asia Africa Intelligence Wire, InfoProd, January 20, 2002)

For the last five years, the US military and intelligence apparatus (at considerable expense to US taxpayers) has been “searching for Osama”.

A CIA unit with a multimillion dollar budget was set up, with a mandate to find Osama. This unit was apparently disbanded in 2005. “Intelligence experts agree”, he is hiding in a remote area of Pakistan, but “we cannot find him”:

“Most intelligence analysts are convinced that Osama bin Laden is somewhere on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Lately, it has been said that he’s probably in the vicinity of the a 7700m Hindu Kush peak Tirich Mir in the tribal Chitral area of northwest Pakistan.” Hobart Mercury (Australia), September  9, 2006)

President Bush has repeatedly promised to “smoke him out” of his cave, capture him dead or alive, if necessary through ground assaults or missile strikes. According to a recent statement by president Bush, Osama is hiding in a remote area of Pakistan which “is extremely mountainous and very inaccessible, … with high mountains between 9,000 to 15,000 feet high….”. We cannot get him, because, according to the president, there is no communications infrastructure, which would enable us to effectively go after him. (quoted in Balochistan Times, 23 April 2006)

The pursuit of Osama has become a highly ritualized process which feeds the news chain on a daily basis. It is not only part of the media disinformation campaign, it also provides a justification for the arbitrary arrest, detention and torture of numerous “suspects”, “enemy combatants” and “accomplices”, who allegedly might be aware of Osama’s whereabouts. And that information is of course vital to “the security of Americans”.

The search for Osama serves both military and political objectives. The Democrats and Republicans compete in their resolve to weed out “islamic terrorism”.

The Path to 9/11, a five-hour ABC series on “the search for Osama” –which makes its debut on the 10th and 11th of September to marks the fifth anniversary of the attacks– casually accuses Bill Clinton of having been  “too busy with the Monica Lewinsky scandal to fight terrorism.” The message of the movie is that the Democrats neglected the “war on terrorism”.

The fact of the matter is that every single administration, since Jimmy Carter have supported and financed the “Islamic terror” network, created during the Carter administration at the outset of the Soviet-Afghan war. (See Michel Chossudovsky, Who is Osama bin Laden, 12 September 2001). al Qaeda is a instrument of US intelligence: a US sponsored intelligence asset.

Where was Osama on Septembers 11? 

There is evidence that the whereabouts of Osama were known to the Bush Administration.

On September 10. 2001, “Enemy Number One” was in a Pakistani military hospital in Rawalpindi, courtesy of America’s indefectible ally Pakistan, as confirmed by a report of Dan Rather, CBS News. (See our October 2003 article on this issue)

He could have been arrested at short notice which would have “saved us a lot of trouble”, but then we would not have had an Osama Legend, which has fed the news chain as well as George W’s speeches in the course of the last five years.

According to Dan Rather, CBS, Bin Laden was hospitalized in Rawalpindi. one day before the 9/11 attacks, on September 10, 2001.

CBS Video with Dan Rather. Barry Petersen Reporting from Rawalpindi

“Pakistan. Pakistan’s Military Intelligence (ISI) told CBS that bin Laden had received dialysis treatment in Rawalpindi, at Pak Army’s headquarters.

DAN RATHER, CBS ANCHOR: As the United states and its allies in the war on terrorism press the hunt for Osama bin Laden, CBS News has exclusive information tonight about where bin Laden was and what he was doing in the last hours before his followers struck the United States September 11.

This is the result of hard-nosed investigative reporting by a team of CBS news journalists, and by one of the best foreign correspondents in the business, CBS`s Barry Petersen. Here is his report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BARRY PETERSEN, CBS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Everyone remembers what happened on September 11. Here`s the story of what may have happened the night before. It is a tale as twisted as the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

CBS News has been told that the night before the September 11 terrorist attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He was getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan.

Pakistan intelligence sources tell CBS News that bin Laden was spirited into this military hospital in Rawalpindi for kidney dialysis treatment. On that night, says this medical worker who wanted her identity protected, they moved out all the regular staff in the urology department and sent in a secret team to replace them. She says it was treatment for a very special person. The special team was obviously up to no good.

“The military had him surrounded,” says this hospital employee who also wanted his identity masked, “and I saw the mysterious patient helped out of a car. Since that time,” he says, “I have seen many pictures of the man. He is the man we know as Osama bin Laden. I also heard two army officers talking to each other. They were saying that Osama bin Laden had to be watched carefully and looked after.” Those who know bin Laden say he suffers from numerous ailments, back and stomach problems. Ahmed Rashid, who has written extensively on the Taliban, says the military was often there to help before 9/11.

(…)

PETERSEN (on camera): Doctors at the hospital told CBS News there was nothing special about that night, but they refused our request to see any records. Government officials tonight denied that bin Laden had any medical treatment on that night.

(voice-over): But it was Pakistan’s President Musharraf who said in public what many suspected, that bin Laden suffers from kidney disease, saying he thinks bin Laden may be near death. His evidence, watching this most recent video, showing a pale and haggard bin Laden, his left hand never moving. Bush administration officials admit they don`t know if bin Laden is sick or even dead.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: With respect to the issue of Osama bin Laden`s health, I just am — don`t have any knowledge.

PETERSEN: The United States has no way of knowing who in Pakistan`s military or intelligence supported the Taliban or Osama bin Laden maybe up to the night before 9/11 by arranging dialysis to keep him alive. So the United States may not know if those same people might help him again perhaps to freedom.

Barry Petersen, CBS News, Islamabad.

(END VIDEOTAPE) END

(CBS News,  28 January 2002 emphasis added, the complete transcript of CBS report sis contained in annex to this article)

It should be noted, that the hospital is directly under the jurisdiction of the Pakistani Armed Forces, which has close links to the Pentagon. U.S. military advisers based in Rawalpindi. work closely with the Pakistani Armed Forces. Again, no attempt was made to arrest America’s best known fugitive, but then maybe bin Laden was serving another “better purpose”. Rumsfeld claimed at the time that he had no knowledge regarding Osama’s health. (CBS News, 28 January 2002)

The CBS report is a crucial piece of information in our understanding of 9/11.

It refutes the administration’s claim that the whereabouts of bin Laden are unknown. It points to a Pakistan connection, it suggests a cover-up at the highest levels of the Bush administration.

Dan Rather and Barry Petersen fail to draw the implications of their January 2002 report.  They suggest that the US had been deliberately misled by Pakistani intelligence officials. They fail to ask the question:

Why does the US administration state that they cannot find Osama?

If they are to stand by their report, the conclusion is obvious. The administration is lying. Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts were known.

If the CBS report is accurate and Osama had indeed been admitted to the Pakistani military hospital on September 10, courtesy of America’s ally, he was either still in hospital in Rawalpindi on the 11th of September, when the attacks occurred or had been released from the hospital within the last hours before the attacks.

In other words, Osama’s whereabouts were known to US officials on the morning of September 12, when Secretary of State Colin Powell initiated negotiations with Pakistan, with a view to arresting and extraditing bin Laden. These negotiations, led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, head of Pakistan’s military intelligence, on behalf of the government of President Pervez Musharraf,  took place on the 12th and 13th  of September in Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage’s office.

He could have been arrested at short notice on September 10th, 2001. But then we would not have been privileged to five years of Osama related media stories. The Bush administration desperately needs the fiction of an “outside enemy of America”.

Known and documented Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda is a construct of the US intelligence apparatus. His essential function is to give a face to the “war on terrorism”. The image must be vivid.

According to the White house, “The greatest threat to us is this ideology of violent extremism, and its greatest public proponent is Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden remains the number one target, in terms of our efforts, but he’s not the only target.” Recent Statement of White House Assistant for Homeland Security Frances Townsend, 5 September 2006).

The national security doctrine rests on the fiction of Islamic terrorists, led by Osama who are portrayed as a “threat to the civilized World”. In the words of President Bush, “Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say? We are on the offensive. We will not rest. We will not retreat. And we will not withdraw from the fight until this threat to civilization has been removed.” (quoted by CNN, September 5, 2006)

The “hot pursuit” of Osama in the rugged mountainous areas of Pakistan must continue, because without Osama, referred to ad nauseam in news reports and official statements, the fragile legitimacy of the Bush administration collapses like a deck of cards.

Moreover, the search for Osama protects the real architects of the 911 attacks. While there is no evidence that Al Qaeda was behind the 911 attacks, as revealed by nuerous studies and documents, there is mounting evidence of complicity and coverup at the highest levels of the State, Military and intelligence apparatus.

The continued arrest of alleged 911 accomplices and suspects has nothing to do with “national security”. It creates the illusion that Arabs and Muslims are behind the terror plots, while shunting the conduct of a real criminal investigation into the 911 attacks. And what were dealing with is the criminalization of the upper echelons of State.

Michel Chossudovsky is the author of the international best America’s “War on Terrorism”  Global Research, 2005. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization. 

To order Chossudovsky’s book  America’s “War on Terrorism”, click here

Note: Readers are welcome to cross-post this article with a view to spreading the word and warning people of the dangers of a broader Middle East war. Please indicate the source and copyright note.

media inquiries [email protected]

CBS Evening News with Dan Rather;

Author: Dan Rather, Barry Petersen

CBS, 28 January 2002

DAN RATHER, CBS ANCHOR: As the United states and its allies in the war on terrorism press the hunt for Osama bin Laden, CBS News has exclusive information tonight about where bin Laden was and what he was doing in the last hours before his followers struck the United States September 11.

This is the result of hard-nosed investigative reporting by a team of CBS news journalists, and by one of the best foreign correspondents in the business, CBS`s Barry Petersen. Here is his report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BARRY PETERSEN, CBS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Everyone remembers what happened on September 11. Here`s the story of what may have happened the night before. It is a tale as twisted as the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

CBS News has been told that the night before the September 11 terrorist attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He was getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan.

Pakistan intelligence sources tell CBS News that bin Laden was spirited into this military hospital in Rawalpindi for kidney dialysis treatment. On that night, says this medical worker who wanted her identity protected, they moved out all the regular staff in the urology department and sent in a secret team to replace them. She says it was treatment for a very special person. The special team was obviously up to no good.

“The military had him surrounded,” says this hospital employee who also wanted his identity masked, “and I saw the mysterious patient helped out of a car. Since that time,” he says, “I have seen many pictures of the man. He is the man we know as Osama bin Laden. I also heard two army officers talking to each other. They were saying that Osama bin Laden had to be watched carefully and looked after.” Those who know bin Laden say he suffers from numerous ailments, back and stomach problems. Ahmed Rashid, who has written extensively on the Taliban, says the military was often there to help before 9/11.

AHMED RASHID, TALIBAN EXPERT: There were reports that Pakistani intelligence had helped the Taliban buy dialysis machines. And the rumor was that these were wanted for Osama bin Laden.

PETERSEN (on camera): Doctors at the hospital told CBS News there was nothing special about that night, but they refused our request to see any records. Government officials tonight denied that bin Laden had any medical treatment on that night.

(voice-over): But it was Pakistan`s President Musharraf who said in public what many suspected, that bin Laden suffers from kidney disease, saying he thinks bin Laden may be near death. His evidence, watching this most recent video, showing a pale and haggard bin Laden, his left hand never moving. Bush administration officials admit they don`t know if bin Laden is sick or even dead.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: With respect to the issue of Osama bin Laden`s health, I just am — don`t have any knowledge.

PETERSEN: The United States has no way of knowing who in Pakistan`s military or intelligence supported the Taliban or Osama bin Laden maybe up to the night before 9/11 by arranging dialysis to keep him alive. So the United States may not know if those same people might help him again perhaps to freedom.

