“To put it simply, our fate as a species is sealed. We’re headed for extinction in the very near term despite warnings dating more than 150 years. It’s a tragic tale. And, as foretold by evolutionary biologist George C. Williams, our species hardly made a squeak as the hammer dropped.” – Guy McPherson [1]

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For nearly forty years there have been warnings raised by prominent experts that the rising temperatures due to greenhouse gas warming threatens our future. [2]

Despite the formation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988, the assembly of nations at the earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro in 1992, the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, all the way up to the Paris Accord in 2015, the world continues to pollute and the temperature continues to rise.[3]

Recently in the fall of 2018, ‘The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C’ got tons of exposure in the mainstream news and prognosticated that allowing a rise of more than 1.5°C would result in an elevated risk of “long-lasting or irreversible changes, such as the loss of some ecosystems.” It said , “Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050.” [4][5]

But the worst of these “alarming” statistics see the human species condemned to life on a degraded planet by the year 2100, or even 2050. What you rarely hear is the warning that the changes of abrupt climate change could deny organisms of a habitat in as soon as five years, which could mean the end of the human species, and shortly thereafter, possibly every other organism on this great blue globe. What’s more, it is now simply too late for the human species to reverse the two and a half century course industry fueled by carbon energy. [6][7]

In other words, ‘Time’s up!’

One of the few scientists who came to this conclusion discovered it almost twenty years ago. He has been quoting the refereed journal literature and consequently seems to have been shut out by his peers. Yet, he is learning to see in the daunting time-frame that life, while it lasts, is glorious and free, with heroes stepping to the challenge of life as this play comes to a close.

Guy McPherson speaks with us for the entire program of the Global Research News Hour. Our topics this week include the threat to the poles of a ‘blue ice’ moment, the aerosol masking effect, the collapse of modern economy contributing to a swift rise in temperature, the refusal of contemporary society to address the threat and much, much more!

Guy McPherson was 49 when he became professor emeritus of natural resources and ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona. Guy taught and conducted research for more than twenty award-winning years at Texas A&M University, University of Arizona, University of California (Berkeley), Southern Utah University, and Grinnell College. He has produced a dozen books and hundreds of articles. He currently produces and hosts the radio program ‘Nature Bats Last’ and currently resides in Maitland, a suburb of Orlando, Florida.

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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) https://guymcpherson.com/extinction_foretold_extinction_ignored/

2) William j Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Thomas M Newsome, Phoebe Barnard, William R Moomaw (November 5, 2019) ‘Corrigendum: World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency’, BioScience, Volume 70, Issue 1, January 2020, Page 100; https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/70/1/8/56108

3) ibid

4) Matthew Taylor, Matthew Weaver, and Helen Davidson (Oct 8, 2018), ‘IPCC Urgent Climate Change Report Calls for urgent Action to Phase Out Fossil Fuels – As it Happened’, The Guardian; https://www.theguardian.com/environment/live/2018/oct/08/ipcc-climate-change-report-urgent-action-fossil-fuels-live

5) Brandon Miller and Jay Croft (Oct 8, 2018) ‘Planet has only until 2030 to stem catastrophic climate change, experts warn’, CNN; https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/07/world/climate-change-new-ipcc-report-wxc/index.html

6) Summary for Policymakers of IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C approved by governments (October 8, 2018)

7) https://www.livescience.com/65633-climate-change-dooms-humans-by-2050.html

This article was first published on May 12, 2020

***

There exists a huge disconnect between publicly available real scientific evidence and government policy surrounding the Covid crisis. Consider the following scientific “admissions” and how they contradict government “lockdown” policies:

In the first video, the UK’s Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Chris Whitty, states unequivocally that on an individual level the chances of dying of coronavirus are low. Even without a vaccine, he says, a high proportion of people will not get it.

Significantly, he refers to the virus as an “epidemic” and not a “pandemic”. Further, he says a significant number of people will have no symptoms, and of those WITH symptoms, for the great majority (around 80%), the symptoms will be mild to moderate. A minority will go to the hospital, he says, of which a great majority will survive.

.

In the next video, Sir Patrick Ballantz, the Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK government, explains that the Office of National Statistics (ONS) rates “are people who got Covid on their Death Certificate … it doesn’t necessarily mean they were infected because many of them have not been tested … “

So, again, top authorities are admitting that the statistics are unreliable. Government policies such as the global lockdowns, are being wrapped around unreliable evidence.

The Covid operation is what Prof. Ioannidis feared it might become: an “Evidence Fiasco”. (1)

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

Note

(1) John P.A. Ioannidis,
“A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data.” STAT, 17 March, 2020.
(https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/ ) Accessed 11 May, 2020.


Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.

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

Voices from Syria 

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-1-6

Author: Mark Taliano

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Four US service members were slightly injured during a standoff with the Russian Military Police near the border-town of Al-Malikiyah in the Syrian province of al-Hasakah. According to reports, the US troops received “mild injures” after their MaxxPro MRAP vehicle collided with a Russian vehicle. US officials quoted by media said there was no exchange of fire during the standoff, which took place earlier this week. According to their version of the events, a Russian vehicle intentionally rammed a US one.

Videos from the scene appeared online on August 26. They show Russian and U.S. armored vehicles chasing each other in the al-Hasakah countryside. A Russian helicopter was also filmed harassing U.S. troops that were trying to block a Russian patrol. Syrian sources say that Russian forces were reacting to attempts of the US military to block a Russian patrol in the area.

A few hours later, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley made a phone call to Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov, the Pentagon said. The US military did not provide details regarding the agenda of the phone call, but it is likely that the sides discussed the current situation.

Forces of the United States and Russia regularly find themselves engaged in various small-scale incidents in the area as both sides seek to block movements of each other in the region. After the first deployment of the Russian Military Police in Syria’s northeast, forces of the US-led coalition immediately started trying to block the movement of Russian patrols near al-Hasakah. Later, the Russian Military Police and the Syrian Army, with support of pro-government locals, joined this standoff by regularly blocking US military convoys and forcing them to return to their bases. The recent developments demonstrate that these actions may easily lead to a further escalation at any moment.

A group of pro-government fighters went missing near the town of al-Mayadin in the province of Deir Ezzor during the recent security operation there, according to reports by pro-militant sources. The missing fighters are reportedly members of the local National Defense Forces (NDF) and the Palestinian militia Liwa al-Quds. The NDF and Liwa al-Quds dispatched a large force with dozens of vehicles to the western Deir Ezzor countryside to search for the missing group, whose fate is yet to be revealed. Most likely, it was ambushed and eliminated by ISIS terrorists. A wide network of ISIS cells still operates in the Homs-Deir Ezzor desert. Russia says that these cells use the US-controlled areas in al-Tanf and on the eastern bank of the Euphrates to resupply its forces. The US rejects these claims as false.

The situation in southern Idlib remains relatively calm after the recent attack on the Russian-Turkish patrol. Nonetheless, the sides are apparently preparing for a new confrontation. On August 26, two service members of Syria’s 45th Special Forces Regiment were spotted with 9K32 Strela-2M and 9K310 Igla-1 MANPADs near the al-Zawiya Mount, close to positions of Turkish-backed militants. Apparently, these MANPADs will be employed against Turkish forces if Anakra once again opts to go offensive against the Syrian Army to protect al-Qaeda terrorists hiding in Greater Idlib.

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Will Trump Pardon Edward Snowden?

August 28th, 2020 by Robert Fantina

The name ‘Edward Snowden’ represents different things to different people. For those interested in government transparency and the rule of law, he is a hero, a man who initially tried to go through the ‘proper’ channels to publicize the blatant injustices he saw. To others, he is a traitor, a government employee who had the temerity to question the basic U.S. government doctrine that whatever the U.S. does is good, the citizens are too ignorant to form a reasonable opinion of it, and U.S. allies should be kept in the dark.

This latter view, unsurprisingly, is the one adopted by the government and its various elected officials. Until a week ago, it was the view of the current U.S. president, the erratic and unstable Donald Trump. In 2013, following Snowden’s revelations, Trump said that Snowden was “a spy who should be executed.” However, earlier this month, that same president said “there are a lot of people who think that he is not being treated fairly”, and is said to be considering pardoning him.

This is not consistent with what other Republicans have said about Snowden. Former President George W. Bush who, like Trump, only became president due to the bizarre institution known as the Electoral College, said that Snowden had “damaged the security of the country” by exposing the criminal activity in which the country was involved. Bush’s vice-president, the snarling, war-profiteering, war-mongering Dick Cheney, called Snowden a traitor, and suggested he might be a spy for China. And other prominent Republicans, during the 2016 primary season, echoed Cheney:

  • Kentucky Senator Rand Paul: Snowden needs to face punishment.
  • Former Florida governor Jeb Bush: Snowden is “not a hero”.
  • Then New Jersey governor Chris Christie: “He is a criminal”.
  • Florida Senator Marco Rubio: He called him a “traitor”.

Prominent Democrats were indistinguishable from Republicans on Snowden:

Now, one might wonder why Trump has suddenly had this epiphany. Is it because he abruptly has had a change of heart, and now sees that justice for everyone should be the goal of government? Does he recognize that, as the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”? One would be naïve indeed to think that the raging narcissist called Donald Trump would ever consider any of this. But there may be a reason for his dangling of a pardon in front of Snowden.

Shortly after sort of winning the election in 2016 (we must remember that the odious Hillary Clinton garnered nearly 3,000,000 more votes than Trump), the outgoing president, Barack Obama, refused to pardon Snowden. At that time, Obama said this about a possible pardon for Snowden: “I can’t pardon somebody who hasn’t gone before a court and presented themselves.” This, of course, was disingenuous, since several presidents, including Obama, have issued pardons for people who never went to trial. Perhaps one of the most notable cases was the pardon issued by then President Gerald Ford of his predecessor, Richard Nixon. And Obama himself pardoned three people who had been charged with some violations of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but had not gone to trial.

It has been no secret that one of Trump’s overarching goals for his presidency is to reverse anything Obama accomplished (The Affordable Health Care Act; the JCPOA, etc.). Since Obama refused to pardon Snowden, that in and of itself might be sufficient reason for Trump to do so.

But even Trump’s most ardent sycophants are given pause by the suggestion that their hero would pardon a man that conservatives love to hate. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and Representative Liz Cheney from Wyoming strongly oppose any pardon for Snowden. Even Attorney General William Barr, who operates more as a Trump campaign operative than the nation’s highest law enforcement officer has gone on record as opposing the pardon.

There are many lessons to be learned by Snowden’s revelations that go beyond the information that he exposed. Perhaps the key fact is that U.S. government officials are united in their quest to punish those who expose criminal activity, rather than those who are perpetrating that activity. Former president Obama and former secretary of state Clinton both said that Snowden didn’t follow the correct process. Based on information offered by Snowden himself, this is simply not true. And for Obama and Clinton to rail against someone for not following the rule of law is laughable, when one considers how they said nothing about the major violations of international law perpetrated on a daily basis against Palestine. They made no objections to Saudi Arabia’s violations of the human rights of that country’s own citizens. They decimated Libya, leaving the nation once “considered to be the Switzerland of the African continent”, in chaos, with death and destruction continuing to this day.

Trump’s possible pardon of Snowden, a man who should be considered a national hero, does not represent any change in Trump’s attitudes; rather, it is more of the same: reverse any and all Obama policies. Democrats and Republicans have been mainly united (there has been some dissent within the Democratic Party) in their condemnation of his actions and their opposition to a pardon. What Trump decides to do is anyone’s guess. He governs by Tweet and executive order, often not advising his closest advisors, or the people his pronouncements most impact, of his decisions before they learn of them from news programs.

It is to be hoped the Trump will pardon Snowden; despite the fact that he may do it for all the wrong reasons. Edward Snowden is a global hero and deserves to live out his life free from the U.S.-caused oppression he has suffered from these last several years.

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This article was originally published on Peacedata.

Robert Fantina is an activist and journalist, working for peace and social justice. A U.S. citizen, he moved to Canada shortly after the 2004 presidential election, and now holds dual citizenship. He serves on the boards of Canadians for Palestinian Rights, and Canadians for Justice in Kashmir, and is the former Canadian Coordinator of World Beyond War. He has written the books Propaganda, Lies, and False Flags: How the U.S. Justifies its Wars.; Empire, Racism and Genocide: A  History of U.S. Foreign Policy and Occupied Palestine: Israel, the U.S. and International Law. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

If you are interested in finding out the truth about the Covid19 scare, you can look for information in many areas. Understanding the corporate (profit-driven) and petrochemical-based history of the medical establishment helps. Being aware of the lack of scientific empirical and laboratory evidence for microbes, and microscopic particles such as viruses, causing disease helps. Being aware of other proven or highly probable causes of respiratory disease helps. It also helps to understand the emotionally discomforting truth that terrified people who claim to be both authorities and sane will knowingly or unknowingly lie to you in order to try to get you (and their own terror) under control.

In my case, whenever I am confused or unsure about the details of information I receive from the variety of sources I investigate, I am ‘lucky’ to have a fallback position that is unequivocally clear and trustworthy. This knowledge is based on my own experience of suffering acute and chronic respiratory disease, and the outcomes I experienced while spending the first 25 years of my life following the advice of the medical establishment, and the second 25 years of my life totally rejecting ‘assistance’ from the medical establishment and following a variety of natural healing/health maintenance modalities instead. Without having to understand or argue the merits of any particular detail of the science of corporate medicine or natural biological health and healing, I have seen their results.

In brief: I suffered for the first 25 years of my life from chronic respiratory disease, including being hospitalised twice with pneumonia. My chronic bronchitis was first diagnosed as caused by bacterial infection, and later diagnosed as caused by a virus. When I stopped taking the advice of the medical establishment and my parents, who told me that I would die if I did not take antibiotics and that I could never be genuinely well, and switched to a variety of natural healing modalities, my life transformed radically. These modalities included listening to my physical feelings and emotions, changing my diet, understanding my breathing process, and bodywork to release muscle tension.

26 years later, at the age of 51, I use no pharmaceutical drugs or vaccines and experience the health and fitness that was denied me as a child and young person. I have not had bronchitis for 5 years, and have had only two mild colds in the past 3 years (despite the reported increase in the numbers of people suffering ‘seasonal influenza’ and the increasing severity of their symptoms). Other health problems I had when I was younger, including heart dysfunction related to bronchitis, have also been resolved. My experience has taught me that fear of my illness was the most important element keeping me sick, and that the medical establishment had no capacity to accurately diagnose the causes of my illness, nor treat it effectively.

I cannot say what precise factors have led to the development of acute respiratory disease in each individual who is currently suffering or dying from it. However, my experience leads me to believe that it is likely to be a combination of factors, including fear and emotional suppression from living in unsafe social circumstances, toxicity from airborne pollutants and poisonous substances that have been ingested or injected into the body, and lack of complex nutritional elements that allow the body to function optimally and recover from emotional stress and toxic damage.

I therefore make the following suggestions for you to consider if you are experiencing symptoms of respiratory disease in the current social climate of crisis, panic and control.

If you have a choice:

1) Do not get tested for Covid19 – being categorised as having Covid19 will increase both your fear and the fear of others and may limit your options for taking safe and sensible action to support your healing.

2) Do not allow yourself to be hospitalised – you will be isolated from anyone who personally cares about you, in the presence of scared (if well-meaning) hospital staff, and removed from the possibility of any treatment other than toxic drugs and invasive procedures, which will add to your level of stress and fear, and decrease the likelihood of your survival.

3) Understand that your state of health is not dependant on whether or not you are ‘infected with a virus’. Even if pathogenic viruses existed (and there are a number of critiques showing the logical faults and lack of proper scientific process in virology theory and experiments respectively: see, for example, What Really Makes You Ill? Why everything you thought you knew about disease is wrong. But you can read more in ‘Dismantling the Virus Theory – The “measles virus” as an example’ and watch the video interview ‘The Real Science of Germs: Do Viruses Cause Disease?’ ), my experience shows that it is other elements that determine health. You are therefore not responsible for the health of anyone else – you are not a dangerous plague carrier who should feel guilty for harming others if you do not accept the label ‘infected with Covid19’.

4) Consider the four basic principles of health and healing at the end of this article.

A case history of my acute and chronic respiratory disease and healing

I was born in 1969 in New South Wales, Australia, and grew up in Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory. I was injected with a number of vaccines containing toxic substances as a baby, which may have been a contributing factor in my developing pneumonia at the age of 18 months. I was hospitalised at this time, and again at the age of three years. I was treated with antibiotics in hospital and put in an oxygen tent to help me breathe. I was told by my mother that when I was in the oxygen tent when I was a baby, she climbed in with me against the wishes of the nurses. Far from reassuring me, this would have increased my level of fear, as my mother is an extremely anxious and explosively violent person, and she was only holding me to try to relieve herself of her anxiety, not because she was in a state to calmly relieve mine. My fear of being killed by my mother when she violently exploded and the fear generated by her general state of anxiety (caused by her own extremely violent and emotionally deprived upbringing) was a major factor in the disturbances to my breathing and lung function throughout my younger years.

My memory of the hospital when I was three is traumatic – I remember feeling extremely isolated. Visiting hours were limited and strictly upheld, which meant that my father, who I did find reassuring, could not spend significant time with me. Also (bizarre but true) my teddy bear was stolen by another family with a sick child and as any parent knows, familiar soft toys do provide significant reassurance to children, even if artificially so. I survived both hospitalisations, and was told that I would have died without the antibiotics. The doctors and my parents believed that there was no other way of helping me through these crises – it was ‘hospital and drugs’ or ‘nothing’.

As a result of the pneumonia, one small area in my left lung was permanently damaged (at least, it has not healed up to this point) although I did not discover the damage until I was 26 when a naturopath/homeopath asked me if there was any difference in how my left and right lungs felt. This was the first time anyone had asked me to focus on my lungs in detail in order to learn something about them, and I discovered that my left lung was permanently painful, particularly when I coughed for any reason, while my right lung was not.

As a result of the natural healing I have undertaken since, this pain has reduced to one patch about 2 centimetres in diameter. I have heard the medical establishment’s opinion in recent years that lungs don’t have nerves and therefore it is not possible to feel pain in them. This directly contradicts my actual experience of being able to feel a variety of feelings (e.g. tickling caused by breathing something in accidentally, pressure in my right lung when I cough, pain in my left lung when I cough, and the tightening of my airways when asthmatic). When ‘medical science’ contradicts my experience of reality, obviously I question the validity of the theory, not my experience.

I suffered an extreme asthma attack when I was four, when I couldn’t breathe at all for a short amount of time, but after this I had frequent non-acute asthmatic reactions only, mainly when I tried to exercise or when I had bronchitis, which I suffered 3 or 4 times per year up until I was 19. At that time, I left home and the incidence dropped to twice a year. My bouts of bronchitis would last for about 14 days each time and I would not go to school/university for about 10 days because I felt too sick in my body to do so. Among other symptoms, my throat and lungs would become ‘cold’, tense and aggravated, causing me to swallow repeatedly for about 24 hours (with virtually no sleep), before developing an extremely painful, hacking cough and coughing up heaps of green phlegm. The bronchitis was less extreme than my original pneumonia, but ongoingly debilitating, as if my body had worked out a way of managing my symptoms that didn’t risk killing me but instead put me into a ‘holding pattern’ that was endlessly repeated.

I breathed in a powdered drug when I was ill with bronchitis as a child, and then switched at some point to using Ventolin, until the age of 14 when I accidentally overdosed myself, suffering extreme fear and visual distortion brought on by the drug’s artificial stimulation of adrenalin. I was very angry that I had never been warned of the danger and I refused to use Ventolin after this time.

I also took Brondicon, a cough syrup full of alcohol and sugar. I was given antibiotics every time I was sick and I have a lot of memories of waiting in doctors’ surgeries reading children’s books while waiting for my 10 minute appointment (which generally ran along the lines of ‘I’ve got bronchitis again’… ‘Right, here’s a prescription for antibiotics’.) When I was sick I also went to a physiotherapist who would thump my back and encourage me to cough, even when the phlegm was not in a sufficiently fluid state to be coughed up. The theory behind this treatment was that I was clearing my lungs of ‘harmful bacteria’. I later discovered that this deliberate coughing increased the damage and irritability in my left lung and made it more susceptible to aggravation and illness.

Influenced by my parents’ and the doctors’ fears and their incapacity to listen to how I felt and what I needed, I never expected to be well and being sick became a key part of my identity. I lived in dread of my next bout of illness. Since I had never experienced being well, my general state of ill health was utterly normal to me, and I had no idea just how sick I was. I later discovered that my entire oxygenation system, including my heart, was not functioning properly. I therefore found any aerobic exercise both painful and extremely uncomfortable in my body due to the effort of exerting myself without adequate oxygen reaching my cells. Climbing a steep hill, for example, was very difficult for me.

My posture was off kilter because of constant muscle tension caused by the pain in my lung, and this tension and imbalance eventually led to me suffering cartilage, tendon and ligament injuries. Additional illnesses I suffered that were undetected by doctors were low blood sugar (diet related), chronic constipation (caused by diet and by stress) and extreme cramping and blood loss during menstruation (caused by lack of magnesium).

One factor that I believe was important in remaining sick with respiratory disease was the toxic nature of the cleaning fluids used in my childhood home, particularly furniture polish that was sprayed every week as part of the housecleaning routine.

Most important though, was the constant emotional and physical tension I experienced as a result of living with my anxious and violent mother. Her emotional state and behaviour continually triggered me into fear and anger, but I was not allowed to consciously feel or express these things. These feelings became wrapped up, in complex and contradictory ways, with my experience of being physically ill.

The most obvious connection between my emotional state and the state of my lungs is that when I feel afraid that I am going to be attacked, unreasonably controlled or prevented from telling the truth about how I feel and what I need, I have an immediate, strong asthmatic reaction.

The last time I took antibiotics for bronchitis was when I was about 22 and living in Melbourne. The next time I had bronchitis I visited a different doctor than usual and I was told that my symptoms were caused by a virus (‘influenza’) not a bacterial infection, so antibiotics were not appropriate. I imagine this doctor was moving with the tendency to claim that all sorts of previously ‘non-viral’ diseases were now caused by viruses, as the medical establishment began its push towards inventing and selling greater and greater numbers of vaccines. (Vaccines are, obviously, more profitable for corporations than antibiotics because they are recommended for or forced upon everyone as a preventative measure, rather than being used by only those who are showing symptoms of disease.)

I was annoyed that I couldn’t have my ‘reassuring’ antibiotics, and that I was being told that the same symptoms I had been experiencing my whole life were some other disease (‘flu’, not ‘bronchitis’). I don’t know if I was told I should have a flu vaccine, or whether they were available in the early 1990s, but I certainly had no faith in the ‘new’ diagnosis. I had never been treated as if my bronchitis was infectious, as influenza is supposed to be, and I have no memory of my mother, father, sister or (later) boyfriend being ill with respiratory symptoms at the same time as I was when I lived with them.

Ironically, however, this shift in medical establishment diagnostic fashion led to a good outcome for me:  the fear that I had had all my life that I would ‘die’ without antibiotics was proven untrue. Without antibiotics, my bronchitis followed exactly the same pattern that it always had – no better, no worse. Although I didn’t think about it then, this proved that however many bacteria may have been in my lungs, breaking down the dead substances, they were not attacking my lungs and ‘causing’ my disease.

Having had my fill of doctor’s surgeries, I never again bothered to visit one when I was sick with respiratory disease.

So, I had stopped poisoning my system unnecessarily with antibiotics, and I was living at a physical distance from my mother, but at this stage I was not actively healing emotionally or physically from all the damage that had been done and I was still very unfit, got bronchitis twice a year and suffered occasionally from candida, as I had done since my late teens.

That changed when I got together with my husband, Robert, when I was 25. As part of his research, he was aware of critiques of the medical establishment, had changed his diet to improve some of his own health problems, and was using a number of natural health approaches. He also, most importantly, listened to me without fear when I expressed how I felt emotionally and physically, and supported me to follow my own feelings. In other words, he allowed me to exist, without interference and without trying to control me, because fundamentally he trusted me to be guided by my own internal communications towards a more whole state of being. He told me, in effect, that I existed, that I mattered and that he trusted me to be sensible, intelligent and capable of learning from my own experiences, including failures and successes.

I was quite stunned to find that Robert was not afraid of my illness. It seemed illogical to me at first simply because a fearful reaction to illness was the only thing I had ever known. The first time I was sick after we were together, he held me for four hours while I could barely breathe because my lungs were so badly clogged and asthmatic. This was a more extreme event than usual, similar to my original pneumonia, but it was a ‘healing crisis’ that marked the beginning of the change in my symptom patterns which has led to my current healthy state. Being held with love and reassured that I wasn’t going to die, I could allow my body to do what it wanted to rebalance itself. Robert’s trust in me allowed me to trust myself, and that trust made all the difference.

Over the next 26 years, my emotional and physical health improved dramatically as I allowed myself to become consciously aware of and physically feel all of my emotions (mostly fear, sadness and anger) related to my mother and other conflicts in my life, as well as feeling the physical pain and asthmatic reactions associated with the damage in my left lung. I stopped trying to make these emotional and physical reactions ‘go away’ and instead experienced them without fear until they went away of their own accord.

I also changed my diet to one of organic, vegetarian wholefood, with no salt, sugar, white flour, caffeine or alcohol. I stopped cooking food in oil or microwaving it. I had never been a recreational drug user, since smoking was impossible with my damaged lung, and my Ventolin experience put me off trying to artificially stimulate my mind and emotions with chemicals. The diet I chose was based on principles explained by Paavo Airola in his book Hypoglycemia: A Better Approach. I also take care not to use or inhale toxic substances wherever possible, including deodorants and perfumes, as well as cleaning fluids, paint fumes, incense, ‘passive’ cigarette smoke and wood smoke. (For those wishing to avoid lung cancer, I have noticed that my damaged lung reacts far more painfully and asthmatically to fragrances – perfume, deodorant, aftershave and incense – than to cigarette smoke.)

I have investigated and found useful many natural healing modalities, which have assisted with my emotional healing, my nutrition and my muscle tension.

These include:

‘Feelings First’ emotional feeling and integration, developed over 14 years by me and my husband Robert J. Burrowes. See ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’ and Feelings First.

Gerson Therapy, which involves drinking fresh vegetable juices (for vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and enzymes) and doing coffee enemas (to assist with liver detoxification), among other elements. I have undertaken a scaled-down version of the intensive therapy on a number of occasions and I still drink two juices per day whenever possible and do regular coffee enemas, which are also good for body awareness and ‘meditative’ time. See Healing the Gerson Way: Defeating Cancer and Other Chronic Diseases.

Buteyko breathing method, which explained to me the importance of nose breathing to protect the damaged part of my lung and to maintain the correct balance of CO2 and oxygen in my blood stream to allow effective oxygenation of my cells. It also explained the natural functions of asthmatic reaction in counteracting fear-based hyperventilation and in limiting exposure to toxic substances.

Naturopathy, for a variety of nutritional elements that I have not been able to account for sufficiently in my consumption of fresh food/juices (owing to my living circumstances and the generally decreasing mineral content of even organically grown food). Supplements I take include iron, magnesium and CoQ10 and I am careful to take varieties that my body easily absorbs. Taking CoQ10 fixed my heart dysfunction, iron helps with my energy levels, and magnesium fixed my menstruation cramps and over-bleeding.

Osteopathy, for regular muscle release and manipulations to adjust my spine and limbs.

Rolfing (also known as Structural Integration) to work on the loosening of muscle fascia to allow my muscles to relax and return to balanced positions in my body’s overall structure.

Feldenkrais method (also known as Functional Integration or Awareness Through Movement) to reintegrate the nervous elements of physical movements that have become uncoordinated as a result of injury and fear.

Myotherapy, including dry needling, to release extreme tension in certain muscles and tendons that had not responded to other forms of bodywork.

Deep Recovery massage balls, with the ‘track’ necessary to hold balls in place so that I can regularly do my own muscle/fascia release on any area of my body without having to continually pay for Myotherapy or Rolfing sessions.

Yoga for assistance in stretching, strengthening and coordinating muscles and realigning my spine.

Non-manipulative Chiropractic method for an understanding of subtle whole body communication.

Gym work, to strengthen and reintegrate muscle action around knee and shoulder injuries arising from distorted posture.

I have found all the natural health modalities I have tried to be genuinely complementary (in a way that the medical establishment’s regime is definitely not). That is, there is always something to be learned and integrated from every natural modality into a more complete understanding of the way I function and dysfunction. Obviously, not all practitioners are equally capable, and it is important to find practitioners whose work you trust.

While I recognise that people who are seriously impoverished will have limits on their access to good natural health care, I have done all of the above on an extremely limited budget, having lived below the Australian taxable limit since 1997. I have had no assistance from government Medicare (which does not cover natural healing modalities) or private health insurance.

You may notice that none of the modalities I have mentioned lend themselves to corporate profit. In particular, eating fresh organically grown food works against three corporate industries that are linked by their dependence on the parent industry of artificial chemistry, which developed out of the petrochemical industry. Industrial agriculture relies on artificial fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides; the processed food industry employs chemists to come up with endless varieties of false smells and tastes to cover the fact that processed food that has a long shelf life is tasteless and nutritionless; and the pharmaceutical industry uses artificial chemistry to create toxic drugs, following the age old superstition that by poisoning the body we can control and ‘fix’ it. Many of the products from these industries are easy for corporations to patent, monopolise and sell as long as they can convince people they ‘need’ them. So when the medical establishment screams that natural solutions are not proven to work, are a waste of money, and may be dangerous, one might consider that the threat the establishment is feeling is to its bank balance, rather than to anyone’s actual biological health.

The result of 26 years of taking responsibility for my own health (with the crucial support of people who love me) is that, at the age of 51, I am fit and healthy in a way I never was as a child and teenager or in my early twenties. My oxygenation and posture have dramatically improved and, although I still have some weaknesses in my joints, I am able to work vigorously for some hours at a time in a garden on a steep hillside. I am able to continue working when hungry, showing that my blood sugar levels are significantly improved. I have not had candida since my late 20’s. And, despite the one patch of lung damage which has not yet been resolved (which I protect in the ways mentioned above), I have not had bronchitis in the last 5 years, and indeed have only suffered two colds with mild respiratory and bodily symptoms that lasted 3 days each in the last three years.

Hence, even if I believed that a pathogenic virus labelled Covid19 was genuinely attacking people, I would not be concerned for my own health or theirs on its account. If the four principles of health and healing below are abided by, a physical individual is naturally strong and functional at any age, and does not need the artificial intervention of toxic medicines and vaccines to ‘survive’. The medical establishment’s approach is to ignore and deny all the things that a person needs, biologically and emotionally, and then try to suppress the symptoms of disease that result from this denial. At best, a toxic medicine will shock the body into behaving differently in the short term, while adding to the overall burden of toxicity and ill health of all the body’s systems over time. At worst, your body will not survive the toxic attack and you will be severely incapacitated or killed (as hundreds of thousands of people are by ‘proper’ use of pharmaceuticals each year: see, for example, ‘100,000 deaths per year in the U.S. caused by prescription drugs’ or ‘Table Of Iatrogenic Deaths In The United States’. For an extremely relevant and well researched exposé of the corrupt and toxic nature of the corporate medical industry, read AIDS Inc. by investigative reporter Jon Rappoport.)

If you are currently dependent on pharmaceuticals (for physical or psychological illnesses) you can consult an experienced natural health practitioner to work out how to safely come off the drugs and replace them with the nutrition and other naturally supportive healthcare you really need.

Of course, if at any time the natural healthcare that I need is denied me by forces beyond my control, it is likely that I will suffer further respiratory disease, because of the damage still existing in my lung. However, I will not blame any virus for my illness – the fault will lie with the fear of those humans who cannot see what is needed for genuine health and safety, and whose behaviour is therefore biologically self-destructive.

Four Principles of Health and Healing

Principle 1: Listen to yourself (how you feel emotionally and physically). Remember that you are a complex biological individual in a process of healing and existing, not a simple predictable robot, the same as all the other robots, whose behaviour can (or should) be controlled by a drug.

Principle 2: Give yourself what you need nutritionally to function properly. Keep working on it until you have found a range of things that work for you. Whatever you experiment with and choose (vegan, vegetarian, meat inclusive, supplement inclusive) trust organic/biodynamic, fresh, unrefined foods as the basis for your nutritional health.

Principle 3: Don’t poison yourself (with processed and adulterated ‘food products’ made in factories; with recreational or pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines; with cleaning and personal care products containing toxins; also, limit your exposure to electromagnetic radiation where possible, particularly if you are highly sensitive).

Principle 4: Investigate other healing modalities that encourage you to be aware of how you function physically, and as a whole, integrated organism. (Try anything that sounds reasonable to you, but be honest about whether or not you are experiencing the gains you hoped, and keep experimenting if necessary.)

Finally, although I am aware that as a physical entity I can never be invulnerable, I take responsibility for my own ultimate existence by trusting in myself, despite all attempts to make me afraid that I am undeserving or incapable of full, unified existence, or that existence is not my genuine, true state of being.

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Anita McKone researches truth and delusion, fearlessness and fear, sanity and insanity, self-awareness and self-destruction, and nonviolence and violence as these exist at the human and universal levels. Her articles can be read on her website.

Featured image is from OffGuardian

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyanu is, once again, battling for his political life and personal freedom. Thousands of protesters calling for him to resign have continued to mount protests outside his official residence in Jerusalem. They demand he step down while he is on trial for corruption, fraud and influence peddling. As his ongoing trial is expected to carry on until mid-2022, he is absolutely determined to remain in office, as this provides immunity from arrest although not complete immunity.

During Saturday’s demonstration he was dubbed, “Crime Minister”, and balloons adorned with the portraits of politicians smeared with dirt were flown over the gathering. The protesters represent multiple causes. Environmentalists condemn Israel’s failure to address global warming and climate change. Women demand improvements in education and the judiciary system.

The Black Flag Movement proclaimed,

“The economy is in free fall with about 1 million unemployed and a raging pandemic, and [Netanyahu] is busy dragging the country to another round of elections because his trial is more important that the state of Israel.”

The movement, founded in April, opposes the coalition deal between Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, which Black Flag contends undermines Israeli democracy. Black Flag accuses the judiciary of illegally postponing Netanyahu’s trial calls on him to resign.

On Sunday, Israelis staged a strike at noon to protest widespread violence against women and the courts’ leniency towards abusers.

While a majority of Israelis breathed a sigh of relief when Netanyahu suspended his controversial plan to annex Israeli West Bank colonies and the rich agricultural region of the Jordan Valley, he has been slammed by settlers who belong to his political “base”. They accuse him of reneging on pledges made during the three recent, indecisive election campaigns. Their alienation weakens Netanyahu at a time he is already weak. His main problem is that he has been too long in the job of prime minister. Many Israelis are weary of him, his bluster and reliance on the right at the expense of everyone else.

Netanyahu and Gantz have sidestepped a fourth election for the time being by agreeing to extend until November 23 the deadline for adopting the 2020 budget. If they fail to reach a deal by then, the fragile government will have to dissolve and new elections will follow.  This would be the worst possible scenario for Netanyahu since he would no longer have immunity and could be arrested.

Therefore, Israel continues to face domestic political uncertainty as well as the global uncertainties created by COVID-19. It has tightened its grip on Israel, which has surpassed 100,000 cases with 800 fatalities and is currently suffering 1,400 cases every 24 hours. To lower the number of cases to 400 a day, the country’s corona czar Roni Gamzu said would take at least 90 days.

He warned that a trip by thousands of ultra-orthodox Hasidim to Ukraine to visit the tomb of a revered 19th century rabbi would force a fresh lockdown once they returned home. This would be extremely unpopular with Israelis who are desperate to return to “normal” life although their high covid infection rate is a result of the reopening of schools, restaurants, bars and other amenities. Fortunately for the government, which depends on the good will of the Hasidic community, Ukraine has banned the trip for Hasidic Jews from Israel and elsewhere.

Netanyahu remains plagued by besieged and blockaded Gaza, where militants continue to fly into southern Israel balloons bearing incendiary devices, which start blazes in summer dry locations. Bombing and shelling Gaza has not forced the balloonists to stop. Israel is threatening to slay leaders of Hamas, which rules Gaza, in retaliation.

Although many Israelis argue Netanyahu should negotiate peace, the Palestinian Authority has refused talks with him as he rejects the land-for-peace formula which could lead to the emergence of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. This is the last thing Netanyahu wants. He is fully committed to Greater Israel in all Palestine.

Netanyahu and the allied Trump administration have failed to curb Iran’s activities in Syria and Lebanon despite Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign to use sanctions to counter Tehran’s regional reach. While Israel has urged the Trump administration to wage war on Iran, it has, so far, resisted this call. Frustrated Netanyahu seems to have ordered Israeli intelligence to sabotage Iran’s Nantaz nuclear plant and other sensitive sites.

Some commentators have predicted that under pressure from Netanyahu, Donald Trump could mount October surprise strikes on Iran in the expectation that, as a wartime leader, he would automatically be reelected. Like Netanyahu, Trump is desperate for a second term because the office of president provides immunity from prosecution for various crimes he may have committed before reaching the White House — and, perhaps, during his first term. However, in response, Iran could target US allies in the Gulf and cause a conflagration which would not boost Trump’s election prospects.

Netanyahu’s grip is weakening. A poll released last week showed his Likud would still have the largest number of seats in the Knesset if elections are held soon but the party would poll 29 seats instead of the 36 it holds now. Blue and White, headed by Gantz, would win only nine seats compared with the 33 it took during the last election in March. The Blue and White bloc, comprised of centrist and leftist parties which had formed as an alternative to the Likud, fractured as soon as Gantz decided to form a government with Netanyahu. Both men face a precarious few months while Israelis take to the streets in a summer of simmering discontent.

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12 Experts Questioning the Coronavirus Panic

By OffGuardian, August 28, 2020

[The government’s anti-COVID19 measures] are grotesque, absurd and very dangerous […] The consequences on medical care are profound. Already services to patients in need are reduced, operations cancelled, practices empty, hospital personnel dwindling. All this will impact profoundly on our whole society.

The COVID-19 Vaccine. The Imposition of Compulsory Vaccination with a Biometric Health Passport?

By Dr. Pascal Sacré, August 20, 2020 

Not only will this vaccine not protect you at all or not enough, but it can make things worse by facilitating your infection with COVID-19! The phenomenon of facilitating viral infection by antibodies (ADE or antibody dependent enhancement) has been known for a long time and exists for many viruses.

Remdesivir for Covid-19: $1.6 Billion for a “Modestly Beneficial” Drug?

By Elizabeth Woodworth, August 27, 2020

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has recently “bought” all of Gilead Science’s Remdesivir for $1.6 billion. “500,000 doses at $3,200 per patient – to be available to American hospitals but not for other countries”

That’s $1.6 billion tax dollars for a virtually untested drug showing only marginal efficacy in the hospital setting.

Stanford Study Proves Covid-19 Was Overhyped. “Death Rate Is Likely Under 0.2%”

By Tony Cartalucci, August 27, 2020

MIT Tech Review’s hyped coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is led by the tag-line, “Navigating a world reshaped by Covid-19.”

Their articles reflect an eager embracement of the public hysteria prompted by Covid-19’s spread, the socioeconomic paralysis it has created, and the many profitable solutions – particularly those involving technology – proposed to “shape” the world post-Covid-19.

COVID-19 Coronavirus: The Crisis. “You Simulate and Then You Go Live”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky and Bonnie Faulkner, August 27, 2020

The WHO Director-General, who had been in Davos just a few days earlier, determined that the so-called outbreak constituted a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, and, as I mentioned, that decision was taken on the basis of 150 confirmed cases outside China. Now, anybody who takes cognizance of that should not trust anything else that they say because at the beginning is a big lie, and it’s a big lie which is instrumented by very powerful people. It’s the combination of what I call Big Money and Big Pharma.

Is the UN Preparing for the “Second Covid Lockdown”? Oppressive Measures Worldwide, Obedience and Acceptance…

By Peter Koenig, August 26, 2020

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.

“Collective Narcissism” and the “Dark Triad”: Those Who Protest against the “Official” Covid-19 Narrative are Categorized as “Psychopaths”. Is It A Witch Hunt?

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, August 26, 2020

A diabolical process is underway which consists in “identifying” all those who are opposed to the governments’ management of the coronavirus pandemic. According to ongoing psychological studies, these opponents are categorized as anti-social psychopaths.

The unspoken objective is to shunt the emergence of an organized protest movement pertaining to social engineering and the decision taken Worldwide at a political level to close down  the national economies of more than 150 members states of the United Nations.


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.

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Definitive Eurasian Alliance Is Closer than You Think

August 28th, 2020 by Pepe Escobar

This article was originally published on Asia Times.

We have seen how China is meticulously planning all its crucial geopolitical and geoeconomic moves all the way to 2030 and beyond.

What you are about to read next comes from a series of private, multilateral discussions among intel analysts, and may helpfully design the contours of the Big Picture.

In China, it’s clear the path ahead points to boosting internal demand, and shifting monetary policy towards the creation of credit to consolidate the building of world-class domestic industries.

In parallel, there’s a serious debate in Moscow that Russia should proceed along the same path. As an analyst puts it, “Russia should not import anything but technologies it needs until it can create them themselves and export only the oil and gas that is required to pay for imports that should be severely restricted. China still needs natural resources, which makes Russia and China unique allies. A nation should be as self-sufficient as possible.”

That happens to mirror the exact CCP strategy, as delineated by President Xi in his July 31 Central Committee meeting.

And that also goes right against a hefty neoliberal wing in the CCP – collaborationists? – who would dream of a party conversion into Western-style social democracy, on top of it subservient to the interests of Western capital.

Comparing China’s economic velocity now with the US is like comparing a Maserati Gran Turismo Sport (with a V8 Ferrari engine) with a Toyota Camry. China, proportionately, holds a larger reservoir of very well educated young generations; an accelerated rural-urban migration; increased poverty eradication; more savings; a cultural sense of deferred gratification; more – Confucianist – social discipline; and infinitely more respect for the rationally educated mind. The process of China increasingly trading with itself will be more than enough to keep the necessary sustainable development momentum going.

