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Two teenage boys who suffered heart inflammation following Pfizer’s Covid jabs and then seemed to recover had relapses months later, Italian researchers have reported.
Both teenagers showed evidence of new heart damage from the recurrences, including high levels of proteins from injured cardiac muscle. Scans showed one boy had new lesions in his heart wall, and he needed nearly two weeks of hospitalization.
The researchers could not determine why the boys suffered the relapses, which came 8 to 12 months after the initial myocarditis episodes. They called for tighter monitoring of anyone diagnosed with mRNA-caused myocarditis – and more research to determine if young people who suffered it might face severe future complications.
Published in late May in the journal Vaccine: X, the paper appears to be the first case report showing mRNA jabs can cause recurring myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart. But public health authorities and the media, which since 2021 have played down cardiac side effects from mRNA shots, have ignored it.
Myocarditis has many causes, including viral infection and mRNA Covid vaccination.
It is often diagnosed when people go to emergency rooms with chest pain but can also occur without symptoms, causing people to have cardiac damage that is clear on heart scans or in blood tests but does not cause pain or fever.
Studies have shown myocarditis requiring hospitalization may occur in as many as 1 in 3,000 teenage boys or young adult men who receive a Covid jab, with the highest risk after the second dose. Many studies show Moderna’s shot, which has more mRNA than Pfizer’s, has a higher risk.
The underlying reason that the mRNAs cause myocarditis – and why it seems to affect young men more than anyone else – remains a mystery.
Researchers have proposed many different mechanisms, including direct damage from the spike protein the mRNA shots cause the body to make, immune system antibodies that mistakenly attack heart tissue instead of the spikes, or a more generalized immune system overresponse. So far they have not settled on a definite answer.
In 2021 and 2022, public health experts and schools and universities – particularly in the United States – pushed mRNA Covid shots on teenagers and young adults at essentially no risk from Covid.
As the connection between the mRNAs and myocarditis became more clear, they downplayed its risks, calling it mild and tranisent.
But studies from South Korea, Qatar, and the Tokyo medical examiner’s office have proved that mRNA myocarditis can kill and has led to dozens of sudden deaths of young adults in those countries. The link to the deaths was generally discovered only after autopsies or medical record reviews of deaths within days or weeks of vaccinations.
The United States and most other mRNA vaccine countries have not conducted similar reviews, so the total post-jab myocarditis death toll remains a mystery.
(Everything was fine. Until it wasn’t.)
Another mystery is the long-term prognosis of teenagers and young adults who have suffered either mild or more severe post-jab myocarditis.
Some studies have shown changes in heart function up to a year later, but cardiologists disagree about whether the scarring visible on scans is severe enough to have meaningful long-term impact.
But the heart cannot regrow muscle after injury.
Any damage it suffers is effectively permanent, which is why the possibility that the mRNAs might caused repeated episodes of inflammation or scarring is so worrisome.
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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The mayor of Nagasaki marked the 78th anniversary of the United States dropping of an atom bomb on the city by calling today for nations across the world to “break free” from dependence on nuclear deterrence.
Three days after world’s first nuclear attack hit Hiroshima, destroying the city and killing 140,000 people, a US warplane released another atom bomb over Nagasaki that claimed 70,000 more victims. Japan surrendered on August 15, ending World War II.
The US remains the only country to have used a nuclear weapon in armed conflict.
At 11.02am, the moment the bomb exploded above the southern Japanese city, participants in today’s ceremony observed a moment of silence with the sound of a peace bell.
During his peace declaration, Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki said:
“Now is the time to show courage and make the decision to break free from dependence on nuclear deterrence.
“As long as states are dependent on nuclear deterrence, we cannot realise a world without nuclear weapons.”
Mr Suzuki expressed concern that the nuclear bombing could be forgotten as time passes and memories fade.
Survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks have expressed frustration about the slow progress of disarmament, while the facts about what happened and their ordeals are not yet widely shared around the world.
Mr Suzuki, whose parents were hibakusha — survivors of the Nagasaki attack — said that knowing the reality of the atomic bombings was the starting point for achieving a world without nuclear weapons.
He described the survivors’ testimonies as a true deterrence against the use of nuclear weapons.
Mr Suzuki demanded that the government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida quickly sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and clearly show “Japan’s resolve to abolish nuclear weapons.”
Japan, as a key ally of Washington, is covered by the US nuclear umbrella but is rearming as the allies ramp up threats against China and North Korea.
Under its new national security strategy, Mr Kishida’s government is pushing for a military build-up focusing on its strike capability.
As of March, 113,649 survivors, whose average age is 85, are certified as hibakusha and eligible for government medical support, according to the Health and Welfare Ministry.
However, many other victims of the atomic bombing, including those known as victims of the “black rain” that fell outside the initially designated areas, have been left with no government support.
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***
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” — Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Gonzalo Lira, the well-known Chilean-American YouTube personality, has been in the news lately. A former “lifestyle” coach, Lira re-branded himself as a geopolitical commentator in the leadup to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, providing gripping first-hand observations—often critical of the Ukrainian government and contradictory of the Ukrainian narrative—that were posted on YouTube. As his popularity grew, his social media footprint expanded, with his Twitter and Telegram accounts garnering tens of thousands of followers, and his YouTube videos garnering hundreds of thousands of views and subscribers.