Barry Petersen, CBS News, Islamabad.

(END VIDEOTAPE) END

Copyright CBS News 2002

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/28/eveningnews/main325887.shtml

Hospital Worker: I Saw Osama

Jan. 28, 2002

Quote

“They military had him surrounded. I have seen many pictures of the man. He is the man we know as Osama bin Laden.” Hospital employee

(CBS) Everyone remembers what happened on Sept. 11 and, reports CBS News Correspondent Barry Petersen, here’s the story of what may have happened the night before.

In a tale as twisted as the hunt for Osama bin Laden, CBS Evening News has been told that the night before the Sept. 11 terrorists attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He was getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan.

Pakistan intelligence sources tell CBS News that bin Laden was spirited into a military hospital in Rawalpindi for kidney dialysis treatment.

“On that night,” said a medical worker who wanted her identity protected, “they moved out all the regular staff in the urology department and sent in a secret team to replace them.” She said it was treatment for a very special person and “the special team was obviously up to no good.”

“They military had him surrounded,” said a hospital employee who also wanted his identity masked, “and I saw the mysterious patient helped out of a car. Since that time,” he said, “I have seen many pictures of the man. He is the man we know as Osama bin Laden. I also heard two army officers talking to each other. They were saying that Osama bin Laden had to be watched carefully and looked after.”

Those who know bin Laden say he suffers from numerous ailments — back and stomach problems.

Ahmed Rashid, who has written extensively on the Taliban, said the military was often there to help before Sept. 11.

“There were reports that Pakistan intelligence had helped the Taliban buy dialysis machines and the rumor was that these were for wanted for Osama bin Laden,” said Rashid.

Doctors at the hospital told CBS News there was nothing special about that night, but they declined our request to see any records. Government officials reached Monday night denied that bin Laden received any medical treatment that night.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday the United States has seen nothing to substantiate the report.

It was Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf who said in public what many suspected: that bin Laden suffers from kidney disease, saying he thinks bin Laden may be near death.

His evidence — watching the most recent video, showing a pale and haggard bin Laden, his left hand never moving. Bush administration officials admit they don’t know if bin Laden is sick or even dead.

“With respect to the issue of Osama bin Laden’s health, I just am…don’t have any knowledge,” said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The U.S. has no way of knowing who in Pakistan’s military or intelligence supported the Taliban or Osama bin Lade, maybe up to the night before Sept. 11 by arranging dialysis to keep him alive. So the U.S. may not know if those same people might help him again — perhaps to freedom.

Copyright CBS News 2002

First published on September 9, 2017

Nineteen years ago next week, people in the United States got jolted out of their complacency and sense of security when two airplanes struck the Twin Towers, resulting in the collapse of those buildings, the deaths of nearly 3000 innocents, and the start of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT).

The ‘new normal’ was ushered in on September 11, 2001. Americans, suddenly realizing how vulnerable they were to attack from this outside enemy, backed their president’s plan to reek vengeance on the ‘evildoers’ who ‘hate us for our freedoms.’ Americans also seemed to invite the ‘necessary’ steps of enhancing state surveillance powers, and liberty undermining ‘anti-terrorism’ measures like the PATRIOT Act as a safeguard against the terrorist menace lurking under their beds.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

But a skepticism about the official story began to emerge as President Bush and his administration began building the case for the Global War on Terrorism. Questions about insider trading in the stocks belonging to the airlines of the hijacked aircraft, Osama Bin Laden’s documented links with US Intelligence, the failure to scramble military aircraft to intercept the hijacked planes, and the unusually fast collapses of the World Trade Centre towers all provoked theories that the 9/11 attacks constituted a ‘false flag’ or ‘inside job.’

“We must speak the truth about terror. Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th; malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty.”  – US President George W Bush (November 10, 2001)

Authorities appear to have closed the books on all such inquiries following the release of the Official 9/11 Commission Report in 2004, but stubborn researchers and activists have continued to question and challenge the pre-text of the war Vice President Dick Cheney said “will not end in our lifetimes.”

Today, we live in an era when the majority of post secondary students remember 9/11 vaguely, if at all.

The general public is greeted to a host of other concerns, including monster hurricanes, fall-out from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the racially charged clashes in Charlottesville and other cities, the deterioration of relations between the US and Russia, and the sabre-rattling currently directed at the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea. One wonders, in the face of these clear and present dangers, whether exposing the 9/11 legend can have much of an impact on world affairs in 2017.

To address this subject, the Global Research News Hour has sought out two individuals whose dedication to 9/11 Truth research and education has become legendary.

Richard Gage AIA is a San Francisco Bay Area architect, a member of the American Institute of Architects and the founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. In the first part of our program Gage discusses current 9/11 Truth activities. These include a supposedly groundbreaking professional study into the September 11 collapse of World Trade Centre 7, and the involvement of members of Congress in tabling of legislation mandating a renewed investigation into 9/11. Gage expresses his conviction that 9/11 Truth and Justice can and will prevail!

Michel Chossudovsky is professor (emeritus) of Economics at the University of Ottawa, an award- winning author of 11 books, and director of the Centre for Research on Globalization, whose website globalresearch.ca launched just two days before 9/11. With the publication of his September 12, 2001 article “Who is Osama Bin Laden” he became among the first people in the world to publicly question the official 9/11 narrative. In the final half of the program, Chossudovsky maintains that even 16 years later, debunking the official 9/11 narrative is critical. He also elaborates on the geopolitical context of the War on Terrorism, including the actual motives behind US military operations in Afghanistan then and today.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca . The show can be heard on the Progressive Radio Network at prn.fm. Listen in everyThursday at 6pm ET.

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

CHLY 101.7fm in Nanaimo, B.C – Thursdays at 1pm PT

Boston College Radio WZBC 90.3FM NEWTONS  during the Truth and Justice Radio Programming slot -Sundays at 7am ET.

Port Perry Radio in Port Perry, Ontario –1  Thursdays at 1pm ET

Burnaby Radio Station CJSF out of Simon Fraser University. 90.1FM to most of Greater Vancouver, from Langley to Point Grey and from the North Shore to the US Border.

It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in  at its new time – Wednesdays at 4pm PT.

Radio station CFUV 101.9FM based at the University of Victoria airs the Global Research News Hour every Sunday from 7 to 8am PT.

CORTES COMMUNITY RADIO CKTZ  89.5 out of Manson’s Landing, B.C airs the show Tuesday mornings at 10am Pacific time.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 6am pacific time.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 10am.

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday Morning from 8:00 to 9:00am. Find more details at www.caperradio.ca

Notes:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dPvjvhXSZ0

The leader of the Solomon Islands province of Malaita announced earlier this week that his region will seek independence from the central government due to its disagreement with the capital over the latter’s recognition of Beijing last year as the legitimate government of China, which could dangerously plunge this underdeveloped nation back into a state of civil conflict that could then be exploited by the Quad as a proxy war for “containing” Chinese influence in the South Pacific through “Balkanization”.

The World Economic Forum and powerful financial interests are proposing a “Green New Deal” which is “not Green”.

What is proposed below is a Green New Deal for Workers  ( M.C. GR Editor)

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Workers in 2020 have a unique opportunity to vote to put two fellow workers in the White House. Howie is a recently retired Teamster and Angela is a dump truck driver. We know the economic realities that working people face in the United States. This Labor Day we call for a better class of people in the White House than the corporate crooks and flunkies that have been occupying it.

The COVID pandemic and economic collapse have highlighted the race and class inequalities in our society. With more than 35 million jobs lost, millions have lost their employer-connected health insurance in the middle of a pandemic. COVID-19 deaths are disproportionately afflicting working-class people, particularly Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people. The case for universal healthcare through a publicly-funded Medicare for All has never been stronger.

As income disappears, the rent — already too high — has become impossible for many to pay. The threat of eviction is with many of us every month. Even if eviction has been stopped by a temporary moratorium for some of us, we see our rent piling up each month so that we will be evicted anyway when the moratorium ends. We need a federal emergency housing relief program that helps people make their rent and mortgage payments during the emergency. To fix the fundamentals of the housing crisis requires a major investment in public housing, this time not just as segregated housing for the poor but as high-quality mixed-income developments that include middle-income workers and professionals.

Congress and the president are responding to the economic collapse so poorly that the nation is falling into a depression. A poll this week reported that 50% unemployed workers, 8.3 million people, were unable to cover their basic expenses in August.

Trump and Biden rely on private enterprise alone to pull us out of this economic hole. Their public economic recovery spending proposals feature corporate welfare grants, loans, and tax breaks that will supposedly trickle-down to working people as new jobs. But with working-class consumer demand depressed, it is too risky for corporations to make job-creating productive investments. Instead, they will again invest their stimulus money in stocks, bonds, and derivatives, just rearranging and further concentrating who owns the productive assets we have rather than creating new ones.

Our alternative is large-scale public investment in new public enterprises and services to benefit the working-class majority. Our ecosocialist Green New Deal will create 30 million jobs in manufacturing, construction, transportation, energy, and agriculture to rebuild our production systems for zero-to-negative carbon emissions and 100% clean energy by 2030. It provides for a Just Transition of up to five years wage and benefits maintenance for workers displaced by this economic transition, but few will need it for very long with all the new jobs that will be created.

We create 8 million more jobs with an Economic Bill of Rights to a living-wage job, a guaranteed income above poverty, affordable housing, universal health care, lifelong tuition-free public education, and a secure retirement for every senior by doubling Social Security benefits.

The two corporate parties, who represent their Wall Street and big business donors, continue to undermine the rights of workers and let employers get away with breaking labor, health, and safety laws. It is time to repeal repressive labor laws, starting with the Taft-Hartley law that restricts labor’s ability to organize, act in solidarity, and engage in political activity. We need to enact new laws that enable union organization, including card check union recognition and the repeal of anti-union “right-to-work” laws.

We call for a Workers Bill of Rights, including workers rights to unions, to living wages, to portable defined-benefit pensions, to information about chemicals used at work, to refuse unsafe work, and to participate in enterprise governance. In order to increase economic security and strengthen workers’ power, we must replace employment-at-will laws, which let employers discharge workers for any reason or no reason, with just cause termination laws, where workers can only be fired for nonperformance or economic reasons. We must extend constitutional rights into the workplace, including free speech, association, and assembly, and freedom from warrantless employer surveillance, search, and seizure.

Even before the pandemic health and economic crisis hit, three super-rich Americans owned more wealth than the bottom 50% of the population, who earn a poverty-level median income of $18,000 a year.

Now, mounting COVID-19 deaths, economic depression, accelerating economic inequality, and climate collapse are all reasons to restructure our economy into a socialist economic democracy where the working-class majority is empowered to protect its interests and receive the full value of its labor. The first step is the ecosocialist Green New Deal for economic recovery as well as climate recovery.

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Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker are the candidates for president and vice-president of the Green Party of the United States and the Socialist Party USA.

French President Emmanuel Macron has visited Lebanon for the second time in less than a month following the terrible blasts that destroyed Port Beirut. Macron first visited Lebanon on August 6, two days after a warehouse with 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate exploded, killing 190 people, injuring another 6,500 and leaving 300,000 citizens homeless. The detonation, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, is undeniably the result of corruption, greed and the incompetence of politicians that has become an endemic problem in Lebanon. The explosion has only exacerbated the collapse of the Lebanese economy.

The cost of property damage caused by the explosions varies between $3.8 billion and $4.6 billion, while the economic damage amounts between $2.9 billion and $3.5 billion, according to a World Bank estimate. In total, $6.7 billion to $8.1 billion has been slashed from Lebanon in total. This in a tiny country of just a few million citizens already economically suffering.