The hypersonic factor

Meanwhile, on the geopolitical front, the consensus in Moscow – from the Kremlin to the Foreign Ministry – is that the Trump administration is not “agreement-capable”, a diplomatic euphemism that refers to a de facto bunch of liars; and it’s also not “legal-capable”, an euphemism applied, for instance, to lobbying for snapback sanctions when Trump has already ditched the JCPOA.

President Putin has already said in the recent past that negotiating with Team Trump is like playing chess with a pigeon: the demented bird walks all over the chessboard, shits indiscriminately, knocks over pieces, declares victory, then runs away.

In contrast, serious lobbying at the highest levels of the Russian government is invested in consolidating the definitive Eurasian alliance, uniting Germany, Russia and China.

But that would only apply to Germany after Merkel. According to a US analyst, “the only thing holding back Germany is that they can expect to lose their car exports to the US and more, but I tell them that can happen right away because of the dollar-euro exchange rate, with the euro becoming more expensive.”

On the nuclear front, and reaching way beyond the current Belarus drama – as in there will be no Maidan in Minsk – Moscow has made it very clear, in no uncertain terms, that any missile attack from NATO will be interpreted as a nuclear attack.

The Russian defensive missile system – including the already tested S-500s, and soon the already designed S-600s – arguably may be 99% effective. That means Russia would still have to absorb some punishment. And this is why Russia has built an extensive network of nuclear bomb shelters in big cities to protect at least 40 million people.

Russian analysts interpret China’s defensive approach along the same lines. Beijing will want to develop – if they have not already done so – a defensive shield, and still retain the ability to strike back against a US attack with nuclear missiles.

The best Russian analysts, such as Andrei Martyanov, know that the three top weapons of a putative next war will be offensive and defensive missiles and submarines combined with cyber warfare capabilities.

The key weapon today – and the Chinese understand it very clearly – is nuclear submarines. Russians are observing how China is building their submarine fleet – carrying hypersonic missiles – faster than the US. Surface fleets are obsolete. A wolf pack of Chinese submarines can easily knock out a carrier task force. Those 11 US carrier task forces are in fact worthless.

So in the – horrifying – event of the seas becoming un-sailable in a war, with the US, Russia and China blocking all commercial traffic, that’s the key strategic reason pushing China to obtain as much of its natural resources overland from Russia.

Even if pipelines are bombed they can be fixed in no time. Thus the supreme importance for China of Power of Siberia – as well as the dizzying array of Gazprom projects.

The Hormuz factor

A closely guarded secret in Moscow is that right after German sanctions imposed in relation to Ukraine, a major global energy operator approached Russia with an offer to divert to China no less than 7 million barrels a day of oil plus natural gas. Whatever happens, the stunning proposal is still sitting on the table of Shmal Gannadiy, a top oil/gas advisor to President Putin.

In the event that would ever happen, it would secure for China all the natural resources they need from Russia. Under this hypothesis, the Russian rationale would be to bypass German sanctions by switching its oil exports to China, which from a Russian point of view is more advanced in consumer technology than Germany.

Of course this all changed with the imminent conclusion of Nord Stream 2 – despite Team Trump taking no prisoners to sanction everyone in sight.

Backdoor intel discussions made it very clear to German industrialists that if Germany would ever lose its Russian source of oil and natural gas, coupled with the Strait of Hormuz shut down by Iran in the event of an American attack, the German economy might simply collapse.

There have been serious cross-country intel discussions about the possibility of a US-sponsored October Surprise involving a false flag to be blamed on Iran. Team Trump’s “maximum pressure” on Iran has absolutely nothing to do with the JCPOA. What matters is that even indirectly, the Russia-China strategic partnership has made it very clear that Tehran will be protected as a strategic asset – and as a key node of Eurasia integration.

Cross-intel considerations center on a scenario assuming a – quite unlikely – collapse of the government in Tehran. The first thing Washington would do in this case is to pull the switch of the SWIFT clearing system. The target would be to crush the Russian economy. That’s why Russia and China are actively increasing the merger of the Russian Mir and the Chinese CHIPS payment systems, as well as bypassing the US dollar in bilateral trade.

It has already been gamed in Beijing that were that scenario ever to take place, China might lose its two key allies in one move, and then have to face Washington alone, still on a stage of not being able to assure for itself all the necessary natural resources. That would be a real existential threat. And that explains the rationale behind the increasing interconnection of the Russia-China strategic partnership plus the $400 billion, 25-year-long China-Iran deal.

Bismarck is back

Another possible secret deal already discussed at the highest intel levels is the possibility of a Bismarckian Reinsurance Treaty to be established between Germany and Russia. The inevitable consequence would be a de facto Berlin-Moscow-Beijing alliance spanning the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), alongside the creation of a new – digital? – Eurasian currency for the whole Eurasian alliance, including important yet peripheral actors such as France and Italy.

Well, Beijing-Moscow is already on. Berlin-Beijing is a work in progress. The missing link is Berlin-Moscow.

That would represent not only the ultimate nightmare for Mackinder-drenched Anglo-American elites, but in fact the definitive passing of the geopolitical torch from maritime empires back to the Eurasian heartland.

It’s not a fiction anymore. It’s on the table.

Adding to it, let’s do some little time traveling and go back to the year 1348.

The Mongols of the Golden Horde are in Crimea, laying siege to Kaffa – a trading port in the Black Sea controlled by the Genoese.

Suddenly, the Mongol army is consumed by bubonic plague.

They start catapulting contaminated corpses over the walls of the Crimean city.

So imagine what happened when ships started sailing again from Kaffa to Genoa.

They transported the plague to Italy.

By 1360, the Black Death was literally all over the place – from Lisbon to Novgorod, from Sicily to Norway. As much as 60% of Europe’s population may have been killed – over 100 million people.

A case can be made that the Renaissance, because of the plague, was delayed by a whole century.

Covid-19 is of course far from a medieval plague. But it’s fair to ask.

What Renaissance could it be possibly delaying?

Well, it might well be actually advancing the Renaissance of Eurasia. It’s happening just as the Hegemon, the former “end of history”, is internally imploding, “distracted from distraction by distraction”, to quote T.S. Eliot. Behind the fog, in prime shadowplay pastures, the vital moves to reorganize the Eurasian land mass are already on.

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Video: Lies, Damned Lies and Coronavirus Statistics

August 28th, 2020 by James Corbett

This report was first released on April 17. It provides a detailed understanding of the lies and fabrications pertaining to COVID-19

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The numbers are in on the great Covid-19 pandemic . . . but unfortunately those numbers are unreliable.

From mendacious models and puffed-up projections to dodgy death data and tainted tests, today on The Corbett Report, James highlights what the accredited scientists and award-winning researchers are saying about the pandemic pandemonium of 2020.

For those with limited bandwidth, CLICK HERE to download a smaller, lower file size version of this episode.

For those interested in audio quality, CLICK HERE for the highest-quality version of this episode (WARNING: very large download).

Watch this video on BitChute / LBRY / Minds.com / YouTube or Download the mp4

Notes

Knut Wittkoski on The HighWire with Del Bigtree

Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg- The TRUTH about Corona (Audio Translation)

Dr John Ioannidis on coronavirus data

Dr Joel Kettner questions the coronavirus narrative on CBC Radio

Dr Scott Jensen on the ridiculous CDC guidelines

12 Experts Questioning the Coronavirus Panic

10 MORE Experts Criticising the Coronavirus Panic

Perspectives on the Pandemic: Alternative views on the coronavirus crisis

Imperial College Covid-19 Model

Epidemic suppression is the only strategy

Extreme measures based on scientific paper

2.2 million would have died ‘if we did nothing’: Trump

Ferguson walks back 500,000

Key coronavirus model revised downward, predicts 60K deaths in US by August

The National for Friday, April 3 —Ontario releases COVID-19 projections; Isolation PTSD

Imperial College gets $79 million from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Dr. Fauci on criticism of coronavirus modeling

“This is for real”

NY Post cover image: mass graves in NYC!

NYC may temporarily bury coronavirus victims on Hart Island

Drone video may show inmates burying coffins on NYC’s infamous Hart Island

De Blasio admits coronavirus victims have been buried on Hart Island

Workers in full Hazmat suits bury rows of coffins in Hart Island mass grave as NYC officials confirm coronavirus victims WILL be buried there if their bodies aren’t claimed within two weeks after death toll rises to 4,778

No, NYC Is Not Running Out of Burial Space Due to COVID-19

New York City coronavirus death toll jumps past 10,000 in revised count

New ICD code introduced for COVID-19 deaths

Guidance for Certifying Deaths Due to Coronavirus Disease 2019

Deborah Birx: If Someone Dies w/ COVID-19, We Are Counting That As a COVID-19 Death

What’s Up With The Italian Mortality Rate? – Questions For Corbett #058

Covid19 Death Figures “A Substantial Over-Estimate”

Has COVID-19 Testing Made the Problem Worse?

US unemployment surges by 22 million in a month

Coronavirus Death Predictions Bring New Meaning to Hysteria

Are There Lockdown Protests? – Questions For Corbett #060

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Featured image is from CODEPINK

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If ordered by federal, state, or local authorities, businesses or other entities in the US or elsewhere, mandating mass-vaxxing against COVID-19 will violate the Nuremberg Code.

All vaccines contain hazardous to human health toxins and are unsafe to use —  notably when development is rushed like now so Pharma can cash in big on a bonanza of profits by mass-vaxxing against this virus.

The Nuremberg Code requires voluntary consent on matters relating to human health.

Whatever potentially risks physical and mental suffering, death, or disability is prohibited.

Mandated mass-vaxxing by authorities anywhere will constitute a flagrant Nuremberg Code breach.

Last week, Virginia health commissioner Norman Oliver said he intends to mandate mass-immunizations of state residents for COVID-19 once one or more vaccines are available.

He falsely claimed

“(w)e would not launch a campaign around mass vaccination with anything that hasn’t proven to be safe (sic),” adding:

Public health takes precedence over choice, while pushing the myth of herd immunity from COVID-19 that doesn’t exist.

He also falsely claimed that no treatment for the virus exists.

Big Pharma in cahoots with Big Media and Big Government want a known COVID-19 cure suppressed because its use if widespread with undermine Pharma’s aim to benefit from a multi-billion dollar market potential — no matter the harm to human health from rushed to market vaccines.

Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) combined with either azithromycin or doxycycline and zinc is safe and highly effective in curing COVID-19 when administered during the early stage of the disease.

Claims otherwise are fake science. Establishment media are heavily involved in debunking HCQ, while indefensibly promoting mass-vaxxing.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health mandated hazardous to human health mass-vaxxing of students at all levels and ages against influenza/flu by Dec. 31, claiming:

“The new vaccine requirement is an important step to reduce flu-related illness and the overall impact of respiratory illness during the COVID-19 pandemic (sic).”

According to a study published in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal, children vaccinated against influenza/flu were over four times more likely to contract other respiratory infections — including COVID-19.

Last week, National Geographic reported that “vaccines (for COVID-19) could become mandatory,” adding:

The dystopian possibility envisioned by some experts would be a USA and “world in which you’ll need to show you’ve been inoculated against the novel coronavirus to attend a sports game, get a manicure, go to work, or hop on a train.”

NYU bioethicist Arthur Caplan believes mandated mass-vaxxing may become public policy in the US and elsewhere — enforced by local governments, employers, and other sources.

Health and Vaccine Law Professor Dorit Rubenstein Reiss noted that managements of retail stores, restaurants, salons, and arenas may legally deny entry to people for many reasons “as long as they’re not running afoul of any anti-discrimination laws.”

Other experts believe when one or more COVID-19 vaccines become available, US state authorities and employers may require mass-vaxxing of workers, especially ones considered “essential.”

Requiring certificates to prove individuals were vaxxed against the virus would be similar to wearing a visible yellow Star of David that was mandated for Jews by Nazi Germany.

Is that where things are headed in the US and elsewhere?

Will that be the brave new world to emerge in the months ahead — hazardous to human health and safety innoculations wherever this totalitarian mandate is imposed?

A Final Comment

Philosopher, medical ethicist, human rights activist Evelyne Shuster earlier wrote about the “significance of the Nuremberg Code,” saying the following:

“The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.”

“This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision.”

“This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him (or her) the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.”

“The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the experiment.”

“It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.”

If mandated, mass-vaxxing against COVID-19 will be an unparalleled in scale hazardous to human health experiment to which targeted individuals will have no choice but to comply or risk ostracization from society.

This policy if ordered by governments, businesses, or other entities will violate core principles of what the Nuremberg Code is all about.

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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.

Featured image is from Natural News

China’s Project to Create A “Digital Yuan”

August 28th, 2020 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

The topic of cryptocurrencies has gained prominence among specialists in international trade in recent months. With the global economic crisis generated by the new coronavirus pandemic, this need has become even more evident. The world powers enter a new race, seeking to be pioneers in a cryptocurrency system.

Since 2014, China has been developing its national cryptocurrency system that is expected to replace the current currency in cash. Tests for the implementation of the digital yuan are advancing. The Ministry of Commerce recently reported that currency experiments will soon be carried out in China’s largest metropolitan regions. The goal is to progressively expand the regions covered by the digital currency by the end of 2020. The cities that will participate in the experiment this year are Beijing, Tianjin, the Yangtze River Delta, as well as the Greater Bay region, which includes Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macau. The system is planned to work on blockchain. The issuance will be first from the Central Bank to commercial banks, and then from such banks to the population. It is assumed that the digital yuan will soon completely replace cash.

It is still unknown when the digital currency will be fully put into circulation. Now, the digital yuan is being tested in very limited geographic locations, more specifically in Shenzhen, Suzhou, Hunan and Chengdu, and with considerably reduced application, being limited to sectors. According to experts, the slow implementation of the project is mainly because there is a great need for public investment for its implementation. In short, a cryptocurrency system will have to undergo constant processes of modernization and adaptation, which can increase public spending considerably.

In 2019, Facebook announced the development of the Libra cryptocurrency, which was widely celebrated in the West. Interestingly, Chinese authorities began to speak more publicly about the digital yuan precisely after the Libra project was unveiled, revealing more details about a program that started in 2014. This shows how, even before the pandemic, there was already a strategic plan for the creation of cryptocurrencies and that such projects were treated in confidence, like real weapons.

In a recent statement by the World Economic Forum, the choice of cryptocurrency technology and blockchain system as an economic alternative for the post-COVID-19 world remains clear: “If there was any doubt about the value of blockchain platforms to improve business transparency that depends on integration perfect of disparate networks, COVID-19 has practically eliminated them. We must look at this health crisis as a vital learning curve that can show us how to build transparent, interoperable and connected networks”. The option for full virtualization of the payment system was not a Chinese invention, but a worldwide forecast. It just seems that the Western powers have neglected to invest in such projects and have lost space to China.

The development of its own digital currency has already been announced by central banks in many countries, including the Federal Reserve (US central bank), which until recently claimed to be against any cryptocurrency creation project, including Libra, noting that these innovations threaten the stability of the global financial system. It is likely and possible that, after some time, the whole world will convert all its national currencies into digital versions and, after all, this will become a necessary measure for the survival of any country in the post-pandemic world order, but, for now, China is the most advanced country in the development and implementation of a digital currency. If the experiment succeeds, the digital yuan is likely to become commonplace for the Chinese and the citizens of their largest allied countries in Asia and elsewhere.

The pandemic has revealed several weaknesses in the international system. Now, during the crisis, nations are seeking to overcome these challenges and are entering real races to achieve results. The race for a vaccine and the production of medicines was the first to be evidenced. Now, a new race is emerging, with another purpose: to create mechanisms before other countries to overcome the economic crisis.

Indeed, the digital yuan could be an interesting alternative. The current system of international payments, which was formed in the 19th century, hardly meets the requirements of the contemporary global market due to the cost and time it takes. The country that most quickly develops an adequate digital currency system will have an economic advantage over others. Most nations are yet to start developing such currencies, lagging far behind China. This impact may not be so strong in some developed countries, but it will certainly affect the United States particularly, against whom China is at a trade war.

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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

On September 7, Julian Assange will be facing another round of gruelling extradition proceedings, in the Old Bailey, part of a process that has become a form of gradual state-sanctioned torture.  The US Department of Justice hungers for their man.  The UK prison authorities are doing little to protect his health.  The end result, should it result in his death, will be justifiably described as state-sanctioned murder.  This picture was not improved upon by a prison visit from his partner, Stella Morris, accompanied by their two children.  Almost six months had passed since the last meeting.

Physical distancing was practised during the twenty minute meeting in Belmarsh Prison.  Morris and Assange wore face masks and visors, a state of affairs curious given the conspicuous lack of protective wear that has been given to Assange during the pandemic.  A prohibition on touching was observed.  “We had to keep social distancing and Julian was told he would have to self-isolate for two weeks if he touched the children.”  Were officials being careful and considerate?  Not according to Assange, who claimed it was the first time he had received a mask “because things are very different behind the doors.”  Morris noted a prevailing thinness, a yellow armband to indicate prisoner status, and the fact that he was “in a lot of pain.”

What awaits Assange next month promises to be resoundingly ugly.  He will have to ready himself for more pain, applied by Judge Vanessa Baraitser.  Throughout her steering of proceedings, Baraitser has remained chillingly indifferent to Assange’s needs, a model of considered cruelty.  Keen followers of justicia will be crestfallen: limiting access to legal counsel by keeping him caged behind a glass screen; ignoring his health considerations in refusing emergency bail during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Her behaviour has been in keeping with that of Chief Magistrate Lady Emma Arbuthnot, who has done her precious bit to soil the citadel of British justice in previous rulings on Assange.  With a family well and truly embedded in the British intelligence and military establishment, it was alarming to even see her name allocated to the Assange case.  In February 2018, she dismissed an application by the publisher to cancel his arrest warrant for refusing to surrender for his extradition to Sweden.  It did not matter that Swedish proceedings against the Australian had been discontinued, or that prosecution proceedings for breaching bail had not been commenced. 

To this ruling came her cool judgment on February 13, 2018 on claims by Assange’s legal team that proceedings for failing to surrender to British authorities were disproportionate and not in the public interest.  The judgment is horrendous for a few reasons, and in keeping with the intentionally harsh, and unimaginative way British courts have dealt with his case.  Arbuthnot, for one, was unmoved by the findings of the UN Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.  His “house arrest” and “harsh restrictions” had been proposed by Assange himself.  His time in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London could have been ended by leaving “the embassy whenever he wishes”.  He could use the computer facilities, eat what he wanted and see guests. 

This caricature of freedom and choice was topped by her assessment that read grotesquely then, and even more appallingly now.  While accepting that Assange “had expressed fears of being returned to the United States from a very early stage in the Swedish extradition proceedings”, she found little merit to them.  Sweden would not have rendered him to the United States.  To have done so would have precipitated a diplomatic crisis between the UK, US and Sweden.  (And how, pray, would she know?)  As for whether Assange would face an extradition request to Britain, he could always “be able to argue extraneous considerations, fair trial and conditions of detention in the United States prison system.”

Which brings us to Baraitser, who has served as an appropriately bad replacement after Arbuthnot stood aside from the case, despite refusing to admit to any perception of bias.  Very little is known about Baraitser in the public domain, though the investigative outfit Declassified UK has been busy with some dedicated digging.  On February 28, 2020 it filed a Freedom of Information request with the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) seeking a list of all the cases which Baraitser had ruled upon since her appointment in 2011.  Of particular interest was her record on extradition rulings.  Two months elapsed before a reply from the information officer at the HM Courts and Tribunal Service confirming that it held “some information that you have requested”.  But the request was flatly turned down for not being consistent with the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.  “The judiciary is not a public body for the purposes of FOIA… and requests asking to disclose all the cases a named judge ruled on are therefore outside the scope of the FOIA.”  This limitation maintained “the independence of the judiciary which also means that the government does not provide guidance or policy on how judges should operate in court.”

The information officer’s reasoning was specious, not least because the FOIA request was premised on identifying what should, in any case, be on the public record: the cases upon which a judge has seen fit to rule upon, with outcomes.  This also ignored the fact that some cases involving Baraitser are actually accessible through the legal database Westlaw. 

As a barrister wishing to remain anonymous explained to Declassified, “A court is a public authority for the purposes of the Human Rights Act and a judge is an officer of the court.”  A court also acted in public.  “There is no default anonymity of the names of cases, unless children are involved or other certain limited circumstances, nor the judges who rule on them.”

Undeterred, Declassified persevered and found 24 extradition cases over which Baraitser presided between November 2015 and May 2019 mining Factiva and Westlaw.  The results show an overly keen enthusiasm for extradition.  “Of these 24 cases, Baraitser ordered the extradition of 23 of the defendants, a 96% extradition record from publicly available evidence.”  One of Baraitser’s rulings was overturned on appeal, with the appellate court attaching “considerable weight to the likely impact of extradition upon the health and wellbeing of the defendant’s wife”, who would be “left with very little support.”  A scintilla of hope, perhaps, is in the offing.

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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]

Kyle Rittenhouse. Senseless Violence Across America…

August 28th, 2020 by Mike Whitney

Kyle Rittenhouse didn’t go to Kenosha to shoot protestors; he went to protect the property and lives of the people who were threatened by a rampaging mob that had already destroyed large parts of the city. That’s why he was there. He went to fill the security vacuum the Democrat governor and mayor created when they failed to perform their sworn obligation to protect the people in their charge. They didn’t do that, they left the city and its merchants exposed to the erratic and violent behavior of looters, vandals and arsonists. Which is why Rittenhouse showed up. He was there to stop the criminal gangs from doing more damage than they’d already done.

“People are getting injured and our job is to protect this business… If someone is hurt, I’m running into harms way. That’s why I need my rifle to protect myself,” Rittenhouse told a reporter from the Daily Caller.

Unfortunately, Rittenhouse was attacked by a crowd on the property he was protecting, and a man was shot in the head. The man who was killed appears to be Joseph Rosenbaum, “a registered sex offender for a crime involving a minor.” Videos of the victim have popped up on Twitter but we have no way of verifying them at this time. What we know for certain is that Rittenhouse is responsible for the shooting deaths of two men and another who was wounded.

There is also evidence that one of the men who attacked Rittenhouse was carrying a gun. See here:

In a video that has been widely circulated on the internet, Rittenhouse is seen running away from an angry group of protestors who trip him from behind and send him sprawling to the ground. While lying on the street, Rittenhouse quickly grabbed his assault rifle and shot an assailant who had hit him on the head with his skateboard. He then slowly rose to one knee and shot another attacker who was preparing to deliver a blow. The bloody clash scattered the other 15 or 20 potential assailants who quickly did a U-Turn and fled in the opposite direction.

Rittenhouse was later taken into custody by police and charged with first-degree murder. The Antioch Police Department released the following statement on Wednesday:

“This morning Kenosha County authorities issued an arrest warrant for the individual responsible for the incident, charging him with First Degree Intentional Homicide. The suspect in this incident, a 17-year-old Antioch resident, is currently in custody of the Lake County Judicial System pending an extradition hearing to transfer custody from Illinois to Wisconsin.”

Rittenhouse has been assigned a public defender and faces charges of “first degree intentional homicide”. He is expected to appear in court on Friday.

Reasonable people should be able to agree that the situation should never have been allowed to deteriorate to the point where a young man felt the need to take up arms to defend an American city from the type of senseless violence we’ve seen in the last 10 weeks. But that’s what happened. And the blame should not be placed on Rittenhouse, but on the Democrat leaders– mayor and governor– and their criminal allies in the media who have applauded the activities of the rioters while failing to mention the horrific damage they have done. It’s shameful.

Also, there is world of difference between “freedom of assembly” and looting, arson and vandalism. The media knows the difference but continues to perpetuate the myth that these are mostly “peaceful protests” conducted by principled demonstrators who only seek social justice. Nothing could be further from the truth. How does one achieve social justice by burning down a mattress warehouse or looting a pancake restaurant or demolishing an entire fleet of new vehicles or spray-painting and firebombing a federal courthouse?? How do these activities square with the teachings of Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi or leaders in the Antiwar movement?

They don’t. BLM is not a protest movement, it’s not even a civil rights movement. It’s a Trojan Horse funded by sinister globalist troublemakers who believe that violence is an acceptable means for advancing their own narrow political agenda. And let’s not kid ourselves, the real objective is likely the exact opposite of what they claim to seek, that is, the inevitable deployment of Federal troops followed by the establishment of a centrally-controlled Federal Police force no different than the Stasi or Gestapo. That’s the real objective, absolute martial power in the hands of– you guessed it– the Democrat puppet-masters and their deep-state friends.

There was also another violent eruption in Seattle last night that’s been conveniently ignored by the crooked media. Here’s the story from KIRO News 7:

“Seattle police officers were forced to kick their way out of an East Precinct exit door Monday night, after rioters jammed it with boards and rebar, and attempted to seal the door closed with quick-dry cement. As the door was being jammed, surveillance video shows several other people building a fire outside the building near the exit door, in an attempt to set the building on fire.

“I think what this shows you is that these people are intent on killing police officers,” said Mike Solan, president of the Seattle Police Guild, who called the act ‘”clear domestic terrorism.’”

“We’re being held hostage by a group of 100 to 150 people that are bent on destroying this city and hurting police officers,” Solan said.

Solan said a short time later, the Guild headquarters also became the target of three firebombs. “Our surveillance video captured two individuals scouting our location for several hours,” Solan said.

Surveillance video from that location shows one of the firebombs bursting, igniting the building’s rear stairway in flames, before officers were able to extinguish the fire. Solan said officers are dispirited when no- one in city leadership denounces these attacks.

“That’s why it’s incumbent upon our elected officials to put a stop to this immediately,” he said. “How can city leaders be so feckless? It can’t just be on the officers. This is an absolute overthrow attempt of some of our government institutions, and police are in the way. They or the officers will get hurt or killed so they can put forth that agenda.” (“SPD: Rioters tried to trap officers inside burning precinct using rebar and concrete”, KIRO News7)

Got that? Our esteemed social justice warriors tried to burn cops to death in their own precinct last night and our flunkey media failed to even report the incident.

Nice, eh? They must have been covering something more important like Trump’s latest post on Twitter.

As you may know, Seattle is run by Utopian blockheads who want to defund the police just as violent crime, drug-use and homelessness have skyrocketed to new highs and just as street violence has become a nightly event. Now the fanatical City Council is trying to shrug off the news that hooded thugs torched the police Headquarters putting everyone inside the building at risk of a fiery and agonizing death. What sort of mad world do we live in??

By the way, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has offered his sympathy to the family of Jacob Blake, the black man who was shot while resisting arrest by Wisconsin police over the weekend. Referring to Blake, Biden said:

“What I saw on that video makes me sick. Once again, a Black man, Jacob Blake, has been shot by the police in broad daylight, with the whole world watching.”

New video from the scene shows that Blake was resisting arrest and putting officers at risk by attempting to enter the front seat of his SUV. Neither Biden nor anyone else knows whether there was weapon in the front seat, so Biden’s comments are clearly an attempt to prejudice the case against the cops. Why would he do that unless he thought there was some political advantage in doing so?

Biden added: “Put yourself in the shoes of every Black father and Black mother in this country and ask: Is this what we want America to be? Is this the country we should be?”

Again, why is he saying this? Is Biden really so desperate for black votes that he’d try to influence the course of a murder investigation?

Yes, that’s exactly what he’s doing. He’s blaming the cops before he’s even heard the details because he thinks it might help him win the election. That’s Joe Biden in a nutshell. (Note– We now know that Blake DID have a knife in the front seat, but will that be enough to wrangle an apology out of Biden? Don’t hold your breath.)

So where do we go from here? Is the Rittenhouse incident a one-off or is it the beginning of something much bigger? Will we see a sharp uptick in the rioting and looting or will we begin to see more pushback from the people who’ve had enough and who don’t think social justice can be achieved by breaking windows, toppling statues, and burning down cities? Will the police and National Guard finally restore peace and order or will we slip deeper into fratricidal warfare and chaos?

The only thing that’s certain is that there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle. The Democrats and the media have encouraged this madness from the very beginning by praising the protests while downplaying the magnitude of the damage. It was all part of a political calculation that has backfired spectacularly. Now the mob is emboldened and no amount of destruction will satisfy its lust for more violence. You can see it in the rioters faces. It’s all a game and they’re enjoying themselves. They feel powerful now and they like it. That’s going to be hard to change.

But it will change and change won’t be pretty. The state will deploy all its assets to reclaim its monopoly on violence. You can bet on that. Security will be reestablished with brute force and an iron fist. A Crackdown is coming and the innocent are going to be crushed along with the guilty.

It didn’t have to be this way. This all could have been avoided if our scheming Democrat leaders had chosen to protect the people instead of kowtowing to the mob. The blood is on their hands.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from TUR unless otherwise stated

Planting Trees Can Reduce Poverty and Slow Climate Change

August 28th, 2020 by Jacqueline Skalski-Fouts

Humanitarian crises have recently been declared in Sudan, Yemen, Niger, Mali, and Somalia—affecting at least 450,000 people—due to flash floods and landslides. Areas with low tree coverage and poor soil quality are more likely to experience flood and drought, as the soil is less able to retain excess rainwater.

Countries like Morocco, which are highly susceptible to long periods of drought, are welcoming reforestation efforts to improve agriculture. In partnership with civil society, the Moroccan government will plant 800,000 trees across the country by 2024.

Like Morocco, many are turning to agroforestry, or tree-farming, as an eco-friendly solution to climate issues. Globally, at least 650 million hectares of land (13.3% of total farming land) are used for agroforestry systems.

Planting trees also diversifies farming. Estimates claim forest-farms can be eight times more profitable than staple crops like grain, which can increase farmers’ incomes and reduce rural poverty.

Deforestation and poverty are linked

Almost 30 percent of the world’s 821 million malnourished people live in Africa, the highest prevalence by region. Despite socioeconomic improvements in Morocco (1.7 million Moroccans have moved out of poverty in the last decade), droughts continue to threaten agricultural production, which accounts for 20 percent of GDP and 30 percent of the Moroccan workforce. Low crop yield can exacerbate poverty, especially in rural regions, as two thirds of people who are in extreme poverty work as agricultural laborers.

However, African farmers are beginning to diversify their incomes, a method Morocco has been successful with in improving rural economies and reducing poverty throughout the region. For Moroccan farmers, this has meant investing in cash crops, such as fruit and argan trees, as opposed to producing principal crops, such as wheat and barley.

An oasis in the desert

Forest-gardens, or “food forests,” have been around since ancient times. These cultivated forests contain several layers. The top layer, usually fruit or nut trees, provides shade and traps moisture for smaller edible plants, such as shrubs and root crops.

One of the most well-known forest-gardens in Morocco, located in Agadir, is the Inraren forest, a strip of tropical fruit trees that covers approximately 65 acres. While the exact origins of the forest are untraceable, many believe that it has existed for at least 2,000 years.

The area began as a small gathering of plants, an alternative to transporting and cultivating food sources far away from home. Locals tended the area over thousands of years, creating a support system—beneficial insects, cultivation techniques, and traditional horticultural knowledge. The end-result was the creation of a “self-sustaining” ecosystem, a so-called oasis in the desert, where local produce—goats, chickens, pheasants—could live within and contribute to the survival of the trees and crops.

In addition to food staples and non-native produce, these forests provide shady spaces where cool, moist air can gather, keeping the surrounding land firm and water-retentive. The goal of food-forest developers is to create these forests in areas where the soil is prone to becoming loose and dry.

Resilience by planting trees

In order to combat the effects of global warming, governments are embracing reforestation initiatives. A simple initiative may involve tree planting as an activity. The Chinese government, for example, enacted a program in 1982 to combat the effects of climate change within the country, establishing that all able-bodied citizens between the ages of 11 and 60 have the obligation to plant three to five trees every year. Local governments are required to organize voluntary tree-planting activities that engage all citizens. This ensures that trees are not planted in unwanted areas that could harm the land or the people. Since the program began, a total of 42 billion trees have been planted across the country.

The High Atlas Foundation (HAF), a development nonprofit based in Marrakech, offers a method of reducing rural poverty by providing farmers with natural-grown fruit and nut trees to diversify and boost local incomes.

The approach connects three levels of stakeholders—individuals within the community, government, and local organizations—and provides a solution to barriers local farmers may face in trying to grow their own trees. Local farmers may not have available land or proper equipment to grow saplings from seeds, and nearby nurseries may be too expensive to purchase from.

HAF nurseries use land donated in-kind from donors such as the local Departments of Water and Forests, Ministry of Youth and Sports, and the Moroccan Jewish community. Locals grow seeds within these nurseries, keeping the process within the community. Then tree saplings are sold at reduced prices to local farmers, planted, and monitored for proper growth. In this way, the organization has planted 1.38 million tree seeds this year, partnering as well with Ecosia.

Similar support within the country has helped build women’s argan oil cooperatives, by providing argan trees, thereby reducing inequalities and bringing money back into local economies.

As climate change continues to affect communities around the world, reforestation and tree farming methods provide a solution. However, economic and political aspects of land ownership can challenge these initiatives. It will be important for those who choose to plant trees to do so in the right places.

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Jacqueline Skalski-Fouts is an undergraduate global studies student at the University of Virginia.

Featured image is from High Atlas Foundation

In 1991-1992, just prior to, and following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US gloated over its global supremacy which, of course guaranteed its unfettered dominance of United Nations agencies, the most powerful of which is the UN Security Council.  In 1990-1991 the US bullied all members of the Security Council into passing Resolution 678, which authorized UN-Nato bombing Iraq (using “all necessary means”).  At one point in 1991, according to the New York Times, the UK dropped one bomb per minute on Baghdad, and the result of UN Security Council Resolution 678 was the “destruction of the infrastructure necessary to support human life in Iraq” according to former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and former President of Finland Marti Ahtisaari, Nobel Laureate and United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Administration and Management.  The only Security Council members with the courage and decency to vote against Resolution 678 were Cuba and Yemen, with US Ambassador Thomas Pickering threatening Yemen’s Ambassador Al-Ashtal

“That will be the most expensive vote you ever cast.”

Intelligence agencies have “long memories.” Is it possible – or probable that the slaughter-bombing of Yemen today is payback for Yemen’s courage in opposing US sponsored Resolution 678, defying US hegemony?  UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has described the carnage in Yemen today as  “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”  On August 12, 2020 the New York Times cited:

“Report Links Weapons Sold to Saudis by the U.S. to Yemeni Civilian Deaths….The State Department inspector general issued a report on Tuesday criticizing the agency as failing to take proper measures to reduce civilian deaths from American-made bombs used by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the catastrophic Yemen war…..The American-made bombs are central to the Saudi-led air war against Yemeni rebels that has resulted in what the United Nations calls the world’s worst man-made humanitarian crisis.  Thousands of civilians have been killed since 2015, many of them  women and children…Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pushed the $8.1 billion sale of these munitions, mostly made by Raytheon, despite a two-year bi-partisan congressional hold on the proposed transfer of the arms, comprising 22 packages…The move infuriated Democratic lawmakers, who asked the inspector general at the time, Steve A. Linick, to open an investigation….In congressional testimony in June, Mr. Linick identified Mr. String as one of the two officials who attempted to pressure him into dropping the arms sale investigation.  The other was Brian Bulatao, the Under Secretary of State for Management, and a longtime friend of Mr. Pompeo’s. ‘He tried to bully me,’ Mr. Linick said.”

United States dominance of the UN Security Council continued almost unabated through 2011, when, during the Medvedev Presidency of Russia, a phone call from US Secretary of State Clinton to Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov assured Russia’s abstention on UN Security Council Resolution 1973, while China was still too weakened to veto the abhorrent resolution, which led to Resolution 1973 approving “all necessary measures” under Chapter VII, authorizing the NATO members’ destruction of Libya, transforming the once progressive Middle East nation into a failed state, and the extrajudicial murder of President Gaddafi, during whose torture-death he was sodomized with a bayonet.

Having succeeded in bending the UN Security Council to its predatory will, disguised as sanctimonious “concern for the human rights and democratic freedoms of the Libyan people,” the Libyan state was destroyed, as was Iraq, and both are now incubators of terrorism.  The US was evidently confident in its ability to bully the Security Council into authorizing a repeat performance, this time destroying the government of President Assad in Syria, beginning in 2011, but the Presidency of Vladimir Putin in Russia, and the ascendancy of China to great power status had not been factored into their grandiose blueprint, and by 2013 the multiple plans to gain UN Security Council authorization for attacks on Syria, overt or covert, were frustrated by the three double-vetoes cast by Ambassador Vitali Churkin for Russia and Ambassador Li Baodong for China.  Seven years later, the US during July 2020 is still trying to manipulate the Security Council into authorizing surreptitious invasion of Syria and destruction of the government of President Assad.

In July, 2020 there were three Security Council meetings on Syria, the West attempting to double “humanitarian aid” access routes to Syria from Turkey, thereby increasing Syria’s vulnerability to a NATO member.  Russia and China opposed this “new initiative,” leading to a virulent “right of reply” between the US Representative and China’s Ambassador Zhang.  The US Representative deplored China’s “lack of concern for the humanitarian needs of Syrian Civilians” to which China’s Ambassador Zhang brilliantly retorted:

“US unilateral coercive sanctions against Syria are causing the greatest humanitarian crisis for the Syrian people, and the U S’ hypocritical ‘concern for the needs of the Syrian people’ is a masquerade for their surreptitious effort to undermine and threaten the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian government, which is effectively providing humanitarian aid for its own people;   external interference is suspect.”

On the following Saturday morning emergency meeting a resolution was adopted permitting one border crossing at Dab Al-Hawa, the border crossing from Turkey into Northwest Syria. On August 5 the NY Times quoted John E. Smith, former director of the Treasury Department’s Office of Assets Control:

“It is generally the people of the jurisdiction that pay the ultimate penalty from the poverty that is inflicted on that government.”….”the vast nature of the United Nations sanctions efforts is scaring companies away from the region, even though they may be legally allowed to operate. ‘It’s a double-edged sword,’ said Basma Alloush, policy and advocacy adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council, a humanitarian organization that operates in Syria. ‘If the US is using such sweeping, vast sanctions to yield some kind of political goal, they’re not paying enough attention to the unintended consequences.’ She added: ‘With the US adding this additional pressure on ordinary people that have gone through hell and back, they really need to do a lot more to demonstrate how exactly they’re going to be protecting these civilians.’”

Consistent with its savage trajectory, the US effort to coerce the UN Security Council into restoring international sanctions against Iran has reached the point of absurdity.  However that has not stopped  Mr. Pompeo. On August 21, The New York Times quoted Wendy Sherman, former American negotiator during the Obama Administration stating:

“The United States does not have the standing’ to restore the sanctions and is unlikely to convince European diplomats that it did,”

The United States infuriated even its allies on the Security Council when it withdrew from the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).  Nevertheless, the Security Council and the JCPOA contain a technical loophole enabling the US to again force its will upon the currently entirely alienated Security Council, and with breathtaking arrogance,

“In a six-page notification submitted on  August 20 to Dian Triansyah Djani of Indonesia, the Security Council president, the Trump administration said the sanctions would be reimposed against Iran after 30 days. Officials said the sanctions could be blocked only by a Security Council resolution, which the United States has the power to veto.”

The unilateral coercive sanctions that the United States has imposed on Iran has devastated the Iranian economy and people.  The US assassination of Iranian General Sulimani was a criminal act in violation of international law.  The fact that assassination has been a method of eliminating leaders that do not bend to the will of US corporate interests is seldom raised in the Security Council, and the only powers that allude to these crimes are Russia and China, permanent members of the Security Council, and arguably the only ballast safeguarding a modicum of legitimacy for the Security Council at present..

The entire Middle East has been subjected to cataclysmic violence, and the trajectory is alarming.  It is now clear that the perilous schism between the United States and China may have deadly consequences, and there are multiple possibilities that could culminate in war, possibly the final war.

The classic culmination of monopoly capitalism is fascism, and the dynamic of capitalism is suicidal.  The question is: can this economic system based on greed and profit maximization be controlled, or replaced by a more humanitarian economic order?  As Xi Jinping referenced “The Thucydides Principle,” the question must be asked:  is it possible to avert armageddon?  And is the United Nations now a solution, or will it be swallowed up into an engine of the problem?

In his famous book “The Grand Chessboard”, Zbigniew Brzezinski,  the psychopathic national security advisor of former President Carter stated that the greatest obstacle to US global dominance would be an alliance between Russia and China.  Brzezinski was, some say, demonically brilliant, and he probably recognized that the only force that the West could not defeat was precisely such an alliance.

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Carla Stea is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and Global Research’s Correspondent at UN headquarters, New York. 

If you’re gathering evidence of the victimization of Muslim women, this is not your film. Yes, Made in Bangladesh highlights exploitation in a country, most of whose citizens are Muslim. But this film’s focus is women workers: people working to support their families, as most women do, and fighting for parity, as most of us do.

Some film reviews underscore the 2013 collapse of a garment factory in Dhaka where many women perished. Made in Bangladesh is not an account of that catastrophe.

While the venue of this film is a clothing factory and the main characters are women laborers, its inspiration is union organizer Daliya Akter who, fleeing her village home, found work in a Dhaka garment factory, one probably not unlike the setting of this film. She eventually realized that the only way out of untenable working conditions she experienced was to build worker solidarity and gain legal protection, and so began organizing a union of fellow garment workers. Made in Bangladesh is based on her struggle and ultimate success, a story so compelling that film director Rabaiyat Hossain, herself Bangladeshi, reached out to Akter to collaborate in the writing and production of her tough but heartwarming career.

This is director Rubaiyat Hossain’s third feature film, and since its 2019 release through Indie film festivals, she has won recognition as an outstanding young filmmaker. She is committed to women’s empowerment both in the themes of her films and also by employing professional women in her production teams, assembling a crew of talented Bangladeshi women to handle the cameras, the sound, editing, casting, and other production work that go into serious filmmaking. In a 2019 interview at the Toronto International Film Festival Hossain explains her determination to bring women into all levels of production.

Hossain is forthright about the political motive behind her themes too. She emphasizes that the women she portrays are not victims. Her aim is to direct attention to women’s search for political solutions to injustices they experience. She joins others in rejecting boycotts by sympathetic foreign consumers of garment sweatshops after the 2013 tragedy,  explaining: “These (factory) jobs have the potential to redefine life for young women in Bangladesh; the struggle of garment workers to be able to collectively work towards realizing their rights must be supported by everyone who wears the clothes they make. Only a tiny percentage of Bangladeshi factories are unionized; the answer (to exploitative factory management) is that these women are respected and that bad (working) conditions are not tolerated.”

The film has deservedly won Hossain’s and her team international acclaim. Made in Bangladesh is laboriously and skillfully filmed in situ (in contrast with those lavishly staged Bollywood productions and made-for-America Indian features). Hossain’s film swamps us with the deafening noise of a factory floor where rows of undistinguishable workers bend over machines.

She maneuvers us along dusty, clamorous Dhaka streets. She leads us through unlit corridors of the labor ministry where our heroine repeatedly returns, petition in hand. She holds our gaze behind mosquito netting to overhear a forlorn couple review their bleak options. She draws us into a cluster of coworkers gathering to strategize their campaign. Anyone who has walked through urban neighborhoods in Nepal, Pakistan, India or Bangladesh will appreciate the authenticity that Hossain and her crew achieve in Made in Bangladesh. (Her aim is not to exhibit Dhaka’s poverty. It is what it is—the daily routine of laborers, many of them rural migrants to the city.)

And the actors: Made in Bangladesh’s main character is Shimu, beautifully rendered by Rikita Nandini Shimu. Our heroine emerges from silent humility to step onto a risky path, facing one obstacle after another, yet refusing to retreat. Two other noteworthy figures are an NGO worker who recruits Shimu to gather signatures for her campaign but offers no effective support, and another unsympathetic character, a secretary to the ministry of labor official who reviews union applications. While both could facilitate Shimu’s agenda, their portrayal as passive characters emphasizes the courage and determination needed by our heroine.

This Bangladeshi production also propels the country’s film talent onto the global stage, adding to the growing body of work that is countering established stereotypes and white-hero-focused films that have hitherto shaped and dominated our perceptions of the world’s people.

See: July 2020 Hossain’s interview at Africa Diaspora Festival, NY, also access the film on its August 28th USA release

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B. Nimri Aziz is an anthropologist and journalist who’s worked in Nepal since 1970, and published widely on peoples of the Himalayas. A new book on Nepali rebel women is forthcoming.

All images in this article are from the author

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Despite the lamentations and orders from Geneva or the local capitals of Capital, I refuse to believe that COVID-19 or the putative pathogens are a principal challenge to humanity– except for those using these viruses for policing and/ or culling the population.

Instead I find we are in a situation not unlike that which led to the notorious Non-Aggression Pact concluded between the German Empire under NSDAP rule and the USSR. It is completely understandable that China and Russia want to avoid open war with the Anglo-American Empire. However we in the West must be honest about the criminals that rule us. Just as they did a century ago—and in fact throughout the 20th century– they are preparing a war that will “neutralise” millions on the planet. I leave it to the imagination as to the substance of this euphemism.

So much noise is being made about a vaccine. This is noise but not meaningless noise.

There was a Covid “vaccine” on the shelf before the pathogen was released. By that I do not mean that there was a “cure” or a prophylactic. That would be to mistake the true nature of the “vaccine”. As I wrote in an earlier article what we have is the introduction of a new religious regime.[1] Instead of the “sin” and “heresy”, terms long abandoned by all except the most primitive Christian sects, we have “infection” and “denial of the disease/ resistance to the so-called health measures”.

It is entirely unimportant whether a vaccine does anything at all. The only important quality is that it be distinctive enough so that standard issue chemists/ physicians recognize it as a product they are willing to distribute. This has been assured by the years of indoctrination of the medical profession to obey its masters in the pharma/ chemicals cartel.

The important– and lethal, in social terms– power of the vaccine is that it takes the place of auricular confession and indulgences, for centuries the stock and trade of Christianity. Here it is irrelevant whether one is Catholic and uses a confessional or Protestant and testifies to the congregation. Beginning with the AIDS campaign, the forces — led in the field by Fauci, the CDC and NIH– for viral warfare discovered that they could create and manipulate social stigmatism by associating it with alleged health hazards (somehow this was never used against DuPont or Monsanto…) They were able to create a microcosm of moral terror against homosexuals based on “health risk”, rather than old time religion.

This same strategy was modified and has been rolled out worldwide. Hence the greatest policing forces for vaccination (what James Corbett et al. call “medical martial law”[2]) are not the uniformed services but the private sector and most of all, your neighbour. This is ultimately a religious restructuring of the society based on ancient methods– not so ironically promoted by a man who spent his entire education under the control of Jesuits.[3]

Just as no one can see if god actually granted absolution (or even cared about the alleged sins committed) no one can see– except the clergy– if you are really a sinner and whether you have been saved by absolution through the needle (or patch). But failure to prove that you have been in the confessional or have obtained either absolution or an indulgence will be sufficient to risk being outlawed or in historical Catholic terms, excommunicated. In the Middle Ages, excommunication meant one was denied the right to property, life or anything. Food, shelter, and protection could be denied. One could be robbed or killed with impunity.

Most recently decrees have been promulgated that children must wear masks in school. While it is impossible to deny that COVID has virtually no effect on children, they have been defined as health risks to the adult population. These little creatures although not ill are all potential transmitters of the dreaded pathogens. Yet the real reason for designating children from ages 6 to 11, as “carriers” is nothing more than an alibi for a practice the Church understood centuries ago. Successful indoctrination has to begin before the age of seven. Even the alternative pedagogy of Rudolf Steiner, popular in Germany, is based on “seven-year” cycles. The ideological foundations have to be laid by age seven and boosted by age 14.

Most of the West believes that the paramountcy of “science” meant an abandonment of religion and superstition. The adoption of science as an ideology had little to do with replacing either.[4] Although the entire campaign against the pseudo-pandemic was initiated and is managed from the US—with the WHO as cut-out[5]—very little attention is paid to the way fundamental power transformations have been made in the most religious country in the world– the USA. Even sober analysts are distracted by such circuses as the POTUS election cycle. These circuses are symptoms mistaken for causes.

Because there is a widespread and mistaken belief that “science” prevails over religion as a basis of knowledge, the religious use of science and the exercise of clerical power are not recognized, let alone discussed.[6] Children were taught by the Church to denounce their parents to the Inquisition. The culture of denunciation was always a central part of Church power and we see it reintroduced today in broad daylight with barely a bark.

Along with the “vaccine race” there is also the so-called coviPass scenario.[7] Each vassal regime is to issue a certificate of vaccination/ immunisation. It sounds like the WHO vaccination book travellers take when they leave Europe or North America for the “jungle”. According to this scenario normal life, e.g. leaving one’s residential cell, travel, employment in conventional workplaces, and use of public facilities (although most of these have meanwhile been privatised) will be granted to those who submit to the vaccine(s) and surveillance.

However there is no more normal life for the permanently unemployed, the bankrupt, and the homeless, in short all those whom this action has ruined or will ruin economically.

Hence only people who have a “normal life” will be able to return. The rest will have lost it. Hence whatever life they may be permitted to have, if any, will be subject to prescription by the viral inquisition, dependent on favour or chance.

At the end of July it was announced that 180,000 enterprises collapsed in Portugal alone. That does not count the chain reaction those collapses will cause: not only in unemployment but the ruin of other firms in the supply chain.

180,000 bankrupt firms means conservatively 540,000 unemployed, in addition to those unemployed already under-counted. This is a potential unemployment of 1-2 million in a country with a workforce of about 5 million. Exact government statistics are only available for COVID infections, so estimates here will have to suffice.

Tax receipts have already dropped drastically which also means that the banks will squeeze more out of the State, i.e. budget cuts, leaving next to nothing but promises for those without jobs and uncertainty for those who have them. Portuguese wages range between EUR 500 and 2,000 per month for ordinary work, i.e. about half of what Germans earn (but for a 6-day week and 10-hour day). Of course the cost of living in Germany is high for ordinary workers too. It is only a certain trained sense of superiority that leads workers in Northern Europe to believe they are and will be better off with 250,000 bankruptcies—and counting.

Similar conditions can be expected among the other so-called PIGS, especially since these countries scarcely recovered from the imposed bankruptcy of 2008.[8] Yet none of this counts in the Big Picture, solely dedicated to sustaining the COVID illusion.

The indulgence or similar instrument issued by the Church ostensibly certified the forgiveness of god, divine grace. Of course it was only a license sold for pecuniary and penitentiary benefit. This is what the vaccine together with any “CoviPass” will be. The attention devoted to medical efficacy is a distraction. A vaccine need not do anything. There is no way to prove that one has been protected or cured– except to believe the authorities. All your neighbours and/ or their children will be sure that you confess your sins– because the wages of sin are death.

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Notes

[1] Privacy, Auricular Confession and Computer Viruses, DV (25 May 2020)

[2] https://www.corbettreport.com/gates/

[3] Anthony Fauci, who despite Donald Trump’s attempts to subordinate him, remains the virus primate in the church of disease, graduated from a Jesuit high school and the Jesuit foundation College of the Holy Cross.

[4] The Marginalist Counter-Revolution, DV (21 July 2020)

[5] It is an unpleasant fact that even the Left is reluctant to acknowledge but the entire UN System is organised based on Anglo-American corporation law. The real decisions—the ones that count—are made by those who own the majority of shares or the controlling shares in the entity. This translates into a US majority in the Bretton Woods machine (IMF/ World Bank) and the UN agencies where the US regime pays the greater part of the budget (e.g. personnel expense). This means that no “well-managed” UN agency can act in ways that would lead to reduction of elimination of funding. It is a matter of public record that the USG and BMGF are the single most important funders of the WHO. This is not merely because of the amount of funding but the fact that no other individual source, whether one or more national contributors, have equal or greater power over the majority shareholders. If more people understood how corporations are ruled in fact, they would not be deceived by the appearance that the US is just one of nearly 200 nations represented in the UN organisation.

[6] Henry C Lea, Superstition and Force. In fact, the idea that arguments could be won or guilt could be proven by scientific evidence is a very recent arrival in Western culture. Despite the popular TV and cinema depictions of supposedly “scientific” investigation, the presumption that the authorities are justified and correct in their accusations or hypotheses is so strong that evidence is presented as the task of affirming the official story, not discovering the truth.

[7] https://covipass.com/

[8] Since everything that ever happened prior to March 2020 has been erased from historical memory—well almost—it should be recalled that PIGS was the common abbreviation used in the mass media to identify Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, the countries most seriously plundered by the 2008 financial coup.

Featured image is from Shutterstock

Belarus Crisis Through the Lens of Ukraine

August 28th, 2020 by Dmitriy Kovalevich

On August 9, presidential elections were held in Ukraine’s neighbor, Belarus. Economically, they are mutually dependent on each other, and Russia is too, but currently it seems as if trade, like flights, could soon be put on hold. Meanwhile, far right neo-Nazi elements from Ukraine are attempting to increase unrest in the two countries. In the August update, New Cold War’s regular contributor and analyst, Dmitriy Kovalevich, pinpoints the issues facing the two countries following the elections and addresses how and if they can be resolved.

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In August, the situation in Belarus and the mass protests that engulfed the country almost completely dominated the information agenda of the Ukrainian media.

On August 9, presidential elections were held in neighboring Belarus. According to the Belarusian CEC [Central Electoral Committee], it was won by the incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the country since 1994. The opposition did not recognize the election results, calling on its supporters to protest in the streets, acting according to the scenario of “Color Revolutions.”

Police violence triggers response

During the dispersal of the protests, at the beginning the police actively used violence. The violence later triggered protests from a number of workers’ collectives, since many workers. Despite not participating in the initial protests, they “appeared in the wrong place” and the police beat them too.

It is noteworthy that the opposition called for strikes only in state enterprises (the overwhelming majority in Belarus), never calling on workers of private or foreign enterprises to strike. Only a week after the elections, similarly massive rallies and demonstrations, in support of the incumbent president, began to congregate in Belarus, in which the Communist Party of Belarus, which supports the incumbent president, took an active part.

Comparison to Euromaidan 2014

Many commentators compare the protests in Belarus and the 2014 Ukrainian coup in Euromaidan. There are indeed many common features, but there are also significant differences. Lukashenko pursued a fairly balanced social policy. In Belarus, most large enterprises have been nationalized (state-owned). There are no oligarchs in Belarus, and, accordingly, no large media owned by oligarchs, like those which summoned Ukrainians to Euromaidan in 2014. The standard of living and social guarantees in Belarus are much higher than in Ukraine, while tariffs for gas and electricity are some 50% lower. Food prices are also significantly lower.

According to recent polls, Ukrainians consider Alexander Lukashenko the best among foreign leaders[1]. It is because of this trust that Minsk was chosen as a platform for negotiations to resolve the conflict in Donbas.

Impact of Belarus events on Ukraine

The events in Belarus have divided Ukrainian society and caused serious concerns. Euromaidan supporters, radical nationalists and activists of Western NGOs support the Belarusian protesters. Pavel Klimkin, the Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister, said that the outcome of the protests in Belarus is a matter of Ukraine’s survival. He wrote,

“The elections in Belarus will neither be a logical end, nor the end at all. All the fun will begin after them. We need to fight for European Belarus, we cannot and should not lose this fight, it is a matter of our security and our existence.”[2]

Ukrainian radical nationalists and neo-Nazis rushed to Belarus to help carry out some kind of Euromaidan in the country. According to the concept promoted by the Ukrainian ultra-right: Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Belarus should be united in an anti-Russian confederation, and it should become a kind of fortress of the “white race” opposing both “Asian Russia” and Western Europe, “spoiled by migrants.” Ukrainian neo-Nazis from the C-14 group support Belarusian protesters with flags used by both the modern Belarus opposition and Nazi collaborators during the Second World War[3].

“They were preparing this mess for us”

A similar concept is being promoted by so-called experts from the Atlantic Council, only citing the need to create a buffer zone between Europe and Russia. The real goal is, most likely, the decline in trade relations between Russia/China and Western Europe[4]. Until now, Belarus has been the missing link in this chain.

President Lukashenko says that the opposition is ruled from Poland and Europeans are just following the lead of the US:

“They were preparing this mess for us. And Russia was afraid of losing us. The West decided to pull us up somehow, of course—as we see now—against Russia. Now they want to establish this Baltic-Black Sea corridor, a sort of buffer zone: the three Baltic republics, us and Ukraine. We are one link in this chain. The USA is planning and directing all this, and the Europeans are playing along. It has been ordered – they’ll do it. A special center was established near Warsaw. We are watching, we know what it does. They began to brandish their arms. You know, when disturbing things happen in the vicinity and tanks begin to move and planes fly nearby – this is not a coincidence.”[5]

There again, at the same time, President Zelensky and official Kiev are in no hurry to take one side or the other; they are prepared to wait. And one of the reasons for this is the importance of Belarus for the economy of Ukraine and all of Eastern Europe.

The significance of the ‘Belarus window’

After the imposition of sanctions against the Russian Federation, the Ukrainian economy has become highly dependent on the “Belarusian window,” through which Russian goods are supplied to Ukraine and Ukrainian ones – to Russia. For years Belarus has profited from re-labeling goods as ‘produced in Belarus’. It became the main supplier of sea food to all post-Soviet countries without a coastline. It supplies two times more fruit to Russia than it is able to produce. It is possible to buy Russian goods in every Ukrainian supermarket; they are simply marked, made in Belarus.

After Russia, Ukraine ranks second on the list of main recipients of Belarusian exports, totalling at around $ 4 billion. On the list of Belarus’ main importers, Ukraine is in fourth place (a total volume of $ 1.5 billion).

Ukrainian financial analyst Vasyl Nevmerzhitskiy said he believes that in the event of border closure by Belarus (in case of serious political problems) it will negatively impact the Ukrainian budget, as it would lose a major source of supplies: “If they go [as far as] the closure of borders in Belarus because of public unrest,” he said, “then our trade turnover will severely decrease. After all, through this neighbor Ukraine buys not only Belarusian goods, but also Russian ones. The supply of goods will be curtailed at once, to two key trading partners. This will be felt by the Ukrainian budget, since the collection of VAT and customs duties, as well as our currency market, will decrease.”[6]

Impact on Ukraine’s industry, trade and economy

However, the cornerstone of Ukrainian-Belarusian economic relations is oil and petroleum by-products. Although Belarus is not an oil-producing country, it is the main source of oil and diesel fuel for the Ukrainian market. About 35% of gasoline is supplied to Ukraine by Belarus and about the same amount by the Russian Federation via Belarus. Oil is imported mainly from the Mozyr oil refinery in Belarus through Korosten, in the Zhytomyr region of Ukraine. As Ukrainian analysts have said since 2014, not a single Ukrainian tank would move without oil supplied by Belarus.

Moreover, since Ukraine’s industry has largely collapsed, Kiev also now repairs its military vehicles and aircrafts in Belarus. Minsk has become a middleman, working on military contracts for Russia as well as Belarus (often in the same factories). In the meantime, Belarus supplies military vehicles and optic devices for both the Russian and Ukrainian armies.

Since Ukraine banned flights to Russia, despite millions of its citizens working there, Ukrainians must fly to Russia via Belarus. Likewise, Russians visit their relatives in Ukraine by flying via Belarus.

Thus, in supporting the protesters in Belarus, the Ukraine authorities would be acting against their own economic interests. Nevertheless, under the pressure of the United States, they will sooner or later have to decide which stand point to adopt. Ukrainian nationalists and activists of Western-funded NGOs have already made up their minds, but their actions in support of the Belarusian opposition in Kiev are gathering no more than a dozen people. Already having experienced two Color Revolutions and a period of state repression, the Ukrainian Left is calling for the focus to be on economic rather than political issues during the Belarusian crisis. It is this question that the Belarusian opposition is trying to silence, claiming that it is first necessary to overthrow Lukashenko, and then – “we’ll see.” At the same time, the opposition economic program, published in June on the website zabelarus.com, suggests neoliberal reforms and mass privatization[7].

Alternative views on events

The Ukrainian Marxist organization, Borotba, which was banned in Ukraine after the Color Revolution in 2014, warns that the economic program of the Belarus opposition is against workers’ interests, although the opposition is trying to manipulate with them, for its own interests.

“The picture of the confrontation between the “people” and the “dictator” imposed by the imperialist media should not overshadow a political and class analysis. Sympathy for the victims of police brutality does not mean supporting their political agenda.

Borotba continues, “The leading force in the protests against the Lukashenko regime was the urban middle class, which has grown and strengthened during the years of relative economic prosperity. The middle class considered the framework of the paternalistic welfare state to be restrictive, seeing its ideal in the “free market” and “free enterprise.” Having no experience of the neoliberal reforms that have destroyed the economies of Ukraine and Russia, a significant part of the Belarusian people sees the future of their country in market-driven “freedom.”

“Nevertheless, a neoliberal program of large-scale privatization, health cuts and the freedom to lay off workers is unlikely to appeal to most workers. That is why the “reform” program, initially widely advertised by opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and her supporters, was later basically hidden. But it was too late,” Borotba concluded.[8]

What is obvious to Ukrainians who closely follow the events in neighboring country, regardless of protests’ outcome Belarus will not be the same as it was prior to August 2020. If Lukashenko remains in power, his position will be weaker and he will have to make significant concessions to foreign trade partners. Any change of power in Belarus may be at the risk of a long period of instability, the closure of big enterprises and civil conflict, since the liberal opposition cannot rely on mass support, or prove its legitimacy.

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Notes

[1] https://www.tvr.by/eng/news/obshchestvo/sredi_liderov_drugikh_stran_luchshe_vsego_ukraintsy_otnosyatsya_k_aleksandru_lukashenko_/

[2] https://gordonua.com/news/politics/klimkin-o-vyborah-v-belarusi-vse-samoe-interesnoe-nachnetsya-posle-nih-eto-vopros-nashego-sushchestvovaniya-1512973.html

[3] https://strana.ua/news/286344-serhej-bondar-iz-munitsipalnoj-varty-pokhvalil-natsistskuju-okkupatsiju-belarusi.html?fbclid=IwAR0QyBE3zmqiD2x2VJOocqCdrgnESTOay2eT78gB2mV4pjDcQB01irlJuRY

[4] https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/containing-the-kremlin-why-the-west-must-rethink-policy-towards-a-revisionist-russia/

[5] https://www.ukrinform.ru/rubric-world/3085373-lukasenko-scitaet-cto-ssa-pricastny-k-situacii-v-belarusi.html

[6] https://strana.ua/finance/283736-bankiry-obsuzhdajut-revoljutsiju-v-belarusi-i-opuskajut-kurs-dollara-v-ukraine.html

[7] https://eadaily.com/ru/news/2020/08/17/belorusskie-nacionalisty-predlozhili-svoyu-programmu-razvitiya-strany?fbclid=IwAR1sH7rR-Ascq5joDS7-xznwUP2hzn0aFyMZnSLtYfqwL03f4Kh0AKH-NBU

[8] https://redstaroverdonbass.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-working-class-should-put-end-to.html?fbclid=IwAR3cUBGvHG6zbpF61j3D9SdykkB_pA7pb8pJh6MtNj6tlXVXjckNQcVUpng

Featured image: Supporters of Lukashenko hold authorised pro-government rally: Ruptly

3 Oil Majors that Bet Big on Renewables

August 28th, 2020 by Alex Kimani

Big Oil has frequently been chided for merely trying to burnish its green credentials, and so far, it has done little to convince us that it is truly moving forward to greenness. Despite the much-vaunted megatrend involving the global electrification drive and shift to renewable energy, the most ambitious pledges by Big Oil to pursue net-zero agendas remain weak at best. 

An analysis of near-term spending plans on renewables by the biggest oil and gas companies shows that real investments in renewable energy will continue to pale in comparison to capex plans for greenfield fossil fuel projects.

Let this sink in: In 2018, Big Oil spent less than 1% of its combined budget on green energy projects.

Further, according to Rystad Energy, Big Oil is expected to pump in $166B into new oil and gas ventures over the next five years, thus dwarfing the currently specified outlay of just $18B (less than 10% of capex) for solar and wind energy projects. Indeed, much of Big Oil’s reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions leans on the so-called natural gas bridge.

Good case in point: Italian multinational oil and gas giant Eni S.p.A. (BIT:ENI) recently unveiled what has been hailed as the most ambitious climate pledge yet by an oil supermajor. Eni has announced plans to cut down its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% over the next three decades. Yet, its natural gas output will still comprise 85% of its total production by the end of the forecast period.

Source: NS Energy

Whereas no Big Oil company is likely to earn its stripes as a true renewables energy outfit over the next decade, here are the best bets that are likely to come closest. Notably, U.S. oil and gas supermajors are conspicuous by their absence on this list.

#1 Equinor

It is instructive to note that a NOC, and not an independent oil company, has the most ambitious green strategy of them all. Of the $18B that the supermajors plan to invest in clean energy over the next five years, more than half will come from Norwegian state-owned multinational energy company, Equinor ASA’s (NYSE:EQNR) coffers. In fact, if you remove Equinor from the equation, Big Oil’s renewable investments will actually decline over the next three years before even factoring in the industry-wide deep capex cuts due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Equinor has announced plans to invest $10B into clean energy by 2025, mostly through its offshore wind portfolio. The company plans to grow renewable energy capacity tenfold to 4 GW-6 GW by 2026 and up to 16 GW by 2035, thus catapulting it to an offshore wind major. Further, Equinor plans to reduce its net carbon intensity by at least 50% by 2050 by deploying CCUS (Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage) and hydrogen technologies.

#2 Total SA

French multinational integrated oil and gas company, Total SA (NYSE:TOT) stands out as the supermajor with plans to develop the most renewable capacity in the near-term.

In the current year alone, Total plans to double its gross global renewable energy capacity to 6 gigawatts (GW) from just a year ago, with the company playing the lead role as the developer and owner of the renewable energy assets over the long-term. For instance, Total has lined up an 800 megawatt (MW) solar project in Qatar where it will own a 49% stake in the project when it is completed in 2021.

But Total is not just content to compete in the traditional renewable energy arena of wind and solar but is also giving Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) a run for its money thanks to its 2016 acquisition of battery company Saft. Thanks to that savvy M&A move, Total is not only currently developing the largest energy storage facility in France, but it is also providing batteries for diverse industries including electric vehicles, military vehicles, medical applications, and even to the oil and gas sectors.

Saft has already gained considerable traction after generating $100 million in free cash flow for its parent company in 2019.

#3 ENI SpA

As we have pointed above, ENI has the most ambitious climate change pledge with plans to lower its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. ENI also says that its renewable projects will achieve an installed capacity of 3 GW in 2023 and 5 GW in 2025.

What separates the Italian major from  the likes of Repsol and BP with comparable commitments is that ENI has pledged to rein in Scope 3 emissions as well–or emissions generated by ENI’s supply chain partners and end-users. Repsol and BP have also set 2050 as their deadline for net-zero carbon emissions but have mostly been vague about their Scope 3 strategies. For instance, in February, new BP chief executive Bernard Looney pledged to meet the demands of the Paris climate change agreement but provided precious few details on how his company planned to make this a reality.

Still, ENI’s renewable energy and climate pledges come with a caveat: The company considers natural gas as a necessary bridge as the world tries to wean itself off fossil fuels and also has plans to continue growing its fossil fuel output till 2025.

Natural gas does produce about 28% less CO2 emissions than heating oil and 50% less than coal for the same amount of energy when burned. Further, natural gas can be used to keep the power grid stable as solar and wind power fluctuate.

So, at first glance, that does not sound like such a terrible idea, until you consider that a cross-section of climate experts have warned that we only have a ten-year window in which to take decisive action to prevent irreversible damage to our climate and ecosystems. During the first five years of that timeframe, ENI plans to take a detour to first ramp-up oil production before beginning a ramp-down at an unspecified future date.

In other words, it is mostly business as usual for ENI and other oil and gas supermajors–for now.

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Alex Kimani is a veteran finance writer, investor, engineer and researcher for Safehaven.com. 

Featured image is from OilPrice.com

The British Ministry of Defence has blacklisted Declassified UK, a media organisation producing in-depth, critical journalism on UK foreign and security policies. It is the latest attempt by Whitehall to censor the media and the National Union of Journalists has called on Defence Secretary Ben Wallace to “intervene”.

***

The blacklisting was revealed after a journalist working for Declassified UK asked the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) press office for a comment on the case of a British soldier being investigated by the military police for protesting against the war in Yemen.

The journalist, Phil Miller, asked an MOD spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Wade, for a comment on Lance Corporal Ahmed Al-Batati who protested near the prime minister’s office at Downing Street on 24 August 2020 saying the British government had “blood on its hands”.

After commenting that he “did not know too much about Declassified”, Wade then asked Miller: “What sort of angle are you taking about the war in Yemen?”

Wade told Miller he would get back to him “shortly”. An hour later, Wade said: “I’m afraid that I’m not going to be able to send you anything today.” He said Miller would have to submit a Freedom of Information Act request for an answer – an uncertain process that can take many weeks.

Shortly afterwards, the Daily Telegraph published a story about the same soldier, which carried a quote from an army spokesperson who commented on Al-Batati’s situation.

‘We no longer deal with your publication’

Asked why Declassified was not being given a comment for the same story, Wade told Miller that “we no longer deal with your publication”.

When asked for a justification, Wade replied that “someone else in the press office” might be able to explain.

Al-Batati said in an Instagram post before his arrest: “Saudi Arabia are [sic] responsible for multiple airstrikes killing innocents, targeting hospitals and breaking international law. Saudi Arabia are also responsible for blocking aid from going into the country. This has left 80% of the population in need of emergency aid. Our government continues to arm and support Saudi Arabia. It is clear that this government has blood on its hands.”

The move by the MOD is the latest and most blatant example of a long-standing attempt by Whitehall departments, and the MOD in particular, to control and even censor the British media.

In February 2020, one of Boris Johnson’s communications advisers tried to exclude reporters from selected publications, including the Mirror and the Independent, from a media briefing at Downing Street. The Labour Party said the move showed the prime minister was “resorting to tactics imported from Donald Trump to hide from scrutiny”.

Declassified, which was launched in 2019, has earned acclaim for critical and well-documented investigations into British foreign, military and intelligence policies.

They include reports into how GCHQ, the government’s electronic eavesdropping and cyber warfare agency, is running programmes in British schools, how Britain has been training the Belarusian armed forces and Hong Kong police, how British troops and RAF pilots have been deployed “on loan” to Oman, and the full extent of Britain’s role in the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen.

During August 2020, it emerged that London’s Metropolitan police has opened an investigation into war crimes allegedly committed by British mercenaries after reports by Miller based on his book on a private military company, Keenie Meenie Services (KMS).

The book exposes how KMS members were involved in atrocities against Tamil civilians at the start of Sri Lanka’s civil war in the mid-1980s, but escaped accountability.

In an email to Wade, Mark Curtis, the editor of Declassified, wrote:

“As journalists, we undertake the normal practice of always seeking MOD comment on stories we write concerning the UK military. It is also incumbent on civil servants to act with impartiality. For example, the Civil Service Code states that, ‘You must not: act in a way that unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests.’” The MOD did not respond to Curtis.

Seamus Dooley, assistant general secretary at the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), told Declassified:

“The NUJ would be extremely concerned at any unilateral ban by a government department on questions from selected news organisations or publications. The secretary of state for defence Ben Wallace needs to intervene and ensure that there is no banned list within the ministry.”

Dooley continued:

“Journalists from Declassified UK have regularly contacted the Ministry of Defence for comment as part of their normal journalistic practice. It is the duty of journalists to question and to challenge those who exercise power and responsibility. Part of that role is to verify reports and to afford all sides of a story the opportunity to respond to allegations which may be made.”

He added:

“The Ministry of Defence is a public entity. Government ministers, senior departmental officials and military personnel responsible for communications should not curtail the media’s right to investigate stories that are clearly in the public interest. Investigative journalism may well prove inconvenient for those in positions of authority, but openness and transparency are fundamental to a functioning democracy.”

The MOD might well have shot itself in the foot. Blacklisting a media organisation means that it cannot now properly give the MOD’s side of a story, something journalists are professionally trained to do, however critical they are of the government.

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Richard Norton-Taylor is a board member of Declassified UK. He was the Guardian’s defence correspondent and its security editor for three decades, and is the author of several books, most recentlyThe State of Secrecy. Follow Declassified on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Sign up to receive Declassified’s monthly newsletter here.

Featured image: Defence Secretary Ben Wallace (R) and Chief of the General Staff Nick Carter (L) arrive at Downing Street. (Photo: EPA-EFE/Andy Rain)

Nós, pessoas de boa vontade, de todas as etnias e de todas as classes socioeconómicas,  a viver em todos os continentes e a professar credos e religiões distintas, dirigimos a vossa atenção para a ameaça de uma guerra nuclear total que pode explodir facilmente, devido a acções deliberadas de qualquer Estado detentor de armas nucleares ou devido a erro não intencional, humano, técnico ou a qualquer outro.

Constatamos que, recentemente, o limiar do uso de armas nucleares num ataque limitado ou em grande escala, tornou-se drasticamente reduzido, levando o mundo inteiro à iminência de um Armagedom nuclear.

Muitas oficiais de alta patente e militares e autoridades civis, políticos e especialistas falam, abertamente, sobre a possibilidade de usar, sob muitos pretextos, armas nucleares com cargas nucleares de baixo ou alto rendimento, num ‘first strike’ contra qualquer nação.

De facto, devido a razões duvidosas e a explicações ilógicas, os Estados Unidos retiraram-se de uma série de tratados e acordos bastante conhecidos e úteis, sobre o controlo de armas nucleares.

Os veículos de transporte de armas nucleares estão a tornar-se cada vez mais sofisticados, mais rápidos e mais precisos. Foram programados para obter uma combinação perigosa de armas que abrangem armas nucleares estratégicas e tácticas, com técnicas de defesa antimíssil e capacidades convencionais, e com a possibilidade de colocar armas de ataque no Espaço, incluindo sistemas de defesa anti-míssil e armas anti-satélite.

Muitos exercícios militares que antes eram programados com o uso de armas convencionais, estão a ser transformados gradualmente, em exercícios que usam armas nucleares simuladas.

Os peritos em armas nucleares calculam que, durante um ataque nuclear inicial intenso, pelo menos 34 milhões de pessoas morrerão imediatamente e 57 milhões de pessoas receberão ferimentos e lesões múltiplas que causarão dores horríveis, sofrimento, todas as doenças causadas pela radiação nuclear e morte. Além disso, vários tipos de infraestruturas, a flora e a fauna, as centrais nucleares, os recursos hídricos – incluindo a água potável e as barragens hidroeléctricas – serão fortemente danificados ou completamente destruídos por enormes tempestades de fogo, pela vasta contaminação nuclear, por explosões poderosas e por terremotos.

Mas o que acabamos de descrever é apenas o impacto imediato. O inverno nuclear que seria criado até mesmo por uma guerra nuclear limitada, aterrorizaria toda a Humanidade com a fome e com outros riscos mortais.

Nós, que assinamos voluntariamente este apelo, aconselhamo-vos, na qualidade de dirigentes das nove nações nucleares, a concretizar as seguintes acções em 2020:

Primeiro, como passo inicial que conduz ao desarmamento nuclear abrangente e irreversível, à escala mundial,comprometerem-se a não usar e a denunciar qualquer tipo de uso de arma nuclear num ‘first strike’contra qualquer nação, em qualquer momento.

Segundo, comprometerem-se a assinar e ratificar o Tratado sobre a Proibição de Armas Nucleares com o compromisso subsequente especificado na cláusula a seguir.

Terceiro, comprometerem-se desmontar irreversivelmente todas as armas nucleares até 6 de Agosto de 2045, ou antes dessa data – em todos os nove Estados que possuem armas nucleares, em fases cuidadosamente controladas e por meio de mecanismos de inspecção bem desenvolvidos e mutuamente aceitáveis, desde que todos os Estados com armas nucleares sigam, simultanea e honestamente, este padrão.

Assinado pessoalmente por mim, como manifestação da minha boa vontade

Assinatura  ………..

Residente na República Estado) de……………

em (data) ………………………. 2020.

 

Por favor copie e cole este documento num email e envie para

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Com o nosso profundo agradecimento.

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We are living in unprecedented times. The mass and indiscriminate containment of citizens, the restriction of access to parliament, the courts, medical and educational services, the destruction of local economies and livelihoods, and the requirement to physically distance, along with the forced use of non-medical masking are extraordinary measures that have never before been imposed on the citizens of Canada.

The impact of these aberrant measures on our physical, emotional, psychological, social and economic well-being is profoundly destructive and these actions are unsustainable, unwarranted, extreme and unconstitutional.

During times of emergency, Constitutional rights do not stop being important. They become even more important.

Vaccine Choice Canada has made numerous formal requests of the Government of Canada and various provincial governments to provide evidence that justifies the declaration of an emergency, the imposition of unscientific and unwarranted measures, and the violations of our Charter rights and freedoms, to no avail.

An over-hyped COVID-19 pandemic narrative is being utilized to create unnecessary panic and to justify the systemic violation of the rights and freedoms that form the basis of our society, including our Constitutional rights, sovereignty, privacy, rule of law, financial security, and even our very democracy.

Many recognized global health and research experts have offered their severe and valid criticism of government overreach and the draconian and unjustifiable measures taken in response to COVID-19. The warning bells are being rung about the dire consequences of these unwarranted, irresponsible, and extreme actions that are in violation of the rights and freedoms well established in Canadian and international law. All this continues to fall on the deaf ears of governments.

On Monday, July 6, 2020, Vaccine Choice Canada formally filed legal action in the Ontario Superior Court to hold multiple parties accountable for their actions with respect to COVID-19 measures. The defendants include: the Government of Canada, the Government of Ontario, the Municipality of Toronto, various public health officers, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, among others. Vaccine Choice Canada has a long history and enviable reputation of advocating for and defending the rights and freedoms of Canadians when it comes to public and individual health.

A copy of the issued statement of claim will be available on our website: www.vaccinechoicecanada.com following the press conference. Any questions with respect to the claim are to be addressed to our legal counsel, Mr. Rocco Galati at 416-530-9684.

Statement of Claim

Click here to continue reading…

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First published on August 1, 2020

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has recently “bought” all of Gilead Science’s Remdesivir for $1.6 billion. “500,000 doses at $3,200 per patient – to be available to American hospitals but not for other countries”[6] 

That’s $1.6 billion tax dollars for a virtually untested drug showing only marginal efficacy in the hospital setting.

How could such a thing happen?

Introduction

If you believe an urgent call from the Yale School of Public Health that was recently published in the American Journal of Epidemiology— the top epidemiology journal in America — hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) + azithromycin is the quickest and most effective way to halt the Covid-19 pandemic.[1]

According to this Yale statement, hydroxychloroquine – a cheap, natural anti-malarial tree-bark known as quinine for 400 years – is highly effective during Phase 1 of Covid-19, while the virus is loading into the body.

As the first line of defense, it should be immediately, freely, and widely available to symptomatic high-risk patients – through doctors’ offices, outpatient clinics, and hospitals across the land.

Indeed, under the directorship of Dr. Anthony Fauci, a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) a clinical trial had been launched on May 14 to look into it.[2]

The HCQ + azithromycin protocol is being used successfully by France’s top, award-winning microbiologist, Dr. Didier Raoult.  He is director of the Infectious and Tropical Emergent Diseases Research Unit in Marseille (Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire) (IHU), with 200 staff.  Raoult, now almost a celebrity in France, has recently published his protocol and results, showing an overall 1.1% case fatality rate.[3]

The same protocol has also been highly successful in China, India, Senegal, and Brazil.[4]

So why suddenly is the U.S. government and the media ignoring recommendations from these top specialists,[5] and waiting, instead, until people get very sick and hospitalized to treat them with the relatively untested drug, Remdesivir, which is administered intravenously?

Why has the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services just bought up all the Remdesivir it could order – 500,000 doses at $3,200 per patient – to be available to American hospitals but not for other countries?[6]

To put Remdesivir’s cost in perspective, the CDC reports that the flu vaccine costs from $12-$18 a dose.[7]

The government, in order to justify its mind-boggling price, would need to show exceptional efficacy in saving lives. Efficacy, that is, once the disease has been allowed, through failure to use the HCQ + azithromycinearly preventive approach, to advance to Phase 2 (the dangerous inflammatory period) and Phase 3 (ICU ventilator intubation, often leading to death).[8]

What do studies say about the efficacy of remdesivir?

There are three main studies that have examined remdesivir as a treatment for Covid-19:

  1. The first, a study of seriously ill patients, was originally reported in the New England Journal of Medicine on April 10, 2020. Treated with “compassionate-use” remdesivir, clinical improvement was observed in 36 of 53 patients (68%).

The article was co-authored by 56 people, some of whom were on the staff of remdesivir’s producer, Gilead Sciences.[9] The study was funded by Gilead, and writing assistance was provided by David McNeel, also of Gilead.[10]

The following day, April 11, the Science Media Centre published expert reactions to the compassionate study from five British university professors. These assessments were not encouraging: “the research doesn’t prove anything at this point;” “the data is almost uninterpretable;” the research should be treated “with extreme caution.”[11]

  1. A Wuhan, China randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 237 patients was accidentally leaked by the World Health Organization and published in The Lancet. It showed no statistically significant clinical benefits from remdesivir:

“The antiviral medicine remdesivir from Gilead Sciences failed to speed the improvement of patients with Covid-19 or prevent them from dying, according to results from a long-awaited clinical trial conducted in China.” [12]

This Lancet study also found that some 14% of patients in the treatment group died after 28 days, compared to 13% in the group that did not receive the treatment.

And it further reported that “remdesivir was stopped early because of adverse events in 18 (12%) patients versus four (5%) patients who stopped placebo early.”[13]

  1. The preliminary results of a NIAID remdesivir trial of 1063 patients showed a “modest” benefit in a controlled clinical trial:

“The infected people who received remdesivir, an experimental drug made by Gilead Sciences that cripples an enzyme several viruses use to copy their RNA, recovered in an average of 11 days versus 15 in patients who received a placebo. ‘Although a 31% improvement doesn’t seem like a knockout, 100% [success], it is a very important proof of concept,’ said Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).”[14]

Health Policy Watch reported that “the death rate was 8% in the group that received remdesivir compared to 11.6% in the control group, although this result was not statistically significant.” Dr. Fauci told reporters that “what [this trial] has proven is that a drug can block the virus.”[15]

The excerpt below from a June 24 article in the British Medical Journal assesses the problems in the foregoing studies. (One of the four co-authors, Fiona Godlee, is the editor-in-chief of the BMJ):

“A serious imbalance in covid-19 research strongly favours the study of drug treatments over non-drug interventions, with many studies too small or too weak to produce reliable results.  Equally concerning is the release of partial or preliminary findings before peer review—often through commercial press releases—that is distorting public perceptions, ongoing evaluations efforts, and political responses to the pandemic.

Remdesivir is a key example. The antiviral drug, made by US company Gilead, was unapproved at the start of the pandemic, but in early April the New England Journal of Medicine published a small descriptive study of a compassionate use scheme for patients with covid-19. Gilead funded the study, a third of the authors were Gilead employees, and Gilead’s press release reported “clinical improvement in 68% of patients in this limited dataset.”  Despite being a non-randomised, uncontrolled, company funded study of just 53 patients, media headlines described “hopeful” signs and reported “two thirds” of patients showing improvement.[16]

Two weeks later, the Lancet published a randomised placebo controlled trial of remdesivir from China, finding no statistically significant clinical benefit in the primary outcome of time to clinical improvement. Twelve per cent of participants taking remdesivir stopped treatment early because of adverse events, compared with 5% taking placebo. The trial was stopped before meeting recruitment targets.”[17]

To summarize, the only study demonstrating even marginal efficacy for remdesivir shows it to reduce hospital recovery times 31%, from 15 days to 11 days.

What is the justification for spending $3,200 tax dollars per Covid-19 patient to save four days in hospital, unless it is to shorten hospital stays, thereby saving the average U.S. bed cost of approximately $2000 per day, while delaying hospital saturation that could leave some people untreated to die?

Leaving people untreated to die could cause civil unrest, which may be the covert political reason for spending the $1.6 billion.

None of the studies mention side effects of the drug. In the China study, kidney injury led to discontinuation for one patient, and in its use for ebola, liver risks were identified.[18]

How much does it cost to produce remdesivir?