After landing on August 31, Macron met legendary actress and singer Fairuz, a Christian who is one of the few Lebanese figures that is admired across the different faiths in Lebanon. Officially, the purpose of the French head of state’s visit was obvious – to ensure that the conditions were met for the formation of a new government that was capable of carrying out the essential tasks of reconstruction and reforms in Lebanon. The changes are urgent in the electricity and banking sectors, as well as in the public market that is currently too opaque, which favors irregularities. To see how urgent these changes are needed, consider that Beirut does not yet have 24-hour electricity for its residents.

Macron’s goal, declared to the press, is to avoid Lebanon ending up “in the hands of the vileness of the regional powers” and to prevent the country from falling into a new civil war. This will prove difficult as regional powers, such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran, are all competing for influence in Lebanon. Although the Sunni Muslims can fall back on Turkish and Saudi patrons, while the Shi’a have Iranian patronage, the Christians of Lebanon, whom by constitution always occupy the presidency, do not have such state-backing like their Muslim counterparts. And this is exactly what Macron can exploit.

The undeclared objective is to control the transformation process and, consequently, to be the repairer of Lebanon in order to maintain an important bridgehead that guarantees its political and commercial interests, not only in the East Mediterranean, but also in the Middle East. France’s fight is actually about maintaining its privileged role as a former colonial power there, a source of criticism against Paris but which is well received by the main Lebanese Christian forces, who claim that they are not only suffering from an economic and political crisis, but also existential.

“Lebanese people, you are like brothers to the French. I promised you: I will come back to Beirut to take stock of the emergency aide and help you build the conditions for reconstruction and stability,” Macron tweeted on Tuesday.

The coming weeks will be critical for reforms in Lebanese politics and it remains to be seen how much Macron can influence these critical but continuously delayed necessities. As a former colonial power, even if it was just for a few decades, France feels it has a right to expand its influence into Lebanon. With France on a path towards greater independence in its foreign policy, moving further away from the interests of Washington and Berlin, and having ambitions to become a stronger power than it already is, Macron is attempting to reclaim France’s former colonies as its spheres of influence. This is occurring most notably in Africa, where it is currently challenging Turkish attempts to spread its interests. However, France is now on the offensive to bring the Franco-Turkish struggle to a new arena, the Middle East.

By gaining a foothold in Lebanon, Macron can weaken Turkish attempts to become the gatekeeper of the Sunni stronghold of north Lebanon, while being able to project its influence into neighboring Syria, also a former French colony. From Lebanon, Macron can then also project his power further into the East Mediterranean where France is currently backing Greece and Cyprus against Turkish maximalist behavior. However, Macron’s interests in the Middle East is not only reduced to its former colonies, but also expands into Iraq. Macron visited Baghdad on Wednesday after Lebanon. In Baghdad, Macron gave his full support to Iraqi sovereignty in face of Turkey’s illegal military intervention in the north of the country that recently killed Iraqi soldiers.

Although French and Turkish interests are clashing in the East Mediterranean and Africa, by Macron becoming the gatekeeper of Lebanon, the French President is expanding his country’s influence and challenging Turkish expansionism in a new arena – the Middle East… but it all begins in Lebanon.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

The Israeli Air Force conducted a second round of missiles strikes on Syria in less than a week.

Late on September 2, Israeli warplanes launched missiles at the T4 airport in the province of Homs. According to Syria’s state media, the strikes were conducted from the direction of the US-controlled zone of al-Tanf on the Syrian-Iraqi border. Syrian pro-government sources claimed that a large part of the missiles was intercepted. The impact of the strikes remains unclear.

The T4 airport is well known as the operational base of Iranian-backed forces and as a logistical hub for Iranian supplies moving to Syria. At various times, Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles, including combat ones, were also deployed there.

The most recent previous Israeli strike on Syria took place on August 31 targeting the countryside of Damascus city and the province of Daraa. At that time, the Syrian side confirmed that at least 2 people had been killed and 7 others injured. Local sources also claimed that the strike had allegedly destroyed 4 air defense systems. This data remains unconfirmed.

The Israeli strikes came amid a new round of tensions in southern Idlib. As Turkey and Russia conduct tactical drills simulating the repelling of attacks on their patrols on the M4 highway, the Syrian Army and Turkish-backed militants exchanged strikes south of the area.

On September 2nd and 3rd, the Syrian Army shelled militant positions near Kafar Aweed and Baluon in southern Idlib, and al-Salaf in northern Lattakia. Pro-militant sources claim that the strikes hit civilian targets only. However, this is hardly believable as these areas are full of fortifications, including underground ones, created by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its al-Qaeda-linked allies.

Earlier, several Syrian soldiers were reportedly killed or injured in a series of militant attacks in the southern part of the Idlib de-escalation zone. Most likely this together with regular attacks on joint Turkish-Russian patrols on the M4 forced the Syrian Army to return to more active measures for implementing the ceasefire on the contact line.

The security situation still remains conflicted along the Palmyra-Deir Ezzor highway and in the countryside of al-Mayadin. Over the past days, the Syrian Army, the National Defense Forces and Iranian-backed militias have conducted several raids against ISIS cells hiding in the desert. Nonetheless, these raids did not lead to a breakthrough in the fight against the terrorist group. Its members continue planting IEDs, ambushing convoys and assassinating people in the area. According to pro-militant sources, over 100 pro-government fighters were killed or went missing in western and southern Deir Ezzor in late August alone.

According to Syria and Russia, terrorists use the US-controlled areas on the eastern bank of the Euphrates and in al-Tanf as a foothold for attacks on Syrian troops. As long as this thorn remains in place, attacks will continue.

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These are excerpts of a an AP Report

The World Health Organization says a new polio outbreak in Sudan is linked to an ongoing vaccine-sparked epidemic in Chad — a week after the U.N. health agency declared the African continent free of the wild polio virus.

In a statement this week, WHO said two children in Sudan — one from South Darfur state and the other from Gedarif state, close to the border with Ethiopia and Eritrea — were paralyzed in March and April. Both had been recently vaccinated against polio. WHO said initial outbreak investigations show the cases are linked to an ongoing vaccine-derived outbreak in Chad that was first detected last year and is now spreading in Chad and Cameroon.

“There is local circulation in Sudan and continued sharing of transmission with Chad,” the U.N. agency said, adding that genetic sequencing confirmed numerous introductions of the virus into Sudan from Chad.

On Monday, WHO warned that the risk of further spread of the vaccine-derived polio across central Africa and the Horn of Africa was “high,” noting the large-scale population movements in the region.

More than a dozen African countries are currently battling outbreaks of polio caused by the virus, including Angola, Congo, Nigeria and Zambia.

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Michael Crowley reported for the New York Times [1] Thursday, September 3, that American allies and former US Officials fear Trump could seek NATO exit in a second term. According to the report,

“This summer, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser John R. Bolton published a book that described the president as repeatedly saying he wanted to quit the NATO alliance. Last month, Mr. Bolton speculated to a Spanish newspaper that Mr. Trump might even spring an ‘October surprise’ shortly before the election by declaring his intention to leave the alliance in a second term.”

The report adds,

“In a book published this week, Michael S. Schmidt, a New York Times reporter, wrote that Mr. Trump’s former chief of staff John F. Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, told others that ‘one of the most difficult tasks he faced with Trump was trying to stop him from pulling out of NATO.’ One person who has heard Mr. Kelly speak in private settings confirmed that he had made such remarks.”

Donald Trump now relies on “a team of inexperienced bureaucrats” and has grown more confident and assertive, as he has already sacked purportedly “seasoned national security advisers,” including John F. Kelly; Jim Mattis, another retired four-star Marine general and Trump’s first defense secretary; and H.R. McMaster, a retired three-star Army general and Trump’s former national security adviser.

In July, the Trump administration announced plans to withdraw 12,000 American troops from Germany and sought to cut funding for the Pentagon’s European Deterrence Initiative, though the main factor that prompted Trump to pull out American forces from Germany was German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refusal to attend G-7 summit in person due to coronavirus outbreak. The summit was scheduled to be held at Camp David on June 10 but was cancelled. About half of the troops withdrawn from Germany were re-deployed in Europe, mainly in Italy and Poland, and the rest returned to the US.

Historically, the NATO military alliance at least ostensibly was conceived as a defensive alliance in 1949 during the Cold War in order to offset conventional warfare superiority of the former Soviet Union. The US forged collective defense pact with the Western European nations after the Soviet Union reached the threshold to build its first atomic bomb in 1949 and achieved nuclear parity with the US.

But the trans-Atlantic military alliance has outlived its purpose following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and is now being used as an aggressive and expansionist military alliance meant to browbeat and coerce the former Soviet clients, the Central and Eastern European states, to join NATO and its corollary economic alliance, the European Union, or be internationally isolated. If not Washington, the Europeans themselves should have abandoned the redundant militarist organization long ago.

Regarding the global footprint of American forces, according to a January 2017 infographic [2] by the New York Times, 210,000 US military personnel were deployed across the world, including 79,000 in Europe, 45,000 in Japan, 28,500 in South Korea and 36,000 in the Middle East.

Although Donald Trump keeps complaining that NATO must share the cost of deployment of the US troops, particularly in Europe where 47,000 American troops were stationed in Germany since the end of the Second World War and before the withdrawal of 12,000 US forces in July, 15,000 American troops were deployed in Italy and 8,000 in the United Kingdom, fact of the matter is that the cost is already shared between Washington and host countries.

Roughly, European countries pay one-third of the cost for maintaining US military bases in Europe whereas Washington chips in the remaining two-third. In the Far Eastern countries, 75% of the cost for the deployment of American troops is shared by Japan and the remaining 25% by Washington, and in South Korea, 40% cost is shared by the host country and the US contributes the remaining 60%.

Whereas the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) – Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar – pay two-third of the cost for maintaining 36,000 US troops in the Persian Gulf where more than half of world’s 1,477 billion barrels proven oil reserves are located, and Washington contributes the remaining one-third.

Besides withdrawing 12,000 troops from Germany, the Trump administration has also pledged to scale down American troop presence in Afghanistan after reaching a peace deal with the Taliban on February 29. The United States currently has about 8,600 troops in Afghanistan, and plans to cut its troop levels in Afghanistan to “a number less than 5,000” by the end of November, Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced in August, before the complete withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan by April next year, as stipulated by the terms of the peace pact reached with the Taliban at Doha, Qatar.

If we take a cursory look at the insurgency in Afghanistan, the Bush administration toppled the Taliban regime with the help of the Northern Alliance in October 2001 in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attack. Since the beginning, however, Afghanistan was an area of lesser priority for the Bush administration.

The number of US troops deployed in Afghanistan did not exceed beyond 30,000 during George Bush’s tenure as the American president, and soon after occupying Afghanistan, Washington invaded Iraq in March 2003 to expropriate its 140 billion barrels proven oil reserves, and American resources and focus shifted to Iraq.

It was the ostensibly “pacifist and noninterventionist” Obama administration that made the Afghanistan conflict the bedrock of its foreign policy in 2009 along with fulfilling then-President Obama’s electoral pledge of withdrawing American forces from Iraq in December 2011, only to be redeployed a couple of years later when the Islamic State overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in early 2014.

At the height of the surge of the US troops in Afghanistan in 2010, the American troops numbered around 100,000, with an additional 40,000 troops deployed by the rest of the NATO members, but they still could not manage to have a lasting impact on the relentless Taliban insurgency.

Similarly, the Nobel-laureate President Obama initiated a proxy war in Syria in 2011 to safeguard Israel’s regional security because the Bashar al-Assad government in alliance with Hezbollah in Lebanon constituted single biggest threat to Israel’s northern borders, a fact that became obvious to Israeli military strategists when Hezbollah mounted hundreds of rocket attacks into northern Israel during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.