The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) is a non-profit organization seeking to improve healthcare value through clinical and cost-effective analyses.[19]

In a May 1, 2020 study, the ICER calculated that the cost of producing the remdesivir “final finished product,” including the pharmaceutical ingredients, formulation, packaging, and a small profit margin, was $9.32 US for a 10-day course of treatment.  They rounded this up to $10.[20]

Dr. Fauci’s NIAID Clinical Trial Evaluating Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin Closes Early

On June 20, 2020, nine days before the Department of Health and Human Services announced its $1.6 billion purchase of remdesivir on June 29, its NIAID branch closed a clinical trial that had been launched May 14 to investigate whether the inexpensive combination, hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin, might be an effective treatment when given early in the course of the disease.[21]

The Department of Health and Human Services knew that hydroxychloroquine (aka chloroquine) was effective against coronavirus because chloroquine was tested against the SARS-1 virus during the outbreak in 2002. This work was written up in 2005, under the auspices of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, which reports to the Department of Human Health and Services.[22]

Truth, as the saying goes, is stranger than fiction.

Who was responsible for this debacle?

Dr. Fauci has served in the National Institutes of Health under six presidents.

Were these bizarre decisions carried out under his authority? Or were they forced upon him from higher up?  Or has he become a victim of regulatory capture[23] by the drug industry?

Whatever the answer, this unprecedented fleecing of the American public should have been shouted from the rooftops, had there been a functioning US media.

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Notes

[1] Harvey A. Risch, “Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk Covid-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to the Pandemic Crisis,” Amer. J. Epid, 27 May 2020 (https://academic.oup.com/aje/advance-article/doi/10.1093/aje/kwaa093/5847586). Risch is Professor at the Yale Schools of both Medicine and Public Health.

[2] National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, “NIH Begins Clinical Trial of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin to Treat COVID-19,” 14 May 2020 (https://www.niaid.nih.gov/news-events/nih-begins-clinical-trial-hydroxychloroquine-and-azithromycin-treat-covid-19).

[3] Jean-Christophe Lagier, et al, “Outcomes of 3,737 COVID-19 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin and other regimens in Marseille, France: A retrospective analysis,” Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease, 25 June 2020 (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1477893920302817). Rault has 2,300 indexed medical journals in print.

[4] The group “COVEXIT.com – News About Hydroxychloroquine & Other COVID-19 Treatments,” was founded March 29, 2020 by Jean-Pierre Kiekens. It keeps daily track of successful Covid treatments worldwide (https://www.facebook.com/groups/covexit)

[5] Elizabeth Woodworth, “The Media Sabotage of Hydroxychloroquine Use for COVID-19: Doctors Worldwide Protest the Disaster,” Global Research, 30 June 2020 (https://www.globalresearch.ca/media-sabotage-hydroxychloroquine-covid-19-doctors-worldwide-protest-disaster/5717382).

[6] US Department of Health and Human Services, “Trump Administration Secures New Supplies of Remdesivir for the United States,” June 29, 2010 (https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/06/29/trump-administration-secures-new-supplies-remdesivir-united-states.html).

[7] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Vaccines for Children Program, “CDC Vaccine Price List,” updated 1 July 2020 (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/vfc/awardees/vaccine-management/price-list/index.html#adflu).

[8] Dr. Raoult identified the three stages of Covid-19 while treating 3,737 patients with HCQ+azithromycin at his own clinic: “At the first viral stage, one must give medicines against the virus, in the second inflammatory phase, one needs to give medications against that [inflammatory] reaction, and then in the third phase, it’s work to be done in intensive care units.” Summarized from Didier Raoult, at: “The Marx Brothers are Doing Science: the Example of RECOVERY,” 9 June 2020 (http://covexit.com/professor-raoult-compares-the-oxford-recovery-trial-academics-to-the-marx-brothers/).

[9] Jonathan Grein, and 55 other authors, “Compassionate Use of Remdesivir for Patients with Severe Covid-19,” New England Journal of Medicine, 11 June 2020 (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2007016), “Editor’s Note: This article was published on April 10, 2020, at NEJM.org.”

[10] Jason D. Goldman, et al., “Remdesivir for 5 or 10 days in Patients with Severe Covid,” New England Journal of Medicine, no date in header (https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa2015301?articleTools=true). Sidebar:“This article was published on May 27, 2020, at NEJM.org.”

[11] Prof. Duncan Richards et al., “Expert reaction to a study about compassionate use of remdesivir for patients with severe COVID-19,” Science Media Centre, 11 April 2020 (https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-a-study-about-compassionate-use-of-remdesivir-for-patients-with-severe-covid-19/).

[12] Ed Silverman, et al, “New data on Gilead’s remdesivir, released by accident, show no benefit for coronavirus patients. Company still sees reason for hope,” StatNews, 23 April 2020 (https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/23/data-on-gileads-remdesivir-released-by-accident-show-no-benefit-for-coronavirus-patients/).

[13] Yeming Wang, et al., “Remdesivir in adults with severe COVID-19: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicentre trial,” The Lancet, 16 May 2020 (original online publication 29 April 2020) (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31022-9/fulltext).

[14] Jon Cohen, “Large trial yields strongest evidence yet that antiviral drug can help COVID-19 patients,” Science, 29 April 2020 (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/large-trial-yields-strongest-evidence-yet-antiviral-drug-can-help-covid-19-patients).

[15] Grace Ren, “Conflicting Remdesivir Trial Results Released; Experts Urge More Research,” Health Policy Watch, 29 April 2020 (https://healthpolicy-watch.news/first-remdesivir-rct-shows-no-significant-clinical-benefit-for-severe-covid-19-patients-but-experts-urge-for-more-research/).

[16] Christopher Rowland, “Gilead’s experimental drug remdesivir shows ‘hopeful’ signs in small group of coronavirus patients,” Washington Post, 10 April 2020 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/10/gileads-experimental-drug-remdesivir-shows-hopeful-signs-small-group-coronavirus-patients/).

[17] Ray Moynihan et al.,“Commercial influence and covid-19,” BMJ2020;369:m2456 (Published 24 June 2020) (https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2456).

[18] Crystal Phend, “Remdesivir Safety Forecast: Watch the Liver, Kidneys,” Medpage Today, 19 May 2020 (https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/86582).

[19] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Clinical_and_Economic_Review

[20] Melanie D. Whittington and Jonathan B. Campbell, “Alternative Pricing Models for Remdesivir and Other Potential Treatments for COVID-19,” Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, 1 May 2020 (https://icer-review.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ICER-COVID_Initial_Abstract_05012020-3.pdf).

[21] National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, “BULLETIN—NIH Clinical Trial Evaluating Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin for COVID-19 Closes Early,” 20 June 2020 (https://www.niaid.nih.gov/news-events/bulletin-nih-clinical-trial-evaluating-hydroxychloroquine-and-azithromycin-covid-19).

[22] Martin J. Vincent et al., “Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread,” Journal of Virology, 22 August 2005 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/).

[23] “Regulatory capture is a theory that regulatory agencies may be dominated by the interests they regulate and not by the public interest.” In: Will Kenton, “Regulatory Capture,” Investopedia, 23 October 2019 (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/regulatory-capture.asp).

First published on April 17, 2020

***

MIT Tech Review’s hyped coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is led by the tag-line, “Navigating a world reshaped by Covid-19.”

Their articles reflect an eager embracement of the public hysteria prompted by Covid-19’s spread, the socioeconomic paralysis it has created, and the many profitable solutions – particularly those involving technology – proposed to “shape” the world post-Covid-19.

It should come as no surprise that a corporate-influenced outlet hiding behind academia and technology would take issue with anyone casting doubt on just how warranted all of this hysteria really is or isn’t – going as far as labeling them “pandemic skeptics.”

This is particularly the case when MIT Tech Review covered the work of researchers at Stanford University who found a much larger number of people are infected with Covid-19 than reported – meaning that the death rate is much, much lower than we’ve been told.

In fact, MIT Tech Review had to admit that the actual death rate is likely under 0.2%, which means its is about as “dangerous” as the common flu. If the common flu isn’t “reshaping the world,” Covid-19 certainly isn’t – at least not the pathogen itself.

An Oblique Smear 

Instead of acknowledging the work of Stanford University as an important advancement in our understanding of Covid-19 and a check against public hysteria – MIT Tech Review peppered their article with oblique smears against the team who carried out the study.

The headline includes the subtitle (emphasis added), “A study from a noted pandemic skeptic suggests the virus is more widespread but less deadly than people think.”

We know that the suffix “-skeptic” is added to undermine the credibility of people who call into question widely promoted narratives. The article also uses the term “data skeptic” to describe John Ioannidis who helped carry out the study.

MIT Tech Review continued by adding:

Ioannidis, a Stanford medical statistician and a coauthor of the new report, made waves in March by suggesting the virus could be less deadly than people think, and that destroying the economy in the effort to fight it could be a “fiasco.”

Ioannidis’ statement regarding Covid-19 – even without the results of this study – is already self-evident even if looking only at available and limited statistics regarding Covid-19 infections versus deaths and the demographics hit hardest.

But Stanford’s findings not only bolster Ioannidis’ statement – the findings were predictable.

An RT article titled, “How likely are you (yes, you) to die from the Covid-19 virus?,” published over a month ago predicted (emphasis added):

When the worst of the crisis is over, the real overall death rate will potentially be significantly lower than the reported one — since many people will contract the virus but remain asymptomatic or display only mild symptoms and will never get tested at all.

Indeed, Jeremy Samuel Faust, a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital wrote in Slate that the frightening death rates are “unlikely to hold” as time goes on and that the true fatality rate is “likely to be far lower than current reports suggest.”

Stanford’s study confirms this. And it makes sense. Infection and death rates can only be determined by actually testing people – and the narrative the world has been presented is that not enough testing can be done because of a lack of testing kits, and those being tested are people who are already ill and showing symptoms.

Obviously if many more people have little to no symptoms and aren’t being tested – they also aren’t making it into Covid-19 infection statistics and thus “death rates” are artificially high because of this. If many more people are getting the virus and not dying, the death rate obviously goes down – in this case – drastically so.

The Guardian in an article titled, “Antibody study suggests coronavirus is far more widespread than previously thought,” would report:

The study from Stanford University, which was released Friday and has yet to be peer reviewed, tested samples from 3,330 people in Santa Clara county and found the virus was 50 to 85 times more common than official figures indicated.

The article would also reluctantly note that (emphasis added):

That also means coronavirus is potentially much less deadly to the overall population than initially thought. As of Tuesday, the US’s coronavirus death rate was 4.1% and Stanford researchers said their findings show a death rate of just 0.12% to 0.2%.

MIT Tech Review is based out of the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology – the university the magazine is named after. Why – instead of an oblique smear against the Stanford team who carried out the study – didn’t MIT go out into their local community and carry out a similar study to compare results?

Isn’t that what real scientists are supposed to do?

MIT Tech Review closes its article on the study by reasserting a narrative meant to stoke panic and allow the publication to continue on with its “a world reshaped” theme, claiming:

Overall, there are more than 30,000 covid-19 deaths in the US, more than in any other country, so it’s hard to find good news in the blood surveys even if you are looking for it. If the Santa Clara study is accurate and the death rate is lower than many think, covid-19 is still going to lead to a shocking accumulation of bodies if it moves through the rest of the population, which explains the extraordinary stay-at-home measures in place in most of the country since March.

If 30,000 have died in the US because of Covid-19 since the virus appeared in December, that means another 30,000 would need to die this month and next in order for it to even match a moderate to severe annual flu season which runs from December to May.

So – no – there is not going to be a “shocking accumulation of bodies” unless Covid-19 deaths are presented to the public by the media out of context deliberately to shock uninformed audiences. And thus – obviously – it does not “explain the extraordinary stay-at-home measures in place in most of the country since March” or the hysteria promoted by MIT Tech Review in its other Covid-19 articles.

Studies will continue to emerge proving what many have already known – that Covid-19 the pathogen is nowhere near the threat we were told and nowhere near justifying “Covid-19 the hysteria.” Society is in the crosshairs for transformative policies enacted by the very interests who hyped the outbreak in contradiction to scientific fact, not because of it.

It is important to expose this and more importantly to resist it. It is also important to ensure that the governments, politicians, “experts,” institutions, and corporations that were involved in hyping Covid-19 and all the socioeconomic damage it has done never be allowed to do so again.

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Tony Cartalucci is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Selected Articles: Towards a Second Covid Lockdown?

August 27th, 2020 by Global Research News

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Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Pulls Out of Planned Meeting in Washington with Netanyahu

By David Hearst, August 27, 2020

The plan fell apart on Saturday when the crown prince received reports that the visit had been leaked. His bottom-line condition with the White House was that the visit should go ahead in total secrecy and that his presence in the capital would only be known once the event itself was taking place.

Is the UN Preparing for the “Second Covid Lockdown”? Oppressive Measures Worldwide, Obedience and Acceptance…

By Peter Koenig, August 26, 2020

We know by now that nothing of this, face masks, social distancing, 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 an invisible super power.

Trump’s Postmaster General Should be Returned to Sender

By James E. Varner, August 27, 2020

Postal employees pride ourselves on a culture of never delaying the mail. Our unofficial mantra can best be summed up as, “Mail that comes in today, goes out today — no matter what.”

We are now being told to ignore that. If mail can’t get delivered or processed without overtime, it is supposed to sit and wait. That can mean big delays.

Watch: French Professor Says There Is No Second Wave

By Prof. Jean-François Toussaint and OffGuardian, August 27, 2020

In a recent interview on French television Prof. Jean-François Toussaint of the Université Paris-Descartes has said that hysteria over a “second wave” in France is based on the widespread misinterpretation of data.

Lockdowns and Mask Mandates Do Not Lead to Reduced COVID Transmission Rates or Deaths, New Study Suggests

By Prof. Stephen C. Miller, August 27, 2020

The paper’s conclusion is that the data trends observed above likely indicate that nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) – such as lockdowns, closures, travel restrictions, stay-home orders, event bans, quarantines, curfews, and mask mandates – do not seem to affect virus transmission rates overall.

Why? Because those policies have varied in their timing and implementation across countries and states, but the trends in outcomes do not.

After Beirut Blast, Israel Revives Tales of Hezbollah Ammonium Nitrate Terror Plots

By Gareth Porter, August 27, 2020

Israeli intelligence is polishing off a dubious propaganda campaign to suggest Hezbollah was to blame for the recent catastrophe in Beirut. But the factual record either contradicts Israeli claims or reveals a complete dearth of evidence.

Global Capitalism, “World Government” and the Corona Crisis

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, August 27, 2020

The COVID-19 crisis is marked by a public health “emergency” under WHO auspices which is being used as a pretext and a  justification to triggering a Worldwide process of economic, social and political restructuring. Social engineering is being applied. Governments are pressured into extending the lockdown, despite its devastating economic and social consequences.

Financial Meltdown and the Bailouts: The Role of Speculative Trade. Wall Street Criminality on Display

By Anthony Hall, August 26, 2020

The termination of the regulatory framework put in place by the Glass Steagall Act opened much new space for all kinds of experiments in the manipulation of money in financial markets.  They developed all sorts of ways of elaborating their financial services and presenting them in new packages.

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Politicizing Alexey Navalny’s Illness

August 27th, 2020 by Stephen Lendman

Politicized claims that Putin critic Navalny (with scant public support) was poisoned appear greatly exaggerated.

On Tuesday, Moscow’s Health Department Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination director Sergey Shigeev explained the following:

“There is a lot of information in the media outlets on the possible poisoning as a proven accepted fact.”

“After carefully examining all information presented in the news outlets,” conclusions drawn about Navalny “are too hasty,” adding:

“(I)t is possible to talk only about the fact that the patient had a low cholinesterase activity which led to a conclusion that this is the result of a poisoning with cholinesterase inhibitors.”

“This conclusion is hasty since it is not proven.”

“The level of decrease in the cholinesterase activity is unknown.”

“The specific substance or its metabolites which caused the decrease in the cholinesterase activity have not been identified.”

“(T)he clinical picture of the emergence and development of the illness under these particular conditions and circumstances does not correspond to the picture typical for this type of poisoning.”

“(A) single biochemical determination of blood cholinesterase activity has a relative diagnostic value, particularly in the conditions, when it is known that the activity of blood cholinesterase varies noticeably in different people, as well as with various chronic illnesses (tuberculosis, cancer, hepatitis, and others).”

“(C)holinesterase inhibitors are not only organophosphorus toxic agents but are also common pharmaceuticals in medical practice: acridines, piperidines, and carbamates, widely used in neurology and psychiatry which any person may be taking for one reason or another.”

“(D)uring treatment at the intensive care unit, a patient may be administered a multitude of medicinal preparations, including those of this type.”

Chief Russian toxicologist Alexander Sabayev in Omsk where Navalny was treated stressed that cholinesterase inhibitors were not detected in his system.

Claims otherwise by German doctors in Berlin where Navalny is now hospitalized are dubious.

Russian doctors saved his life. On Russian television, Omsk’s hospital medical director Dr. Alexander Murakhovsky said the following:

“We have asked for lab reports (from Berlin’s Charite hospital) that indicated intoxication with cholinesterase inhibitors.”

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian doctors wish to share their data on Navalny with their German counterparts in return them responding reciprocally.

On Wednesday, Vladimir Putin called it “unacceptable to make hasty and groundless accusations (with) regard (to Navalny’s condition).”

He stressed the Kremlin’s “interest in a thorough and impartial investigation of all the circumstances” relating to what happened to him.

On Tuesday, Trump regime Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun met with Sergey Lavrov and Deputy Foreign Ministers Sergey Ryabkov and Igor Morgulov.

Reportedly, the above Russian officials were told that Washington would impose tough (unilateral) sanctions on the Russian Federation if evidence shows Navalny was poisoned, actions that would make earlier ones “pale in comparison” — with no further elaboration.

On Wednesday, the Kremlin called it unacceptable for Navalny’s illness to affect Russia’s relations with the West, adding that it’s in the interest of all to determine what happened scientifically without politicizing the issue.

On Tuesday, Russian lower house State Duma Speaker Vyachaslav Volodin issued the following statement:

“The State Duma security committee will be instructed to analyze what happened in order to understand whether (what happened to Navalny) was an attempt on the part of foreign states to harm the health of a Russian citizen to fuel tensions inside Russia, as well as to formulate fresh accusations against our country.”

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said blaming the Kremlin for Navalny’s illness is “unfounded,” adding:

Allegations of “covering up the truth” by Western officials against Russian doctors who treated him in Omsk, saving his life, are “deeply offensive.”

“(W)ho benefits from” what happened to him — “Clearly not the Russian leadership.”

Omsk doctors “gave (Navalny’s) complete medical history to” their German counterparts.

“We hope (they) how the same professional approach and will not allow the results of their laboratory tests to be used for politicized purposes.”

By open letter, Omsk doctors who treated Navalny explained the following in response to unacceptable Western criticism they called politically motivated:

“People without medical education make diagnoses, talk about treatment and manipulate information.”

“At the same time, none of them witnessed (Navalny’s) condition.”

“(W)e see a phenomenon known as ‘political diagnosis’ which has nothing to do with medicine.”

“Lately it has become almost fashionable to criticize (Russian healthcare.”

“We are aware that sometimes negative comments are appropriate and constructive.”

“(S)ome people are more interested in the bathroom in the admission department, which is currently being renovated, rather than an objective assessment of the facts about the patient’s well-being.”

“And they were obtained thanks to the modern equipment that this medical center is equipped with.”

Western coverage of Navalny’s illness “got to the point that the Omsk doctors were compared with the heroes of Moliere’s comedies, for whom leeches and bloodletting were the main methods of treatment.”

“This is a vulgar insult to doctors who saved a patient’s life over almost two days in a very difficult psychological situation.”

“Within 16 minutes of receiving the signal from the plane, the ambulance arrived at the airport.”

“17 minutes after the patient was carried out on a stretcher, he was taken to the medical center of the emergency hospital in Omsk.”

“For 44 hours, doctors fought for his life. These are facts that cannot be denied.”

No evidence suggests Kremlin foul play.

As stated above, what possible benefit could Russian authorities gain from wanting Navalny, a minor irritant to the state, rendered seriously ill endangering his life?

Russian critics in the US and other Western countries alone benefit from what happened.

It begs the questions. Was his illness natural, what appears most likely unless proved otherwise?

Or were US dark forces behind what threatened his life as a pretext for enlisting Western support for greater toughness on Moscow?

Russia should investigate the incident thoroughly to learn precisely what happened — so facts are presented free from politicization.

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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.

Police in America kill over 1,000 victims annually, mostly Black and Latino youths.

Incidents without just cause happen with disturbing regularity nationwide in urban and rural communities.

US inner city minority communities are virtual war zones. Most often, cops act with impunity.

In stark contrast, communities like my Chicago Near North Side Streeterville neighborhood are well protected by police — comforting me and others when see them on patrol.

On August 23, 29-year-old African American Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back at point-blank range by white police officer Rusten Sheskey in Kenosha, WI’s Uptown neighborhood.

The city is about equidistant between Chicago and Milwaukee.

Threatening no one, the incident occurred when Blake tried entering his vehicle.

Three of his sons (aged 3, 5, and 8) in the back of his SUV witnessed what happened.

According to his father, Blake survived, but he’s paralyzed from the waist down in critical condition — one of countless examples of racial injustice.

Cellphone video a bystander posted on social media showed Blake walking away from police when shot, his father saying:

“Those police officers that shot my son like a dog in the street are responsible for everything that has happened in the city of Kenosha,” adding:

“My son is not responsible for it. My son didn’t have a weapon. He didn’t have a gun.”

Since Sunday, Kenosha has been wracked by street violence — a counterproductive response in lieu of sustained peaceful mass protests against what happened.

On Wednesday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel cited Kenosha police saying two people were lethally shot, another wounded during street protests.

On the same day, Trump tweeted:

“TODAY, I will be sending federal law enforcement and the National Guard to Kenosha, WI to restore LAW and ORDER!”

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers declared a state of emergency in response to unacceptable violence and vandalism, along with setting buildings and vehicles ablaze.

In response to what’s going on, Blake’s mother Julia said the following:

“If Jacob knew what was going on he would be very unpleased.”

“So I’m really asking and encouraging everyone in Wisconsin and abroad to take a moment and examine your heart.”

“We need healing…of our country.” Family attorney Ben Crump said it’ll be “a miracle for Jacob Blake to ever walk again.”

A bullet struck his spinal cord. Others damaged his kidneys and liver. His colon and small intestine were surgically removed.

On Wednesday, ESPN reported that NBA playoff games scheduled for that evening were postponed — following a decision by Milwaukee Bucks players not to leave their locker room for their game with the Orlando Magic.

In response, players for the Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors, Houston Rockets, Oklahoma City Thunder, Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trailblazers postponed their scheduled games.

Reportedly, LA Lakers and LA Clippers players support cancellation of remaining NBA playoff games for all teams.

Interviewed on ESPN, Bucks guard George Hill likely spoke for many others in the league, saying:

“We’re tired of the killings and the injustice,” adding:

“We can’t do anything from Orlando. First of all, we shouldn’t have even come to this damn place, to be honest.”

“I think coming here just took all the focal points off what the issues are.”

A statement by Bucks management said the following:

“We fully support our players and the decision they made.”

“Although we did not know beforehand, we would have wholeheartedly agreed with them.”

“The only way to bring change is to shine a light on the racial injustices that are happening in front of us.”

“Our players have done that and we will continue to stand alongside them and demand accountability and change.”

Over 80% of NBA players are Black, including most of its super-stars.

For the NFL it’s around 70% — in contrast to MLB at around 8% with Latinos comprising about 27% of league rosters.

The National Hockey League is 98% white.

ESPN explained that all NBA players and coaches were invited to participate in a Wednesday evening meeting on “how they’ll proceed” following postponement of Wednesday and perhaps Thursday games.

Reportedly they packed a Disney ballroom in the Orlando bubble.

“(D)iscussion centered on whether to continue with the playoffs or end the season,” said ESPN, adding:

“Emotions are raw, players already were worn out in the bubble environment,” isolated from family and friends back home, an unnamed player saying:

“The season is in jeopardy.”

On Thursday, the NBA board of governors are meeting in the morning.

Players association executive director Michele Roberts said the following:

“The players have, once again, made it clear. They will not be silent on th(e) issue” of racial injustice.

“We stand with the decision of the players of the Milwaukee Bucks to protest this injustice and support the collective decision to postpone” Wednesday’s games.

Sportsnaut called Wednesday’s postponements “unprecedented territory.”

Various WNBA, MLB, and MLS Wednesday games were also postponed.

Where do things go from here? Justice, equality, freedom, and other slogans emblazoned on jerseys of players change nothing in society.

Nor does postponing a game or two and then resuming things normally.

Achieving long denied social justice requires longterm struggle.

It took a decade of anti-war activism in the 1960s and 70s before US aggression in Southeast Asia ended — involving students, workers, middle class households, academics, and others, including active duty military personnel.

The same was true about the struggle for civil rights in the US. Years of struggle preceded civil and voting rights legislation.

Earlier gains were lost because social justice and anti-war activism waned.

Because of their high-profile status, their actions capturing national attention, professional athletes for social justice can make a difference if other segments of society join them for sustained nonviolent activism for change.

Short-term actions won’t work. They never do. Change always comes bottom up, never top down.

Self-liberated from slavery, noted abolitionist, statesman, and social activist Frederick Douglas long ago explained “(p)ower concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will,” adding:

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress…Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.”

“The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions…have been born of earnest struggle.”

“This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle.”

Longterm large-scale nationwide struggle is needed today to challenge the status quo that goes way beyond racial injustice alone.

According to Census data, around 76% of the US population is white, 18.5% Latino, and 13.4% African-American — Asians comprising another 5.9%.

Whites comprise the largest numbers of unemployed, underemployed, and overall disadvantaged.

Social injustice in the US cuts across all segments of society.

Privileged interests are served at the expense of most others. Both right wings of the one-party state operate the same way.

It’s not a pretty picture. The US ruling class is indifferent toward the rights and welfare of ordinary people everywhere — at home and abroad.

At a time of economic collapse with nearly one-third of working-age Americans unemployed and little help from the nation’s ruling class, the only solution is nonviolent revolution.

If NBA and other professional athletes are willing to sacrifice a little by an extended boycott for social justice when it’s most needed, they’ll be long remembered and greatly admired on and off their playing fields.

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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.

Featured image is from Sky Sports

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The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, pulled out of a planned visit to Washington DC next week to meet the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after he feared that the news had leaked and that his presence in the US capital would become a “nightmare”.

It had not yet been agreed whether the meeting between the crown prince and Netanyahu would have been recorded and then announced or conducted live in front of the cameras.

But those pushing for it to happen, which included US President Donald Trump and his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, see the prospect of a handshake between the men as a way to relaunch Mohammed bin Salman’s image as a young Arab peacemaker and shore up regional support for the US-brokered deal between the United Arab Emirates and Israel.

In the ensuing statement, the crown prince would have stopped short of announcing recognition of Israel, but the meeting itself would have been the strongest hint that the kingdom was also on a path towards normalising relations.

A date for the visit had been agreed and a protocol team had already been dispatched.

He would have arrived on 31 August after the end of the Republican Convention. It would have been his first visit to the US since March 2018 when he stayed for around three weeks in a big PR exercise.

Not wanting to stay either in the Saudi embassy nor the ambassador’s residence, known locations which would have attracted demonstrations, four houses had been purchased at a secret location just for his stay, MEE was told.

The plan fell apart on Saturday when the crown prince received reports that the visit had been leaked. His bottom-line condition with the White House was that the visit should go ahead in total secrecy and that his presence in the capital would only be known once the event itself was taking place.

That way, his advisers calculated, the crown prince’s many opponents in Congress would have no time to prepare statements, and campaigners for the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and lawyers acting for the former interior minister Saad al-Jabri, who is in hiding in Canada, would have no time to prepare legal actions.

Trump and Kushner had desperately wanted this visit to take place. Within hours of its cancellation, Trump had dispatched both US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Kushner to the Middle East to drum up regional support for the UAE’s pact with Israel.

A day before the UAE cancelled a planned meeting of the US Ambassador Kelly Craft and her Israeli counterpart on Friday over Netanyahu’s veto over the planned sale of F-35 fighters to Abu Dhabi.

Lukewarm response

The UAE’s announcement of recognition did not get the backing from other Arab states that Kushner and Netanyahu had expected. Instead there has been a steadily growing backlash across the region, including in Bahrain and Sudan which had initially welcomed the deal.

Nonetheless, Kushner told CNBC:

“I do think that we have other countries that are very interested in moving forward to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.

“And then, as that progresses, I do think it is an inevitability that Saudi Arabia and Israel will have fully normalised relations and they will be able to do a lot of great things together.”

Saudi Arabia’s mooted endorsement of the deal had been seen as a turning point by those promoting it.

“MBS was going to Washington on 31 August. It was fixed. It was meant to be to do something big related to Israel. What exactly was still under discussion,” a top Saudi source briefed about the plans told Middle East Eye.

Speaking on condition of confidentiality he said:

“The meeting itself with Netanyahu would either have been private or in front of the cameras. Either way it was meant to be a big thing. It was not expected to be full announcement of normalisation of relations, but giving a hint he is going in that direction.”

Other announcements were expected to be timed to coincide with the crown prince’s presence in the capital, possibly from Bahrain, in order to project an impression of an influential young leader set on change.

The idea of a peace-making handshake with an Israeli leader in the style of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin at the US presidential residence at Camp David in 1978, has long been seen by Mohammed bin Salman as a way of burnishing his credentials.

In the aftermath of the murder of Khashoggi in October 2018, the crown prince asked a task force set up to deal with the fallout from the killing to consider whether a handshake could be used to counter negative coverage of his rule in Washington.

But the initiative for the handshake on this occasion came from the US side, according to the Saudi source.

“MBS agreed to it because Trump and Kushner were pushing for it. MBS needs Trump to win. Trump allowed him to become crown prince by agreeing that his elder cousin [Mohammed bin Nayef] could be deposed. Trump gave him legitimacy, and then much needed political cover for all the other things that happened: Khashoggi’s killing, imprisoning his cousins in the Ritz-Carlton, the siege of Qatar. The signals coming out of the Democrats for MBS are not encouraging,” he said.

“However the Crown Prince had one condition: that the visit be kept secret until he was in Washington. His advisers told him that if the visit were leaked, the CIA, Congress, journalists, campaigners for Khashoggi and lawyers for Jabri would all have time to launch a massive negative campaign against him and his presence in Washington would become a nightmare.

“MBS was calculating that if he suddenly appears with Netanyahu the big event would be enough to relaunch his image as a peacemaker,” the source said.

The White House refused to be drawn on the matter, while the State Department referred Middle East Eye back to the White House. Middle East Eye also contacted the Saudi embassy in Washington but it had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

The camp of caution

Opinion among the Saudi royal establishment about the wisdom of this plan was by no means unanimous. There was a large camp who advised the prince to delay.

They pointed out to the crown prince that Trump was doing badly in the polls and a high-profile visit to Washington at this stage could backfire if Trump failed to secure a second term.

If the Democrat nominee Joe Biden won, they argued, the visit could be used as a carrot to the new president, a staunch supporter of Israel, to temper his criticism of the prince.

They also reminded the prince of the example of Jimmy Carter, who brokered the Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978, only to lose the 1980 election.

The Arab rejection of normalisation with Israel has grown since the surprise deal was announced 10 days ago.

The first problem arose when it emerged that Mohammed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, did not get annexation taken off the table by Israel as he had expected. Netanyahu vowed to go ahead with it, and called the deal a freeze. This has now led to bigger demands from Saudi Arabia if the kingdom is to consider going down the same path.

Senior Saudi princes have already distanced themselves publicly from the UAE deal.

In a column published in Asharq Al-Awsat on Friday, Turki al-Faisal defended the UAE’s decision to strike a diplomatic deal with Israel, but suggested that Riyadh was not notified of the agreement ahead of its announcement last week.

“The United Arab Emirates surprised us by agreeing to a deal with the United States and Israel,” Prince Turki wrote.

But he added that Abu Dhabi had the right to make sovereign decisions that it sees as beneficial for its people.

But he went on to rule out normalising relations with Israel before the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

Another important Saudi voice said that Netanyahu had so far got more from the deal than the Arabs had.

Khalid Al Dakheel, a prominent Saudi political sociologist, writer and commentator tweeted:

“It would seem that the United Arab Emirates wanted to give Trump an election card. Netanyahu suspended the annexation but did not end it. He did so previously under European and American pressures, and due to Arab rejection.

“Consequently, he has obtained new Arab normalisation in exchange for nothing. The UAE gain will become clearer after 3 November. And so will be Trump’s gain. The winner so far is Netanyahu. Apart from that, time will tell.”

Hostility to the deal in the Gulf has been evident on social media, despite active Emirati and Saudi efforts to control and counter online criticism, with “Normalisation is treason” and “Gulf peoples against normalisation” both trending as hashtags.

Hours before Pompeo was due to arrive in Sudan on Tuesday, the influential Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) coalition said that the issue of normalisation with “Israel” was not one of the issues that the transitional government would decide on.

Haidar al-Safi, a leading member of the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) coalition which backs Sudan’s transitional government, earlier told MEE that normalisation is a national issue that has to be addressed carefully and after wide consultations with grassroots movements.

“I think we have to live in peace with all our neighbours, including Israel, but this issue has to be put on the table of the constitutional conference that would be attended by the majority of Sudanese to decide,” he argued.

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India’s plans to construct full-fledged fighter bases in the union territories of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands (below) as well as Lakshadweep (2nd map below) might prove to be game-changers in its regional competition with China by enabling New Delhi to exert control over the waterways upon which the bulk of Beijing’s international trade depends, especially in the event that the US exploits its “Logistics Exchange Memorandum Of Agreement” (LEMOA) with India in order to de-facto base its air and naval forces on those islands under the cover of them rotating in and out of there for “logistical” reasons.

From Underdeveloped Island Peripheries To The Center Of Strategic Attention

A lot of fair criticisms have been made about Indian grand strategy over the past decade, but it’s important to give credit where it’s due whenever it does something effective, which is the intent of the present article. The Hindustan Times cited Indian military sources to report that the rising Great Power plans to construct full-fledged fighter bases in the union territories of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands as well as Lakshadweep. For those readers who are unaware of where these territories are located, they’re geostrategically positioned islands near the Strait of Malacca and the southeastern portion of the Arabian Sea, respectively. In the words of an unnamed tri-service commander quoted in the hyperlinked article, “The two Island territories will be like the new aircraft carriers for India, extending the navy’s reach in the region far from the mainland. Both the Islands sit on the busiest sea lanes of the world with more than half the world trade going through this route.” He’s right, which means that this move might be a game-changer in India’s regional competition with China.

Will LEMOA Evolve Into SOFA?

The bulk of Beijing’s international trade depends upon transit through those two waterways, which will increasingly come under New Delhi’s control as it continues to beef up its military presence in those two geostrategic union territories. In an ironic twist, India might end up doing the exact same thing that China’s been accused of planning for years, which is to interfere with the free transit of trade through waterways in its proverbial “backyard”, albeit directed against Beijing’s vessels instead of non-Chinese ones like the Mainstream Media claims that the People’s Republic is plotting to impede. From a grand strategic standpoint, it makes sense why India aspires to obtain this leverage over China, but the problem is that its air and naval forces aren’t (yet) capable of exerting this level of total control, which is where the relevance of its 2016 “Logistics Exchange Memorandum Of Agreement” (2016) with America comes in. That pact gave both countries the right to use the other’s military facilities on a case-by-case “logistical” basis, but it might soon be exploited for other ends.

As the author suspected ever since news of the agreement’s impending signing broke in mid-2016, LEMOA will likely be instrumentalized to enable the US to de-facto base its air and naval forces on Indian territory under the cover of rotating them in and out of there for “logistical” reasons. More specifically in the context of this analysis, they’ll probably be based in those two union territories owing to the overlap of grand strategic interests between the US and India in regards to “containing” China in the Afro-Asian Ocean (the author’s neologism for the “Indian” Ocean, which is much more civilizationally and geographically description accurate than its current name). In fact, LEMOA might eventually evolve into a full-fledged “Status Of Forces Agreement” (SOFA) with time considering the importance of basing US forces on those geostrategically positioned islands and the practical need to formalize their status after the “trial run” of de-facto stationing them there under the LEMOA pretext proves successful.

“Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind”

It’s important to note that the issue of hosting US forces is a very controversial one in Indian society, which is still largely under the influence of their leadership’s so-called “multialignment” rhetoric which misleadingly claims that the country is practicing a 21st-century version of “neutrality” in the New Cold War between America and China. It’s not, nor has it ever been since the South Asian state consistently moved closer to the US since the beginning of the current century. This is especially obvious in the aftermath of this summer’s Galwan Incident, which accelerated the “decoupling” between these two nominal BRICS and SCO “partners”. Nevertheless, a large segment of Indian society is still uncomfortable with their country hosting foreign troops since it goes against decades of tradition, but they might be more accepting of this seemingly inevitable development if it occurs in the Indian island peripheries. As the saying goes, “out of sight, out of mind”, and though they’ll be potential military targets, they’re in scarcely populated areas unlike the Indian mainland.

The S-CPEC+ & W-CPEC+ Workarounds

Faced with this latent threat, China will naturally be inclined to double down on the Belt & Road Initiative’s (BRI) flagship project of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), especially its branch corridors that the author groups together under the umbrella of CPEC+. In particular, the western one (W-CPEC+) could see China pioneering overland trade with the EU via Iran and Turkey, while simply using CPEC as a shortcut to the Afro-Asian Ocean would immediately negate the challenge posed to Chinese maritime trade with the bloc by joint US-Indian control of the Strait of Malacca through their bases in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Even though Lakshadweep sits in the extreme southeastern corner of the same Arabian Sea through which CPEC’s trade with the EU traverses, it still isn’t close enough to this maritime trade route to make much of a difference. In fact, India’s existing facilities on the mainland are much closer to it than Lakshadweep is, though that union territory could still interfere with China’s trade with Africa through S-CPEC+, which might be its true strategic purpose.

 

In other words, China’s response to this challenge is predicted to be its acceleration of work on implementing the W-CPEC+ vision for facilitating overland trade with Europe as well as strengthening its Sea Lines Of Communication (SLOC) between CPEC’s terminal port of Gwadar and “sister” sites in the Horn of Africa and East Africa. The massive series of deals that are reportedly being negotiated between China and Iran should help accomplish the first of these grand strategic objectives while the People’s Liberation Army-Navy’s (PLAN) rapid advances in the past decade mean that it’s more than capable of protecting S-CPEC+’s SLOCs, at least for the time being, especially when one factors in the observation that Beijing chose geostrategically positioned Djibouti as the location of its first-ever overseas base. This facility shows the interest that China places in Africa, and it’s likely that it’ll seek to reach LEMOA-like agreements with the countries hosting its two main regional BRI port projects, Kenya and Tanzania. Taken together, this should be enough to defend against such latent threats.

Concluding Thoughts

India is ambitiously trying to “contain” China in the Afro-Asian Ocean through the South Asian state’s plans to establish full-fledged fighter bases in the geostrategically positioned union territories of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep, but it won’t stand any credible chance of succeeding in this respect unless it allows the US to exploit LEMOA for the purpose of de-facto stationing its own air and naval forces on those islands. With time, LEMOA might eventually evolve into a full-fledged SOFA, but even so, that doesn’t meant that China will be entirely “contained” in this important theater of the New Cold War. The People’s Republic can rely upon its plans for W-CPEC+ and securing S-CPEC+’s SLOCs to defend itself from this latent threat, and all indications suggest that China is making important progress on both fronts. It’ll still take time for the Indo-American and Chinese plans to materialize in full, but what’s important is that their competitive dynamics have been identified and each side’s strategies elaborated upon, which gives observers something solid to monitor.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

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

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Trump’s Postmaster General Should be Returned to Sender

August 27th, 2020 by James E. Varner

President Trump’s postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, recently testified before Congress about major slowdowns in mail delivery under his watch.

As a 20-year postal veteran, I had only one reaction: DeJoy needs to be Returned to Sender.

DeJoy, a Trump fundraiser who owns millions worth of stock in Postal Service competitors, has been on the job barely two months. But already, his changes have caused serious delays in delivery.

Ostensibly, these moves are cost-saving measures. But it doesn’t take a partisan cynic to understand how this kind of disruption could affect voting in November’s election. The president himself has said he hopes as much.

Postal employees pride ourselves on a culture of never delaying the mail. Our unofficial mantra can best be summed up as, “Mail that comes in today, goes out today — no matter what.”

We are now being told to ignore that. If mail can’t get delivered or processed without overtime, it is supposed to sit and wait. That can mean big delays.

For example, letter carriers normally split up the route of a colleague who’s on vacation or out sick. These carriers each take a portion of the absent employee’s route after completing their own, often using a little bit of overtime. Now, that mail doesn’t get delivered until much later.

Then there’s the mail that arrives late in the day. Before, late arriving mail would often be processed for the next day’s delivery, even if that required the use of overtime. Today, that mail sits in the plant at least until the following evening. Mail arriving late on a Saturday or a holiday weekend could be delayed even longer.

In the plants, meanwhile, the short staffing of clerks means it takes longer to get all the mail through the sorting machines. To make matters worse, under orders from DeJoy, mail processing equipment is also being scrapped.

Even though the processing takes longer, drivers aren’t allowed to wait on it. Postal truck drivers are being disciplined for missing their departure time even by a few minutes — even if they haven’t gotten all the mail they’re supposed to haul. In some cases, the trucks that leave are completely empty!

With package deliveries up by 50 percent during the pandemic, as the Institute for Policy Studies reports, large mail trucks operating between facilities are often already full. Imagine how much mail will get left behind when that’s combined with seasonal holiday mail, or a large number of absentee ballots.

Finally, DeJoy’s proposals to cut hours of operation at many smaller post offices — and the removal of many public mailboxes — will make it harder for the public to access postal services.

When you limit hours to 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and close on Saturdays, you eliminate access for anybody working the day shift. Throw in mandatory closure for lunch breaks in the middle of the day, and it makes matters that much worse for our customers.

Postal workers have been doing their best to keep the nation’s mail and packages moving in these difficult and hazardous times. We don’t deserve these attacks.

DeJoy now says he’ll delay more changes until after the election, but he also had the nerve to tell Congress he wouldn’t replace the 600 sorting machines he’d already removed.

Delaying more changes isn’t enough. Instead, Congress must approve crisis relief for USPS — and reverse DeJoy’s disastrous service cuts altogether.

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James E. Varner is the Director of Motor Vehicle Service at American Postal Workers Union Local 443 in Youngstown, Ohio. This op-ed was adapted from a letter published in the Warren Tribune-Chronicle and distributed by OtherWords.org.

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Watch: French Professor Says There Is No Second Wave

August 27th, 2020 by Prof. Jean-François Toussaint

In a recent interview on French television Prof. Jean-François Toussaint of the Université Paris-Descartes has said that hysteria over a “second wave” in France is based on the widespread misinterpretation of data. His main points are as follows:

  1. Deaths in France (and all across Europe) have fallen to almost zero.
  2. “Second Wave” headlines are counting “new cases”, not deaths
  3. These cases are almost all young, healthy people exhibiting no symptoms
  4. Politicians are being irresponsible and scaring people for unnecessarily
  5. Scientists on the “Science Council” don’t believe in the measures they’re prescribing and happily break their own rules.

Prof. Toussaint caps it all with this quote:

“There is not, at this time, any scientific argument that attests to the usefulness of masks”

Before repeating (as we have said ourselves and which Dr Luis de Benito of Madrid stated last week) that we no longer talk about deaths, but instead talk about second waves and new cases, because the death figures have dropped to almost zero.

We no longer talk about deaths, because they’re averaging less than 10 per day – for three weeks less than 10 per day – so now we have passed to some future fear…next week, next month, next spring…

He is right about this, across Europe excess mortality is now either average or below average. The danger, if indeed there ever was much, has apparently passed.

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A new National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper by Andrew Atkeson, Karen Kopecky, and Tao Zha focused on countries and U.S. states with more than 1,000 COVID deaths as of late July. In all, the study included 25 U.S. states and 23 countries. 

Based on their analysis, the authors present four “Stylized Facts” about COVID-19, which are:

  1. Once a region reaches 25 total COVID deaths, within a month the growth rate in deaths per day falls to approximately zero. In other words, no matter the country or state and its policies, deaths per day stop increasing within 20-30 days of passing a threshold of 25 deaths.
  2. Once that happens, deaths per day either begin to fall or the trend remains flat.
  3. The variability in death trends across regions has fallen sharply since the beginning of the epidemic and remains low. All states studied, all countries studied, have become more similar in their trends and have remained so.
  4. Observations 1-3 suggest that the effective reproduction number, R, has hovered around one worldwide after the first 30 days of the epidemic.

The paper’s conclusion is that the data trends observed above likely indicate that nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) – such as lockdowns, closures, travel restrictions, stay-home orders, event bans, quarantines, curfews, and mask mandates – do not seem to affect virus transmission rates overall.

Why? Because those policies have varied in their timing and implementation across countries and states, but the trends in outcomes do not.

From the study’s authors:

Location and sampling uncertainty. The black solid line in both charts represents the median posterior estimate. The solid magenta line in the top chart represents the median growth rate of 7-day smoothed daily deaths for all 50 locations and corresponds only to the left scale. The two dash-dotted bands in both charts contain two thirds of the posterior probability at each point in time and the two dashed bands, 0.90 of the posterior probability. The growth rates of death is estimated according to the fitted Weibull function. Effective reproduction numbers and normalized transmission rates are based on the SIR model. Day 0 is the earliest date when the cumulative death toll reached 25 in each location.

This study runs counter to previous studies claiming that NPIs were effective in reducing transmission rates during the early stages of the epidemic. The authors explain:

Given the observation that transmission rates for COVID-19 fell virtually everywhere in the world during this early pandemic period, we are concerned that these studies may substantially overstate the role of government-mandated NPIs in reducing disease transmission due to an omitted variable bias.

One of the key candidates for the key “omitted variable,” i.e. the true cause of the decline in transmission rates after the first month of an epidemic, is that human interaction does not conform to simple epidemiological models. In the real world human social networks overlap in such a way that a virus can spread rapidly for a short period of time, as some people contact more networks than others, but reaches natural dead-ends and roundabouts where potential new hosts in a “new” social network have already been exposed through other networks. The effect can resemble what some think of as “herd immunity,” but at relatively low infection rates.

The authors reason that even if NPIs were effective early on, they do not appear to be anymore:

Moreover, given the observation that disease transmission rates have remained low with relatively low dispersion across locations worldwide for the past several months as NPIs have been lifted, we are concerned that estimates of the effectiveness of NPIs in reducing disease transmission from the earlier period may not be relevant for forecasting the impact of the relaxation of those NPIs in the current period, due to some unobserved switch in regime.

This study provides strong statistical support for what so many have been observing for six months. The epidemic has a natural tendency to spread quickly at first and slow down, seemingly on its own, a point made not only here but as early as April 14 by Isaac Ben-Israel. Meanwhile governors imagine that very specific rules for opening bars and restaurants are the key to containment.

Governments have conducted an unprecedented social, economic, and political experiment in controlling whole populations’ behavior, with high economic and human cost. The authors ask the right question: has this experiment in government-managed virus control and suppression made a difference? The startling answer they found, after examining data from around the country and the world, is that the evidence simply is not there.

If we are concerned about the evidence on this global experiment, we must concede that most government authorities have likely acted in error.

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Stephen C. Miller is the Adams Bibby Chair of Free Enterprise and an Associate Professor of Economics in the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University. He is also an AIER Summer Fellow alumnus and Voting Member of AIER. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not imply endorsement by Troy University.

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In a world where American exceptionalism and unilateralism has become common currency, the brazenness of Secretary of State Pompeo’s bid to impose “snap back” inspections of Iran takes the cake. Moreover, it’s doomed to fail.

When it comes to Iran and the Iran nuclear deal (formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA), President Trump has been singularly focused on one outcome–to bring the Islamic Republic back to the negotiation table for the purpose of producing a “better deal” than the one done by his predecessor, Barack Obama, in July 2015. For the former New York realtor and reality television star-turned Chief Executive, it does not get any simpler than that–he is, after all, the consummate (if self-proclaimed) “deal maker.” How the deal is made, and even what constitutes the deal, is less important than the deal itself. This goal dominated his thinking about Iran as a candidate and continues to do so as President.

The precipitous decision to withdraw from the JCPOA in May 2018 was driven more by the perceived need to begin shaping the diplomatic battlefield in support of a new negotiation than any legitimate national security concerns. Trump’s goal all along has been to compel Iran, through the implementation of economic sanctions combined with political isolation, to scrap the Obama-era JCPOA and sit down with the new American “deal maker” to craft a “big deal” that would make everyone happy.

America versus the world

The problem from the start, however, was that the United States was alone with its displeasure over how the deal was being implemented. Among the other parties to the JCPOA (France, Great Britain, Germany, the EU, Russia, China and Iran), the agreement was proving its viability by preventing Iran from engaging in any “breakout” actions that could result in Iran obtaining enough fissile material from its centrifuge-based uranium enrichment program to build a nuclear device. Trump, however, had latched on to the so-called “sunset clauses” of the JCPOA, which lifted restrictions on Iran’s use of centrifuges after a period of several years, allowing Iran to blow-past the hypothetical calculations regarding nuclear “breakout,” and thereby mooting the fundamental purpose of the JCPOA to begin with.

The US decision to unilaterally withdraw from the JCPOA has proven to be an unmitigated policy disaster, one that has empowered Iran, Russia and China as the “aggrieved parties,” and driven a wedge between the US and its European allies. Rather than admit defeat and help restore the status quo by re-entering the JCPOA, the Trump administration has instead opted to double down, threatening to reimpose UN sanctions which had been suspended upon Iran’s entry into the JCPOA via procedural mechanisms contained in the body of that agreement calling for the “snap back” of sanctions if any party is dissatisfied with the compliance of another. The real purpose of the US gambit to reimpose “snap back” inspections wasn’t any malfeasance on the part of Iran’s nuclear program, but rather a desire to prevent the automatic lifting of an arms embargo that had been spelled out in the body of the JCPOA. This embargo was scheduled to automatically terminate come October 2020.

The US sought to pressure the Security Council into passing a resolution which would permanently extend this embargo. Both Russia and China had promised to veto, so the resolution’s defeat was inevitable. The goal in pushing for it, however, was to persuade at least nine other members of the 15-member body to vote in favor, thereby providing the US with the moral high ground when approaching the Security Council about re-imposing “snap back” sanctions. Most of the other members of the Security Council, recognizing that if they intervened to reverse a clause mandated by the JCPOA, they would put Iran’s continued participation in the agreement at risk, instead abstained from voting on the resolution. Only the Dominican Republic sided with the US; Russia and China, as expected, cast their vetoes.

Trump’s deal or no deal

Having failed to secure the moral high ground, the US could have admitted defeat and regrouped, trying to find another, less controversial way forward. But the US policy of “maximum pressure” brooks no such weakness, especially when Donald Trump has bragged that he will secure a new deal with Iran within four weeks of his being re-elected. To even have a shot at this, the US would need to not only maintain the existing unilateral sanctions regime it is enforcing on Iran, but also increase the pressure, something that could only be done by re-imposing UN sanctions via the “snap back” mechanism of the JCPOA.

If the US were to succeed in “snapping back” UN sanctions, the JCPOA would be dead in the water, as there would be no way Iran would continue to comply with an agreement which no longer delivers on its promises. The other parties to the JCPOA understand this and indicated their unwillingness to go along with the US scheme. Moreover, these nations believe that by having withdrawn from the JCPOA, the US was no longer a “participant” to that agreement, and as such, had no jurisdictional or legal authority to initiate the “snap back” provisions.

On August 20, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, ignoring the warnings from the other JCPOA parties, met with the President of the Security Council for the purpose of delivering a letter announcing that the US was activating the “snap back” procedures, and that in 30 days it would be calling for a vote on the matter by the Security Council. Almost immediately the US actions were condemned by the other parties of the JCPOA, with France, Great Britain and Germany calling the US move “incompatible with our current efforts to support the JCPOA”, and both Russia and China terming the effort “illegal.”

Tearing down UNSC is an acceptable outcome for the US

The Trump administration, faced with this united opposition, has shown no indication it is willing to back down. The UN Security Council is navigating uncharted waters, having never been confronted with a challenge of this nature in its entire 75-year history. There is every reason to believe that the US will submit a resolution for consideration following the expiration of the 30-day notification period, and then veto it itself, thereby triggering the automatic “snap back” of UN sanctions. There is also every reason to believe that the Security Council will seek to block the US through various procedural formalities designed not to formally recognize the US demands, and thereby preventing the submission of any resolution.

A likely outcome will be that the Security Council fails to recognize the US submission of a resolution, followed by the US refusing to recognize the Security Council’s ability to prevent such a resolution from being submitted. The US will seek to submit the resolution, then immediately veto it, and claim that the “snap back” has been accomplished. The rest of the Security Council will reject this action, and deem the JCPOA to be in play, free of UN sanctions. The US will then sanction any party which fails to comply with the UN sanctions.

If this were in fact to occur, it would mean the functional death of the UN Security Council, an outcome many in the Trump administration appear willing to live with. Faced with the inevitability of this outcome, some members–especially the French, Germans and Brits–may be compelled to reexamine their position on the lifting of the arms embargo, seeking a compromise solution that salvages the JCPOA while denying Iran access to Russian and Chinese armaments. This may be the goal of the US all along. If so, it is an extremely dangerous one that is based on a false predicate, namely that there is a combination of economic and diplomatic pressure that can be placed on Iran to compel it to renegotiate the JCPOA. Simply put, there is not, and for the Trump administration to proceed as if there is only endangers regional and international peace and security.

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

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As the United States sinks deeper into a multi-faceted global crisis that no politician seems able or even willing to address, one hears more and more often demands for radical change in who runs the country and to what end. Of course, Donald J. Trump offered such a dramatic shift in priorities four years ago, but he has been unable to deliver due to his own inability to execute and the ill-conceived machinations of those whom he has chosen as advisers. The Democrats for their part are offering little beyond a repeat of their 2016 pander to grievance groups in an effort to cobble together an unassailable majority based on buying off the party’s various constituencies.

But there is one area where change could come dramatically if either party were actually motivated to do something that would truly benefit the American people, and that is in the area of foreign and national security policy where the president has considerable power to set priorities and redirect both the State and Defense Departments. Unfortunately, foreign and national security policy is almost never discussed during the presidential campaigns and this time would already appear to be no exception. That means that the one thing that is a constant amidst all the smoke and mirrors is the continued bellicosity of both parties on the world stage.

The Republicans are apparently eager to “democratize” Latin America while the Democrats in particular are wedded to the “foreign interference” angle to explain their loss in 2016, with Hillary Clinton predictably advising in her Democratic National Convention speech that the public should “Vote to make sure we — not a foreign adversary — choose our president.” Indeed, the tendency to create and then demonize “foreign conspiracies” is generally supported by the establishment and its parasitical media, since it enables the billionaire oligarchs who really run the country to grow fatter while also avoiding any blame for the declining fortunes of most of the American people.

The Democrats are currently taking pains to recall the so-called “Russian interference” in 2016, and are expecting or possibly even hoping for more of the same this year. Tying Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin is obviously perceived as a game winner, even though the just-completed investigations into the events of 2016 are at best ambiguous. Early prognostications by journalist-pundits in the foreign interference sweepstakes indicate that both China and Iran will be supporting Joe Biden while Russia wants to continue with Trump. No one bothers to explain how those countries will express their preferences or what kind of impact they could possibly have.

One thing that is certain is that both parties will continue their deference to Israel which in turn means hostility towards Iran and its few friends worldwide. The U.S. media has not reported the almost daily bombings of Syria and Gaza by Israel and even largely failed to cover how two weeks ago the United States Navy seized four Greek flagged oil tankers transporting more than a million gallons of fuel to economic basket case Venezuela, a country which is in its sad condition due to sanctions and other “maximum pressure” at the hands of Washington. The fuel was seized based on unilaterally imposed U.S. sanctions on Iranian sale or export of its own petroleum products, a move intended to strangle the Iranian economy and bring about an uprising of the Iranian people. Such a move used to be called piracy.

To be sure, the Democrats have indicated that they will rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Trump withdrew from under orders from top donor Sheldon Adelson in 2017, one of his first acts in office. The JCPOA is intended to monitor and restrain any possible efforts by Iran to enrich uranium to develop a nuclear weapon, which one might assume is in the U.S. interest, but one should make no mistake in thinking that re-entering the agreement signifies any softening towards Iran. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are owned lock, stock and barrel by the Israel Lobby, which is pretty much true of most politicians from both major parties in Washington. Iran is Israel’s target and even lacking any threat to the U.S. so it will remain the American enemy of choice.

America’s efforts to demonize and punish Iran, ineptly stage managed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, frequently lead into the Twilight Zone. On August 17th, the United States suffered what has to be described as a humiliating defeat in the United Nations Security Council. As the Washington Post reported it, “The United States asked the council to approve an extension of the 13-year-old embargo on arms trade with Iran — something that matters greatly to Israel and U.S. Arab allies, and which most of the democratic world favors. Yet only one member of the 15-member council, the Dominican Republic, sided with Washington. Russia and China opposed the motion, while 11 countries — including Britain, France and Germany — abstained. The vote could open the way for Iran to obtain Chinese and Russian arms — for example, missiles it could employ against Israel, the UAE or U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf.”

Note particularly the reliably Zionist Post’s “newspeak” version in describing both the issue and the vote. It states that “most of the democratic world favors” an embargo on selling arms to Iran but then describes how “11 countries – including Britain, France and Germany – abstained.” And, of course, the potential threat to Israel is front and center as the reason for the embargo, an apartheid state that has nuclear weapons developed in secret after stealing both the uranium and triggers from the United States. One might also note that Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Israel is not, and its nuclear related research facilities are fully open to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

After the rebuff, Trump subsequently moved on to phase two in its attack on Iran by invoking a so-called “snap-back” provision of the JCPOA that empowers any of the signatories to the agreement to unilaterally call for renewal of the international sanctions that isolated Iran prior to 2015, when the plan of action was signed by the U.S., Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, along with the European Union. The U.S. claimed that Iran has been cheating on its enrichment program and also that the accord’s authority is rooted in an accompanying Security Council resolution, which means that Washington can at will address the issue before that body.

Bear in mind that the U.S., though an original signatory, withdrew from the agreement, and any attempt to restore U.N. sanctions through an admittedly sleazy maneuver would be resisted by nearly all the other members of the Security Council, which is precisely what did take place last Thursday, with the Europeans producing a joint letter emphasizing that Washington has no standing on the issue as it is no longer party to the arrangement. Pompeo responded by saying that the Europeans “chose to side with the ayatollahs.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, presumably supported by the president, has been angered by the Security Council’s failure to support him on either extending the arms embargo or re-imposing general sanctions, though he is probably eternally grateful for the fortitude demonstrated by the plucky little Dominican Republic. On both meetings with the Security Council Pompeo complained, using his standard line, saying that “We can’t allow the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism to buy and sell weapons. I mean, that’s just nuts.”

The next step by the White House was a unilateral proposal submitted in writing by the U.S. to reimpose a full range of economic sanctions on Iran in thirty days. That can only be blocked by a Security Council resolution which Washington can veto, meaning that America will again be going it alone in its not-so-secret war against Iran, further isolating the U.S. in world fora and again demonstrating that the Trump Administration has few friends anywhere in this fight but Israel and its newfound Arab associates in the Gulf. It also means that the re-imposed sanctions are unlikely to be actively enforced by anyone that matters, further suggesting that the U.S. might resort to secondary sanctions, as it has done in the past, on those who do not comply, a formula for chaos.

Well, it should seem obvious that we Americans can’t afford a foreign and national security policy that pits the United States against the rest of the world in situations where the U.S. is not actually directly threatened and does not even have a vital interest. Over the next two months, perhaps we will see some serious discussion of America’s place in the world or perhaps not. If 2016 is anything to go by, we are more likely to see a number of bromides tossed out without any real meaning behind them. We are still waiting for troops reductions and the ending of useless wars promised by Trump. We are still waiting for Hillary to concede that Russia didn’t defeat her. She did it all by herself.

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

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Houthis’ War on Terror in Yemen

August 27th, 2020 by South Front

Since the start of the Saudi intervention in Yemen in March 2015, the official Saudi propaganda, Western diplomats and mainstream media outlets have been arguing that the coalition is somehow combating terrorists there.

As a part of this narrative, Saudi Arabia, the United States & Co claim that the Houthis (Ansar Allah) are “Iranian-backed terrorists” that oppose the establishment of a democratic rule in Yemen. What the Saudi kingdom (where people still can be executed for witchcraft) or the United States (where only two political parties are de-facto allowed) know about the real ‘democracy’ is the unanswered question.

The kingdom’s leadership and its allies are especially concerned by Houthi drone and missile strikes on military and infrastructure targets inside Saudi Arabia, and cry foul about the Iranian support to the Yemeni movement. At the same time, the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen as a result of the Saudi-led blockade and the wide-scale Saudi bombing campaign aimed at the destruction of the Yemeni civilian infrastructure that led to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths are considered as something ordinary and justified.

The dramatic growth of ISIS and al-Qaeda influence in Yemen since the start of the Saudi intervention is also the factor mostly ignored by the ‘democratic international community’.

Therefore, the Houthis labeled by Saudi propaganda as “terrorists” took the situation in their own hands and started conducting operations against ISIS and al-Qaeda in central Yemen. The recent advances of the Houthis allowed them to expand these efforts and further. The most recent Houthi operation against ISIS and al-Qaeda was kicked off in the Yemeni province of al-Bayda in August.

On August 19, the Houthis announced that their forces had liberated 1,000km2 from ISIS and al-Qaeda cells in the district of Wald Rabi of al-Bayda province. According to the Houthi media wing, they neutralized over 250 terrorists, destroyed 12 camps and gatherings of the terrorists, and seized large quantities of weapons and explosive devices.

“Among those killed there were five commanders of ISIS, including the group’s leader [in Wald Rabi’] as well as the security and financial officials,” a spokesman for the Houthi-led Armed Forces, Brig. Gen. Sari said. “We found complete information and evidence confirming that these elements had carried out various operations during the past years in more than one Yemeni region.”

“We also obtained evidence confirming that the Takfiris [terrorists] were coordinating with other elements in Arab and foreign states.”

After August 18, the Houthis continued their offensive on ISIS and al-Qaeda cells in the province. According to them, terrorists receive support from foreign states, first of all Saudi Arabia. Earlier, there were multiple reports that members of Al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula were openly supporting Saudi-led forces in their attacks on the Houthis.

Despite the dominance in the air and support from such factions, the Saudi-led coalition de-facto lost the conflict in Yemen and even failed to capture the country’s capital, Aden.

In these conditions, the MSM-labeled ‘terrorist group’ became the main and the only real anti-terrorism force in Yemen. This situation showcases the cornerstone of the mainstream coverage of the conflict in Yemen and many other conflicts around the world. “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength” are no more just quotes from George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, but rather the slogan of the mainstream media around the world.

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Sixty-six organizations representing over 7.5 million members sent letters to Home Depot (NYSE: HD) and Lowe’s (NYSE: LOW) today urging them to remove Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides from store shelves and online sales. The organizations, representing consumers, environmentalists, beekeepers and farmers, also urged the companies to expand sales of organic and other safer alternatives. Competitors Costco (NASDAQ: COST) and B&Q have already announced commitments to phase out glyphosate-based products.

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is the most widely used weedkiller in the world. Glyphosate is classified as a probable human carcinogen by the World Health Organization and has been linked to high rates of kidney disease in farming communities and to shortened pregnancy in a cohort of women in the Midwest. Animal studies and bioassays link glyphosate and its formulations to Parkinson’s, endocrine disruption, DNA damage, decreased sperm function, disruption of the gut microbiome, and fatty liver disease.

In the environment, glyphosate is a primary driver of Monarch butterfly declines and has been associated with harm to honeybees including negative impacts on larval development,cognitive abilities, colony parasite load, and gut microbiota.

After a spate of high profile lawsuits linking plaintiffs’ cancer to glyphosate exposure, manufacturer Bayer agreed to pay $10 billion to settle an additional 95,000 cases out of court. However, Roundup will continue to be sold for use on yards, school grounds, public parks, and farms without any safety warning. 

“Home and garden stores can make a significant difference in reducing the use of this toxic product,” said Kendra Klein, senior staff scientist at Friends of the Earth. “Research shows that homeowners use up to 10 times more chemical pesticides per acre on their lawns than farmers use on crops. It’s reckless to sell consumers products linked to cancer when safer organic alternatives exist. Home Depot and Lowe’s should build on their earlier commitments to phase out harmful neonicotinoid pesticides by taking decisive action on glyphosate.”  

“In the absence of adequate government protections, retailers should step up and act responsibly by ending the sale of products containing glyphosate that are known to have negative impacts on human health and the environment, including pollinators such as Monarch butterflies,” said Rebecca Spector, West Coast director at Center for Food Safety.

“Regulatory agencies have failed to protect us. Young people are taking their health into their own hands and demanding that Home Depot and Lowe’s remove glyphosate-based herbicides from the shelves. We have sufficient scientific evidence to know the adverse effects these products have on our own bodies, as well as on the environment. It is Home Depot and Lowe’s responsibility to protect the many people who still use these products and are unaware of the risks,” said Mackenzie Feldman, Executive Director at Herbicide-Free Campus. 

“The research is clear — glyphosate is harmful to people and the planet. Especially during a year when so many Americans turned to gardening during the pandemic, Home Depot and Lowe’s have a very real responsibility to keep this chemical out of our homes and communities,” said Jes Walton, Food Campaigns Director at Green America. 

“Most home gardeners don’t fully understand the potential dangers of spraying these chemicals on their lawns and in their gardens. And who knows when U.S. government officials will pass legislation banning products containing glyphosate,” said Lacey Kohlmoos, U.S. Campaign Manager at SumOfUs. “It is up to Home Depot and Lowe’s to do the right thing and take this cancer-linked poison off their shelves.”

“As leading retailers of garden pesticides, supplies, and equipment, Lowe’s and Home Depot can continue to contribute to the poisoning of people and environment, or they can help their customers take on the existential crises of pesticide-induced diseases, like cancer, climate change, and biodiversity decline through the sale of products compatible with organic land management,” said Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides.

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Israeli intelligence is polishing off a dubious propaganda campaign to suggest Hezbollah was to blame for the recent catastrophe in Beirut. But the factual record either contradicts Israeli claims or reveals a complete dearth of evidence.

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Israeli officials have exploited the massive explosion at the Port of Beirut this August to revive a dormant propaganda campaign that had accused the Lebanese militia and political party Hezbollah of storing ammonium nitrate in several countries to wage terror attacks on Israelis.

The Israeli intelligence apparatus had planted a series of stories from 2012 to 2019 claiming Hezbollah sought out ammonium nitrate as the explosive of choice for terrorist operations. According to the narrative, Hezbollah purportedly planned to covertly store the explosive substance in locations from Southeast Asia to Europe and the United States — only to be foiled repeatedly by Mossad.

In each one of those cases, however, the factual record either contradicted the Israeli claims or revealed a complete dearth of evidence.

The narrative first debuted in the Israeli press after a June 2019 story in the British pro-Israel daily The Telegraph on alleged Hezbollah storage of the explosive around London. The Times of Israel introduced for the first time the much broader theme that Hezbollah planned to use the explosive for “huge, game-changing attacks on Israeli targets globally.”

Next, “new details” appeared in the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth from “unnamed Israeli intelligence officials,” disclosing how Israel had supposedly stymied ammonium nitrate-based terror plots by Hezbollah in London, Cyprus, and Thailand.

Following the calamity of the Beirut explosion, the narrative story was opportunistically revived in the Israeli media, with the Times of Israel summarizing an Israeli Channel 13 report citing an “unsourced assessment” that Hezbollah “apparently planned to use the ammonium nitrate stockpile that caused a massive blast at Beirut’s port this week against Israel in a ‘Third Lebanon War’.”

A review of the supposedly open-and-shut cases in both Thailand and Cyprus, however, reveals serious questions about the evidence used to accuse Hezbollah suspects and the role of the Mossad in those cases. It also shows that an alleged Hezbollah plot involving ammonium nitrate in New York City was contrived by the FBI and Justice Department without any real evidence.

Thailand: Muddling the issue, bending the law

The arrest of Hussein Atris, a dual Swedish-Lebanese citizen, in Bangkok on January 13, 2012 occurred after the Mossad received a report that a terrorist attack was due to occur in the middle of that month. The Israeli intelligence agency had given the Thai police a list of 14 or 15 suspects — all Iranian or Lebanese — to be placed under surveillance, including Atris.

But it was Atris who received the bulk of attention. Atris told police about goods he had stored in a commercial building in Bangkok. Shortly after his arrest, he was taken out of his cell to a house where he was interrogated by three Mossad agents, as was typical of Mossad operations in countries where Israel cultivated close relations with law enforcement.

On January 17, Thai police visited the commercial building near Bangkok and reportedly found 4.8 tons of urea fertilizer and 40 liters (100 pounds) of ammonium nitrate. Atris was immediately charged by the police with “possession of prohibited substances.”

But the ammonium nitrate that Atris had stored in the building was not illegal; it was merely a component of frozen gel packs for sore muscles commonly bought and sold wholesale and retail all over the world.

The boxes of gel packs were stored along with electric fans, slippers, and copy paper on the second floor of the building. And as Atris explained to his interrogators and to a reporter from the Swedish daily Aftonbladet who interviewed him in jail, he had been purchasing various goods in Asia and exporting them to other countries like Liberia.

Atris had already arranged for a freighter to ship the goods he had stored there, as the chief of Bangkok metropolitan police confirmed in an interview with the New York Times.

The Mossad interrogators refused to accept the explanation by Atris and accused him of lying about his business. Further clouding the picture, police found two tons of urea fertilizer in bags labeled as cat litter on the same floor as the cold packs.

But Atris told an interviewer he had never dealt with fertilizer in his business, and that he believed “it must have been placed in our storage facility by someone, probably Mossad.”

Mossad and its Thai allies were committed to the idea that Atris was a Hezbollah operative from the beginning, even though they apparently had no actual hard evidence to back it up. The claim of Hezbollah membership was nevertheless sold successfully to cooperative local and national news media.

Reuters published a story with the headline “Thailand: Hezbollah man arrested in terror scare.” When he was brought to trial in 2013, Atris firmly denied any links to Hezbollah, and the court ultimately found that there was no evidence to support the contention by the police and the Mossad that he was in any way involved with the Lebanese movement.

International press coverage of the case blurred details in a way that incorrectly suggested terrorist intent. When Atris’s case went to trial in July 2013, Agence-France Presse falsely reported that he and “unidentified accomplices” had “packed more than six tons of ammonium nitrate into bags,” thus confusing the already commercially packaged cold packs with the urea fertilizer, which was not an illegal substance under Thai law and which he specifically denied owning.

Time magazine distorted the case more seriously by referring to the bags of urea fertilizer as “chemicals being assembled into explosives … in bags labeled as kitty litter.”

In the end, Atris was convicted of “illegal possession” of ammonium nitrate, which was a banned substance under Thai law. However, the country had not intended for the provision to apply to frozen gel packs for pain relief, which are commonly traded in bulk internationally.

Despite the absence of any evidence that Atris was either a Hezbollah agent or a terrorist, the US State Department joined with its Israeli allies in declaring him to be “a member of Hezbollah’s overseas terrorist unit.”

Cyprus: The mysterious appearance of ammonium nitrate

In 2015, the Cypriot government prosecuted Canadian-Lebanese Hussein Bassam Abdallah for allegedly being part of a Hezbollah ammonium nitrate terrorist plot, after police found 420 boxes of the fertilizer in the house where he was staying. Yet virtually no details about the case were ever released, because the entire legal process took place behind closed doors. What’s more, Abdallah’s defense was never made public.

Information from the Kuwaiti daily Al-Jarida, which Israelis have often used to disseminate propaganda into the Arab Middle East, raises serious questions about the origin of the ammonium nitrate found in the house where Abdallah was staying. The newspaper published a story citing a “private source” who said that Mossad agents had been tracking Abdallah, following his every movement and intercepting all his phone calls from Cyprus.

The Mossad surveillance continued, according to the story, “until he obtained the materials and fertilizer, after which Cypriot authorities were informed [and] raided his place of residence and arrested him and seized two tons of [ammonium nitrate].…”

By reporting an apparent Mossad account that the ammonium nitrate was not at the house until just before Mossad tipped off the police, the Al-Jarida report obviously suggested that the timing of its appearance was not merely coincidental.

This was not the first time that Mossad-related evidence against one of its targets turned out to be highly suspect. Two Iranian men who were visiting Mombasa, Kenya in 2012 were charged with having buried 15 kilograms of the explosive RDX on a golf course. However, they had been interrogated — and one of them allegedly drugged — by three Mossad agents.

Though Kenyan police had supposedly been carrying out constant surveillance on them for the entire length of their stay, no direct evidence of the Iranians ever possessing RDX came to light. That anomaly resulted in the case against the Iranians being thrown out by Kenya’s Court of Appeal, and suggested that Mossad itself had planted the explosive on the golf course.

In Abdallah’s case, the evidence also indicated the use of a classical prosecution tactic was employed to force him to admit to a Hezbollah ammonium nitrate terrorism plot: forcing a plea bargain on him by the threat of a much longer sentence if he refused to plead guilty.

After the first week of interrogation, a Cypriot security official told a journalist that Abdallah denied all charges against him and was not “cooperating” — meaning he was not admitting what both Israel and Cyprus wanted him to. Weeks later, however, following a trial closed to the public, Abdallah admitted to all eight charges against him.

The semi-official Cyprus News Agency reported Abdallah had given the police a statement that the ammonium nitrate was to have been used for terrorist attacks against Jewish or Israeli interests in Cyprus. In return he was given a six-year sentence instead of the 14 years he would have received without the deal.

Abdallah’s defense lawyer, Savvas A. Angelides, pressed his client to accept the plea bargain, advancing the political interests of Cyprus as a close ally of Israel. For his part, Angelides had his eyes on a high-level national security posting in his country’s government. Sure enough, in early 2018, the lawyer was appointed defense minister of Cyprus.

The idea that Hezbollah obtained ammonium nitrate for use in New York City – another Israeli contention – was not supported by any evidence whatsoever. In this case, a Lebanese-American named Ali Kourani stood accused of hatching a Hezbollah terror plot.

But the closest the US Justice Department could come to linking to ammonium nitrate was a statement in its criminal complaint against him.

This claimed that, in May 2009, Kourani “entered China at an airport in Guangzhou, the location of Guangzhou Company-1, i.e., the manufacturer of the ammonium nitrate-based First Aid ice packs sized in connection with thwarted IJO attacks in Thailand and Cyprus.” The suggestion that a trip to Quangzhou somehow counted as evidence of an effort to procure ammonium nitrate for Hezbollah terrorism was patently absurd.

London and Germany: Mossad’s phantom Hezbollah explosives

The next apparent Israeli intel dump arrived in the form of a June 2019 story in The Telegraph UK, a right-wing Rupert Murdoch-owned daily which loyally follows Israeli government lines.

According to the report, in 2015, the UK MI5 intelligence service and London’s Metropolitan Police were tipped off by the Mossad about thousands of ice packs containing three tons of ammonium nitrate in warehouses in Northwest London.

The Telegraph revealed that London police had arrested one man “on suspicion of plotting terrorism” but had eventually released him without charges.  That detail was the giveaway that the British had come to realize that they had no evidence linking cold packs or their owner to any Hezbollah terrorist plot — contrary to the Israel narrative.

The Telegraph’s suggestion that MI5 decided not to prosecute to disrupt the threat isn’t credible, because no one was ever prosecuted. And its implication that the British government kept quiet about the episode because it was protecting the Iran nuclear deal did not apply once Trump tore up the agreement in 2018.

The British government, which banned Hezbollah in February 2020, has never suggested that the Lebanese militia had been plotting to use ammonium nitrate from warehouses in the UK to carry out terrorist attacks.

According to a report this May by Israel’s Channel 12, days before Germany announced its banning of Hezbollah from the country, the Mossad had gathered information on alleged Hezbollah terrorism-related activities in Germany. The supposed plotting consisted of the identification of warehouses in southern Germany where the Mossad claimed Hezbollah was storing hundreds of kilograms of ammonium nitrate.

After the information was presented to German intelligence and law enforcement agencies, according to the report, the German Interior Ministry announced in April 2020 that it was banning Hezbollah. It simultaneously raided four mosque associations accused of being close to Hezbollah.

But German law enforcement never announced any action regarding warehouses supposedly holding ammonium nitrate, indicating that the German government found nothing that backed up the claims by the Mossad.

Hoping to seize the Beirut explosion as a historic propaganda opportunity, the Israeli government clearly believes that it can fashion a new and more powerful narrative by knitting together false claims related to these episodes.

Israel’s objective is to force Hezbollah out of the Lebanese government by implicating it in the calamitous blast.

So far, Western corporate media appears inclined to accept the baseless Israeli claims on face value. The day after the blast in Beirut, the Washington Post reported that Hezbollah “has long shown an interest in acquiring [ammonium nitrate] for use in a variety of terrorist plots.”

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Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist who has covered national security policy since 2005 and was the recipient of Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in 2012.  His most recent book is The CIA Insider’s Guide to the Iran Crisis co-authored with John Kiriakou, just published in February.

Featured image is from Mehrnews.com

This was a first expedition by volunteers and activists to rescue seals trapped in plastic rubbish on the island, a breeding ground in the Sea of Okhotsk, off Sakhalin.

Each year, these shores are a magnet for seals and sea lions.

Young animals especially love playing with the junk – but often get trapped in synthetic fishing nets and plastic rings.

These easily turn into deadly collars that ‘grow’ deep into bodies of the mammals, leading to slow, agonising death.

Whales and dolphins suffer on an horrific scale from netting and plastic waste – some 300,000 die each year, according to the International Whaling Commission.

Saving our Seals - 28 sea mammals rescued after becoming trapped in plastic junk

Saving our Seals - 28 sea mammals rescued after becoming trapped in plastic junk

Saving our Seals - 28 sea mammals rescued after becoming trapped in plastic junk

Saving our Seals - 28 sea mammals rescued after becoming trapped in plastic junk

Saving our Seals - 28 sea mammals rescued after becoming trapped in plastic junk

Saving our Seals - 28 sea mammals rescued after becoming trapped in plastic junk

Saving our Seals - 28 sea mammals rescued after becoming trapped in plastic junk
A dozen volunteers crawled along the beach to catch the seals tied up or otherwise tangled in the garbage. Pictures: Boomerang Club

Helping to free the stricken seals on Tyuleniy Island was no easy task as the seals have very sharp teeth and fast reactions.

The legal framework around using sedatives is not yet resolved and it is impossible to save large animals, such as mature seals and sea lions, and to work on rocky shores without immobilising them. This is why Tyuleniy Island with flat sand and gravel beaches – and many young animals – was chosen for this initial rescue mission.

A dozen volunteers crawled along the beach to catch the seals tied up or otherwise tangled in the garbage.

The pictures show how the team carefully went about their work.

Volunteers also removed dangerous hooks, ropes, boards with nails and sharp pieces of metal from the shoreline.

In the end 28 seals were saved from recklessly thrown rubbish.

The expedition was organised by Boomerang Club, an environmental NGO, and Friends of the Ocean along with Kamchatka Branch of the Pacific Ocean Institute of Geography, with support from the President’s Grants Fund and a fishing company from Lermontovka.

Activists and scientists plan to continue joint efforts to rescue sea animals from plastic rubbish in the Sea of Okhotsk.

Saving Our Seals – 28 sea mammals rescued after becoming trapped in plastic junk. Pictures: Boomerang Club

Saving our Seals - 28 sea mammals rescued after becoming trapped in plastic junk

Saving our Seals - 28 sea mammals rescued after becoming trapped in plastic junk
Saving our Seals - 28 sea mammals rescued after becoming trapped in plastic junk

Saving our Seals - 28 sea mammals rescued after becoming trapped in plastic junk

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Featured image: Helping to free the stricken seals on Tyuleniy Island was no easy task as the seals have very sharp teeth and fast reactions. Pictures: Boomerang Club

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In 1378, it was not clear who the true Pope was. Depending on whom one asked, it was either Clement VII, nowadays listed as an Antipope in the Catholic Encyclopedia, or Urban VI. This was a time of crisis in Western Europe, often referred to as the “Western Schism”.

Likewise today, in the realm of secular politics, we currently have or recently had disputed or contested presidencies – in varying degrees – in many countries. In fact, Venezuela – where Guaidó and the country’s president Maduro are each recognized by a number of countries – is far from the being the only such case in Latin America.

For instance, in Peru, on October 2019, both Vizcarra and Araós claimed to be the legitimate president. In Honduras, Hernández election was contested, amid allegations of narco connections.  Even in Colombia, Petro (2018 election runner up) and his party no longer recognize Duque’s presidency, who has also been accused of narco links and of tampering with ballots. In Brazil, Ms. Roussef’s 2016 deposition was perceived by many as an “institutional coup”. The current Brazilian president Bolsonaro, in his turn, also faces accusations of vote fraud through the use of Whatsapp “fake news”.

There are disputed presidencies or leaderships right now in Belarus, Guinea-Bissau, Malawi, Mali (which is under a military coup) and other countries. In the US, Trump’s 2016 election was also hotly contested (there were even wild accusations of “Russian interference”) and many journalists and experts are now writing that the new US election – amid the coronavirus outbreak and other crisis – may not be “swiftly accepted”. Antifa demonstrations are spreading across the country and are becoming increasingly violent.

All such legitimacy disputes are not just narrative wars amongst political rivals – it rather seems that in many parts of the world, the election process itself and democracy   are losing credibility. It could turn into a war of models. If the contemporary and rather globalized democratic model is in crisis – and it would appear so – then, what are the alternatives?

The very specific notion of “Democracy” as necessarily including free speech, a multi-party system, alternance in power, a secular state and a Montesquieu’s trias politica separation of powers – with an often bicameral legislature – is of course quite Western in terms of its history and the values underlying it. In Western discourse today, the notion of democracy sometimes gets even more exclusive, sometimes including only societies which recognize gay marriage and do not criminalize abortion.

The United States is often taken as an (unexamined) “standard-bearer” for the entire world. The truth is that political forms and models are not so clearly differentiable but actually are rather intermingled. Thus, the current British monarch, for example, is officially the Defender of the Church of English and, as such, appoints Bishops and Archbishops – and no one dares to call it a “theocracy”. The US president, in his turn, in his authority to conduct war, has the power to maintain anyone under indefinite detention (without due process of law) according to attorney John Yoo (of so called Torture Memos) – and no one calls it a dictatorship. Clearly, labeling one as “non-democratic” is also a weapon of political discourse.

As for alternative models, a few years ago, notions of “Bolivarian” direct democracy were on the rise in South America. Furthermore, Bolivia’s 2010 law acknowledged the rights of Pachamama (Mother Earth) as a collective subject of public interest. The current Bolivian de facto president, Ms. Jeanine Áñez (President Morales was deposed in what many described as a coup), is currently working to undermine such notions as well as the notion of Bolivia as a Plurinational State – as defined by its 2009 Constitution.

So, right now, the left too (and its Bolivarian and indigenist alternatives) has been largely discredited amongst a large part of the population in South America. This has opened the door for the rise of a new kind of right-wing “populism” – which has little regard for current institutions. For instance, according to recent polls, 34% of the Brazilian population would support closing down (abolishing) the Parliament and 32% support doing the same to the Supreme Court. The COVID-19 pandemic could also be paving the way for “authoritarianism” in Europe and the US, according to several political scientists. The new populism is on the rise in Europe too.

In many parts of the world, a large part of society seems to care more about employment and security than abstract notions of the rule of law. If current political regimes fail to provide safety and to economically include the people they rule, dissatisfaction is sure to follow. And in the economically fragile post-COVID-19 world, this could get ugly.