After being elected, the Trump administration had to contend with the legacy of its predecessor. But thankfully, the conflict in Syria is gradually winding down. Before the evacuation of 1,000 American troops from northern Syria last year, the Pentagon had 2,000 US forces in Syria. After the drawdown of US troops at Erdogan’s insistence in order for Ankara to mount a ground offensive in northern Syria, the US has still deployed around 1,000 troops, mainly in oil-rich eastern Deir al-Zor province and at al-Tanf military base.

Al-Tanf military base is strategically located in southeastern Syria on the border between Syria, Iraq and Jordan, and it straddles on a critically important Damascus-Baghdad highway, which serves as a lifeline for Damascus. Washington has illegally occupied 55-kilometer area around al-Tanf since 2016, and several hundred US Marines have trained thousands of Syrian militants in the military base battling the Syrian government.

It’s pertinent to note that rather than fighting the Islamic State, the purpose of continued presence of the US forces at al-Tanf military base is to address Israel’s concerns regarding the expansion of Iran’s influence in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

Regarding the continued presence of American forces in oil- and natural gas-rich Deir al-Zor governorate, it’s worth pointing out that Syria used to produce roughly 400,000 barrels crude oil per day. Answering questions from Senator Lindsey Graham, Secretary of State Pompeo confessed [3] last month that the State Department had awarded an American company, Delta Crescent Energy, with a contract to begin extracting oil in northeast Syria.

Much like the “scorched earth” battle strategy of medieval warlords – as in the case of the Islamic State which burned crops of local farmers while retreating from its former strongholds in eastern Syria – Washington’s basic purpose in deploying the US forces in oil and natural gas fields of Deir al-Zor governorate is to deny the valuable source of income to Damascus.

After the devastation caused by nine years of proxy war, the Syrian government is in dire need of tens of billions dollars international assistance to rebuild the country. Not only is Washington hampering efforts to provide international assistance to the hapless country, it is in fact squatting over Syria’s own valuable resources.

Finally, after liberating Mosul and Anbar from the Islamic State in Iraq in July 2017 and Raqqa in Syria in October 2017, the Trump administration has decided [4] to reduce the number of American troops deployed in Iraq from current 5,200 to 3,500 troops in the next three months.

Another reason why Washington can no longer maintain large troop presence in Iraq is that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has vowed that Iran would not tolerate the presence of American forces in Iraq following the brazen assassination of venerated Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in January, and American military bases in Iraq have come under repeated rocket and missile attacks, particularly in an Iranian missile strike at al-Assad military base in January, scores of American troops suffered concussion injuries and had to be evacuated to Germany for treatment.

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.

Notes

[1] Allies and Former U.S. Officials Fear Trump Could Seek NATO Exit in a Second Term:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/03/us/politics/trump-nato-withdraw.html

[2] What the U.S. Gets for Defending Its Allies and Interests Abroad?

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/16/world/trump-military-role-treaties-allies-nato-asia-persian-gulf.html

[3] Delta Crescent Energy awarded the contract to extract Syria’s oil:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/08/20/opinion/oil-could-keep-us-middle-east-very-long-time/

[4] US to reduce number of troops in Iraq from 5,200 to 3,500 in next three months.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/us-troops-iraq-pentagon-trump-soldiers-a9694081.html

The International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “Court”) condemns the economic sanctions imposed by the US earlier today on the Court’s Prosecutor and a member of her Office.

The new measures, announced pursuant to the US Executive Order 13928 dated 11 June 2020, are another attempt to interfere with the Court’s judicial and prosecutorial independence and crucial work to address grave crimes of concern to the international community as mandated under the ICC Rome Statute.

These coercive acts, directed at an international judicial institution and its civil servants, are unprecedented and constitute serious attacks against the Court, the Rome Statute system of international criminal justice, and the rule of law more generally.

The Court continues to stand firmly by its personnel and its mission of fighting impunity for the world’s most serious crimes under international law, independently and impartially, in accordance with its mandate. In doing so, the Court benefits from the strong support and commitment of two thirds of the world’s States which are parties to the Rome Statute.

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Featured image is from the ICC

Established in 1985, the MRI Whale Unit is a global, African research, conservation and education facility that researches the ecology, population dynamics and behaviour of the diverse cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) in the Southern African sub-region and surrounding oceans, with the principal objective of providing knowledge that will promote their conservation. A primary raison d’être of the Unit remains the development of human capacity in these areas. Research, Conservation and Education are interlinked to execute forward-looking programmes, integral for the understanding of conservation priorities for African cetaceans.

The MRI Whale Unit possesses a wealth of expertise and tacit knowledge, intellectual property, and well-established knowledge resource bases. The Unit has current national and international collaborations with over 30 organisations, and co-leads the research theme on southern right whales of the Southern Ocean Research Partnership of the International Whaling Commission (iwc.int/sorp)

Research Projects range across a broad national and international geographic and institutional spectrum and align within these Research Themes:

• Recovering Whales – The role of large whales in Southern Hemisphere Ocean Ecosystems

  • Large Migratory whale population abundance and trends

    • Southern right whale population abundance and trends

    • East and West coast humpback whale abundance

    • Antarctic blue whale population abundance

    • Acoustic monitoring of seasonal presence and abundance of baleen whales on historical whaling grounds

  • Large whale feeding ecology

    • West coast humpback feeding ecology

    • Southern right whales as a model species to predict the effects of climate change on Southern Ocean productivity

    • Southern right whale body condition on the South African breeding ground

• African Links – Building African Marine Mammal research capacity

  • African East Coast and Western Indian Ocean

    • Establishing movement links of humpback whales between SA and Mozambique, Madagascar and the Western Indian ocean archipelago breeding grounds

    • Monitoring occurrence of southern right whales in Mozambique and links between SA and Mozambique

The Real and Imminent Extinction Risk to Whales, Dolphins And Porpoises

This is an open letter from experts highlighting the current risks to the worlds cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises). The list of signatories to the statement is still being regularly updated. The final date to sign on is the end of September. If your name is missing or if there are some other problems with your sign-on please email us and we will correct this.

Please email both Mark Simmonds ([email protected]) and Els Vermeulen ([email protected]) to sign or make a correction. The list of species and populations and their statuses is based exclusively on the IUCN red data list.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW OR DOWNLOAD THE PDF.

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Featured image is from MRI

With Sino-U.S. tensions escalating over several security and economic issues, fears are mounting in the financial markets that China may massively sell U.S. government debt it holds as a weapon to choke the world’s biggest economy.

If Beijing, which owns more than $1 trillion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds, really takes such action, that would push down debt prices and drive up interest rates in the United States, stifling investment and consumer spending at home.

As large-scale sales of U.S. dollar-denominated assets would trigger the depreciation of the currency against the Japanese yen, the Asian nation’s economy could be also beset by a downturn in exports, a key engine of growth, diplomatic sources said.

“Should China sell U.S. bonds at a rapid pace in a bid to attack the United States, relations between the two countries would irrecoverably deteriorate,” said Yuzo Sakai, chief manager of foreign exchange business promotion at Ueda Totan Forex Ltd.

“Under such circumstances, market participants would rush to buy the safe-haven Japanese currency by selling risky assets, probably leading to a steep appreciation of the yen,” Sakai said.

Recently, the United States has been intensifying its offensive against China, especially after the mainland enforced a controversial national security law for its territory Hong Kong, which has been lambasted for eroding freedoms and human rights there.

In late June, China enacted the legislation to crack down on what it regards as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces in Hong Kong, apparently aiming to quell anti-government protests in the former British colony.

Since then, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has taken steps such as ordering China to shut down its consulate general in Houston, Texas, and imposing sanctions on Chinese officials including pro-Beijing Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam.

China has so far implemented retaliatory measures against the United States, sparking concern that their battle would develop into a “financial war,” one of the diplomatic sources said.

Amid speculation that Trump may ultimately expel China from the dollar settlement system in the world, the leadership of President Xi Jinping could “threaten the United States by saying it will sell U.S. Treasury debt at high volume,” the source said.

Indeed, China has been gradually letting go of U.S. bonds since Trump waged a tit-for-tat tariff trade war in 2018.

In June, China decreased its holdings of U.S. Treasury bills, bonds and notes by $9.3 billion to a total of $1.07 trillion, according to the U.S. government. China has already fallen behind Japan to become the second-biggest holder of U.S. Treasury debt.

Bond prices move inversely to yields. If a U.S. Treasury sell-off accelerates, it could bring a surge in interest rates, dealing a crushing blow to the U.S. economy with mortgage rates and corporate borrowing costs ballooning, analysts said.

Should the outlook for the U.S. economy dim and risk-averse sentiment spread in the financial market, demand for the yen would grow, which could impede recovery in Japan’s export-oriented economy, they added.

A higher yen usually dampens exports by making Japanese products more expensive abroad and cutting the value of overseas revenues in yen terms.

“The Japanese economy has languished due in part to the new coronavirus pandemic and last year’s 2-percentage-point consumption tax hike. In addition to them, if the yen excessively rises, Japan would face a predicament,” another diplomatic source said.

Japan’s economy in the April-June period shrank an annualized real 27.8 percent from the previous quarter, the sharpest contraction on record.

Some pundits, however, have ruled out the possibility of China’s massive selling of U.S. debt, saying it could backfire on Beijing.

A U.S. Treasury sell-off “might damage the United States in the short term but it would inculcate critical economic instability into the global and Chinese economy,” said Stephen Nagy, a senior associate professor at International Christian University in Tokyo.

Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University Japan in Tokyo, echoed the view, saying the question is “where would all that liquidity be invested and how disruptive might that be?”

“Nudging a fragile global economy into the abyss has great potential to harm China’s economy,” he said.

Kingston added that dumping U.S. Treasury bonds “would lower the price as they are sold off, and other countries might see them as relatively attractive compared to other investment options and scoop them up at bargain prices.”

But an institutional investor at a major security house in Tokyo said it may be difficult for Japan to boost its holdings of U.S. government debt as the move could be condemned by other nations as a “currency manipulation.”

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Official figures show that more than 50,000 people have waited a year for treatment – up from 1,117 a year ago.

It comes amid concern about a surge in positive Covid cases, with daily records showing 1,522 cases, up from 1,048 the day before. However, weekly figures show the first decline for six weeks, despite rises in the numbers being tested. 

The vast majority of NHS surgery and other routine treatment was stopped for months during lockdown.

But medics said efforts to restore services are moving too slowly, with some likening their hospitals to “the Mary Celeste” because so many patients were being kept away.

Prof Neil Mortensen, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said the NHS was struggling to restore services, with a lack of routine testing for NHS staff hindering efforts to create “Covid-free” zones.

1. Do you think that “saving lives” is consistent with the prolonged closure of vital sectors of civil society?

Covid-19: profound impacts on the global economy

    2. Do you think that “saving lives” is compatible with preventing GPs from prescribing the treatments they are familiar with?

France bans hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus

Response to covid-19: Dr. Bellaton’s healthy anger

Hydroxychloroquine works in high-risk patients, and saying otherwise is dangerous.

   3. Do you think that “saving lives” is compatible with the confinement of millions of people who have caused an increase in domestic violence (battered women and children)?

Confinement: doubling the number of calls to crisis lines for victims of domestic violence

France: sharp increase in reports of domestic violence during confinement

   4. Do you think that “saving lives” is compatible with the moral desperation generated by the confinement and morbid discourse of the media?

Coronavirus: there is “an increase in depression due to the psychiatric consequences of confinement”, warns a psychiatrist.

How Containment Promotes Depression

   5. Do you think that “saving lives” is consistent with the increase in suicides caused by anti-VIDEO measures?

Confinement has led to an increase in suicides.