Is it about time to reinvent democracy? Some new forms of it could arise, better suited for their cultural and regional contexts. In the meanwhile, a lot of instability may ensue (with economic and security consequences), especially in Latin America but in other parts of the world too – perhaps in Europe and the US as well.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.

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The Western media functions more as lobbyists or even foreign intelligence agencies rather than real journalists by deliberately omitting facts, fabricating others, and all to ensure maximum momentum of what is verified US political interference in a foreign country. 

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As the Western media had done during the opening phases of the now admittedly US-engineered “Arab Spring” in 2011, it is again attempting to lie about opposition movements across Asia attempting to oust pro-Beijing governments in favor of those that will bolster US primacy in Asia-Pacific.

This includes in Thailand where US-funded unrest is attempting to oust the current government, rewrite the Thai constitution, and roll back Thai-Chinese relations.

Reuters would write a nearly 1,000 word “profile” of Thai protest leader Anon Nampa.

Titled, “The bookish Thai rights lawyer who challenged the king,” it never once mentions the name of the organization Anon Nampa works for – Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) – or the fact that TLHR is funded by the US government via Washington’s notorious regime change arm, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

A profile designed specifically to promote anti-government protests in Thailand rather than to actually inform readers of who Anon Nampa really is and who he really works for – is not journalism. It is lobbying or serves the function of an intelligence agency attempting to support Western-funded assets operating in Thailand.

The Reuters article even includes a video to help lionize both Anon Nampa and his cause which includes ousting the current Thai government and undermining both Thailand’s military and constitutional monarchy.

Again, Anon Nampa’s work for a US government-funded front is never mentioned even once.

The author, Reuters’ Panu Wongcha-um is most certainly aware of who Anon Nampa is and that he belongs to TLHR – as Panu Wongcha-um regularly retweets TLHR posts on social media. Not only is it troubling that a “journalist” uses his verified Twitter account to promote protests rather than impartially observe and report on them, it suggests that Panu Wongcha-um and Reuters itself is deliberately, knowingly hiding who Anon Nampa really is and who really funds him.

It is a pattern repeated across the entirety of the Western media operating in Thailand who function more as lobbyists and even intelligence agencies rather than as journalists of any kind.

A profile designed specifically to promote anti-government protests in Thailand rather than to actually inform readers of who Anon Nampa really is and who he really works for – is not journalism. It is lobbying or serves the function of an intelligence agency attempting to support Western-funded assets operating in Thailand.

The Western media did likewise not only just last year amid US-funded unrest in Hong Kong, China, but throughout the entirety of the 2011 “Arab Spring” which eventually led to war, US military intervention,  the destruction of multiple nations and the ruination of millions of human lives.

Anon Nampa and TLHR’s US Government Funding is a Documented Fact

TLHR’s US government funding was openly displayed on the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) website in 2014.
Its name has since been removed from NED’s website but continues to receive US funding through the NED via the “Union for Civil Liberty” (UCL) of which it is a member.

The UCL is still listed on NED’s current webpage for programs it funds in Thailand. TLHR is listed as a member of UCL on its official website next to other recipients of US NED funding including the Cross Cultural Foundation, the Human Rights Lawyers Association, and the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL).

 

Before TLHR and its members began leading rallies – founding members admitted TLHR is entirely funded by foreign governments.

Even the Bangkok Post previously reported this – despite apparently “forgetting” this fact more recently in its reporting.

The Bangkok Post in a 2016 article titled, “The lawyer preparing to defend herself,” would admit (emphasis added):

…[TLHR] receives all its funding from international donors including the EU, Germany and US-based human rights organisations and embassies of the UK and Canada.

Thus, a front posing as “pro-democracy” and representative of the Thai people receives none of its support from people actually living in Thailand and instead – from foreign capitals with obvious ulterior motives.

In addition to an award presented by the French Embassy, the US State Department awarded TLHR member Sirikan “June” Charoensiri the 2018 “International Women of Courage Award” presented by US First Lady Melania Trump.

The US embassy in Bangkok openly praised TLHR in its own post celebrating the award, exclaiming:

The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok is proud of Sirikan “June” Charoensiri’s work as a lawyer and human rights defender, and for being recognized by the Secretary of State as an International Women of Courage award recipient.

Ms. Sirikan is a co-founder of Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR), a lawyers’ collective set up to provide pro bono legal services for human rights cases and to document human rights violations.

Thus – an organization carefully cultivated by the US government for years – propped up financially and politically and even awarded for carrying out Washington’s agenda in Thailand – is now leading protests aimed at overthrowing the elected government of Thailand.

The US National Endowment for Democracy isn’t “National” and Doesn’t Promote “Democracy” 

The US NED – despite its relatively benign sounding name – is not national – but rather, operates globally. It also does not “promote freedom” or “democracy.” Instead, it uses the alleged promotion of both as cover for what is otherwise regime change aimed at nations whose governments are viewed as obstacles to US interests abroad.
The US NED was admittedly involved in the 2011 “Arab Spring” as reported by the New York Times itself in its  article, “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings.” The article would admit the role of organizations like NED in training, equipping, and funding protests that eventually led to regional death, despair, irreversible economic destruction, and enduring destabilization.

The NYT would admit:

A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington, according to interviews in recent weeks and American diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks.

It also noted:

The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department.

While the NYT claims this money was spent “promoting democracy” it clearly served as cover for what was in reality a violent campaign of US-backed regime change which culminated in multiple direct US military interventions, the destruction of Libya, and the near destruction of Syria.

One thing that never materialized was “democracy.”

Also a product of the “Arab Spring” is US regime change efforts in Yemen and its military support for Saudi Arabia’s ongoing war against the country. It has led to what the UN itself has called “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”

Considering what US “democracy promotion” has done to North Africa and the Middle East – it would seem US attempts to replicate its “success” in Asia should be a topic of great interest for real journalists.

Yet the Western media operating in Thailand seems intent on covering up these facts specifically to allow as much momentum in favor of unrest to grow as possible – thus enabling rather than reporting on US destabilization efforts aimed at the Thai government – and the governments of other nations across the region under similar attack.

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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 unless otherwise stated

Russian and Syrian forces eliminated 327 ISIS militants during a joint security operation that took place in the desert areas of Homs and Deir Ezzor from August 18 to August 24.

According to the Russian side, strikes of the Syrian Air Force, the Russian Aerospace Forces, field artillery and actions of special forces units in the desert also allowed to eliminate 134 shelters, 17 observation posts, 7 warehouses and 5 underground storage areas belonging to ISIS terrorists.

The operation came in response to a series of successful ISIS attacks on pro-government forces in the Homs-Deir Ezzor desert. One of these attacks, near Deir Ezzor city on August 18, led to the killing of Russian Major-General Vyacheslav Gladkih. Taking into account the numbers provided by the Russian side, the August 18-24 operation likely delivered a powerful blow to ISIS cells hiding in the desert. Nonetheless, it is unlikely that the ISIS threat was fully removed.

As long as areas not controlled by Damascus remain, ISIS will always have a place to hide and restore its forces.

On August 25, a Russian military vehicle was targeted with an RPG along the M4 Highway, during the 25th Turkish-Russian Joint Patrol. No Russian personnel received serious injures. According to photos from the site, a BTR-80’s wheel was damaged during the attack. This became the second attack on a joint Turkish-Russian patrol in southern Idlib in a week. The previous one targeting a Turkish military vehicle took place on August 17.

The regular attacks on Russian-Turkish patrols in southern Idlib reveal that the de-escalation process is not going very well. In fact, al-Qaeda-linked groups still keep a dominant position in the ‘opposition-controlled’ Idlib and have not been separated from their ‘moderate’ allies.

On August 14, Russia even temporarily suspended joint patrols with Turkey in the area due to Ankara’s inability to guarantee the security of patrols and fulfill its obligations under the de-escalation deal. It appeared that the decision had been reversed, as they began again on August 17, however the attacks resumed shortly thereafter.

In these conditions, the continuation of joint patrols by Turkey and Russia apparently puts its forces involved in such actions in danger. If the threat of al-Qaeda-linked radicals is not addressed, militants bolstered by the previous successes will likely increase their attacks on these patrols even further.

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In 2017, explosive allegations first emerged that the authorities of the Chechen Republic were reportedly interning gay men in concentration camps. After a three year period of dormancy, the accusations have resurfaced in a new feature length documentary by HBO Films entitled Welcome to Chechnya. Shot between mid-2017 and early last year, the film has received widespread acclaim among Western media and film critics. Shortly after its release last month, the Trump administration and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced an increase in economic sanctions and imposed travel restrictions against Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and his family, citing the putative human rights abuses in the southern Russian republic covered in the film.

Most of the boilerplate reviews of Welcome to Chechnya have heaped particular praise upon the documentary’s novelty use of ‘deepfake’ technology to hide the identities of alleged victims in the cinematic investigation. Yet at the closing of the film, one subject who previously appears with his likeness concealed by AI reveals himself at a news conference without the disguise—rendering the prior use of synthetic media fruitless. Maxim Lapunov, who is not even ethnically Chechen but a Russian native of Siberia, is still the only individual to have gone public with the charges. Despite the obvious credibility and authenticity questions regarding the use of such controversial technology, it has not prevented critics from lauding it unquestioningly. Unfortunately, even some in alternative media have been regurgitating the film’s propaganda such as The Intercept, a slick online news publication owned by billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar whose financial ties to the national security state and U.S. soft power institutions conflict with the outlet’s purported mission. Notably, The Intercept’s glowing review of Welcome to Chechnyawas written by Mehdi Hasan, a journalist who also works for Al-Jazeera, a news agency owned by the ruling emirs of Qatar, a theocratic dictatorship where homosexuality is actually illegal

The documentarians follow the work of a purported network of activists who evacuate individuals like Lapunov out of the Caucasian republic. This is the film’s primary source of drama, despite their encountering seemingly no difficulty from the local authorities in doing so. We are then subjected to random cell phone clips of apparent hate crimes and human rights abuses going on, but at no point does the film crew even visit the Argun prison where the anti-gay pogroms are alleged to have taken place. In 2017, the imperial hipsters at Vice news were given unrestricted access to the facility where nothing was found and the warden adamantly denied the allegations — but not without expressing his own disapproval of homosexuality which was assumed by his interrogators to be evidence of the detentions having occurred. In the HBO documentary, a similar hatchet job is done to Ramzan Kadyrov, whose uncomfortable denial of the existence of homosexuality in the deeply conservative and predominantly Muslim republic is implied to be proof that the purges must be happening. One may recall this same sort of smear tactic was previously done to former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. However, Kadyrov and the warden’s predictable responses to the subject serve only as confirmation bias, not confirmation.

The selective outrage in response to the alleged purges, like all things Russia-related, is highly politicized. Western viewers would have no idea that of the 74 countries worldwide where homosexuality is still criminalized, Russia isn’t among them. In more than a dozen of those nations, same-sex activity is punishable by death, a few of which happen to be close strategic allies of the United States, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. As recently as 2017, the U.S. was one of 13 countries to vote against a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution condemning countries with capital punishment for same-sex relations to avoid falling-out with those allies, most of which have legal systems established on their respective interpretations of Sharia law. While the local authorities of the Muslim-majority Chechen Republic have been allowed to introduce some elements of the fundamentalist religious code by the Russian government such as the banning of alcohol and gambling and requiring the wearing of hijab by women, as a federal subject it is still ultimately beholden to Russia’s secular constitution. In fact, it was Kadyrov’s predecessor, Alu Alkhanov, who hoped to govern Chechnya with Sharia law, not the current administration. Credulous audiences would have no clue that Kadyrov actually represents the more moderate wing of Chechen politics because there is absolutely no history or context provided, a deliberately misleading choice on the part of the filmmakers.

The absence of any historical background deceptively suggests that the anti-gay sentiment in the mostly Muslim North Caucasus is somehow an extension of the homophobia in Russia itself, despite the autonomous differences in religion, culture, and society. In the last decade, the weaponization of identity politics has been central to Washington’s ongoing demonization of Russia and its President, Vladimir Putin, with the issue of LGBT rights particularly given significant attention. While homosexuality is decriminalized, there is admittedly no legal prohibition of discrimination against the LGBT community in Russia. In particular, human rights groups have condemned the notorious federal law passed in 2013 known as the ‘gay propaganda law’ that forbids the distribution of information promoting “non-traditional sexual relations” to minors, which entails the banning of gay pride parades and other LGBT rights demonstrations. However, the measure enjoys widespread support among the Russian people whose social conservatism has been resuscitated by the Orthodox Church since the breakup of the Soviet Union. It is rather ironic and hypocritical that the West has since taken issue with this turn, considering it facilitated that political transformation.

In reality, the reason for the relentless vilification of Putin has absolutely nothing to to do with the exaggerated plight of gays in Russia and a lot more to do with the reversal of policies under his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin (image on the right). In the nineties, the mass privatization of the former state-owned enterprises during Russia’s conversion to capitalism resulted in the instant impoverishment of millions and the rapid rise of the notorious ‘oligarchs’ which the West characterized at the time as progression towards democracy. In the loans-for-shares scheme, a new ruling class of bankers and industrialists accumulated enormous wealth overnight and by the middle of the decade, owned or controlled much of the country’s media outlets. The oligarchs held enormous power and influence over the deeply unpopular Yeltsin, who would surely have lost reelection in 1996 without their backing and the assistance of Western meddling in the form of massive loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

While economic disparity and corruption persists today, overall the Russian economy has been rebuilt after its energy assets were re-nationalized and brought back under state control by the Putin administration, resulting in improved living standards and income levels for the last two decades. By the same measure, the Russian people can hardly be blamed for associating homosexuality with the unbridled neoliberalism, vulture capitalism and draconian austerity imposed on their country by Western capital. It is also truly paradoxical that the notion of “Russian oligarchs” has become synonymous with Putin in the minds of Westerners when many of the most obscenely wealthy oligarchs of the Yeltsin era now live in exile as his most ardent political opponents after they faced prosecution for their financial crimes. Not coincidentally, the initial reports of the ‘gay gulags’ in Chechnya were published in Novaya Gazeta, an anti-Putin newspaper partly owned by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the very man who ushered in the economic liberalization which auctioned off the state assets to oligarchs like co-owner Alexander Lebedev.

Gorbachev’s reforms, particularly that of perestroika (“restructuring”), also had destructive consequences for the national question and ethno-regional interests. V.I. Lenin had famously called the Russian Empire a “prison house of nations”, in reference to its heterogeneous range of nationalities and ethnic groups. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 especially re-agitated ethno-national conflicts in the Caucasus, a region that had enjoyed several decades of relative harmony and stability under socialism with rights and representation that did not exist in pre-revolutionary Russia. While Azerbaijan and Georgia were granted independence, Chechnya and many other municipalities remained under federal control of the Russian Federation, as sovereignty did not constitutionally apply because it had never been an independent state. Not to mention, its oil and gas reserves are essential to Russia’s very economic survival.

The jihadism which plagued the Caucasus was an outgrowth of the U.S.-backed ‘holy war’ in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the brainchild of Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor in the Jimmy Carter administration. It was the Polish-born Brzezinski who not only authored the geostrategy of arming the mujahideen against the Soviets but the efforts to turn Russia’s own large Muslim minority community against them. This was mostly unsuccessful as the majority of its 20 million Muslims (10% of the population) are harmoniously integrated into Russian society, but the Atlanticists did fan the flames of a militant secessionist movement in Chechnya that erupted in a violent insurgency and became increasingly Islamist as the conflict dragged on. For Washington, the hope was that the West could gain access to Caspian oil by encouraging the al-Qaeda-linked separatists rebranded as “rebels” vulnerable to its domination in the energy-rich region. The collapse of the USSR already escalated hostilities between the intermingling ethnic communities of the region, but the antagonisms were intensified by CIA soft power cutouts like the Jamestown Foundation fomenting the secessionist insurrection. As the separatist movement grew increasingly Wahhabist thanks to U.S.-ally Saudi Arabia, its more moderate nationalist faction led by Akhmad Kadyrov eventually defected back to the Russian side. The elder Kadyrov would pay the price when he was assassinated in a 2004 stadium bombing in Grozny during an annual Victory Day celebration, with his son becoming one of his successors.

The Kremlin’s support for the Kadyrovs should be understood as a compromise which prevented the more radical Islamists from taking power, which apparently Washington would be happier with running the North Caucasus. What a human rights utopia Chechnya would be as a breakaway Islamic state, under the salafists which during the Chechen wars committed unspeakable acts of terrorism including the taking of hospital patients, theater goers, and even hundreds of schoolchildren as hostages. One can be certain that if there aren’t anti-gay pogroms going on in Chechnya now, there definitely would be without the likes of Kadyrov in power. In the documentary, what the Chechen leader does implicitly acknowledge may be occurring are individual honor killings within families and clans, a social problem common in other Muslim countries such as Pakistan, and certainly not a human rights issue particular to Chechnya. Many instances of honor killings in the Muslim world have included homosexuality as a motive for the extrajudicial killings by relatives of victims believed to have betrayed the family honor. On the other hand, Kadyrov himself has overseen the establishment of unprecedented reconciliation commissions to address the issue of honor culture, blood feuds and vendetta codes of Caucasian tribes. Kadyrov’s promotion of reconciliation has made significant progress in reducing such killings which were rampant during the Chechen Wars as family members would often seek to avenge the deaths of loved ones. Now that the region is in a period of relative stability, peace and economic recovery, with the once devastated city of Grozny now known as the ‘Dubai of the North Caucasus’, the West is suddenly feigning concern over human rights.

The swift end brought to the conflict by Putin was another reason for his becoming a target of Washington who had been counting on the balkanization of southern Russia. In a pinnacle of imperial projection, the explanation for Putin’s rise to power has since been revised by the Atlanticists to his having somehow secretly masterminded the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings while director of the Federal Security Service (FSB, the KGB’s successor), as if the neocons hope to deflect all of the longstanding rumors about the Bush administration and the 9/11 attacks onto the Kremlin. Except this Machiavellian conspiracy would be a lot more believable if the Chechen wars had not been going on since the early nineties, with much worse terrorist attacks already having been committed by the separatists, such as the taking of thousands of hospital patients as hostages in southern Russia. Since the end of the Chechen Wars, on the flip side the U.S. has also backed Russian opposition figure and Putin critic Alexei Navalny, a right-wing Islamophobe who has pledged to secede the North Caucasus while comparing its Muslim inhabitants to cockroaches. Despite his anti-immigrant rhetoric and minuscule 2% support among Russians, Navalny has been depicted as a “pro-democracy” and “anti-corruption” campaigner in Western media, who have been crying foul over his recent suspected poisoning in Russia and ensuing comatose airlift to Germany. If only the naive American liberals who read The New York Timesand The Washington Post had any idea that Mr. Navalny has far more in common with the dreaded Mr. Trump than Putin does.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has already experienced blowback for its nurturing of terrorism in the Caucasus in the form of the Boston Marathon bombings, which recently returned to the news when convicted Chechen-American perpetrator Dzokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence was vacated on appeal last month. In the aftermath of the April 2013 attacks, it was revealed that Tsarnaev’s deceased older brother and co-conspirator Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been radicalized attending seminars financed by the Jamestown Foundation while traveling abroad in Tblisi, Georgia, and the brothers’ uncle Ruslan Tsarni had previously been married to the daughter of high-ranking U.S. intelligence officer Graham Fuller, Brzezinski’s CIA station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan, during the Afghan-Soviet war. It also came to light that ‘Uncle Ruslan’ had previously worked for the CIA-linked United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and established a company called the Congress for Chechen International Organizations which funded Islamic militants in the Caucasus. Despite the astounding ‘coincidences’ surrounding the Tsarnaev clan, Uncle Ruslan was never considered a person of interest by the FBI, who had ignored warnings by the Russian FSB of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s extremism prior to the attacks.

Two years before Putin’s election, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the prime mover of the West‘s plan to dominate the globe by using Islam to bring down the USSR in delivering the Soviet equivalent of the Vietnam War, wrote in The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997):

“…The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed a tectonic shift in world affairs. For the first time ever, a non-Eurasian power has emerged not only as a key arbiter of Eurasian power relations but also as the world’s paramount power. The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power.” 

Those words were written before the return of both Russia and China on the world stage, developments that have thrown a monkey wrench into Washington’s plans which the Russophobic Warsaw-native did not anticipate in his blueprint for Western hegemony. When the U.S.-backed headchoppers in the Syrian war nearly had control of Damascus, just a thousand miles or so from Sochi, the threat of jihadism returning to the Caucasus became very real. Beginning at the Munich Conference in 2007, Putin had begun to criticize the monopolistic expansion of NATO on Russia’s borders — but after the subsequent overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi where Moscow witnessed Libya transformed into a hotbed of terrorism like post-Saddam Iraq, the prospect of the same happening in Syria was an existential threat that could not be tolerated. In mainstream media, reality has been inverted where Moscow’s self-defense has been portrayed as expansionism, even though the so-called “annexation” of Crimea was virtually nonviolent compared to the Nazi junta initiated by Washington in Ukraine and the Russian-speaking people of Donetsk and Luhansk who voted to join Russia did not wish to end up like those massacred in Odessa. Besides, is the U.S. not currently annexing northeast Syria? The Crimean parliament and Syrian government invited Moscow, while the same cannot be said for the US presence in violation of international law.

Those with no respect for the sovereignty of nations in Washington would prefer Americans to see Russia as an adversary. During the Cold War, the threat was communism, but with capitalism restored in Eastern Europe, it became necessary to manipulate liberals into perceiving Russia as a ultra conservative regime. They must also keep Americans from knowing the true history of US-Russia relations — that Russia was the first nation to recognize American independence when Catherine the Great’s neutrality during the Revolutionary War indirectly aided the Thirteen Colonies in their victory against the Loyalists and Great Britain. During the War of Independence, the Russian Empress had maintained relations with the U.S. and rebuffed British requests for military assistance.

The Russian Empire also later helped secure the Union victory during the Civil War, with an Imperial Navy fleet off the shores of the Pacific preventing the Confederates from landing troops on the west coast and deterring intervention by the British and the French. Then as Allies in WWII, while the U.S. was victorious in the Pacific, it was the Soviets who truly won the war in Europe, a feat the Anglo-Americans are still trying to take credit for to this day. Unfortunately, despite his promising rhetorical embrace of détente with Moscow that has made him the subject of political persecution, Donald Trump has proven to be every bit as hostile toward Russia as his forerunners. With the latest actions taken by his state department regarding Chechnya that are right out of the Brzezinski playbook, the idiom that “the more things change, the more they stay the same” certainly applies to Washington and US-Russia relations.

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Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst. His writing has appeared widely in alternative media. Max may be reached at [email protected]. He is frequent contributor to Global Research

Instability in Mali Caused by Imperialist Foreign Policy

August 27th, 2020 by Abayomi Azikiwe

A mutiny by lower-ranking military officers on August 18 in the West African state of Mali has prompted the condemnation of regional, continental and international organizations.

President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was forced over the national media to resign from office after being elected just two years ago.

Demonstrations against the government in Bamako, the capital, have escalated over the last few months in the aftermath of legislative elections. Opposition parties and coalitions are accusing Keita of corruption, irregularities in the elections earlier this year and with the failure to bring stability to the northern region of the country which has been the scene of an insurgency by several Islamist groupings.

The mutiny began among the soldiers at the Kati military base where columns of troops headed towards the capital seizing control of the presidential residence and national media outlets. Later the president and prime minister were not available for comment after being detained by the mutineers.

This incident drew an immediate response from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a regional organization of 15 governments. An announcement was made indicating that the borders of Mali with contiguous states were to be sealed and the membership of Mali in ECOWAS was effectively suspended.

Mali ECOWAS delegation fails to reach agreement with mutineers

Later the continental African Union (AU), composed of 55 member-states, followed the lead of ECOWAS by prohibiting the military regime from participating in meetings and deliberations of the organization based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, spoke out against the coup as well saying that the situation should be returned to normal under the elected civilian government in Mali.

A statement was issued by the AU Commission Chair on the situation in Mali, saying:

“The Chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat strongly condemns the forced detention of the President of Mali Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, the Prime Minister and other members of the Malian Government and calls for their immediate release. The Chairperson strongly rejects any attempt at the unconstitutional change of government in Mali and calls on the mutineers to cease all recourse to violence, and calls for the respect of the country’s institutions. The Chairperson further calls on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the United Nations and the entire international community to combine our collective efforts to oppose any use of force as a means to end the political crisis in Mali.”

ECOWAS sent a delegation to meet with the coup leaders and the deposed politicians. Former Federal Republic of Nigeria President Goodluck Jonathan headed the mission to Mali where talks failed to reach an agreement to return President Keita to office.

According to reports, the military forces in control of the country are seeking to remain in their positions for a period of three years. They have agreed, in principle it appears, to the release of the president and other officials. However, the reinstallation of the president has been rejected by the mutineers.

The Role of Imperialism in the Destabilization of Mali

Since 2012, the country has experienced heightened levels of violence and instability. With the imperialist war of aggression waged by the United States, NATO and its allies in the region against Libya during 2011, triggered not only mass carnage in what was then Africa’s most prosperous nation, the war which was approved by the UN Security Council in two resolutions, resulted in the increasing dislocation and conflict throughout North and West Africa.

Many Malians had taken up residence in Libya due to its economic strength and social stability prior to the overthrow of the Jamahiriya, the political system established by former leader, Col. Muammar Gaddafi. During the course of the daily blanket bombing operations in Libya carried out by the Pentagon and NATO in 2011, tens of thousands of people were killed including Gaddafi, who had just two years earlier, represented the AU at the United Nations General Assembly in 2009.

These events provided an opening for rebel groupings within northern Mali to make a bid for the control of key areas inside the country. The reemergence of an unresolved regional issue in Mali involving the Tuareg population in the north placed tremendous pressure on the military to end the insurgency.

The Tuareg question in northern Mali is a direct result of the failure of France to resolve regional issues in the country prior to independence in 1960. Mali represented in its earliest phase of independence the Pan-Africanist and anti-imperialist tendencies within the liberation movements which emerged in the post-World War II period.

There have been several military conflicts over the status of the Tuareg people even at the onset of national independence in the early 1960s. Later, in 1990, Algeria mediated an end to another series of clashes through the auspices of the predecessor of the AU, the Organization of African Unity (OAU). (See this)

However, in recent years the emergence of Muslim groupings which are reportedly linked to al-Qaeda and ISIS, suggests that the objectives of these armed organizations are centered on the creation of a state controlled by Islamic law. Such tendencies within the Muslim world have their origins in geo-political regions where the U.S. is seeking hegemony.

For example in Afghanistan, it was successive Democratic and Republican administrations which armed and politically bolstered select Islamic groupings that served to undermine socialism and the role of the former Soviet Union. Later in Libya, Yemen and Syria, similar organizations waged the ground operations while Pentagon and NATO-allied bombers destroyed large swaths of territory in these states.

The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) carried out its first major military project in Libya by destroying the national infrastructure, expropriating the wealth of the country and consequently plunging the nation into poverty and lawlessness. AFRICOM has established military relationships with many of the AU member-states under the guise of training and the enhancement of security. Nonetheless, since the formation of AFRICOM under the administration of President George W. Bush, Jr. in 2008, the security status of many states in West and North African has deteriorated.

Mali AFRICOM presence in source of instability

Implications for a Political Settlement in Mali

Of course it will be up to the people of Mali to resolve the current political quagmire along with the assistance of ECOWAS and the AU. A coalition of opposition forces known as the M5-RFP and a broader June 5 Movement has welcomed the seizure of power by the military units.

The opposition had in recent months demanded the resignation of Keita and the entire government. Various leaders which were waging a struggle against the ousted government have been quoted as supporting the three year transitional period under the direction of the military mutineers.

A former foreign minister and member of the opposition M5 told DW that:

“What is important for us is to see that this transition delivers to the Malian people’s expectations.  This is a historic opportunity for our country. We must take time to put things back in place.”

During the period after the previous coup in 2012, the military junta did not maintain power for an extended period. The elections held after the coup resulted in Keita coming to power. Keita has been very close politically to France which deployed thousands of troops to Mali when the situation worsened in early 2013. AFRICOM facilitated the intervention by France through the utilization of the Pentagon Air Force which assisted in the transporting of military personnel and equipment. French forces are continuing to occupy Mali irrespective of the recent coup.

France has spoken against the coup along with the U.S. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen what diplomatic posture Washington and Paris will take towards the new regime in Bamako.

Both of the officers designated as leaders of the 2012 and 2020 coups were trained in the U.S. by the Pentagon. These military training programs also have an ideological and political orientation as well. The imperialist states are consistently recruiting potential allies which will adhere to the imperatives of Western foreign policy objectives.

An article published in the Washington Post emphasizes:

“Col. Assimi Goita, who emerged Thursday (Aug. 20) as the head of the junta in power, worked for years with U.S. Special Operations forces focused on fighting extremism in West Africa. He spoke regularly with U.S. troops and attended U.S.-led training exercises, said officers from both countries, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Goita, who also received training from Germany and France, according to the officers, headed Mali’s special forces unit in the country’s restive central region, where fighters linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have established a stronghold that has alarmed global leaders.”

The same pattern holds true for Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo, the leader of the 2012 putsch in Mali. Sanogo was educated in several military training centers in the U.S. The same Washington Post wrote in 2012:

“Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo, who led a renegade military faction that on Thursday deposed Mali’s democratically elected president, visited the United States several times to receive professional military education, including basic officer training, said Patrick Barnes, a U.S. Africa Command official based in Washington.”

Consequently, the struggle of the Malian people is to overcome the influence of imperialism in its internal affairs. This can also be applied to the AU region as a whole. Genuine independence cannot be secured while the Pentagon and NATO maintain dominance over military affairs.

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

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Conventions suggest norms, a set of accepted rules.  Behaviour is agreed upon in advance.  In the case of US political conventions, there is much cant and gaudy ceremony.  Certain transgressions are simply not contemplated.  But the Trump administration is freighted with transgression, deviation, and, in some cases, a whole set of new norms born in defiant violation.

With that pattern in mind, why stop at the Republican National Convention?  Ethics experts are aghast.  Commentators are up in arms at the behaviour of Trump officials who have gone into full electioneering mode.  The distinction between office and party campaigner has been not so much blurred as obliterated.  President Donald J. Trump, in keeping with his own extravagant reading of his office, was not campaigning as a candidate but as the President with the office at his disposal.  The White House, in short, had been mobilised in an official capacity to assist in his re-election.  Trump appointees had been enlisted in the effort.  “You’d be forgiven,” mused Rebecca Ballhaus of the Wall Street Journal, “for thinking the Republican National Convention was being hosted at the White House.”

This sparked interest in a piece of legislation that would otherwise remain part of the obscure, corroding statuary of the Republic’s laws.

“The Hatch Act was the wall standing between the government’s might and candidates,” tweeted former head of the US Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub.  “Tonight a candidate tore down that wall and wielded power for his own campaign.”  

The sum effect of the Hatch Act, which conditionally exempts the President and the Vice President, is to prohibit federal employees from participating in partisan political activity in their “official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election”.  Activities covered by this injunction include the official employment of the employee’s “official title while participating in political activity” while political activity is defined as “an activity directed towards the success or failure of a political party, candidate for partisan political office, or partisan political group.”    

At the Republican National Convention, such injunctions had become baubles to be ignored.  There was his pardon of Jon Ponder, convicted for bank robbery.  There was Trump’s departure from convention in giving his acceptance speech at the South Lawn of the White House, a point that commentators tried to link to a legal breach.  “It is legal,” Trump had foreshadowed with scorn.  “There is no Hatch Act because it doesn’t pertain to the president.”  

What mattered more were those employees the Hatch Act is supposedly designed to bar from such displays of partisanship.  There was US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spouting hope and praise from Jerusalem and campaigning on what was a taxpayer-funded foreign trip.  A nice touch to the whole proceedings was that in doing so, Pompeo was effectively negating the very memo he had signed off on: that Senate-confirmed officials are barred from appearing at political party conventions or convention-related events. 

In doing so, he certainly delivered a roguish cat amongst the pigeons. Former foreign policy adviser in the Obama administration Lauren Baer imaginatively concluded that this would somehow impair “the ability to conduct diplomacy free from politics”. (Where has Baer been?) Ilan Goldenberg of the Center for a New American Security was offended to “find the Secretary of State illegally deploying government resources, to use Jerusalem as a political prop to appeal to evangelicals”.  A violation of protocol and law, but an act of mercenary political marketing. 

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, in presiding over the naturalization ceremony, was even more flagrantly in breach of the Hatch Act.  The justification given to Ballhaus was that the White House “publicized the content of the event on a public website this afternoon and the campaign decided to use the publically available content for campaign purposes.”     

Wolf’s presence was enough to see US House Representatives Raja Krishnamoorthi and Don Beyer dash off a note of concern to Henry J. Kerner of the US Office of Special Counsel.  They requested an investigation, to be conducted by the Office of Special Counsel, on whether Wolf “and other senior members of the Trump Administration violated the Hatch Act on August 25, 2020 through using their positions, official resources, and the White House itself, to participate in the Republican National Convention.”

Kerner claims to be a fan of the Hatch Act, taking issue with arguments that it is obsolete, “the federal election law equivalent of the stagecoach”.  Its principles, he argued in February this year in the Federal News Network, “are as important today as when the law first passed.”  He also warned Trump last year about violations of the Act by the president’s counselor Kellyanne Conway.  “Ms Conway has repeatedly violated the Hatch Act during her official media appearances by making statements directed at the success of your re-election campaign.”  In recommending terminating her retainer, Kerner suggested that not punishing such breaches would “send a message to all federal employees that they need not abide by the Hatch Act’s restrictions.” 

And so it came to pass.  Conway poured scorn on the Act.  “Let me know when the jail sentence starts.”  The Trump administration, for its part, proceeded to quietly defang the Merits Systems Protection Board, the body responsible for policing the Hatchet Act and an agency of appeal for federal employees disciplined, demoted or fired. 

The Office of Special Counsel was not ignorant about the convention logistics but decided to distribute a mild note of “general advice” that did “not purport to address every situation that could result from holding a political event at the White House.”  The opinion also chose to ignore the provisions of the Hatch Act covering the president in barring him from compelling employees “to engage in … any political activity including … working … on behalf of any candidate.” 

This was too much for Shaub.  “It happened on Henry Kerner’s watch,” he fumed.  “With ample advance warning, he chose not to use the bully pulpit of his office … to object to this travesty or arm the people with detailed information about what was prohibited.”  But even he was gloomily impressed by what he considered Kerner’s devilry in attempting to deal with this mess: “he’s a fast-working fixer.”   

The Hatch Act was being made to wither with each speech, yet another relic, yet another instrument to succumb to Trumpist vanity.  White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, in airing his thoughts to Politico on the subject, was brutally frank.  The Hatch Act was there for the burying.  “Nobody outside of the Beltway really cares.  They expect that Donald Trump is going to promote Republican values, and they would expect that Barack Obama, when he was in office, that he would do the same for Democrats.”  There was much “hoopla” made about the convention only because it had “been so unbelievably successful.”  To those who breach regulations, ethics and even the law, go the spoils.

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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: U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo participates in a press conference with U.S. President Donald J. Trump during the NATO Foreign Ministerial in Brussels on July 12, 2018. (State Department photo/ Public Domain)

Argentina Wants to Recover the Falkland Islands

August 27th, 2020 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

The desire to regain sovereignty over the Falkland Islands (called “Malvinas” by the Argentines) has for decades been deeply rooted in the Argentine people. In fact, the British occupation of the territory, made possible by the English victory in the Falklands War in 1982, was never well accepted by Argentina, so that the desire of retaking the islands persists. In general, Argentine governments have kept the dream of recovering the islands alive, except for some personalities strongly associated with foreign interests, such as the former president Mauricio Macri, who has ruled the country for the past four years with a passive stance towards the British rule. In this sense, things are changing in Buenos Aires.

With Fernandez, the Argentine government is taking a more proactive stance towards the Falklands. The Malvinas Islands Affairs Council was recently created, and, with this, a new submarine territorial demarcation was established claiming Argentine sovereignty over the Islands. The Council’s main objective is to transform the cause of the reconquest of the Falkland Islands into a matter of national priority. Fernandez’s policy has a great prospective character and is not restricted to the current president’s activity. The main merit of the creation of the Council is an officialization of the Argentine state position in relation to the Islands. Now the issue is no longer subordinated to the current president’s particular opinion, but there is an official state position that must be respected by all Argentine statesmen: that Buenos Aires must reconquer the Falkland Islands.

The new Council will be led by the president and integrated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the secretary of the Chancellery of the Malvinas and a deputy and a senator appointed by each of the three blocks with the greatest parliamentary representation. In addition, it will be integrated by the governor of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and the South Atlantic Islands, two experts in international law, three representatives from the academic and scientific sector and some representatives of ex-combatants from the Falkland Islands War – a decision particularly celebrated among the Argentine military. As we can see, civil, political, military and academic societies are integrated into the work of the Council.

In March 2017, the United Nations approved the expansion of the Argentine maritime space in more than 1.7 million km2, which increased it to more than 6.5 million km2. This means an increase of 35% in its sovereignty area, which would give it control over the natural resources of the underwater soils and subsoils. As decided by the UN, the submarine territory will be extended from 200 nautical miles to 350. The new law strengthens sovereign rights and increases legal security in the context of the exploitation of hydrocarbons and minerals. Since 2010, oil companies have been exploring and developing hydrocarbon extraction in waters close to the islands. In March 2011, the Argentine Congress banned oil activities on the Argentine continental shelf without “authorization”, which the United Kingdom described as illegal.

The new government’s foreign policy seems quite bold, but consistent with the current geopolitical reality. Fernandez is ending the four-year cycle of a conciliatory policy with British occupation and beginning a journey in search of the recovery of the Islands. From the point of view of international law, Fernandez’s attitude may be questionable, since British sovereignty is now recognized, however, a deeper investigation will lead to the question of how such British sovereignty over the region took place. The Islands have been under dispute since at least 1833. In the 1980s, with the war, the British consolidated their dominance in the region by the use of force. However, claims about the place differ. Not only Argentina, but even Spain has already claimed to have rights over the region. In fact, British law is currently recognized in the Islands, but it is not known how such recognition actually arose – there is no treaty or any other legitimate origin of British domination outside of military occupation and war, which are not recognized by international law – so Argentina is right to claim sovereignty over this region, since it lies within the territorial limits of the Argentine maritime space.

Sovereignty over the Falkland Islands would guarantee Buenos Aires control over an area rich in natural resources, conducive to fishing, commercial navigation and advanced scientific research, with notorious proximity to the Antarctic territory. The reasons that lead Argentines and British to seek the Islands are the same and as long as there is no reason to actually determine a legitimate origin of British control Argentina will have the right to claim sovereignty over a region within its territorial limits.

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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

Global Capitalism, “World Government” and the Corona Crisis

August 27th, 2020 by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.

The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. (President Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961)

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The World is being misled concerning the causes and consequences of the corona crisis.

The COVID-19 crisis is marked by a public health “emergency” under WHO auspices which is being used as a pretext and a  justification to triggering a Worldwide process of economic, social and political restructuring. 

Social engineering is being applied. Governments are pressured into extending the lockdown, despite its devastating economic and social consequences.

What is happening is unprecedented in World history. 

Prominent scientists support the lockdown without batting an eyelid, as a “solution” to a global health emergency.

Amply documented, the estimates of the COVID-19 infection including mortality data are grossly manipulated. 

In turn, people are obeying their governments. Why? Because they are afraid? 

Causes versus solutions?

The closing down of national economies applied Worldwide will inevitably result in poverty, mass unemployment and an increase in mortality.

It’s an act of economic warfare.  It’s an unspoken crime against humanity.

Stage One: Trade War against China

On January  30, 2020 the WHO Director General determined that the coronavirus outbreak constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). The decision was taken on the basis of 150 confirmed cases outside China, First cases of person to person transmission: 6 cases in the US, 3 cases in Canada, 2 in the UK.

The WHO Director General had the backing of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Big Pharma and the World Economic Forum (WEF). The decision for the WHO to declare a Global Emergency was taken on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland  (January 21-24).

One day later (January 31) following the launch of the WHO Global Emergency, The Trump administration announced that it will deny entry to foreign nationals “who have traveled in China in the last 14 days”. This immediately triggered a crisis in air transportation, China-US trade as well as the tourism industry. Italy followed suit, cancelling all flights to China on January 31.

The first stage was accompanied by the disruption of trade relations with China as well as a partial closedown of export manufacturing sector.

A campaign was immediately launched against China as well ethnic Chinese. The Economist reported that

“The coronavirus spreads racism against and among ethnic Chinese”

“Britain’s Chinese community faces racism over coronavirus outbreak”

According to the SCMP:

“Chinese communities overseas are increasingly facing racist abuse and discrimination amid the coronavirus outbreak. Some ethnic Chinese people living in the UK say they experienced growing hostility because of the deadly virus that originated in China.”

And this phenomenon is happening all over the U.S.

Stage Two: The Financial Crash Spearheaded by Fear and Stock Market Manipulation

A global financial crisis unfolded in the course of the month of February culminating in a dramatic collapse of stock market values as well as a major decline in the value of crude oil.

This collapse was manipulated. It was the object of insider trading and foreknowledge. The fear campaign played a key role in the implementation of the stock market crash. In February, roughly $6 trillion have been wiped off the value of stock markets Worldwide. Massive losses of personal savings (e.g. of average Americans) have occurred not to mention corporate failures and bankruptcies. It was a bonanza for institutional speculators including corporate hedge funds. The financial meltdown has led to sizeable transfers of money wealth into the pockets of a handful of financial institutions.

Stage Three: Lockdown, Confinement, Closing Down of  the Global Economy

The financial crash in February was immediately followed by the lockdown in early March. The lockdown and confinement supported by social engineering was instrumental in the restructuring of the global economy. Applied almost simultaneously in a large number countries, the lockdown has triggered the closing down of the national economy, coupled with the destabilization of trade, transport and investment activities.

The pandemic constitutes an act of economic warfare against humanity which has resulted in global poverty and mass unemployment.

Politicians are lying. Neither the lockdown nor the closing down of national economies constitute a solution to the public health crisis.