    6. Do you think that “saving lives” is compatible with conditions that lead to massive unemployment, which in turn leads to poverty, lack of access to health care, criminality, violence and famine?

Covid-19 causes a surge of unemployment in the world.

Heavy impact of Covid-19 on Belgian employment

    7. Do you think that “saving lives” is compatible with the impoverishment of countries that are already extremely poor?

COVID-19, Global Lock-in and Destruction: Economic and Social Impacts

 Do you think that “saving” lives is compatible with stopping care for the most morbid human diseases?

COVID-19 has serious repercussions on health services for non-communicable diseases (cancers, heart disease, diabetes, etc.).

The mortality of COVID-19 is still unknown but much less than that announced and, above all, much less than all the consequences of its management.

• The lack of water kills 5 million people every year.
• 5 million malnourished children die every year.

Planetoscope

• Cardiovascular disease killed 18 million people in 2017.
• Cancers killed 10 million people in 2017.

Our World in Data: Causes of Death

And it will get much worse because of the management of a single disease?

To “save lives”?

The media say that it is the COVID-19 disease that causes all these consequences, unemployment, economic disasters, pathogenic containment?

NO!

It is the management of your government, of these “experts” that is the cause!

Their choices, their decisions in the face of COVID-19!

Our governments, faced with a single disease, have decided to sacrifice lives!

Do you still think that the management of the COVID-19 crisis by our governments really saves lives?

Dr Pascal Sacré

The August 20 Zoom conference with Venezuelan Foreign Minister of People’s Power Jorge Arreaza, featured, among other issues, his devastating analysis of the Trudeau government’s interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs on behalf of Trump. Any justice-loving Canadian listening may think that Simon Bolívar, the 19th-century Venezuelan independence hero had it right. He famously said: “The United States appears to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.” However, we may now add Canada under Justin Trudeau along with the U.S.; Canadians imbued with a sense of the principles of sovereignty, not to mention international law, need to recognize it.

At one point in the lengthy conference, Arreaza, asked:

“Why was Canada following the steps of the United States? Why was Canada even taking the blows, to say things that the United States, because of the very bad reputation they have in Latin American countries, couldn’t say? So, Canada began to be in the frontlines of the aggression against Venezuela. And we had really no idea what would happen.

Why Canada? We always saw Canada as a bridge, as an actor with whom we could establish dialogue and search for dialogue with the United States and even other parts of the world. But it was not the case, and [Canada] always using the framework of the defence of human rights. So, you know that the prime minister of Canada, Mr. Trudeau has had, … and he is nothing like his father I must say, and he has had some differences with the Trump administration, especially climate change, trade agreements, etc. And …., so Venezuela was an easy card to agree upon, so that’s what they did. They said, okay, we have these fights, but let’s agree about Venezuela. We will do what you can’t do. Let us organize the Lima group. It won’t be you directly, Mr. Pompeo. It’s going to be Chrystia [Freeland], it’s going to be Trudeau. It’s going to be easier if we do it this way, because if the United States is a member of the Lima group, no one is going to give any credibility to this group, because they will believe that it is the United States with its regime change policy trying to attack Venezuela.

And, … there is a second reason or motivation that produces this aggression from Canada against Venezuela. It is related to the oil interests, these big companies in Alberta, this province of Canada where you produce heavy oil just like Venezuelan oil, heavy oil, and your refineries, especially in the south of the United States, in Texas, in Florida and other parts, are designed for the Venezuelan oil, for heavy oil. Because traditionally it was Venezuela that supplied this petroleum, this oil to the refineries. And now, because of this aggression against Venezuela, because of these sanctions against Venezuela, the oil from Canada is substituting for the oil from Venezuela.

There was a clear motivation, but there was also some interest from some companies, like Crystallex, which was a mining company in Venezuela, which was like a fake company, which never existed, really, because, its name is Crystallex [gold], because it was created for a region in Venezuela which had important goldmines called cristinas, so it was Crystallex. […] But, at some point, President Chávez decided to nationalize all the gold industries, and these companies were asked to leave Venezuela. So, they went to an arbitration process and suddenly, during these last years, we lost this arbitration process and that money that the public of Venezuela, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela owes, has to pay to this Crystallex so-called company.

But it is related to Canada, it’s Canadian and they have links with this member of parliament, Juan Guaidó. I must say that nobody knew Juan Guaidó before he raised his hand in the middle of a demonstration in the street and self-proclaimed as president of our country, and many Venezuelans have forgotten his name. … So, all this business interest came into this new chess game and Canada was in the vanguard of this aggression against Venezuela.

We must remember that this Lima group was created because the United States didn’t manage to have all the votes they needed in the OAS, the Organization of American States, to expel Venezuela or apply the Democratic Charter of the Americas and intervene in Venezuela, especially because they couldn’t convince the ALBA countries and the countries of the CARICOM, the Caribbean nations. They never had the 24 votes they needed, they even didn’t have the 18 votes at the beginning. So, they created this Lima group, which is an informal group. It is not legal, it is not registered in any international organization and it meets to attack Venezuela. And usually the chair of this group is Peru, usually, but that’s formal. The real orders and instructions are given by Canada, but especially from the U.S., from Washington to Canada to the Lima group. And in one of the last meetings they had, they even connected with video conferences with Pompeo. The United States is not a member of the group, and Pompeo tells them what to do.”

In a first meeting with Elliot Abrams (Trump’s special envoy for Venezuela) at the UN, Arreaza recalled that he told him that, in reference to all the plans and predictions to overthrow Maduro, that they will not come to fruition. Arreaza pointed out:

“Well, after that [first meeting] we met and I told him, you see, Mr. Abrams, that nothing happened, that our military is respecting our Constitution and our government and your coup d’état has failed. And he said, ‘Okay, if it failed, I must accept it, at least for now. But next, we are going to apply a maximum pressure strategy. And we have a lot of allies.’ And on his list, Canada was always the first one.”

However, despite the support of the Trudeau government for the Trump/Pompeo regime change sanctions and attempted coup d’états, Arreaza extended an olive branch:

“And I want to share with you [the Canadian public], I insist, if Mr. Champagne, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, wants to have a conversation with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, I can call him, and we can have a telephone phone call right now. If he wants to meet with me in Ottawa, in Caracas, in Mexico City, in Beijing or whatever, I can travel. Whenever you want, because we believe that we should respect Canada and Canada should respect Venezuela and not interfere in Venezuelan internal affairs.”

Again, in the context of the question and answer period from journalists, this one relating to the plans for another U.S.-led military intervention, Arreaza reiterated:

“Maybe they [Canadian government officials] can listen to this [conference]. I am so sure that, I don’t know if the Minister, but people from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Canada are listening to this conference, to this exchange, and they are taking notes, hopefully they rectify themselves, and they will never support, not now or in the future, a military operation against Venezuela.”

There has been no word from the Canadian government. However, on August 21, an article was published in the National Post by one of the journalists that  attended the conference. Quoting extensively from Guaidó’s fake ambassador, it makes essentially two points:

1. The economic hardships afflicting Venezuela are the fault of the Maduro government and not U.S./Canadian sanctions.

2. Canada and the Lima group exist to save Venezuela from a “humanitarian disaster,” “human rights violations” and carry through a “democratic transition.”

In a follow-up article published on August 26 in the National Post the same journalist, rather than taking into account the objections raised on social media (and a letter sent to him by the author of these lines to rectify some facts) went even further. He more forcefully continued to portray the Trudeau government and the Lima group as a force for “peaceful transition to democracy in Venezuela.”

In the meantime, indications are that a military invasion of Venezuela is being organized now by the U.S. and its allies for October, just before the November 4 Presidential elections. Why are the Trudeau government and Canadian media ignoring this?

In the light of this colossal breach of international law, can Canadians remain silent? On the contrary, members of parliament, trade unions, political organizations and intellectuals in Canada and throughout the world must speak out now!

See the full Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza Conference and discussion that took place on August 20, here thanks to Canadian Dimension

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This article was originally published on The Canada Files.

Arnold August is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from El Estimulo

Washington announced the lifting of the embargo to sell American-made non-lethal equipment to the Republic of Cyprus. US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, told Cypriot President Nikos Anastasiadis over the phone on Tuesday that Washington decided to lift the embargo imposed on Cyprus since 1987, but only for non-lethal equipment.

“The Republic of Cyprus is a key partner in the Eastern Mediterranean. I am pleased to announce that we are deepening our security cooperation. We will waive restrictions on the sale of non-lethal defense articles and services to the Republic of Cyprus for the coming fiscal year,” Pompeo said on Twitter.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry slammed the decision saying it “disregards the equality and balance” on the island and said it expected its NATO ally to “review” it, “otherwise, Turkey as a guarantor country will take the necessary reciprocal steps in line with its legal and historical responsibility to guarantee the security of the Turkish Cypriot people.”

Cyprus was divided in 1974 when Turkey invaded the northern portion of the East Mediterranean island. Turkey then established the illegal Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus that is recognized by no other country in the world except Turkey. Washington established an arms embargo on Cyprus in 1987 in the supposed attempt to encourage the reunification of Cyprus and prevent an arms race on the island, however, this was actually to ensure that the island remained permanently divided to serve NATO interests in the region. For decades the U.S. has not only tolerated Turkish aggression, but has encouraged it.

In fact, a declassification from the National Security Adviser’s Memoranda of Conversation Collection at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library revealed that then US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, told President Gerald Ford that if Greece went to war with Turkey, America should back the Turks and that they were entitled to seize a part of the island. When speaking about a Greek response to a Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Kissinger told the president that “We certainly do not want a war between the two, but if it came to that, Turkey is more important to us and they have a political structure which could produce a Qadhafi,” referring to Libya’s long-time ruler. Kissinger added that “there is no American reason why the Turks should not have one-third of Cyprus.”

The US appeasement for Ankara during the decades of the Cold War, and beyond it, is what has created a “Qadhafi” in the country that Kissinger had told about. Although US President Donald Trump undoubtedly has a “bromance” with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for his personal business ventures, many within the US state apparatus have a growing animosity towards Turkey. The US State Department as recently as last week condemned Turkey for hosting Hamas leaders, and Senators and Congressmen from both major political parties are banding together to force American sanctions on Turkey.

The US Ambassador to Cyprus, Judith Garber, stated only yesterday that the US decision to lift the embargo imposed on Cyprus, in terms of non-lethal equipment, does not concern Turkey but greater security and stability in the Eastern Mediterranean. Garber said that the US decision to lift the embargo will be valid from October 1, 2020 until September 30, 2021. Garber reminded that the legislation that enabled the announced decision calls on Cyprus to continue its efforts to implement strong anti-money laundering and financial regulatory oversight regulations and to take the necessary steps to refuse access to Russian warships in its ports for supplies and services. The American Ambassador went on to claim that Russia is playing a very destabilizing role in the region.

“Cyprus is an important partner and a key player in the Eastern Mediterranean… this step strengthens our security relationship with Cyprus and increases security in the Eastern Mediterranean,” she added.

In return for not allowing Russian ships to port in Cyprus, the island country can buy non-lethal equipment from the Americans, such as binoculars and bullet proof vests.

It is highly unlikely that decisionmakers in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia will enforce Washington’s desires as Russia has been a mainstay of the Cypriot economy when the US has never showed an interest in it. The US always had a preference for its foreign investment in the East Mediterranean to go to Turkey and Israel instead. In addition, although Cyprus does not have a fully professional military, it is a highly militarized state, despite being a country of only 1.2 million people. Cyprus has 14-month compulsory military service for all men, where they will also be reservists until they are 50 years old. With the US embargoing weapons to Cyprus to ensure Turkey’s military superiority on the island, it is Russia that sells critical weaponry to the Cypriots.

Cyprus is not a NATO member; in fact, it is a NATO member that occupies northern Cyprus. It is for this reason that Nicosia has a lot more independence in its decision making to its interests – unlike Greece, as an example of an East Mediterranean NATO member. Cyprus is not willing to sacrifice a decades’ long positive relationship with Russia to buy military gloves and boots from the US. Nicosia understand that the US demands are not to serve Cypriot interests, whether it be security from another potential Turkish invasion or for the reunification of the island, but rather they are receiving tokenistic gifts from Washington so that it can become an anti-Russian state in the East Mediterranean. Although the US has made efforts to improve relations with Cyprus, albeit for the ulterior motive of targeting Russia, decision makers in Nicosia will opt to try and balance its relations with Washington and Moscow. However, this also means that Cyprus is unlikely to decide to close their ports to Russian ships.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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In Brazil, a serious environmental crisis is approaching. The Amazon Forest and the Brazilian Pantanal are suffering the direct consequences of deforestation and irregular exploitation of their natural resources, which are already beginning to threaten the very existence of these biomes.

At the beginning of October, around 50 civil society organizations joined together to demand from the National Development Bank (BNDS) – Brazilian federal bank whose objective is to finance large national economic projects – the release of financial resources for the Amazon Fund – a project that aims to undertake a series of initiatives for the preservation of natural resources and combating deforestation in the Amazon Forest. The reason why the Amazon Fund needed to resort to BNDS is simple: its external partners are ending alliances due to the misuse of money.

Last year, Germany and Norway suspended transfers after Environment Minister Ricardo Salles announced changes to the fund’s management. Such changes significantly reduced the participation of the civil society and entities in defense of the forest, which began to be questioned by environmentalists as a possible scheme to prevent the implementation of environmental defense projects, facilitating deforestation. Still, recently, the campaign “DefundBolsonaro” was created, with a strong presence of indigenous community leaders and environmental activists, whose objective is to pressure companies and investors that support President Bolsonaro to cease financing his government due to the serious environmental impact of his policies.

Another factor that is currently on the rise and strongly contributes to the destruction of the Amazon is the spread of fires. Since the beginning of July, the number of fires in the Amazon has increased by almost 30% over the same period last year.

The Amazon rainforest had 6,803 fires in July. The previous month had already been the worst June in the last 13 years, according to official data from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). In August, 29,307 fire outbreaks were reported, 12.4% above the historical average.

Faced with the catastrophic scenario in the Amazon rainforest, Bolsonaro acts through silence and denialism, completely ignoring the existence of such fires and further encouraging deforestation and the destruction of the native forest for the expansion of agribusiness – most of these fires are caused by farmers interested in expanding pasture for cattle or destroying native vegetation for the cultivation of agricultural products.

A recent episode that caused particular collective indignation, mainly on social networks, was the release of a video of Bolsonaro’s participation in a meeting of the Davos Economic Forum, in 2019, in which the president and foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo, talked privately with former US Vice President Al Gore. In this private and informal conversation, Al Gore mentions that he is deeply concerned about the situation in the Amazon and Bolsonaro replies that there are many resources in the Amazon and that he “would like to explore them with the United States”. The tone of absolute disdain with which the Brazilian president refers to the largest biome in his country has caused revolt not only in Brazil, but among environmentalists worldwide.

Brazil’s Amazon, Forest Fires, August 2020

Despite the serious situation in the Amazon, the case of the Brazilian Pantanal is similarly terrible and even more worrying.

The Pantanal had in August the worst month in its history regarding fires, with 5,935 ones reported. In the previous month, July, the Pantanal also recorded the highest number of fires in a month of July in its history. Although the numbers appear to be lower than those in the Amazon, the situation in the Pantanal is more worrying since this biome is much smaller than the Amazon rainforest.

According to several experts, the Brazilian Pantanal may disappear completely in less than three decades if public policies for environmental purposes are not promptly implemented in order to stop deforestation and fires. The disappearance of the Pantanal would bring with it the extinction of several animal and plant species that only exist in this biome or that have its largest population there. In addition, the impact on the Brazilian economy would be gigantic, due to the economic potential of the region, where tourism and the rational and sustainable exploitation of natural resources earn millions of dollars every year.

The path Bolsonaro is taking is a true political suicide. The neglecting on the environmental issue will cost Brazil to stay completely out of the new global dynamic, where sustainability and investments in environmental projects are assuming a central role in the world economy – which will be even more evident in the post-pandemic world. Still, Bolsonaro can reawaken the debate around the internationalization of the Amazon – a topic previously suggested by Emmanuel Macron and which has gained great popularity among politicians worldwide. Still, something like a defense of the internationalization of the Pantanal may also come up, which would be a serious blow against Brazilian sovereignty and national unity.

The question that remains is: having the debate about the internationalization of Brazilian biomes already arisen and Bolsonaro affirmed that he wanted to “explore the Amazon with the US”, would the Brazilian president really be innocent or interested in bringing these biomes to the foreign domain?

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

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Hegemon USA increasingly finds itself isolated on the world stage.

The harder it pressures, bullies, otherwise threatens and/or bludgeons other countries to bend to its will, the further its isolation longer-term.

On Tuesday, Joint Commission of the JCPOA signatories Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and Iran met in Vienna, a statement by Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov saying the following:

“We are witnessing an important process of consolidation of parties to the JCPOA against this American venture.”

“We are certain that the results of today’s event will help our colleagues in New York continue their work in the right direction.”

Ministers attending the meeting stressed the importance of preserving the landmark JCPOA agreement.

By abandoning it illegally in May 2018, the Trump regime has no say on matters relating to it.

Remaining P4+1 countries oppose imposing snapback sanctions on Iran, what the Trump regime vowed to do unilaterally in flagrant violation of the rule of law both wings of the US one-party state ignore with disturbing regularity.

Ryabkov stressed that

“(w)e are certain that if the international community and the UN Council members will continue to stick to principled positions on this issue, which is what we are working on, then the situation will emerge when the US will be alone in the UN Security Council with this paradoxical point of view.”

“At least, such a unique development seems rather likely.”

“Therefore, the US can end up losing a lot if it does not review its unfounded position and does not take obvious things into account.”

Ryabkov told other ministers of Vladimir Putin’s call for a Persian Gulf security summit, saying:

“The Russian delegation used the (Vienna meeting) to substantively deliver not only details of this proposal, but also to promote the colleagues’ understanding of the concept of collective security in the Persian Gulf area, which we put forward in an updated form last year.”

Following talks between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his German counterpart Heiko Maas before the Vienna meeting, both ministers agreed on the importance of preserving the JCPOA.

Maas stressed it at a Tuesday press conference. The Trump regime has no support for abandoning what’s affirmed by SC Res. 2231, making the JCPOA binding international law.

Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif earlier denounced the US for being an “unreliable partner that is violating all legal norms and doesn’t abide by its obligations.”

From Vienna on Tuesday, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said the following:

“All JCPOA members and the majority of the international community members are opposed to the US’ unilateral policies and its policy of weakening multilateralism, international organizations and multilateral approaches in the international relations.”

“Everybody complains about the measures the US is taking to ruin the international institutions.”

On Wednesday, Iranian President Rouhani said the Trump regime “will certainly not succeed in its claim that it would return all the sanctions against Iran later in September,” adding:

“It is another meaningless and baseless claim by the US, as it deprived itself of any right when it walked out of the (JCPOA) deal in 2018.”

A joint statement by remaining P4+1 signatories on Tuesday said the following in full:

“1. A meeting of the Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) took place in Vienna on 1st September, 2020.”

“Under the terms of the JCPOA, the Joint Commission is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the agreement.”

“The Joint Commission was chaired, on behalf of EU High Representative Josep Borrell, by EEAS Secretary General Helga-Maria Schmid and was attended by representatives of China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and Iran at the level of Political Directors/Deputy Foreign Ministers.”

“2. All participants reaffirmed the importance of preserving the agreement recalling that it is a key element of the global nuclear non-proliferation architecture, as endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015).”

“Full implementation of the agreement by all sides remains crucial.”

“3. In light of recent discussions in the United Nations Security Council in New York concerning the issue of the attempted reinstatement of previously lifted UN sanctions, the participants reaffirmed that the United States unilaterally announced its cessation of participation in the JCPOA on 8 May 2018 and that it had not participated in any JCPOA-related activities subsequently.”

“Participants reconfirmed that it therefore could not be considered as a participant State.”

“In this regard, participants also reaffirmed their various statements and communications made previously at the Security Council including that of the High Representative of 20 August as Co-ordinator of the JCPOA to the effect that the US cannot initiate the process of reinstating UN sanctions under UNSC resolution 2231.”

4. Participants welcomed the Joint Statement of Iran and the IAEA dated 26 August the implementation of which has already started.”

“In this context, they recalled the important role of the IAEA as the sole impartial and independent international organization responsible for the monitoring and verification of nuclear non-proliferation commitments.”

“5. The Joint Commission addressed nuclear as well as sanctions lifting issues under the agreement. Experts will continue discussions on all issues of concern.”

“6. Participants reiterated the importance of nuclear non-proliferation projects, in particular the Arak Modernization Project and the stable isotope project in Fordow.”

“Taking into account the potential consequences of the US decision in May to end the Arak waiver, participants reiterated their strong support and collective responsibility for the continuation of the project.”

“7. The meeting took place against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“Participants expressed their solidarity with all countries affected in their efforts to address the outbreak.”

“The Joint Commission had not been able to convene recently due to relevant travel restrictions.”

If remaining P4+1 JCPOA signatories abide by their commitments to reject US demands for snapback sanctions on Iran and for the UN arms embargo on the country to expire on October 18, the Trump regime will be isolated on these issues and can be effectively countered.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth is thrilled to present “Justice Rising,” an online conference on the continuing struggle for 9/11 justice and the destructive trajectory of the post-9/11 world.

The conference will run from Friday, September 11, to Sunday, September 13, marking the 19th anniversary of the day that changed our world so profoundly. The conference will go for three hours each day and will be open to all free of charge.

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Conference Schedule

The conference goes for three hours each day. All times are Eastern Daylight Time.

Justice Friday

The Long Road to Justice | 6 to 6:45 PM Eastern

The rapidly shifting geopolitical realities, every new emerging international security situation, and (especially) current circumstances in South Asia behoove Pakistan to treat the Kashmir issue as its top priority – and thankfully Islamabad is doing that. The recent statement by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, concerning the establishment of an alternative Muslim bloc to deal with the Kashmir issue – in the face of Saudi opposition to raising it within the OIC – is certainly historic.

Not for the past half century has Islamabad issued any statement even remotely close to as ‘confrontational’ as this one. There are of course a variety of factors at play, which have led to the culmination of the audacity of the current Pakistani government to be so publicly explicit and candid with the House of Saud.

Prime Minister Imran Khan‘s incredibly vocal and relentless pursuit of justice for Kashmiris in the face of Indian annexation and ongoing settler-colonial brutality in the region (driven by BJP’s Nazi ideology)  – and the House of Saud’s immediate blessing of India’s inhumane action is one such factor. The humiliation that the Prime Minister personally felt when MBS vomited all potential threats to Imran and to Pakistan to prevent him from attending the KL Summit proved to be a good lesson of what kind of a ‘friend’ MBS is to him (and to Pakistan).

Simultaneously, there are larger geopolitical tectonic shifts taking place, albeit gradually, that are increasingly enabling Islamabad to commit to affirming its sovereignty, autonomy, and to a process of deepening decolonization.