Who Controls the Politicians?

Why are politicians lying?

They are the political instruments of the financial establishment including the “Ultra-rich philanthropists”. Their task is to carry out the global economic restructuring project which consists in freezing economic activity Worldwide.

In the case of the Democrats in the US, they are largely concerned in opposing the reopening of the US economy as part of the 2020 election campaign. This opposition to reopening the national and global economies is supported by “Big Money”.

Is it opportunism or stupidity? In all major regions of the World, politicians have been instructed by powerful financial interests to retain the lockdown and prevent the re-opening of the national economy.

The fear campaign prevails. Social distancing is enforced. The economy is closed down.  Totalitarian measures are being imposed. According to Dr. Pascal Sacré

… in some countries, patients can leave hospital by agreeing to wear an electronic bracelet. This is only a sample of all the totalitarian measures planned or even already decided by our governments in favor of the coronavirus crisis. It goes much further, it’s limitless and it affects a good part of the world, if not the whole world.
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The “Herding Instincts” of Politicians

Are corrupt governments acting like “police dogs” with “herding instincts” going after their sheep.

Is “the herd” too scared to go after their “government”?

The analogy may be simplistic but nonetheless considered relevant by psychologists.

“Some breeds of dogs [corrupt politicians] have herding instincts that can be brought out with the right training and encouragement [bribes]. …. teach your dog [political proxy] basic obedience and see if it [he, she] displays herding tendencies. … Always look for a trainer who uses reward-based training methods [bribes, personal gain, political support, accession to high office]” (How to Teach Your Dog to Herd)

But there is another dimension. Politicians in high office responsible for “convincing their herd” actually believe the lies which are being imposed upon them by higher authority.

The lie becomes the truth. Politicians endorse the consensus, they enforce “social engineering”, they believe in their own lies.

It’s Not an Epidemic, It’s An Operation

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo  (slip of the tongue) tacitly admits in a somewhat contradictory statement that the COVID-19 is a “Live Exercise”, an “Operation”:

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

To which president Trump retorted “you should have told us”.

Those words will go down in history.

Geopolitics

Let us be under no illusions, this is a carefully planned operation. There is nothing spontaneous or accidental. Economic recession is engineered at national and global levels. In turn, this crisis is also integrated into US-NATO military and intelligence planning. It is intent not only upon weakening China, Russia and Iran, it also consists in destabilizing the economic fabric of the European Union (EU).

“Global Governance”

A new stage in the evolution of global capitalism is unfolding. A system of  “Global Governance” controlled by powerful financial interests including corporate foundations and Washington think tanks oversees decision-making at both the national and global levels. National governments become subordinate to “Global Governance”. The concept of World Government was raised by the late David Rockefeller at the Bilderberger Meeting, Baden Germany, June 1991:

 “We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years. … It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.” (quoted by Aspen Times, August 15, 2011, emphasis added)
 .
In his Memoirs David Rockefeller states:
 .
“Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure, one world if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.” (Ibid)
 .
The Global Governance scenario imposes a totalitarian agenda of social engineering and economic compliance. It constitutes an extension of the neoliberal policy framework imposed on both developing and developed countries. It consists in scrapping “national autodetermination” and constructing a Worldwide nexus of pro-US proxy regimes controlled by a “supranational sovereignty” (World Government) composed of leading financial institutions, billionaires and their philanthropic foundations.
 .

The 2010 Rockefeller Foundation’s  “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development Area” produced together with Global Business Monitoring Network, GBN) had already outlined the features of  Global Governance and the actions to be taken in relation to a Worldwide Pandemic.  The Rockefeller Foundation proposes the use of scenario planning as a means to carry out “global governance”.

The Report envisages (p 18) a simulation of a Lock Step scenario including a global virulent influenza strain:

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“LOCK STEP: A world of tighter top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership, with limited innovation and growing citizen pushback In 2012, the pandemic that the world had been anticipating for years finally hit. Unlike 2009’s H1N1, this new influenza strain—originating from wild geese—was extremely virulent and deadly. Even the most pandemic-prepared nations were quickly overwhelmed when the virus streaked around the world, infecting nearly 20 percent of the global population and killing. 8 million in just seven months”

It is worth noting that this simulation was envisaged in the year following the 2009 H1N1 Swine flu Pandemic, which was revealed to be a totally corrupt endeavor under the auspices of the WHO in liaison the Big Pharma which developed a multibillion dollar vaccine program. (Remember the “Fake” 2009 H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic: Manipulating the Data to Justify a Worldwide Public Health Emergency By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, May 02, 2020) 

“World Government”

Instructions are transmitted to national governments worldwide.  The fear campaign plays a crucial role in building acceptance and social submission to this “supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and bankers”.

Global governance establishes a consensus which is then imposed on “sovereign” national governments Worldwide, described by David Rockefeller as “national auto-determination practiced in past centuries”.  Essentially, this is an extended form of “regime change”.

Thousands of politicians and officials must be convinced and/or bribed for this operation to succeed. It’s an unsubtle form of “political arm twisting” (while respecting “social distancing”).

The decision to close down the global economy with a view to “saving lives” has not only been accepted as a means to combating the virus, it has been sustained by media disinformation and the fear campaign.

People do not question the consensus, a consensus which borders on the absurd.

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Global Capitalism and “The Economic Landscape”

The crisis redefines the structure of the global economic landscape. It destabilizes small and medium sized enterprises Worldwide, it  precipitates entire sectors of the global economy including air travel, tourism, retail trade, manufacturing, etc. into bankruptcy.  The lockdown creates famine in developing countries. It has geopolitical implications.

The Pentagon and US intelligence are involved. The corona crisis affects to conduct of US-NATO led wars in the Middle East including Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan and Yemen. It is also used to target specific countries including Iran and Venezuela.

This engineered crisis is unprecedented in world history. It is an act of war.

The lockdown triggers a process of disengagement of human and material resources from the productive process. The real economy is brought to a standstill. Curtailing economic activity undermines the “reproduction of real life”. This not only pertains to the actual production of the “necessities of life” (food, health, education, housing) it also pertains to the “reproduction” of  social relations, political institutions, culture, national identity. At the time of writing, the lockdown is not only triggering an economic crisis, it is also undermining and destroying the very fabric of civil society not to mention the nature of government and the institutions of the state (crippled by mounting debts), which will eventually be privatized under the supervision of Big Money creditors.

There are conflicts within the capitalist system which are rarely addressed by the mainstream media. Billionaires, powerful banking and financial institutions (which are creditors of both governments and corporations) are waging an undeclared war against the real economy. Whereas the Big Money financial and banking establishment are “creditors”, the  corporate entities of the real economy which are being destabilized and driven into bankruptcy are “debtors”.

Bankruptcies

This diabolical process is not limited to wiping out small and medium sized enterprises. Big Money is also the creditor of  large corporations (including airlines, hotel chains, hi tech labs, retailers, import-export firms, etc.) which are now on the verge of bankruptcy.

The global financial establishment is not monolithic. It is marked by divisions and rivalry. The dominant Big Money faction seeks to destabilize its competitors from within. The results of which would be a string of  bankruptcies of regional and national banking institutions as well as a process of global financial consolidation.

In the US, numerous retailers, airlines, restaurant and hotel chains filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February. But this is just the beginning. The big gush of bankruptcies will occur in the wake of the lockdown (“The New Normal”). And at the time of writing, the financial establishment is relentlessly pressuring (corrupt) national governments to postpone the lifting of the lockdown. And the governments are telling us that this is to “protect people against the virus”.

Canada’s province of Alberta which is largely dependent on oil revenues is bankrupt.

“Countries that represent over 50 per cent of the world’s global GDP are closed for business. Economists looking for historical comparisons mention the 1929 stock crash, the 1974 economic crisis or the 2008 recession. But they admit that these all fall short of the toll that this pandemic could have.” (Wired News UK, April 29, 2020

In Britain, recent reports state (It’s very British”) “we do not know how many have gone bankrupt”.

What these reports fail to mention are the unspoken causes: a fear campaign on behalf of the creditors, instructions by corrupt governments to close down the economy, allegedly to “save lives”, which is a big lie. Lives are not being saved, and they know it.

The coronavirus crisis “has ground U.S. business to a halt”. National economies are destabilized. The objective of Big Money is to weaken their competitors, “pick up the pieces” and eventually buy out or eliminate bankrupt corporations. And there are many to choose from.

Global Finance Capitalism

The interests of Big Money (global financial interests) overlap with those of Big Pharma, Big Oil, The Media, The Telecoms, the Defense contractors, etc. Major banking institutions in the US including JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, State Street Co. and Goldman Sachs, are investing in the war economy including the development of nuclear weapons under Trump’s 1.2 trillion dollar nuclear weapons program (first established under Obama). 

The ultimate objective of “Big Money” is to transform nation states (with their own institutions and a national economy) into “open economic territories”. That was the fate of Iraq and Afghanistan. But now you can do it without sending in troops, by simply ordering subservient proxy governments integrated by corrupt politicians to close down their economy on humanitarian grounds, the so-called “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) without the need for military intervention.

Impossible to estimate or evaluate. More than half the global economy is disrupted or at a standstill.

Let’s be clear. This is an imperial agenda. What do the global financial elites want? To privatize the State? To own and privatize the entire planet?

The tendency is towards the centralization and concentration of economic power. Heavily indebted national governments are instruments of Big Money. They are proxies. Key political appointments are controlled by lobby groups representing Wall Street, The Military Industrial Complex, Big Pharma, Big Oil, the Corporate Media and the Digital Communications Giants, etc.

Big Money in Europe and America (through Washington Lobby groups) seek to control national governments.

In what direction are we going? What is the future of humanity? The current corona crisis is a sophisticated imperial project, which consists in Worldwide domination by a handful of multibillion dollar conglomerates. Is this World War III? Global capitalism is destroying national capitalism.

The unspoken intent of global capitalism is the destruction of the nation state and its institutions leading to global poverty on an unprecedented scale.

The following citation by Lenin dated December 1915 at the height of the First World War pointed with foresight to some of the contradictions which we are presently facing. On the other hand, we should understand that there are no easy solutions and that this crisis is intended to reinforce imperialism and the clutch of global capitalism:
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“There is no doubt that the development is going in the direction of a single World trust which will swallow up all enterprises and all states without exception. But the development in this direction is proceeding under such stress, with such a tempo, with such contradictions, conflicts and convulsions not only economical, but political national, etc. etc — that before a single world trust will be reached, before the respective financial national capitals will have formed a “World Union” of ultra imperialism, imperialism will explode and capitalism will turn into its opposite.

(V. I. Lenin, Introduction to Imperialism and World Economy by N, Bukharin, Martin Lawrence, London, printed in the US, Russian Edition, November 1917)

How to reverse the tide. The first priority is to repeal the lie.

In this regard, it is unfortunate that many people who are “progressive” (including prominent Left intellectuals) are –despite the lies–  supportive of the lockdown and closing down of the economy as a solution to the public health emergency. That’s the stance of the Democratic Party in the US, which goes against common sense.

Truth is a powerful weapon for repealing the lies of the corporate media and the governments.

When the Lie Becomes the Truth There is No Moving Backwards

Without the fear campaign and media propaganda, the actions taken by our governments would not have a leg to stand on.

“Social Distancing” does not prevent the financial elites from providing instructions to corrupt politicians.

On the other hand, “social distancing” combined with confinement is being used as a means of social subordination. It prevents people from meeting as well as protesting this so-called New World Order.

Organization, Truth and Solidarity are essential to reversing the tide. The first step of a worldwide movement is “counter-propaganda”.


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China: Tudo Corre Como Planejado

August 26th, 2020 by Mondialisation.ca

Todo mês de agosto a liderança do Partido Comunista Chinês converge para a cidade de Beidaihe, um resort à beira-mar a duas horas de distância de Pequim, a fim de discutir políticas importantes que se fundem posteriormente em planejamento estratégico crucial que será depois aprovado na sessão plenária do Comitê Central do Partido em outubro.

Ninguém menos que Mao, o Grande Timoneiro, estabeleceu o ritual em Beidaihe, cidade que ele amava e onde, não por acaso, o Imperador Qin, unificador da China no século terceiro antes de Cristo mantinha um palácio.

Como até agora o ano de 2020 é notoriamente o Ano de Viver Perigosamente, não é surpresa nenhuma que neste ano, nada havia para ver em Beidaihe. Mesmo assim, essa invisibilidade não significa que nada aconteceu.

Prova 1: o premiê Li Keqiang simplesmente desapareceu das vistas do público por quase duas semanas – depois que o presidente Xi Jinping comandou uma reunião crucial do Politburo no final de julho onde se definiu nada menos que todo o desenvolvimento estratégico chinês para os próximos 15 anos.

Li Keqiang reapareceu para coordenar uma sessão especial do todo-poderoso Conselho de Estado, justo quando o principal ideólogo do Partido Comunista Chinês, Wang Huning – número 5 do Politburo – surgiu como convidado especial em um encontro da Federação da Juventude Chinesa (ACYF [All China Youth Federation], na sigla em inglês – NT).

Ainda mais intrigante, lado a lado com Wang, poder-se-ia encontrar Ding Xuexiang, nada menos que o Chefe de Gabinete do Presidente Xi, assim como outros três membros do Politburo.

Nesta espécie de “agora estou aqui, agora não estou mais” o fato de que todos surgiram ao mesmo tempo, depois de uma ausência de quase duas semanas, levou astutos observadores chineses a concluir que Beidaihe na realidade aconteceu. Mesmo que nenhuma ação política tenha sido detectada à beira-mar. A dica semioficial é que, por causa da Covid-19 não houve reuniões presenciais ou confraternizações.

Porém, é a prova 2 que pode ser definitiva. O já famoso encontro do Politburo no final de julho, liderado por Xi Jinping, delineou de fato a sessão plenária do Comitê Central em outubro. Tradução: os contornos do roteiro que será seguido já tinham sido aprovados por consenso. Não havia necessidade de outras discussões em Beidaihe.

Política oficial ou balões de ensaio?

O caldo entorna quando se considera uma série de balões de ensaio que começaram a surgir poucos dias depois na mídia chinesa. Mostro alguns pontos principais:

  1. No front da guerra comercial, Pequim não expulsará as companhias (norte)americanas já operando na China, mas aquelas que querem entrar nos mercados financeiros, de informação tecnológica e de serviços de saúde e educação não serão aprovadas.
  2. Pequim não se desfará de uma vez só da esmagadora quantia de títulos do Tesouro (norte)americano que detém, porém – como já acontece – acelerará a alienação dos ativos. Ano passado, o total ficou em $100 bilhões de dólares. Prevê-se que até o final de 2020 o total pode chegar a $300 bilhões.
  3. Previsivelmente, também será acelerada a internacionalização do Yuan. No pacote, a configuração final dos parâmetros para a compensação de dólares dos Estados Unidos através do sistema chinês CIPS – já prevendo a possibilidade vulcânica de que Pequim seja expulsa do sistema SWIFT pela administração Trump ou seja lá quem for a ocupar a Casa Branca após janeiro de 2021.
  4. No que foi amplamente interpretado através da China como o front da “guerra de amplitude total”, principalmente híbrida, o Exército de Liberação Popular (People’s Liberation Army – PLA, na sigla em inglês – NT) foi colocado em alerta 3 – e todas as licenças foram canceladas até o final de 2020. Aceleração do desenvolvimento de armas nucleares e aumento do gasto com a defesa até 4% do PIB serão objetos de esforço conjunto da nação. Os detalhes deverão ser entregues durante o encontro do Comitê Central em outubro.
  5. Colocar-se-á ênfase total no espírito chinês de autossuficiência independente e na construção do que pode ser definido como o sistema de “circulação econômica dupla”: consolidação do projeto de integração eurasiana paralelamente com a instalação do mecanismo de liquidez global do Yuan

No cerne desse caminho existe o que foi descrito como “o abandono firme de todas as ilusões quanto aos Estados Unidos e a condução de mobilização de guerra do povo chinês. Temos que promover a batalha para resistir às agressões dos Estados Unidos (…) a mentalidade de guerra orientará a condução da economia nacional (…) estejam preparados para a completa interrupção das relações com os Estados Unidos.”

Pelo que se observa até agora, ainda não está claro se são apenas balões de ensaio lançados para a opinião pública chinesa ou decisões reais alcançadas pela Beidaihe “invisível”. Assim, todos os olhos estão postos na forma pela qual essa tremenda configuração será apresentada quando o Comitê Central trouxer à luz seu planejamento estratégico em outubro. Significativamente, acontecerá faltando apenas algumas semanas para as eleições nos Estados Unidos.

É tudo uma questão de não parar

Todo o exposto até aqui espelha um debate recente em Amsterdã sobre o que configura a “ameaça” chinesa ao ocidente. Aqui, alguns pontos principais.

  1. A China nunca se cansa de reforçar seu modelo econômico híbrido – uma absoluta raridade global: nem totalmente público, nem economia de mercado.
  2. É espantoso o nível do patriotismo chinês: uma vez que o país esteja encarando inimigo externo, 1,4 bilhões de pessoas agem em uníssono.
  3. Mecanismos nacionais tem força tectônica: absolutamente nada consegue parar o uso total dos recursos financeiros, materiais e humanos uma vez estabelecida determinada política.
  4. A China conseguiu instalar o mais abrangente sistema industrial contínuo do planeta, sem interferência estrangeira, mesmo eventualmente necessária (bem, restaram algumas questões relativas a semicondutores para a Huawei resolver).

O planejamento da China alcança décadas, não apenas anos. Planos quinquenais são complementados por planos para uma década e até para os próximos 15 anos, como mostrou o encontro presidido por Xi Jinping. A Inciativa Cinturão e Estrada (BRI, na sigla em inglês [Belt and Road Initiative] – NT) foi pensado com um plano para realização em quase 40 anos, concebido em 2013 para ser finalizado em 2049.

E o nome do jogo é continuidade – quando se pensa que os Cinco princípios da coexistência pacífica, desenvolvidos nos idos de 1949 e depois expandidos por Zhou Enlai na Conferência de Bandung em 1955, são as inabaláveis guias orientadoras da política externa do país.

O grupo independente coletividade Qiao que viabiliza o papel de qiao (ponte) junto aos huaqiao (“chineses de além mar”), estrategicamente importantes, acerta na mosca quando destaca que Pequim jamais promoveu o modelo chinês como solução para os problemas globais. Do que o país se orgulha é das soluções chinesas para condições específicas do país.

Também destacam a força da argumentação de que o materialismo histórico é incompatível com a democracia liberal capitalista, que força austeridade e mudança de regime em sistemas nacionais, impondo modelos preconcebidos.

Isso sempre leva de volta ao núcleo da política externa do Partido Comunista Chinês: cada nação deve traçar o seu próprio curso, dadas as condições nacionais.

Assim, emergem todos os contornos do que pode ser descrito racionalmente como uma Meritocracia Centralizada com Características Socialistas Confucianas: um paradigma civilizacional diferente, que a “nação indispensável” ainda se recusa a aceitar e que com certeza não conseguirá abolir através de Guerra Híbrida.

Pepe Escobar

 

Artigo original em inglês :

China: Everything Proceeding According to Plan, Complete Interruption of Relations with US?

asiatimes.com

Tradução de btpsilveira

 

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The British government had plans to test everyone in the country for coronavirus every week by October – and it’s handed most of the work to the global accountancy firm Deloitte, openDemocracy can reveal. Labour MP Clive Lewis has dubbed the deal “potentially the biggest NHS privatisation in history”.

Last week, civil servants were instructed to carry out the plan for all 68 million people in the UK to be tested weekly, according to a senior civil service source familiar with the conversations. The ambitious cross-departmental plan, dubbed Operation Moonshot, anticipated a second peak of COVID-19 in the winter.

Civil servants greeted the scheme with widespread incredulity, given the government’s previous record on testing and tracing, which has lagged well behind most other leading economies.

Those tasked with implementing the plan expressed doubt that it was even possible. One senior source told openDemocracy: “We all double-checked the figures,” and they described the plans as “crazy”.

The source also informed openDemocracy that Deloitte was being given the contract to deliver more than half of the work.

Clive Lewis said:

“Why not give the contract to the NHS?” adding: “It’s too easy to get the impression that this government will hand out contracts to whoever happens to be mates with the right minister.”

In the week since civil servants were instructed to make plans for weekly testing, the government has already seriously scaled back Project Moonshot, from testing 10 million people a day to 4 million a day – a reduction of over 40 million a week. It has also pushed back the plan’s target delivery date to February 2021, in recognition of the incredible scale of the challenge: “Timelines have already slipped,” conceded one source.

Whilst there is widespread support for more aggressive action against the pandemic, openDemocracy understands there is considerable cynicism across government agencies at the resources being ploughed into ministers’ ambitious, headline-grabbing targets, which are widely seen as unrealistic.

The original plan required UK testing capacity to rise from 326,000 tests a day at present to nearly 10 million. It would have involved the UK’s already overstretched labs multiplying their capacity by 31 times, within six to ten weeks.

Even the revised target involves completing twelve times as many tests a day. Asked about this capacity problem, a senior government planner sarcastically replied to openDemocracy: “Capacity is somehow solved by reducing the accuracy of the test.”

All this comes in the midst of a major reorganisation of health authorities, with plans leaked in last week’s Sunday Times for Public Health England to be scrapped next month, and replaced with a new National Institute for Health. The new institute, designed by McKinsey consultants on a £563,000 contract, is likely to play a leading role in delivering the testing plans.

The scheme also raises questions around compulsion. Health secretary Matt Hancock has already said he does rule out compulsory testing, but the sheer scale of the new plan comes as a surprise, and there are serious concerns around forcing groups such as children to be tested.

There are also huge uncertainties around how enforcement would work, what any new legislation would say, what criminal penalties could be applied for non-compliance and whether police forces have the time or inclination to enforce the scheme.

In recent weeks, openDemocracy has revealed a string of controversiesaround companies linked to the Conservative Party leadership being handed major contracts.

There are currently fifteen workstreams within Project Moonshot. Eight have been handed to Deloitte. Other workstreams are in the hands of the Ministry of Defence, plus at least one other well-known private-sector consultancy.

Two days ago, Matt Hancock likened population-wide testing to a “moonshot” – an acknowledgement of the government’s codeword for the plan.

Deloitte didn’t provide a comment for this article, referring us to the Cabinet Office.

Update, 22 Aug: the Cabinet Office passed our inquiries to the Department for Health and Social Care, who have now said “we will continue to challenge capacity, and have routinely set and met ambitious targets”, and that they have announced a series of testing pilots. 

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Ireland is leading a movement.  

The Statistics are manipulated.

More people will die as a result of the closing down of the global economy.  

No justification for the schools to be closed down. 

No justification to wearing a face mask.

According to Dr. Russell Blaylock: by wearing a face mask, “the exhaled viruses will not be able to escape and will concentrate in the nasal passages, enter the olfactory nerves and travel into the brain.”

 

 

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Is the Russian Government as Insouciant as the American People?

August 26th, 2020 by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Something is wrong in the Russian government and in the governments of former Soviet Republics. 

In 2014, the president of Ukraine stood aside and disarmed his police and Putin went off to the Olympics, while Washington-financed “Maidan protests” overthrew the Ukrainian government.  Now it seems to be happening again in Belarus.

One would think that after Ukraine, Belarus and Russia would clamp down on their traitorous internal oppositions financed and led by Washington.  But no. They continue to permit a Washington-funded operation to overthrow themselves.

The Russian and Belarus governments permit oppositions that are financed by Washington and serve as agents for Washington to challenge their every election, action and decision.  This is the behavior of governments that have no sense of self-preservation.

The Russian government even fell into the trap laid for them when they agreed to send opposition leader Navalny to Germany to be treated for a serious health condition that developed while Navalny was traveling by airliner from Tomsk to Moscow.

There was an emergency landing of the airliner in Omsk and Nalvany was rushed to a Russian hospital where his life was saved. But Washington-financed “opposition leaders” alleged Navalny had been poisoned and demanded he be sent from the Russian hospital to Germany for investigation and treatment.

It was deplorable enough for the Russian government to allow itself to be put in a situation that implied public acknowledgement that German medicine was superor to Russian medicine and that Nalvany was unsafe in a Russian hospital. But how could the Russian government have overlooked that in Washington-controlled Germany Navalny would be declared to have been poisoned on Putin’s orders? It was completely obvious that this would happen. See this.

If Russia wanted Navalny dead, why was there an emergency landing of the airliner?  Why not simply let him die on the flight? But facts don’t matter in propaganda operations.  Will the Russians ever learn?  MH-17, the poisoning of the Skripals, Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin conspiracy with Trump to steal the US presidential election, Russian bounties paid to Taliban to kill US troops occupying Afghanistan.  Russia this, Russia that.  It is endless. Each time the Russians take refuge in the facts to no avail.

As the Russian doctors saved Nalvany’s life, there was no reason to enable another poisoning case against Putin by sending him off to Germany.  The Russian government would do much better if it ignored the various false charges instead of responding to them.  When it responds, it just keeps the story alive so that it reaches more people.

Perhaps the Russian government will listen to Belarusian president Lukashenko who says that the forces directing the ongoing political crisis in Belarus are aiming to attack Russia next—see this.

Yes, they are.

Addendum: A likely explanation, see this.

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Everything is so uncertain around the world that the international community craves some semblance of structural stability around which they can rebuild their economies. China and the US’ reaffirmation of their trade deal fulfills this much-needed role, which in turn enables decision makers and entrepreneurs alike to continue implementing their economic recovery plans. Had the US declined to discuss this deal, then everyone would have probably panicked and the global economy might have worsened.

Chinese and American representatives spoke on Tuesday about the progress that was made on their much-touted trade deal in the half-year since it entered into effect in February. This check-up reassured the global economy that Trump has interest in respecting the agreement’s terms and doesn’t intend to politicize it as an electioneering gimmick, at least not at this point in time. Although nothing significant was achieved, that wasn’t to be expected to begin with, and the fact that their virtual meeting went off without a hitch is a good sign.

Some had feared that Trump would continue to escalate his anti-Chinese campaign that he reinitiated at the start of the year to the point of publicly considering scrapping the deal in order to maximally distract from his administration’s failures to contain COVID-19. The thinking goes that he could also possibly stand to gain a short-term domestic political boost by doubling down on his framing of China as America’s top rival. Thankfully, despite whatever his opponents speculate about his mental stability, he chose to remain rational.

As a businessman, Trump presumably appreciates the mutual benefits inherent in the deal, which are all the more important for the American economy as it struggles to recover from the hefty blow that it incurred throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Raising doubts about the agreement’s future would have sent another shock wave through the economy that risks worsening American living standards even more than they already are and thus potentially cost Trump the election.

With this insight in mind, one can assume that while Trump is definitely facing a difficult reelection, he doesn’t (yet?) believe that the odds are against him to the point where he’d feel compelled to consider this so-called “nuclear option” out of political desperation. Even if he eventually decides to politicize “phase one” of the trade deal sometime closer to the election, it could easily backfire on him since the Democrats would loudly condemn the President for playing games with voters’ livelihoods if the economy sinks in response.

As was written earlier about the talks themselves, they didn’t accomplish anything of tangible significance, but that wasn’t to be expected. The global economic crash catalyzed by the world’s uncoordinated efforts to contain COVID-19 made it difficult to implement the deal in practice. What’s most important is that both sides reaffirmed their commitment to seeing it through and ultimately reaching “phase two” sometime in the future in order to take their economic ties even further. That in and of itself inspires optimism in the global economy.

Everything is so uncertain around the world that the international community craves some semblance of structural stability around which they can rebuild their economies. China and the US’ reaffirmation of their trade deal fulfills this much-needed role, which in turn enables decision makers and entrepreneurs alike to continue implementing their economic recovery plans. Had the US declined to discuss this deal, then everyone would have probably panicked and the global economy might have worsened.

Trump therefore did the right thing by tasking his team to check up on “phase one’s” progress with their Chinese counterparts. This was a rational and mature decision from a president who has an ignoble reputation for seemingly illogical and immature actions. It should be said, however, that he’s doing this not because he’s “seen the light” and realized the error of his previous ways, but simply because he probably did a cost-benefit calculation and realized that it’s better at this point for his re-election campaign not to politicize the deal.

Should that calculation change closer to the election, then he might return to acting very capriciously, which could destabilize the global economy. For now, at least, the world can breathe a sigh of relief that Trump is still interested in respecting his country’s trade deal with China. Even in the worst-case scenario that he decides to reconsider it in the run-up to the vote, hopefully his advisors can convince him that he has a responsibility to respect the deal in order for it to become a defining part of his legacy and one of his main accomplishments.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

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

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US Elections 2020 and the Corporate Media

August 26th, 2020 by Robert Fantina

Irony is dead, or at least one might think so by observing several articles about Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar’s recent re-nomination. Article after article references her statement that U.S. officials’ support for Israel is “all about the Benjamins”, and then references her erstwhile opponent, one Antone Melton-Meaux as ‘bankrolled by pro-Israel donors”. Omar complained, more than once, about Israel’s influence on U.S. elections, a charge that, even to the most politically naïve, must be seen as legitimate.

But such dichotomies are overlooked by a media that certainly would like to see progressive members of Congress defeated. Prior to Tuesday’s election, headlines such as ‘lhan Omar’s Career on the Line in Tough Primary (Politico); ‘Ilhan Omar Fights for Political Survival (USA Today), and “Is Ilhan Omar One and Done? Why She Could Lose the August Primary’ (The Hill) all predicted a close election, with the definite possibility of Omar’s defeat. Today, with 100% of the votes counted, she won with 57.44%; her next closest competitor, Melton-Meaux, received 39.18%: hardly a nail-biter.

Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib faced similar daunting headlines, before besting her opponent by almost 50%; she garnered 71,703 votes compared to her opponent’s 36,493 votes. One must wonder why the self-proclaimed pundits didn’t see such an overwhelming victory coming.

And so it goes. One can understand the ‘fight for her life’ or ‘tough primary race’ when the outcome is within a few percentage points; that amount, in pre-election polls, usually indicates a very close race since most polls are only accurate within a small number of percentage points. It is rare, but not unheard of, that an election seen to be very close turns out not to be, or the anticipated victor winds up being defeated. But with progressive incumbents, it seems that their defeat in a primary election is all but guaranteed by a corporate-owned media that will do the government’s bidding. Does predicting such an outcome make it so? Apparently not.

One might take exception to the idea that the media follows lockstep what the government wants. After all, don’t many outlets criticize Donald Trump relentlessly? Don’t they document his constant lies, his blatant racism and his very obvious misogyny?

Certainly, they do. But how much opposition do they demonstrate against the bloated military budget?

Why did they not, like their European counterparts, decimate his ‘Deal of the Century’, which provides Israel everything it could possibly dream of, and Palestinians their worst nightmare? Why have they not continually decried the U.S. violation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord or from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia? Why has the media not continually pointed out the hypocrisy of a nation that claims to support the right of self-determination around the world, as it maintains brutal sanctions against Venezuela and Iran for claiming that right? Trump says that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is not a legitimate president; why does the media not emphasize that Trump himself became president when nearly 3,000,000 more citizens voted for his opponent than for him?

Let’s add to this dysfunctional media mix the Republican Party’s attempts at voter suppression. Yes, everyone is all agog over Trump’s attempts to defund the USPS, so that mailed-in ballots will not be counted. How will this help him and his fellow Republicans? We will break it down for the reader:

  1. More Democrats than Republicans accept that coronavirus is real and contagious.
  2. Therefore, more Democrats than Republicans will hesitate to wait in line at a crowded polling place, knowing that many people on that same line will not social-distance, or wear a mask.
  3. As a result, more Democrats than Republicans will want to vote by mail. If they are not able to do so, many will not risk their health, and will simply remain at home.
  4. Voila! Voter suppression.

While this particular method of suppressing the Democratic vote is new, the concept isn’t. Requiring photo identification, which lower-income and poor people (who generally vote Democratic) often don’t have and requiring university students (who also generally vote Democratic; does anyone see a pattern here?) to vote in their home district rather than at school are just two ways Republicans use to suppress the Constitutionally-promised right to vote.

Let us summarize:

  • The corporate media does its darnedest to portray non-progressive candidates as potential winners, stating, against the evidence, that the progressive opponent is in deep trouble for re-election.
  • The Republican Party apparatus does its darnedest to suppress Democratic votes, despite the blatant violation of the Constitution, which they all proclaim to hold sacred, second only (if that) to the Bible, another document they are willing to spit on for their own purposes.
  • Donald Trump, arguably the most corrupt and out-of-control president the nation has ever seen (yes, this even includes Richard Nixon), seems to have cast a spell on the Republican Party, causing them to overlook his ethics violations (this writer was astounded to see Goya products lined up on the desk in the Oval Office), abuse of executive orders, and blatant racism and misogyny. Nixon himself was unable to achieve such a feat, resigning the presidency with the sure knowledge that he’d be removed in a senate trial, with most, if not all, of the Republican senators likely to vote against him.

Likely Democratic nominee Joe Biden only looks good in comparison to Trump. There is nothing even slightly progressive about him; he will maintain the pro-Israel, pro-police, pro-war, pro-wealthy philosophies of his many predecessors, to hell with what the people want.

This writer has long since surrendered, and repented of, his ‘vote for the lesser of two evils’ mantra. The lesser evil is still evil. He will cast his vote for the La Riva – Peltier ticket, which has no chance of victory. But the Party for Socialism and Liberation offers candidates and a no-nonsense platform he can believe in, so his political donations, time and vote will go with them. ‘Lesser of two evil’ voting only validates a broken and corrupt system. It is long past time for it to end.

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Robert Fantina is an activist and journalist, working for peace and social justice. A U.S. citizen, he moved to Canada shortly after the 2004 presidential election, and now holds dual citizenship. He serves on the boards of Canadians for Palestinian Rights, and Canadians for Justice in Kashmir, and is the former Canadian Coordinator of World Beyond War. He has written the books Empire, Racism and Genocide: A  History of U.S. Foreign Policy and Essays on Palestine.

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The narrative of “regime change in Iran” has turned into a profitable industry run by those who indoctrinate White House officials with misperceptions about the course of events in Iran, and by doing so, mislead US policies vis-à-vis Tehran. Indeed,  the brokers’ profits from the “regime change industry” are ever expanding.

When it comes to policymaking towards Iran, White House officials are always torn between two options: considering the existing facts and realities on the ground or following their own aspirations and illusions. Although choosing the wrong option has often been more convenient than the right one.  In fact, owing to the repetition of pointless, interventionist and hostile strategies like “regime change” in the statements of US officials, the spirit of US-Iran relations have become intertwined with constant hostility.

Remarks made by US officials, indicate how much US assessments of Iran’s actual situation at domestic, regional, and international levels are far from reality and are founded on the illusions of the anti-Iran lobby groups.

Hence, referring to the realities of Iran’s current situation may make the US officials more mindful of what might ensue from the persistence of US hostile policies against Iran.

  1. It is true that US maximum pressure campaign have targeted Iran’s economic structure. They have, however, failed to “bring Iran to its knees,” so to speak.

Undoubtedly, Iran’s economy has undergone difficult circumstances due to the US financial and economic sanctions, coupled with European countries’ inaction. More importantly, because of the consequent problems in money transfers with Iran, many necessary goods especially in the healthcare sector are not allowed to enter Iran – an issue that has led to the suffering of thousands of innocent Iranians fighting EB or the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nevertheless, dealing with harsh economic and social conditions is not an unexpected matter in any country whose revenues have plummeted significantly and has encountered difficulties in import and export of goods, hence, Iran is not an exception.

In spite of some US officials’ hope for widespread domestic discontent in Iran, Iran’s development indicators are not only high compared to many countries in the region, but also very close to international standards. In fact, Iranian people’s access to many indicators of social welfare, such as education, healthcare, insurance, and transportation network is much above-average.

Over recent years, various Iranian governments have adopted effective measures to promote social justice and improve welfare indicators for the general public and have generally designed and implemented appropriate mechanisms to increase efficiency.

Furthermore, progressive policies are currently on the government’s agenda: the banking and financial system is being amended so as to support businesses and startups, the all-inclusive insurance system is providing widespread support to the workforce, the procedures for starting a business are speedily getting shorter, the mechanisms of the tax system are being reformed in order to develop tax justice and transparency of revenues, the judiciary is focused on making the financial statements of banks, businesses and government officials more transparent, the apparatus of government is trying to be more efficient and efforts are being made to reduce government bureaucracy.

As a result of US economic sanctions and the drop in global oil prices, long-term policies have been introduced with the purpose of decreasing dependence on oil revenues, the outcome of which will be seen a few years later.

  1. Iran’s economic constraints should be understood in the context of the US maximum pressure campaign.

The current state of Iran’s economy is a direct result of sanctions policy imposed by the United States and its allies. According to some estimates, since May 2018, Iran’s access to more than $ 50 billion has been lost owing to US sanctions. However, as mentioned earlier and despite claims by US officials, all these pressures have not put Iran through the course to decline. Iran is a rich country which has enormous resources in different fields including stability, skilled labor force, motivated and diligent youth, oil and gas, numerous mines, high potential for investment in knowledge-based economy and eligible infrastructure to attract foreign investors. Certainly, having these capacities keeps people hopeful for the future. Yet, as Pompeo points out, US officials are working hard to make life difficult for the Iranian people by depriving them of these opportunities for growth.

  1. The experience of unsuccessful US interventions are before the Iranian people.

Over the past decades, Iran has been a witness to the consequences of US interventions in other countries, including Afghanistan and Iraq.  Just a short visit to these countries provides one with a wealth of information about the prevailing political, social, and economic instability. The assets of these countries have been held by Washington for nearly two decades and they are being spent on the development of the two countries. Therefore, no one in Iran can be fooled by the sweet promises of the United States since the US has failed to fulfill its pledges in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  1. Regime change brokers are the real thieves of American financial resources.

The aforementioned points are very general examples of the existing realities in Iran. Yet, White House officials are listening to the brokers who plunder American financial resources through propagating the illusory promise of regime change.

For years, US officials, under the influence of anti-Iran lobby, have been waiting for regime change in Iran and, thus, have missed the opportunity to engage constructively with Iran. If one were to examine the realities on the ground, they would clearly understand that the necessary conditions for the realization of White House aspirations are not provided, both domestically and abroad.

Consequently, paying heed to the advice of anti-Iran lobby has not resulted in maintaining the interests of the American people. Influencing US officials, anti-Iran lobby groups (many of whom are responsible for the death of innocent Iranians and Americans) have been able to divert billions of dollars from American assets to obsess over an issue that poses no threat to the American people.

  1. Has the inability of the United States to deal with more difficult issues led its politicians to relatively easier goals?

The United States does not have a real understanding of its threats and enemies, or perhaps, strives for more attainable policy goals as a result of its inability to achieve more difficult policy goals – though despite the fact that Washington’s focus fixation on Iran exhausts the country’s capacity to pursue more immediate policy goals.

Conclusion

The undeniable reality before the United States and its allies is that they ought to treat Iran and Iranian people with respect. The dignity of the Iranian people is a non-negotiable issue and using the mindset of force against Iran has been proven to be ineffective.

The United States of America acts with no regards for the final outcome of its policies towards the Islamic Republic of Iran, and this could lead to the loss of many future opportunities. In other words, Washington will not be able to make the Islamic Republic of Iran give into its unreasonable demands through exerting maximum pressure on Iran.

The United States has frequently had the opportunity to rectify its misguided policies towards Iran through positive interactions, but each time, under the influence of anti-Iran lobby groups, it has exacerbated its animosity toward Tehran.

Nevertheless, the continuation of enmities not only does not lead to the unrealistic demands of US officials being met, but also tarnishes the Iranians’ view of the US more than ever before. It is not strange for a person to lie, but it would be unusual if they believed their own lie. Certainly, the brokers of regime change are well aware of the futility of anti-Iran policies; nonetheless, the important question is when US officials would become aware of this reality.

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Joe Biden’s selection of U.S. Senator Kamala Harris as his vice-presidential running mate, was lauded by an editorial opinion in the British Guardian as “a safe and historic appointment”. But a cursory examination reveals Harris to be the archetype of what the contemporary U.S. politician has become: One who works ceaselessly for the ‘Donor Class’ and who thus is beholden to powerful lobbies. This has informed her record as a prosecutor and legislator who is committed to the perpetuation of America as a ‘Carceral State’. She is also a servant of the National Security State, which means that she will maintain the bi-partisan arrangement which has ensured that America has remained committed to the militarism which has characterised its foreign policy since the ending of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War.

The selection by Democratic Party Presidential Candidate Joe Biden of U.S. Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate for the forthcoming elections is striking on several accounts. As what is often termed as a ‘Woman of Colour’, Harris’s selection certainly deviates from the typical presidential candidate as being a person who is both male and White Anglo-Saxon. Nonetheless, there is much about her which remains typical of the calibre of candidates for either the presidency or vice-presidency. Many candidates like her have typically been selected from the pool of serving U.S. Senators. They are creatures of one of the major political parties and must have performed some sort of public service. Yet, in Harris’s case there are two noteworthy issues that mark her out as a flawed candidate.

Firstly, her abilities as both a politician and a public servant are rather questionable. And secondly, she represents many of the negative attributes of the modern political operator in either of the parties that represent the duopoly of American politics.

There is much to perplex over her selection by Biden. Harris was a big loser in the Democratic Party Primaries during which her poll-ratings were so low that she was forced to suspend her campaign before formally withdrawing. Her conduct on the hustings marked her as a poor campaigner, and her performance during the televised debates revealed her to be a poor debater.

During the debates, Tulsi Gabbard, a Congressional representative from the State of Hawaii, took Harris to task over her record as a District Attorney in the city of San Francisco. Harris, Gabbard reminded, had put hundreds of marijuana smokers in jail, and later when asked about whether she had ever smoked the substance had responded with a smirky giggle. It speaks of Harris’s grotesque sense of entitlement and rancid hypocrisy to boast about imprisoning people while boldly admitting that she had committed the same crime.

And she shamelessly -and awkwardly- once used this in projecting herself in the context of the identity politics that is so prevalent today. Harris once gave a speech at a forum at which she boasted of having smoked marijuana while alluding to her part-Jamaican origins. But to his credit, her father, the parent of Jamaican parentage, rebuked her for feeding into the stereotype of Jamaicans as freewheeling, ganga-smoking outlaws.