Certain changes in the international political economic arena have provided Pakistan with a position where interests and future plans of the world’s two most formidable superpowers, both U.S. and China, are completely dependent on Islamabad.  The US, in its typical transactional and opportunistic way, is completely dependent on Islamabad to have some type of withdrawal from Afghanistan. The U.S. National Security establishment is becoming very nervous about Pakistan’s indifference to Washington because of the former’s strengthening relations with China. China, on the other hand, is effectively encircled by American naval ships and bases dead set on some form of confrontation with Beijing at some point – making Pakistan’s Gwadar port literally a lifeline for China to continue its incredible need for energy as well as its preponderant role in global trade and supply lines.

In addition, it is becoming clear that there is something remarkably different about the current political dispensation in Pakistan itself. Both the civilian leadership of Imran Khan and the dominant sections of the military high command are in agreement about much of the foreign policy and national security objectives of Pakistan at this critical historical juncture. Something that many ‘Westoxicated’ liberals in Pakistan aren’t happy with.

Islamabad no longer seems to be handicapped by either the old Cold War framework or the ‘War on Terror’ era that kept Pakistan subordinated and entrapped within the needs of Washington.

The Pakistani historian Ayesha Jalal has a predilection to highlight issues of self and sovereignty in post-colonial states such as Pakistan. Now is the right time to reimagine an Islamicate reconstruction embodied in the Pakistani polity.

And crucially, it is at this time when the weaknesses, not the strengths, of global and regional Zionism are on full display. Both Muslims throughout the world as well as the millions upon millions in the Global South and Global North who have been in solidarity with the Palestinians, the Kashmiris, and with oppressed peoples everywhere, see the blatant contradictions by countries like the House of Saud, the UAE, and Egypt. These nations not only refrain from calling out these crimes against humanities that Israel and India are perpetrating but, on the contrary, opt to bestow awards on them (to Modi) and/or legitimize the atrocities (by recognizing Israel in its post-1967 form).

These contradictions can no longer be concealed. Leaders like Imran and Erdogan realize that this is the moment where meaningful Islamicate integration between Muslim nations and societies, seriously committed to social justice, could finally lead to the demise of what many analysts call the curse of Saudi Wahhabi hegemony.

As it is well-understood, this is no easy or small geopolitical maneuvering taking place. It may very well take some time. But the signs are there. The effective enslavement of Islamabad to Riyadh due to economic matters may one day see its pleasant end when Pakistan’s leadership starts taking more trips to Doha than to Riyadh.

It’s a choice that Islamabad needs to make. Having disentangled itself from various humiliating forms of subordination to outside powers, it seems pretty clear that this dynamic of subordination has one remaining irritant left for Pakistanis: that of the House of Saud.

Fortunately, the Pakistani leadership has the choice to be more independent and affirm its own dignity in deepening its integration and cooperation with other Islamicate countries such as Turkey, Iran, Qatar, and Malaysia, as well as with other nations from the Global South. That seems to be the only way forward to deepening decolonization for a real, meaningful independence.

Zooming out we can see a trend of shifting alliances in the world, especially in the Eastern hemisphere. China is leading a bloc joined by Russia and Iran. Turkey and Malaysia are mobilizing too, and it will not be a surprise if they try to jump in as well. Pakistan in such a situation finds itself in a very favorable position both geopolitically and economically. If addressed well, this is arguably the most critical juncture in the country’s history for Islamabad to take advantage of.

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Dr. Junaid S. Ahmad is Professor of Religion and Global Politics in Islamabad, Pakistan, and is a Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) in Istanbul.

The U.S. is Saving the Financial Sector, not the Economy

Before juxtaposing the U.S. and alternative responses to the corona virus’s economic effects, I would like to step back in time to show how the pandemic has revealed a deep underlying problem. We are seeing the consequences of Western societies painting themselves into a debt corner by their creditor-oriented philosophy of law. Neoliberal anti-government (or more accurately, anti-democratic) ideology has centralized social planning and state power in “the market,” meaning specifically the financial market on Wall Street and in other financial centers.

At issue is who will lose when employment and business activity are disrupted. Will it be creditors and landlords at the top of the economic scale, or debtors and renters at the bottom? This age-old confrontation over how to deal with the unpaid rents, mortgages and other debt service is at the heart of today’s virus pandemic as large and small businesses, farms, restaurants and neighborhood stores have fallen into arrears, leaving businesses and households – along with their employees who have no wage income – to pay these carrying charges that accrue each month.

This is an age-old problem. It was solved in the ancient Near East simply by annulling these debt and rent charges. But the West, shaped as it still is by the legacy of the Roman Empire, has left itself prone to the massive unemployment, business closedowns and resulting arrears for these basic costs of living and doing business.

Western civilization distinguishes itself from its Near Eastern predecessors in the way it has responded to “acts of God” that disrupt the means of support and leave debts in their wake. The United States has taken the lead in rejecting the path by which China, and even social democratic European nations have prevented the corona virus from causing widespread insolvency and polarizing their economies. The U.S. corona virus lockdown is turning rent and debt arrears into an opportunity to impoverish the indebted economy and transfer mortgaged property and its income to creditors.

There is no inherent material need for this fate to occur. But it seems so natural and even inevitable that, as Margaret Thatcher would say, There Is No Alternative.

But of course there is, and always has been. However, resilience in the face of economic disruption always has required a central authority to override “market forces” to restore economic balance from “above.”

Individualistic economies cannot do that. To the extent that they have a strong state, they are not democratic but oligarchic, controlled by the financial sector in its own interest, in tandem with its symbiotic real estate sector and monopolized infrastructure. That is why every successful society since the Bronze Age has been a mixed economy. The determining factor in whether or not an economic disruption leaves a crippled economy in its wake turns out to be whether its financial sector is a public utility or is privatized from the debt-strapped public domain as a means to enrich bankers and money-lenders at the expense of debtors and overall economic balance.

China is using an age-old policy used ever since Hammurabi and other Bronze Age rulers promoted economic resilience in the face of “acts of God.” Unless personal debts, rents and taxes that cannot be paid are annulled, the result will be widespread bankruptcy, impoverishment and homelessness. In contrast to America’s financialized economy, China has shown how natural it is for society simply to acknowledge that debts, rents, taxes and other carrying charges of living and doing business cannot resume until economic normalcy is able to resume.

Near Eastern protection of economic resilience in the face of Acts of God

Ancient societies had a different logic from those of modern capitalist economies. Their logic – and the Jewish Mosaic Law of Leviticus 25, as well as classical Greek and Roman advocates of democratic reform – was similar to modern socialism. The basic principle at work was to subordinate market relations to the needs of society at large, not to enrich a financial rentier class of creditors and absentee landowners. More specifically, the basic principle was to cancel debts that could not normally be paid, and prevent creditors from foreclosing on the land of debtors.

All economies operate on credit. In modern economies, bills for basic expenses are paid monthly or quarterly. Ancient economies operated on credit during the crop year, with payment falling due when the harvest was in – typically on the threshing floor. This cycle normally provided a flow of crops and corvée labor to the palace, and covered the cultivator’s spending during the crop year. Interest typically was owed only when payment was late.

But bad harvests, military conflict or simply the normal hardships of life frequently prevented this buildup of debt from being paid. Mesopotamian palaces had to decide who would bear the loss when drought, flooding, infestation, disease or military attack prevented the payment of debts, rents and taxes. Seeing that this was an unavoidable fact of life, rulers proclaimed amnesties for taxes and these various obligations incurred during the crop year. That saved smallholders from having to work off their debts in personal bondage to their creditors and ultimately to lose their land.

For these palatial economies, resilience meant stabilization of fiscal revenue. Letting private creditors (often officials in the palace’s own bureaucracy) demand payment out of future production threatened to deprive rulers of crop surpluses and other taxes, and corvée labor or even service in the military. But for thousands of years, Near Eastern rulers restored fiscal viability for their economies by writing down debts, not only in emergencies but more or less regularly to relieve the normal creeping backlog of debts.

These Clean Slates extended from Sumer and Babylonia in the 3rd millennium BC to classical antiquity, including the neo-Assyrian, neo-Babylonian and Persian Empires. They restored normal economic relations by rolling back the consequences of personal and agrarian debts – bondage to creditors, and loss of land and its crop yield. From the palace’s point of view as tax collector and seller of many key goods and services, the alternative would have been for debtors to owe their crops, labor and even liberty to their creditors, not to the palace. So cancelling debts to restore normalcy was simply pragmatic, not utopian idealism as was once thought.

The pedigree for “act-of-God” rules specifying what obligations need not be paid when serious disruptions occur goes back to the laws of Hammurabi c. 1750 BC. Their aim was to restore economic normalcy after major disruptions. §48 of Hammurabi’s laws proclaim a debt and tax amnesty for cultivators if Adad the Storm God had flooded their fields, or if their crops failed as a result of pests or drought. Crops owed as rent or fiscal payments were freed from having to be paid. So were consumer debts run up during the crop year, including tabs at the local ale house and advances or loans from individual creditors. The ale woman likewise was freed from having to pay for the ale she had received from palace or temples for sale during the crop year.

Whoever leased an animal that died by an act of god was freed from liability to its owner (§266). A typical such amnesty occurred if the lamb, ox or ass was eaten by a lion, or if an epidemic broke out. Likewise, traveling merchants who were robbed while on commercial business were cleared of liability if they swore an oath that they were not responsible for the loss (§103).

It was realized that hardship was so inevitable that debts tended to accrue even under normal conditions. Every ruler of Hammurabi’s dynasty proclaimed a Clean Slate cancelling personal agrarian debts (but left normal commercial business loans intact) upon taking the throne, and when military or other disruptions occurred during their reign. Hammurabi did this on four occasions.

Bronze Age rulers could not afford to let such bondage and concentration of property and wealth to become chronic. Labor was the scarcest resource, so a precondition for survival was to prevent creditors from using debt leverage to obtain the labor of debtors and appropriate their land. Rulers therefore acted to prevent creditors from becoming a wealthy class seeking gains by impoverishing debtors and taking crop yields and land for themselves.

By rejecting such alleviations of debts resulting from economic disruption, the U.S. economy is subjecting itself to depression, homelessness and economic polarization. It is saving stockholders and bondholders instead of the economy at large. That is because today’s rentier interests take the economic surplus in the form of debt service, holding labor and also corporate industry in bondage. Mortgage debt is the price of obtaining a home of one’s own. Student debt is the price of getting an education to get a job. Automobile debt is needed to buy a car to drive to the job, and credit-card debt must be run up to pay for living costs beyond what one is able to earn. This deep indebtedness makes workers afraid to go on strike or even to protect working conditions, because being fired is to lose the ability to pay debts and rents. So the rising debt overhead serves the business and financial sector by lowering wage levels while extracting more interest, financial fees, rent and insurance out of their take-home pay.

Debt deflation and the transition from finance capitalism to an Austerity Economy

By injecting $10 trillion into the financial markets (when Federal Reserve credit is added to U.S. Treasury allocation), the CARES act enabled the stock market to recover all of its 34 percent drop (as measured by the S&P 500 stocks) by June 9, even as the economy’s GDP was still plunging. The government’s new money creation was not spent to revive the real economy of production and consumption, but at least the financial One Percent was saved from loss. It was as if prosperity and living standards would somehow return to normal in a V-shaped recovery.

But what is “normal” these days? For 95 percent of the population, their share of GDP already had been falling ever since the Obama Depression began with the bank bailout in 2009, leaving an enormous bad-debt overhead in place. The economy’s long upswing since World War II was already grinding to an end as it struggled to carry its debt burden, rising housing costs, health care and related monthly “nut.”

This is not what was expected 75 years ago. World War II ended with families and businesses rife with savings and with little debt, as there had been little to buy during the wartime years. But ever since, each business cycle recovery has started with a higher ratio of debt to income, diverting more revenue from business, households and governments to pay banks and bondholders. This debt burden raises the economy’s cost of living and doing business, while leaving less wage income and profit to be spent on goods and services.

The virus pandemic has merely acted as a catalyst ending to the long postwar boom. Yet even as the U.S. and other Western economies begin to buckle under their debt overhead, little thought has been given to how to extricate them from the debts and defaults that have accelerated as a result of the broad economic disruption.

The “business as usual” approach is to let creditors foreclose and draw all the income and wealth over subsistence needs into their own hands. Economies have reached the point where debts can be paid only by shrinking production and consumption, leaving them as strapped as Greece has been since 2015. Rejecting debt writedowns to restore social balance was implanted at the outset of modern Western civilization. Ever since Roman times it has become normal for creditors to use social misfortune as an opportunity to gain property and income at the expense of families falling into debt. Blocking the emergence of democratic civic regimes empowered to protect debtors, creditor interests have promoted laws that force debtors to lose their land or other means of livelihood to foreclosing creditors or sell it under distress conditions and have to work off their debts.

In times of a general economic disruption, giving priority to creditor claims leads to widespread bankruptcy. Yet it violates most peoples’ ideas of fairness and distributive justice to evict debtors from their homes and take whatever property they have if they cannot pay their rent arrears and other charges that have accrued through no fault of their own. Bankruptcy proceedings will force many businesses and farms to forfeit what they have invested to much wealthier buyers. Many small businesses, especially in urban minority neighborhoods, will see years of saving and investment wiped out. The lockdown also forces U.S. cities and states to cope with plunging sales- and income-tax revenue by slashing social services and depleting their pension funds savings to pay bondholders. Balancing their budgets by privatizing hitherto public services will create monopoly rents and new corporate empires.

These outcomes are not necessary. They also are inequitable, and instead of being a survival of the fittest and most efficient economic solutions, they are a victory for the most successful predatory operators in society. Yet such results are the product of a long-pedigreed legal and financial philosophy promoted by banks and bondholders, landlords and insurance companies to reject economy-wide debt relief. They depict writing down debts and rents owed to them as unthinkable. Banks claim that forgiving personal and business rents would lead absentee landlords to default on their mortgages, threatening bank solvency. Insurance companies claim that to make their policy holders whole would bankrupt them. So something has to give: either the population’s broad economic interests, or the vested interests insisting that labor, industry and the government must bear the cost of arrears that have built up during the economic shutdown.

As in oligarchic Rome, financial interests in today’s world have gained control of governments and captured the political and regulatory agencies, leaving democratic reformers powerless to suspend debt service, rent arrears, evictions and depression. The West is becoming a highly centrally planned economy, but its planning center is Wall Street, not Washington or state and local governments.

Rising real estate arrears prompt a mortgage bailout

Canada and many European governments are subsidizing businesses to pay up to 80 percent of employee wages even though many must stay home. But for the 40 million Americans who haven’t been employed during the closedown, the prospect is for homelessness and desperation. Already before the crisis about half of Americans reported that they were living paycheck to paycheck and could not raise $400 in an emergency. When the paychecks stopped, rents could not be paid, nor could other normal monthly living expenses.

America is seeing the end of the home ownership boom that endowed its middle class with property steadily rising in price. For buyers, the price was rising mortgage debt, as bank credit was the major factor in raising property prices – a home is worth however much a bank will lend against it. For non-whites, to be sure, neighborhoods were redlined against racial minorities. By the early 2000s, banks began to make loans to black and Hispanic buyers, but usually at extortionately high interest rates and stiffer debt terms. America’s white home buyers now face a fate similar to that which they have long imposed on minorities: Debt-inflated purchase prices for homes so high that they leave buyers strapped by mortgage and compulsory insurance payments, alongside declining public services in their neighborhoods.

When mortgages can’t be paid, foreclosures follow. That causes declines in the proportion of Americans that own their own homes. That home ownership rate already had dropped from about 58 percent in 2008 to about 51 percent at the start of 2020. Since the 2008 mortgage-fraud crisis and President Obama’s mass foreclosure program that hit minorities and low-income buyers especially hard, a more landlord-ridden economy has emerged as a result of foreclosed properties and companies bought by speculators and vast absentee-owner companies like Blackstone.

Many businesses that closed down did not pay the landlords. Realizing that if they are held responsible for paying full rents that accrued during the shutdown, it would take them over a year to make up the payment, leaving no net earnings for their efforts, the incentive was to close. That was especially the case for restaurants with compulsory limited “distance” seating and other stores obliged to restrict the density of their customers. Many restaurants and other neighborhood stores decided to go out of business. Some 19 percent of mortgage loans had fallen into arrears already by May, along with about 10 percent of retail stores.

The commercial real estate sector owes $2.4 trillion in mortgage debt. About 40 percent of tenants did not pay their rents for March, April and May, from restaurants and storefronts to large national retail markets. A moratorium on evictions put them off until August or September 2020. But in the interim, quarterly state and local property taxes were due in June, which also was when the annual federal income-tax payment was owed for the year 2019, having been postponed from April in the face of the shutdown.

The prospective break in the chain of payments of landlords to their banks may be bailed out by the Federal Reserve, but nobody can come up with a scenario whereby the debts owed by non-elites can be paid out of their own resources, any more than they were rescued from the junk-mortgage frauds that left over-mortgaged homes (mainly for low-income victims) in the wake of Obama’s decision to support the banks and mortgage brokers instead of their victims. In fact, it takes a radical scenario to see how state and local debt can be paid as public budgets are thrown into limbo by the virus pandemic.

The fiscal squeeze forces governments to privatize public services and assets

Since 1945, the normal Keynesian response to an economic slowdown has been for governments to run budget deficits to revive the economy and employment. But that can’t happen in the wake of the 2020 pandemic. For one thing, tax revenue is falling. Governments can create domestic money, of course, but the U.S. government quickly ran up a $2 trillion deficit by June 2020 simply to support Wall Street’s financial and corporate markets, leaving a fiscal squeeze when it came to public spending into the real economy. Many U.S. states and cities have laws obliging them to balance their budgets. So public spending into the real economy (instead of just into the financial and corporate markets) had to be cut back.

U.S. states and localities are facing a huge tax shortfall that is forcing them to cut back basic social services and infrastructure. Sales taxes from restaurants and hotels, income taxes, and property taxes from landlords not receiving rents are mounting from millions to billions. New York City mayor de Blasio (image on the left) has warned that schools, the police and public transportation may have to be cut back unless the city is given $7 billion. The CARES act passed by the Democratic Party in control of the House of Representatives made no attempt to allocate a single dollar to make up the widening fiscal gap. As for the Trump administration, it was unwilling to give money to states voting Democratic in the presidential or governorship elections.

The irony is that just at the time when a pandemic calls for public health care, political pressure for that abruptly stopped. Logically, it might have been expected the virus to have become a major catalyst for single-payer public health care, not least to prevent a wave of personal bankruptcy resulting from high medical bills. But hopes were dashed when the leading torch bearer for socialized medicine, Senator Bernie Sanders, threw his support behind Joe Biden and other opponents for the presidential nomination instead of focusing the primary elections on what the future of the Democratic Party would be. It decided to focus the 2020 U.S. election merely on the personality of which candidate would impose neoliberal policy: Republican Donald Trump, or his opponent running simply on a platform of “I am not Trump.”

Both candidates – and indeed, both parties behind them –sought to downsize government and privatize as much of the public sector as possible, leaving administration to financial managers. Past government policy would have restored prosperity by public spending programs to rebuild the roads and bridges, trains and subways that have fallen apart. But the fiscal squeeze caused by the economic shutdown has created pressure to Thatcherize America’s crumbling transportation and urban infrastructure – and also to sell off land and public enterprises, basic urban health, schools – and at the national level, the post office. Fiscal budgets are to be balanced by selling off this infrastructure, in lucrative Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) with financial firms.

The neoliberal rent-extractive plan is for private capital to buy monopoly rights to repair the nation’s bridges by turning them into toll bridges, to repair the nation’s roads and highways by making the toll roads, to repair sewer systems by privatizing them. Schools, prisons, hospitals and other traditionally public functions are set to become lucrative consulting opportunities on the road to privatization. Even the police are to be privately owned security-guard agencies and managed for profit – on terms that will provide interest and capital gains for the financial sector. It is a New Enclosures movement seeking monopoly rent much as landlords extract land rent.

Having given $10 trillion dollars to support financial and mortgage markets, neoliberals in both the Republican and Democratic parties announced that the government had created so large a budget deficit as a result of bailing out the banking and landlord class that it lacked any more room for money creation for actual social spending programs. Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell advised states to solve their budget squeeze by raiding their pension funds to pay their bondholders.

For many decades, public employees accepted low wage growth in exchange for pensions. Their patient choice was to defer demands for wage increases in order to secure good pensions for their retirement. But now that they have worked at stagnant wages for many years, the money ostensibly saved for their pensions is to be given to bondholders. Likewise at the federal level, pressure was renewed by both parties to cut back Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, with Obama’s 2010 Simpson-Bowles Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to reduce the deficit at the expense of retirees and the poor.

In sum, money is being created to fuel the financial sector and its stock and bond markets, not to increase the economy’s solvency, employment and living standards. The corona virus did not create this shift, but it catalyzed and accelerated the power grab, not least by pushing public-sector budgets into crisis.

It doesn’t have to be this way

Every successful economy has been a mixed public/private economy with checks on the financial sector’s power to indebt society in ways that impoverish it. Always at issue, however, is who will control the government. As American and European industry becomes more debt ridden, will they be oligarchic or democratic?

A socialist government such as China’s can keep its industry going simply by simply writing down debts when they can’t be paid without forcing a closedown and bankruptcy and loss of assets and employment. The world thus has two options: a basically productive public financial system in China, or a predatory financial system in the United States.

China can recover financially and fiscally from the viral disruption because most debts ultimately are owned to the government-based banking system. Money can be created to finance the material economy, labor and industry, construction and agriculture. When a company is unable to pay its bills and rent, the government doesn’t stand by and let it be closed down and sold at a distressed price to a vulture investor.

China has an option that Western economies do not: It is in a position to do what Hammurabi and other ancient Near Eastern palatial economies did for thousands of years – write down debts so as to keep the economy resilient and functioning. It can suspend scheduled debt service, taxes, rents and public fees from having to be paid by troubled areas of its economy, because China’s government is the ultimate creditor. It need not contend with politically powerful bankers who insist that the economy at large must lose, not themselves. The government can write down the debt to keep companies in business, and also their employees. That’s what socialist governments do.

The underlying problem is finance capitalism. Its roots lie at the heart of Western civilization itself, rejecting the “circular time” permitting economic renewal by Clean Slates in favor of “linear time” in which debts are permanent and irreversible, without public oversight to manage finance and credit in the economy’s overall long-term interest.

It often is easier to get rich in such times of disaster and need than in times of normal prosperity. While the U.S. economy polarizes between creditors and debtors, the stock market anticipates fortunes being made quickly from the insolvency of business with assets and property to be grabbed. Coupled with the Federal Reserve’s credit creation to support the financial and real estate markets, asset prices are soaring (as of June 2020) for companies that expect to get even richer from the widespread distress to come in autumn 2020 when evictions and foreclosures are scheduled to begin again.

In that respect, the corona virus’s effect has been to help defeat the financial sector’s enemy – governments strong enough to regulate it. The fiscal squeeze resulting from widespread unemployment, business closedowns, rent and tax arrears is being seized upon as a means of dismantling and privatizing government at the federal, state and local levels, at the expense of the citizenry at large.

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