He issued a statement saying the following:

My dear departed grandmothers, as well as my deceased parents must be turning in their grave right now to see their family’s name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected in anyway, jokingly or not, with the fraudulent stereotype of the pot-smoking joy-seeker and in the pursuit of identity politics.

That attempt at gaining an imaginary street cred was mirrored by her painfully contrived assertion that she had been a fan of the Rap Music icons 2Pac and Snoop Doggie before they became famous; implying that she got high while listening to their music during her college years.

Her competence, as well as her integrity, as a public prosecutor was compromised when, as Gabbard revealed during the debate, Harris was found to have been prepared to conceal exculpatory evidence in relation to an innocent prisoner on death row until a court order forced her to reveal the information.

One reason why Joe Biden selected Harris is presumably because he feels that her tough stance on crime will render her immune to attacks by the Republican Party which traditionally finds fault in many Democratic Party candidates as liberal progressives who are ‘soft’ on crime. But while Harris, resolutely proud of her record, insists on describing herself as a progressive, her goals in this area have been anything but progressive. There is an ineluctable contradiction between her posture as a progressive and her record as a prosecutor. This is borne out of her policy of using prisoners -some of them beyond their sentences- as cheap labour. In defiance of a court order, she failed to release ‘Minimum Custody Inmates’, that is, persons who have committed minor crimes on parole. When challenged in court, state lawyers under her control argued that releasing these sorts of prisoners would deny the State of California an important pool of labour. When this line of argument was brought to the attention of the public, Harris claimed that she had no knowledge of the policy.

A crucial defect in Harris’s attempt to portray herself as a progressive who is nonetheless ‘tough on crime’ can be garnered from the fact that her policies have impacted on the poor and the marginalised, and not the well-off. For instance, her policy of prosecuting the parents of children who were truant meant that parents who did not have the financial resources to pay the fines levied on them were sent to jail, a factor which then impacted on the very issue sought to be addressed: the absence of parental direction in the life of the affected children.

Harris’s self-promoted zeal at prosecuting transgressors did not apparently extend to Wall Street and its banks. For instance, she declined to prosecute OneWest Bank for foreclosure violations in 2013. OneWest was the bank for which Steve Mnuchin, the present Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, served as CEO from 2009 to 2015.

Harris’s deeds thus expose her for what she is: the member of a privileged class who irrespective of their professed ideologies and party affiliations serve the monied interests of an oligarch-controlled political system.

It explains Harris’s penal policies geared towards using prisoners as a cheap form of state labour, and her stances on imprisoning those who smoke contraband drugs, as well as those parents who could not pay fines for truant children. A high prison population is good for the business interests that benefit from the nation’s Prison Industrial Complex.

Her failure to prosecute Mnuchin’s bank is consistent with the attitude of the political class that they cannot bite the sources that fund their campaigns and feather their nest eggs. For in America, banks who bring the nation to near economic collapse through their greed and avarice are “too big to fail” and receive bailouts, while the lives of ordinary people who suffer from foreclosure, unemployment and bankruptcy do, it would appear, count for little even to those who label themselves as progressive.

Harris is simply the latest of a litany of politicians who are foisted on the American public because of their pliability to the interests of those who run the major political parties, in this case the Democratic Party. The decision to choose Harris clearly has more to do with her as someone who is capable of being controlled rather than her competence as an administrator and her ability as a political campaigner.

The suspicion that she has emerged because of the calculations on the part of the power brokers in the Democratic Party is an irresistible one. So resolute are they in the quest for maintaining control that they clearly do not mind losing to Donald Trump by offering as a presidential candidate a man whose faculties are clearly in sharp decline, and a woman who is a proven vote-loser within her own political party. The objective of these higher ups in control of the Democratic Party machinery thus would appear to be to ensure that the left-wing or genuinely progressive segment of their party does not displace this control. After all, a defeat by Donald Trump in November will not remove their access to the funding from the oligarchs who sponsor the party whether it controls the White House or not.

A similar scenario holds true for the Republican Party.

The question then is when, if ever, will the insouciant American masses wake up to the fact that they need to remake their political and economic system by removing those mechanisms which enable monied groups to control their political leaders. Their attention for the most part is taken up by the false ideological divide in the duopoly ruling them and the manufactured culture wars which keep them divided along racial and social lines.

To sum up, Kamala Harris typifies the politician of the era who is short on principle, and who is lacking in the ideas required to energise and unite Americans at a period in time when the country is increasingly divided and its global prestige and economic power is in noticeable decline.

Harris, like others including Joe Biden, has nothing new to offer.

She has demonstrated none of the intellectual resources required to project any foundational philosophies upon which her political beliefs are based. On the contrary, she is chameleon-like and has changed her position on so many issues that the only conclusion that a reasonable observer can reach is to describe her as a political opportunist. For in accepting Biden’s offer to be his running mate, Harris is evidently willing to set aside her strongly worded campaign accusation of Biden as a racist whose anti-bussing rhetoric during the Civil Rights era impacted on her as a schoolgirl, just as she is willing to bury her belief in the veracity of the women who came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against Biden.

Harris is clearly a ‘company man’, that is, a person dedicated to carrying out the policies dictated to her by those who control the Democratic Party and the financial interests who facilitate such control.

Indeed, Harris’s record so far as the criminal justice system is concerned, only  demonstrates her servitude to the sort of interests which ensures that a nation which composes less than 5% of the world’s population houses just under 25% of the world’s prisoners. Further, the foreign policy views which she expressed during the Democratic Primary debates indicate that she would be a willing servant of the National Security state and the endless wars it has promulgated and sustained for over two decades.

In sum, Kamala Harris’s candidature is nothing short of a disaster for her party, as well as her country which at this moment in history is desperately in need of a higher calibre of political leaders.

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Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England. He writes on his blog site, Adeyinka Makinde, where this article was originally published.  He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. 

Featured image: Kamala Harris. Credit: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times

With Covid-19 incapacitating startling numbers of U.S. service members and modern weapons proving increasingly lethal, the American military is relying ever more frequently on intelligent robots to conduct hazardous combat operations. Such devices, known in the military as “autonomous weapons systems,” include robotic sentries, battlefield-surveillance drones, and autonomous submarines. So far, in other words, robotic devices are merely replacing standard weaponry on conventional battlefields. Now, however, in a giant leap of faith, the Pentagon is seeking to take this process to an entirely new level — by replacing not just ordinary soldiers and their weapons, but potentially admirals and generals with robotic systems.

Admittedly, those systems are still in the development stage, but the Pentagon is now rushing their future deployment as a matter of national urgency. Every component of a modern general staff — including battle planning, intelligence-gathering, logistics, communications, and decision-making — is, according to the Pentagon’s latest plans, to be turned over to complex arrangements of sensors, computers, and software. All these will then be integrated into a “system of systems,” now dubbed the Joint All-Domain Command-and-Control, or JADC2 (since acronyms remain the essence of military life). Eventually, that amalgam of systems may indeed assume most of the functions currently performed by American generals and their senior staff officers.

The notion of using machines to make command-level decisions is not, of course, an entirely new one. It has, in truth, been a long time coming. During the Cold War, following the introduction of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with extremely short flight times, both military strategists and science-fiction writers began to imagine mechanical systems that would control such nuclear weaponry in the event of human incapacity.

In Stanley Kubrick’s satiric 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove, for example, the fictional Russian leader Dimitri Kissov reveals that the Soviet Union has installed a “doomsday machine” capable of obliterating all human life that would detonate automatically should the country come under attack by American nuclear forces. Efforts by crazed anti-Soviet U.S. Air Force officers to provoke a war with Moscow then succeed in triggering that machine and so bring about human annihilation. In reality, fearing that they might experience a surprise attack of just this sort, the Soviets later did install a semi-automatic retaliatory system they dubbed “Perimeter,” designed to launch Soviet ICBMs in the event that sensors detected nuclear explosions and all communications from Moscow had been silenced. Some analysts believe that an upgraded version of Perimeter is still in operation, leaving us in an all-too-real version of a Strangelovian world.

In yet another sci-fi version of such automated command systems, the 1983 film War Games, starring Matthew Broderick as a teenage hacker, portrayed a supercomputer called the War Operations Plan Response, or WOPR (pronounced “whopper”) installed at the North American Aerospace Command (NORAD) headquarters in Colorado. When the Broderick character hacks into it and starts playing what he believes is a game called “World War III,” the computer concludes an actual Soviet attack is underway and launches a nuclear retaliatory response. Although fictitious, the movie accurately depicts many aspects of the U.S. nuclear command-control-and-communications (NC3) system, which was then and still remains highly automated.

Such devices, both real and imagined, were relatively primitive by today’s standards, being capable solely of determining that a nuclear attack was under way and ordering a catastrophic response. Now, as a result of vast improvements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, machines can collect and assess massive amounts of sensor data, swiftly detect key trends and patterns, and potentially issue orders to combat units as to where to attack and when.

Time Compression and Human Fallibility

The substitution of intelligent machines for humans at senior command levels is becoming essential, U.S. strategists argue, because an exponential growth in sensor information combined with the increasing speed of warfare is making it nearly impossible for humans to keep track of crucial battlefield developments. If future scenarios prove accurate, battles that once unfolded over days or weeks could transpire in the space of hours, or even minutes, while battlefield information will be pouring in as multitudinous data points, overwhelming staff officers. Only advanced computers, it is claimed, could process so much information and make informed combat decisions within the necessary timeframe.

Such time compression and the expansion of sensor data may apply to any form of combat, but especially to the most terrifying of them all, nuclear war. When ICBMs were the principal means of such combat, decisionmakers had up to 30 minutes between the time a missile was launched and the moment of detonation in which to determine whether a potential attack was real or merely a false satellite reading (as did sometimes occur during the Cold War). Now, that may not sound like much time, but with the recent introduction of hypersonic missiles, such assessment times could shrink to as little as five minutes. Under such circumstances, it’s a lot to expect even the most alert decision-makers to reach an informed judgment on the nature of a potential attack. Hence the appeal (to some) of automated decision-making systems.

“Attack-time compression has placed America’s senior leadership in a situation where the existing NC3 system may not act rapidly enough,” military analysts Adam Lowther and Curtis McGiffin argued at War on the Rocks, a security-oriented website. “Thus, it may be necessary to develop a system based on artificial intelligence, with predetermined response decisions, that detects, decides, and directs strategic forces with such speed that the attack-time compression challenge does not place the United States in an impossible position.”

This notion, that an artificial intelligence-powered device — in essence, a more intelligent version of the doomsday machine or the WOPR — should be empowered to assess enemy behavior and then, on the basis of “predetermined response options,” decide humanity’s fate, has naturally produced some unease in the community of military analysts (as it should for the rest of us as well). Nevertheless, American strategists continue to argue that battlefield assessment and decision-making — for both conventional and nuclear warfare — should increasingly be delegated to machines.

“AI-powered intelligence systems may provide the ability to integrate and sort through large troves of data from different sources and geographic locations to identify patterns and highlight useful information,” the Congressional Research Service noted in a November 2019 summary of Pentagon thinking. “As the complexity of AI systems matures,” it added, “AI algorithms may also be capable of providing commanders with a menu of viable courses of action based on real-time analysis of the battlespace, in turn enabling faster adaptation to complex events.”

The key wording there is “a menu of viable courses of action based on real-time analysis of the battlespace.” This might leave the impression that human generals and admirals (not to speak of their commander-in-chief) will still be making the ultimate life-and-death decisions for both their own forces and the planet. Given such anticipated attack-time compression in future high-intensity combat with China and/or Russia, however, humans may no longer have the time or ability to analyze the battlespace themselves and so will come to rely on AI algorithms for such assessments. As a result, human commanders may simply find themselves endorsing decisions made by machines — and so, in the end, become superfluous.

Creating Robot Generals

Despite whatever misgivings they may have about their future job security, America’s top generals are moving swiftly to develop and deploy that JADC2 automated command mechanism. Overseen by the Air Force, it’s proving to be a computer-driven amalgam of devices for collecting real-time intelligence on enemy forces from vast numbers of sensor devices (satellites, ground radars, electronic listening posts, and so on), processing that data into actionable combat information, and providing precise attack instructions to every combat unit and weapons system engaged in a conflict — whether belonging to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, or the newly formed Space Force and Cyber Command.

What, exactly, the JADC2 will consist of is not widely known, partly because many of its component systems are still shrouded in secrecy and partly because much of the essential technology is still in the development stage. Delegated with responsibility for overseeing the project, the Air Force is working with Lockheed Martin and other large defense contractors to design and develop key elements of the system.

One such building block is its Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), a data-collection and distribution system intended to provide fighter pilots with up-to-the-minute data on enemy positions and help guide their combat moves. Another key component is the Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS), designed to connect radar systems to anti-aircraft and missile-defense launchers and provide them with precise firing instructions. Over time, the Air Force and its multiple contractors will seek to integrate ABMS and IBCS into a giant network of systems connecting every sensor, shooter, and commander in the country’s armed forces — a military “internet of things,” as some have put it.

To test this concept and provide an example of how it might operate in the future, the Army conducted a live-fire artillery exercise this August in Germany using components (or facsimiles) of the future JADC2 system. In the first stage of the test, satellite images of (presumed) Russian troop positions were sent to an Army ground terminal, where an AI software program called Prometheus combed through the data to select enemy targets. Next, another AI program called SHOT computed the optimal match of available Army weaponry to those intended targets and sent this information, along with precise firing coordinates, to the Army’s Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS) for immediate action, where human commanders could choose to implement it or not. In the exercise, those human commanders had the mental space to give the matter a moment’s thought; in a shooting war, they might just leave everything to the machines, as the system’s designers clearly intend them to do.

In the future, the Army is planning even more ambitious tests of this evolving technology under an initiative called Project Convergence. From what’s been said publicly about it, Convergence will undertake ever more complex exercises involving satellites, Air Force fighters equipped with the ABMS system, Army helicopters, drones, artillery pieces, and tactical vehicles. Eventually, all of this will form the underlying “architecture” of the JADC2, linking every military sensor system to every combat unit and weapons system — leaving the generals with little to do but sit by and watch.

Why Robot Generals Could Get It Wrong

Given the complexity of modern warfare and the challenge of time compression in future combat, the urge of American strategists to replace human commanders with robotic ones is certainly understandable. Robot generals and admirals might theoretically be able to process staggering amounts of information in brief periods of time, while keeping track of both friendly and enemy forces and devising optimal ways to counter enemy moves on a future battlefield. But there are many good reasons to doubt the reliability of robot decision-makers and the wisdom of using them in place of human officers.

To begin with, many of these technologies are still in their infancy, and almost all are prone to malfunctions that can neither be easily anticipated nor understood. And don’t forget that even advanced algorithms can be fooled, or “spoofed,” by skilled professionals.

In addition, unlike humans, AI-enabled decision-making systems will lack an ability to assess intent or context. Does a sudden enemy troop deployment, for example, indicate an imminent attack, a bluff, or just a normal rotation of forces? Human analysts can use their understanding of the current political moment and the actors involved to help guide their assessment of the situation. Machines lack that ability and may assume the worst, initiating military action that could have been avoided.

Such a problem will only be compounded by the “training” such decision-making algorithms will undergo as they are adapted to military situations. Just as facial recognition software has proved to be tainted by an over-reliance on images of white males in the training process — making them less adept at recognizing, say, African-American women — military decision-making algorithms are likely to be distorted by an over-reliance on the combat-oriented scenarios selected by American military professionals for training purposes. “Worst-case thinking” is a natural inclination of such officers — after all, who wants to be caught unprepared for a possible enemy surprise attack? — and such biases will undoubtedly become part of the “menus of viable courses of action” provided by decision-making robots.

Once integrated into decision-making algorithms, such biases could, in turn, prove exceedingly dangerous in any future encounters between U.S. and Russian troops in Europe or American and Chinese forces in Asia. A clash of this sort might, after all, arise at any time, thanks to some misunderstanding or local incident that rapidly gains momentum — a sudden clash between U.S. and Chinese warships off Taiwan, for example, or between American and Russian patrols in one of the Baltic states. Neither side may have intended to ignite a full-scale conflict and leaders on both sides might normally move to negotiate a cease-fire. But remember, these will no longer simply be human conflicts. In the wake of such an incident, the JADC2 could detect some enemy move that it determines poses an imminent risk to allied forces and so immediately launch an all-out attack by American planes, missiles, and artillery, escalating the conflict and foreclosing any chance of an early negotiated settlement.

Such prospects become truly frightening when what’s at stake is the onset of nuclear war. It’s hard to imagine any conflict among the major powers starting out as a nuclear war, but it’s far easier to envision a scenario in which the great powers — after having become embroiled in a conventional conflict — reach a point where one side or the other considers the use of atomic arms to stave off defeat. American military doctrine, in fact, has always held out the possibility of using so-called tactical nuclear weapons in response to a massive Soviet (now Russian) assault in Europe. Russian military doctrine, it is widely assumed, incorporates similar options. Under such circumstances, a future JADC2 could misinterpret enemy moves as signaling preparation for a nuclear launch and order a pre-emptive strike by U.S. nuclear forces, thereby igniting World War III.

War is a nasty, brutal activity and, given almost two decades of failed conflicts that have gone under the label of “the war on terror,” causing thousands of American casualties (both physical and mental), it’s easy to understand why robot enthusiasts are so eager to see another kind of mentality take over American war-making. As a start, they contend, especially in a pandemic world, that it’s only humane to replace human soldiers on the battlefield with robots and so diminish human casualties (at least among combatants). This claim does not, of course, address the argument that robot soldiers and drone aircraft lack the ability to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants on the battlefield and so cannot be trusted to comply with the laws of war or international humanitarian law — which, at least theoretically, protect civilians from unnecessary harm — and so should be banned.

Fraught as all of that may be on future battlefields, replacing generals and admirals with robots is another matter altogether. Not only do legal and moral arguments arise with a vengeance, as the survival of major civilian populations could be put at risk by computer-derived combat decisions, but there’s no guarantee that American GIs would suffer fewer casualties in the battles that ensued. Maybe it’s time, then, for Congress to ask some tough questions about the advisability of automating combat decision-making before this country pours billions of additional taxpayer dollars into an enterprise that could, in fact, lead to the end of the world as we know it. Maybe it’s time as well for the leaders of China, Russia, and this country to limit or ban the deployment of hypersonic missiles and other weaponry that will compress life-and-death decisions for humanity into just a few minutes, thereby justifying the automation of such fateful judgments.

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Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular, is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association. He is the author of 15 books, the latest of which is All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change.

Featured image is from CSMonitor.com

The Indo-Pacific Region (IPR) is a geopolitical area that comprises parts of the Indian and Pacific oceans. But there is more to it than that. The maritime domain is indeed an important theater for geopolitical competition. The rise of Chinese power across both the Pacific and Indian Ocean certainly challenges the very notion of a “security umbrella” (this notion persisted even after the end of the Cold War). Thus, the new geopolitical construct of the “Indo-Pacific” may be an attempt to deal with new realities. But theoretical constructs not only attempt to describe reality – they also may shape and change it. One could think of it as a war of concepts. The core of such “conceptual warfare” is to propose and to construct views and models through diplomatic talk and through the production of documents. In this arena, different visions often clash. Sometimes, they complement each other. It turns out Indonesia might have its own view of the IPR. It also has a strategic partnership with India which could further develop.

The seas that connect the Indian Ocean to the central Pacific Ocean run through the general area of Indonesia, giving it a strategic location. Jakarta has always aspired to become an unofficial leader of the ASEAN, which in its turn is a major partner of the Shangai Cooperation Organization. It is indeed the biggest economy and the largest country in the ASEAN group. One could say Indonesia has recently been quite successful in establishing its presence as an important player both in the Pacific and Indian Ocean.

On July 27th something important happened: Indonesia and India agreed to further expand their strategic cooperation in a number of areas, including technology sharing and industries. Further expanding their security and military ties was also discussed. According to some sources, there were talks about exporting Indian BrahMos cruise missiles to Indonesia and also about increasing security cooperation in the ocean. Chinese activities in Eastern Ladakh (a disputed Indian-Chinese border) must have been a topic – but no public statement was made. On June 15, the Chinese army attacked and killed 20 Indian soldiers there in the most fatal clash between the 2 countries in 4 decades (the number of Chinese soldiers killed in the standoff remains unknown). Such incident obviously increased tensions in the region. So far, troops on both sides haven’t fully disengaged. On top of that, according to an Asian News International report on Wednesday (19), India is now building a  road connecting Ladakh (for better troop movement).

Indonesia and India have a shared history of colonialism as well as civilizational ties which go back over two millennia. Geopolitically, both countries share the Indian Ocean maritime space. And both signed the “Shared Vision of India-Indonesia Maritime Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific” in 2018.

For Russia, the Indo-Pacific is a doorway for the East. For India and Indonesia, it is a northern doorway, bringing resources from the Arctic region to Asia. India’s concept of the Indo-Pacific may complement the so called Greater Eurasia project. For the US, in their turn, the IPR stretches from the American West Coast to the western seashores of India. In line with previous administrations, Trump has been pushing the notion of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” since 2017. Critics have compared such notion to former president Obama’s “Rebalance Strategy”.

China so far has often viewed the notion of the Indo-Pacific as an “exclusive” concept and as a containment – it would be merely an American strategy to connecting the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, thus constraining China while maintaining American hegemony in the region.

Some Chinese scholars, however, believe the concept may mature into something more interesting (from a Chinese perspective) and recently the Chinese media started using the term. One could call such game a kind of conceptual warfare.  Of course, the “Quad” – the quadrilateral group of India, Australia, Japan and the US –  still worries China, which perceives it as a potential “Asian NATO”. Basically, China “welcomes” an inclusive Indo-Pacific, as long as India and other countries dissociate themselves from the Quad. Indonesia’s attitude towards the Quad remains quite ambivalent, in line with its traditional “independent” (bebas dan aktif) foreign policy.

More concretely, Indian-Indonesian military cooperation certainly worries China also. Since 2005, India and Indonesia have a strategic partnership which includes maritime security cooperation. In 2014, there were Indian-Indonesia joint naval exercises, for example – with an increased number of navy vessels.

India and Indonesia have each their own views on the IPR, close as they may seem to be at times. Will such views clash with China’s own view? Can the IPR and Greater Eurasia complement each other? Will the US really use the geopolitical concept of IPR to project their influence and their own view of the Indo-Pacific onto other Asian countries? Time will tell. Be it as it may, countries in the region – such as Indonesia – have a say in the future of the Indo-Pacific. And both China and the US will need to keep that in mind.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

This article was first posted on Global Research in March 2015. It is of crucial significance. It proves that the collapse of WTC building seven was a “terrorist act”. Both CNN and the BBC had foreknowledge of the collapse.

A class action law suit against the BBC should be contemplated?

The BBC had foreknowledge of a criminal act and failed to inform the public. ( M. Ch. GR Editor)

By EV

Horsham, UK, 2013 – Tony Rooke, in an act of civil disobedience, refused to pay the mandatory £130 TV license fee claiming it violates Section 15 of the Terrorism Act. Rooke’s accusation was aimed at the BBC who reported the collapse of WTC 7 over 20 minutes before it actually fell, and the judge accepted Rooke’s argument. While it was not a public inquiry into 9/11, the recognition of the BBC’s actions on September 11th are considered a small victory, one that was never reported in the US.

Today was an historic day for the 9/11 truth movement,” Peter Drew of AE911Truth UK told Digital Journal, “with over 100 members of the public attending, including numerous journalists from around the UK as well as from across other parts of Europe.”

Under Section 363 of the Communications Act, citizens of the UK are required to purchase an annual license in order to use a television receiver. Rooke refused to pay the license fee due to a section of the Terrorism Act that states:

It is an offence for someone to invite another to provide money, intending that it should be used, or having reasonable cause to suspect that it may be used, for terrorism purposes.

The fact that the BBC reported the collapse of WTC 7 twenty-three minutes before it actually fell indicates that the UK was aware of the attacks on 9/11 before they actually happened. The direct implication is that they were working with the “terrorists”, all arguments as to who the terrorists actually were aside.

Here is a broadcast of the BBC’s announcement that WTC 7 (Salomon Brothers Building) collapsed when it was still standing behind the reporter:

Clear picture:

BBC-WTC7

Rooke had been given a six-month conditional discharge and told to pay £200 after admitting that he owned a television and watched it without a license. He represented himself at Horsham Magistrates’ Court in West Sussex.

Mr. Rooke puts the basis of his defence under Section 15 of the Terrorism Act, effectively asking the court to find the BBC  a terrorist organisation and that if he continues to pay them he himself is committing a criminal offence.” – District Judge Stephen Nicholls

article-2284337-18470B00000005DC-34_306x523

In Rooke’s statement to the court:

I believe the BBC, who are directly funded by the licence fee, are furthering the purposes of terrorism and I have incontrovertible evidence to this effect. I do not use this word lightly given where I am.”

Although he was not allowed to show his video evidence in court due to the District Judge deeming it irrelevant to the trial, the fact that the BBC reported WTC 7’s collapse over 20 minutes beforehand proved to be evidence enough.

He also made reference to the theories behind the collapse of WTC 7 being a controlled demolition, as the evidence suggests. In an additional statement:

The BBC reported it 20 minutes before it fell. They knew about it beforehand. Last time I was here I asked you (the judge): ‘Were you aware of World Trade Centre 7?’ You said you had heard of it. Ten years later you should have more than heard of it. It’s the BBC’s job to inform the public. Especially of miracles of science and when laws of physics become suspended.

“They have made programmes making fools of and ridiculing those of us who believe in the laws of gravity. American reports have shown that the fall was nothing but a controlled demolition.

“I am not looking at who demolished it—that is impossible—but the BBC actively tried to hide this from the public.”

In response from Judge Nicholls:

Even if I accept the evidence you say, this court has no power to create a defence in the manner which you put forward.”

In light of the evidence the judge took into consideration, Rooke was given an unconditional discharge, which in British legal parlance means he “was convicted but he does not suffer the consequences of a conviction, and the conviction will be erased if he is not brought before the court for six months.” He was not required to pay the fee and non-payment fine either—only court costs of £200.

Sources:

Alexander, Victoria. Digital Journal. Feb 27, 2013. (http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/344438)

Duell, Mark. Daily Mail. Feb 25, 2015. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284337/TV-licence-evader-refused-pay-BBC-covered-facts-9-11.html)

Livingston, Bob. Personal Liberty. Apr 5, 2013. (http://personalliberty.com/british-man-wins-small-victory-for-911-truthers/)

Copyright We are Anonymous, 2015

Realities Watch. Mar 6, 2015. (http://realitieswatch.com/uk-man-wins-court-case-against-bbc-for-911-cover-up/)

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On Tuesday, Pompeo addressed the Republican National Convention from Jerusalem, his remarks prerecorded. See below on what he said.

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Was his unprecedented act by a US secretary of state unlawful?

According to the 1939 Hatch Act, US executive branch employees are prohibited from engaging in political activities or using federal funds for this purpose — except for the president and vice president.

In US Civil Service Commission v. National Association of Letter Carriers (1973), the Supreme Court upheld the Hatch Act by a 6 – 3 majority.

Justices William Brennan, William Douglas and Thurgood Marshall dissented. According to Douglas:

“It is no concern of government what an employee does in his or her spare time, whether religion, recreation, social work or politics is his hobby, unless what he or she does impairs efficiency or other facets of the merits of his job.”

The above three justices also noted that limiting First Amendment rights should not be a federal employment requirement — other than what may be “narrowly tailored” to prohibiting a specific activity.

Under 3 FAM 4123.3, State Department “employees, spouses, and family members are prohibited from engaging in any partisan political activities abroad.”

“Partisan political rallies are not permitted on embassy or consulate premises.”

In response to Pompeo’s Tuesday address, House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee chairman Joaquin Castro initiated a probe into whether he breached federal law by addressing the GOP National Convention.

According to the State Department, none of its resources were used to prepare or deliver his remarks.

Castro claims he breached the Hatch Act and State Department regulations by engaging in partisan political activities from abroad that are related to US elections.

According to a December 2019 House Foreign Affairs Committee Office of the Legal Advisor:

“Senate-confirmed presidential appointees may not even attend a political party convention or convention-related event.”

In July, citing from a State Department memo signed by Pompeo, Castro said the following:

“It’s absolutely unacceptable that a sitting US Secretary of State, America’s top diplomat, would use official taxpayer-funded business to participate in a political party convention, particularly after the State Department published guidance that explicitly prohibits such activity.”

“This action is part of a pattern of politicization of US foreign policy, for which President Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives, that undermines America’s standing in the world. The American people deserve a full investigation.”

Castro gave US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun until September 1 to submit answers in writing to the House Foreign Affairs Committee as to whether Pompeo used department resources to prepare and deliver his remarks — until September 10 to provide the committee with related documents and receipts.

According to McClatchy, Pompeo’s speech to the GOP National Convention “was cleared by four teams of lawyers,” citing ‘two (unnamed) sources close to the secretary,” adding:

His politically related speech delivered from abroad on official business “rais(ed) concerns in both Washington and Jerusalem, with two Israeli officials telling McClatchy that the event could aggravate a growing political divide over Israel in the United States.”

“His lawyer, the State Department lawyers, RNC lawyers, White House lawyers have all worked on his appearance to make sure it is completely lawful and appropriate, including screening and approving all of his remarks.”

Trump “personally requested that Pompeo make the speech, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.”

It was paid for by “his campaign and the Republican National Committee.”

Former Obama regime under secretary of state for political affairs Wendy Sherman said the following:

“Pompeo speaking from Jerusalem breaks multiple traditions and norms.”

“Secretaries of State, as far as I can find, have never appeared at a political convention.”

“Jerusalem should not be a prop in the Republican convention. Pompeo should not tarnish his office by this unprecedented action.”

His remarks included China bashing, falsely accusing its ruling authorities of committing “predatory aggression” — a longstanding US specialty.

Blaming Beijing for “covering up the ‘China virus’ and allowing it to spread death and economic destruction in America and around the world (sic)” is one of countless examples of how the US blames others for its own unlawful actions.

The SARS-Cov-2 virus that produces COVID-19 disease was made-in-the-USA and exported worldwide.

Pompeo also slammed nonbelligerent North Korea, ignoring two failed Kim Jong-un/Trump summits because of unacceptable US demands in return for hollow promises.

He lashed out against Iran, the Middle East’s leading proponent of peace, stability, and cooperative relations with other countries.

He falsely claimed that the Trump regime “wiped out…ISIS,” a jihadist group created and used by the US as proxy forces against targeted countries.

He praised Trump for abandoning the landmark INF agreement with Russia and JCPOA nuclear deal.

These and countless other US actions further global instability instead of stepping back from the brink of endless preemptive wars and other hostile actions that define Washington’s geopolitical agenda.

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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.

Featured image is from LobeLog

Trump’s 50 Promises to be Broken

August 26th, 2020 by Stephen Lendman

All politicians lie. Rare exceptions prove the rule.

Trump elevated dissembling to a whole new level. Take nothing he says seriously.

His serial lying is so extreme that he may no longer be able to distinguish between facts and fiction.

His remarks focus on self-promotion, feeding his insatiable narcissistic appetite.

Developmental psychologist Sander Thomaes said he uses Trump as a classroom example of prototypical narcissism.

His abnormal traits include a “grandiose self-image, a very inflated ego, a continuous need for attention, a big urge to be admired.”

When his needs aren’t fulfilled or actions criticized, “he lashes out recklessly.”

When popularity with his base fades or if Biden defeats him in November, watch out.

He won’t likely go gently into that good night. Narcissists don’t operate that way, notably not when forced to relinquish the public spotlight they crave.

Thomaes explained that

“narcissists who fail will lash out…blam(ing) others for their failures,” along with vilifying opponents who defeat them.

They see things as “winners and losers.”

If Trump loses in November, “while the whole world is watching, that’ll have a big impact on him” that will heighten his insecurity and rage against the system he’s part of.

Dems and Republicans both falsely pledged to end forever wars that will continue endlessly no matter which wing of the US war party controls the executive and congressional branches ahead.

For the vast majority in Washington, world peace and stability are nonstarter notions they reject.

Domestic and geopolitical agendas of both right wings of the one-party state mimic each other on issues mattering most.

They’re all about serving privileged interests by exploiting and otherwise harming ordinary people everywhere — at home and abroad.

The Trump campaign’s claim that he’s “fighting for you” defies his record in office.

He’s unapologetically anti-peace, equity, justice, and the rule of law — pro-benefitting himself, his cronies, Wall Street, other corporate favorites, the Pentagon, the national security state, and favored foreign allies.

His “priorities” for a second term are continuing the wreckage of his tenure so far.

Dems offer no positive alternative. The one-party state doesn’t operate that way — why ordinary Americans should vote for alternative party candidates or stay home.

Below are some of Trump’s hollow campaign promises.

After destroying millions of jobs, leaving nearly one-third of working-age Americans unemployed, the vast majority with jobs have rotten ones paying poverty or sub-poverty wages, needing two or more to survive.

Many tens of thousands of small, medium-sized, and some larger firms shut down this year because of state-sponsored economic collapse — with no prospect for recovery any time soon, the worst perhaps yet to come.

The Economic Collapse blog noted the following:

Americans owe $21 billion in unpaid rent — because of no income or not enough to pay for essentials to life and welfare.

In July, 27% of US households made no rent of mortgage payments for the same reason.

US bankruptcies are surging.

World trade was at the “lowest levels on record” in June.

Nearly one-fourth of hotel mortgage payments are 30 or more days delinquent.

Nearly one-third of laid off US workers called back by employers were furloughed again or fired.

Half of US laid off workers believe their jobs are permanently lost.

An unprecedented number of Americans filed for unemployment benefits since March — around 60 million.

At a time of growing economic misery for tens of millions of US households, Republicans and Dems are dithering and dickering while Rome burns.

The Economic Collapse blog explained that “(i)ndustry after industry is in the process of unraveling.”

“Major economic bubbles are bursting all around us, and the economic pain that is on the horizon is going to dwarf what we are going through at this moment.”

If the above assessment is accurate, the hardest of US hard times ever lie ahead with little or no relief likely for tens of millions of households unable to pay rent, service mortgages, afford medical care, or feed families.

Neither wing of the one-party state proposed ways to address economic collapse, turn things around, and help ordinary Americans in need.

Trump’s pledge to “create 1 million new small businesses” is campaign rhetoric with virtually no chance for follow-through.

His tax-cutting pledge is for corporate America and high-net-worth individuals like himself exclusively —a repeat of the great American 2017 tax cut swindle, part of the scheme to transfer wealth from ordinary people to privileged interests.

His pledge for a COVID-19 vaccine by end of 2020 ignores that all vaccines contain toxins that are hazardous to human health.

Rushed development of coronavirus vaccines likely means they’ll be especially dangerous and should be avoided by everyone valuing their health and well-being.

Rushing them to market is all about Big Government aiding Big Pharma cash in big on a potential bonanza of profits without regard for human health and safety.

There’s virtually no chance to restore US economic health in 2021. Trump’s pledge for return to normality next year is hollow.

So is his promise to deliver “critical medicines and supplies” for US healthcare workers — what he failed to do since COVID-19 outbreaks began in January.

Bringing back “1 million manufacturing jobs from China” is pure fantasy.

So is excluding “federal contracts for companies (that) outsource” their operations to China.

For decades, corporate America outsourced millions of manufacturing and other jobs to many low-wage countries.

Republicans and Dems have done nothing to incentivize US businesses to operate domestically or impose financial penalties for offshoring jobs.

Trump wants China held “fully accountable for” the made-in-the-USA coronavirus it exported to China and worldwide.

Trump breached his first-term pledge to cut drug prices. Repeating the promise is hollow like the first time around.

So are his pledges to “lower healthcare insurance premiums…cover all pre-existing conditions…protect Social Security and Medicare, (and) provide world-class healthcare” to veterans.

He failed to deliver on all of the above so far. If reelected in November, more of the same is virtually assured.

“Drain(ing) the swamp” pledge is back that’s far more greatly filled with benefits for privileged interests than when Trump’s tenure began.

He wants “more police, (more) law enforcement,” and less accountability to enforce hardened police state control over the lives of ordinary Americans.

Claiming support for US workers is belied by his record in office.

He supports expansion of a US space force to let the Pentagon wage future wars with this capability.

Saying he’ll “build the world’s greatest infrastructure system” is belied by his record in office so far.

His biggest Big Lie is claiming he’ll “stop endless wars and bring our troops home.”

He’s waging endless wars in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and intermittently in Iraq — along with wars by other means on China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, and other nations unwilling to subordinate their sovereign rights to US interests.

Ignoring the Pentagon’s open-ended budget, spending many trillions of dollars beyond what’s congressionally authorized annually, Trump pledged to “maintain and expand America’s…military strength” when it should be sharply cut back at a time when the nation’s only enemies are invented, not real.

He also falsely pledged to “wipe out global terrorists” the US created and uses as proxy forces against targeted nations.

Repeating his promise to “make America great again” is all about continuing dirty business as usual.

It includes endless wars on humanity at home and abroad by hot and other means to benefit privileged interests at the expense of world peace, stability, equity, and justice for all — notions ruled out by both wings of the US one-party state.

*

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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.

Featured image is from Syria News

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In what is a turn-up for the books, a senior voice of the Catholic Church made something of an impression this month that did not incite scandal, hot rage, or the commencement of an investigation.  It did, however, agitate a few editors.  Archbishop John C. Wester of San Fe, in speaking at the online Hiroshima Day vigil, had put up his hand to defy the validity and morality of nuclear weapons and, along with them, the idea of nuclear deterrence.  One of the organisers of the event, the veteran peace activist Rev. John Dear, claimed it had “never happened before.”

Dear had a point.  There has been a shift within Catholic ranks urged along by Pope Francis on that most fatuous of strategic doctrines, nuclear deterrence.  Before the United Nations General Assembly in June 1982, Pope John Paul II chose to argue that nuclear “‘deterrence’ based on balance, certainly not as an end in itself but as a step on the way toward a progressive disarmament, may still be judged morally acceptable.” 

At a Vatican symposium in November 2017, the current pontiff acknowledged concern for “the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental effects of any employment of nuclear devices.”  Given the risk of accidental detonation occasioned by error, “the threat of their use, as well as their possession, is to be firmly condemned.” 

In November 2019 in Nagasaki, the pontiff expressed the view that peace and international stability were incompatible objects “with attempts to build upon the fear of mutual assured destruction, or the threat of total annihilation.”  Such weapons could not “protect us from current threats to national and international security”. Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles and president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops was of similar view in his recent commemorative remarks, at one with the Pope and calling “on our national and world leaders to persevere in their efforts to abolish these weapons of mass destruction, which threaten the existence of the human race and our planet.”

Archbishop Wester reminded his listeners of the stance taken by the US Conference of Bishops: that Washington has a pressing obligation to reverse the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and “reduce its own reliance on weapons of mass destruction by pursuing progressive disarmament.”  He spoke of the “fear, a dread and a sorrow” when visiting Nagasaki in September 2017.  “It reminded me a little bit of those days during the Cuban missile crisis when I would walk home from school having been instructed what to do in the event of a nuclear attack within a few thousand yards of a Nike missile site in San Francisco.” 

The travails and challenges caused by COVID-19 might have forced social distance between people but, according to the Archbishop, “we’re united in our resolve to eliminate nuclear weapons and build a world that is grounded, not in fear and distrust, but in mutual respect for the life and dignity for all.” He quoted Pope Francis’s Nagasaki remarks about such instruments of death being an “affront crying out to heaven”, developed even as people continued to live in miserable conditions.

Support was also given to the efforts made by the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, co-founded by Tina Cordova and Fred Tyler in 2005 with the express purpose of drawing attention to the health effects of the Trinity test of July 16, 1945.  Their aim is compensation and health coverage for victims of the radioactive fallout drawn from the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

It stands to reason that Archbishop Wester is concerned.  Two of the US’s three nuclear weapons laboratories are to be found in the dioceses of Sandia and Los Alamos. “In fact,” observes Nuclear Watch New Mexico executive director Jay Coghlan, “there are probably more nuclear warheads in his dioceses – some 2,500 stored in reserve at the Kirtland Air Force Base at Albuquerque.”  The Los Alamos National Laboratory is also intending to expand plutonium pit production, but not, according to Coghlan, to maintain “the already extensively tested and reliable stockpile.”  The future lies in dangerously “speculative new designs” that will be untested because of the global testing moratorium unless the US recklessly decides to get back into the testing game.  

The laboratories do come with their biting paradox.  Wester is aware that an enterprise involving such weapons of mass lethality has other aspects, those incremental, even accidental benefits drawn from the inventive drive to kill.  Scientists, for instance, were turning their minds to “research that envelops energy and environmental programs, computing science, bio science, engineering science, materials science and micro-systems, as well as advances in medicine, and lately, helping in fighting COVID-19.” 

The editors of the Albuquerque Journal were unimpressed by the Archbishop and the organisers.  Wester and Dear inhabited “a world that sounds lovely but will never exist.”  They had erred in not recognising the “deterrent benefit of the nuclear arsenal” which had “kept a nuclear peace since 1945 even as nations like Pakistan and North Korea have developed nuclear weapons.”  They slipped up in not accepting that using atomic weapons on Japan saved the lives of Allied soldiers and millions of Japanese.  Horrific as those weapons were, war was horrific.  “World War II claimed 60 million lives.” 

For the editors, it was far better to endorse the somewhat darker view of the Very Rev. Glennon Jones, whose piece for the August edition of the People of God newsletter for Catholics in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe impressed. “There is a vital difference between the promotion of an ideal and being naively idealistic.”

And so, we return to the historical reasoning that justified virtuous butcheries, the war is terrible argument, ignoring the obvious contention that such weapons are themselves potential incitements to error, lunacy and existential deletion. As long as nuclear deterrence, that most unmeasured of strategies, remains, it keeps company with the prospect of use and annihilation.  Coghlan, in his rebuke to the editors also penned in the Albuquerque Journal, gave an acid summation: “the US arsenal has always been about nuclear war fighting, starting with the simple fact that we were the first to use it.”  Only “sheer luck has kept us from nuclear catastrophe.”

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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]