Gonzalo Lira was arrested by the SBU, or Ukrainian intelligence service, on April 15, 2022, and released five days later. Lira has been circumspect about both the arrest and the conditions of his release—he blithely calls it his “missing week.” Lira does acknowledge that his computers and phone were seized by Ukrainian authorities, and that he was released under conditions of “house arrest,” implying some sort of continued monitoring and control of his activities by the SBU. Nonetheless, he was able to gain access to a computer, set up a new email account, and immediately begin posting information critical of the Ukrainian government.
Alex Christoforou, of The Duran, interviews Gonzalo Lira after his release from SBU custody, April 22, 2022
There is only one logical explanation for this chain of events. Gonzalo Lira was arrested by the SBU for crimes he himself admits gets people arrested, tortured, and murdered. He is released five days later—unharmed—and immediately allowed to resume the exact same activity that led to arrest in the first place, only this time on a computer and email account controlled by the SBU.
This is a classic “catch and release” scenario, with Gonzalo Lira playing the role of “police confidential informant”—someone who provides information in exchange for lenient treatment. There literally is no other plausible explanation for what happened other than this.
And yet controversy swirls around the saga surrounding Lira’s arrest and release, as well as his subsequent actions, including his re-arrest in May 2023, his re-release on July 6, and a series of bizarre videos and tweets made by Gonzalo on July 31, released while he waited at the Ukrainian-Hungarian border, awaiting his attempt to “escape” Ukrainian custody, all the while broadcasting his intent for all the world—and the SBU—to see. According to charging documents published by the Kharkov prosecutor overseeing Lira’s case, the former lifestyle coach failed in his attempt, and is once more in the custody of the SBU awaiting trial.
Many people, including those with whom Lira had interacted with and befriended over the course of the past two years, have rallied in his support, taking umbrage—often extreme—at my contention that Lira has been, ever since his arrest in April 2022, an asset of the SBU.
Under normal circumstances, I might make common cause with these people, granting Lira the benefit of the doubt and arguing for his release and subsequent deportation from Ukraine, only addressing the anomalies and inconsistencies in his narrative once he is safely outside of Ukraine.
But these are not normal circumstances.
We are at war.
This applies to everyone reading these words, and everyone who doesn’t. The fact that a person neither accepts that he or she is a participant in this conflict, nor recognizes its existence, does not matter.
We are at war.
This conflict does not involve tanks, artillery, aircraft, bombs, bullets, drones, or bayonets.
It is a war of words, of ideas.
It is an information war, a battle of competing Russian and Ukrainian narratives fought on a global scale. The stakes are high; as Andrii Shapovalov, the acting head of the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD)—one of the frontline organizations involved in this war—recently noted in an address, “For them [Russia], as for us, this is a matter of life and death.”
Shapovalov’s words were spoken at a gathering of the National Cluster on Information Resistance, convened in Kiev on July 3, 2023. The National Cluster on Information Resistance is a group of experts and organizations that work together to counter disinformation and cyber threats in Ukraine, funded by the US Civil Research and Development Fund (Global), a private entity created by the US Congress whose presence in Ukraine was underwritten and supervised by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).
Bluntly stated, if you are a US citizen who holds a position counter to the official US government/Ukrainian narrative regarding the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, you are being treated as a hostile combatant in the information war that has sprung up around this conflict, regardless of your constitutionally protected right to free speech.
And if you’re not American, you’re free game.
Just in case that point isn’t driven home strong enough, consider the following: The CCD, with the backing of the United States, has published a blacklist of persons—including many notable American citizens—of persons it has labeled as “information terrorists.” According to the CCD, it’s mission, carried out in conjunction with Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, is twofold. First, to combat information terrorism, and second, to coordinate this effort with international “partners.”
The CCD defines “information terrorism” as “a Crime against Humanity committed by means of instruments affecting the consciousness.” In short, anyone who exercises his or her right to free speech can be prosecuted as a “terrorist” in the full meaning of that term.
To drive that point home even more, the United States—Ukraine’s leading partner in this information war—kills terrorists preemptively, void of any notion of due process.
The CCD wants to mainstream this mindset on a global basis. “Having joined forces with the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine and its international partners,” the CCD has declared, it “is taking the initiative to establish this term in international practice,” calling on the international community to “unite in the face of information terrorism.”
In this regard, the CDD makes four demands. First, that Russia be declared an “infoterrorist state,” and that “infoterrorism” must be equated with “actual terrorism,” requiring “appropriate measures to counter it.” Second, that anyone associated in any way with “infoterror” be treated as an “information terrorist.” This definition is all-inclusive—editors, writers, presenters, cameramen, bloggers, etc.
In short, anyone who is involved in the production of any information that runs counter to the Ukrainian narrative regarding the war with Russia is an “infoterrorist.” Third, the financing of “infoterrorism,” both “explicit” and “implicit,” should be banned by “both international and domestic law,” and those who are involved in such financing should be treated as “accomplices to information terrorists.” And finally, any individual, company, public organization, or legal entity which is involved in “infoterrorism” should be subjected to sanctions, using the US list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism” as a model.
Anyone who has ever uttered or written a word that runs counter to the official Ukrainian narrative is, in the mind of Ukraine, an “infoterrorist.”
Ukraine is at war with “infoterrorists.”
As such, those practitioners of free speech who run afoul of Ukraine’s expansive definition of “infoterrorism” are combatants in this conflict, whether you want to be or not. And in war, the individual doesn’t matter. People are mere tools, to be deployed as needed, used, and discarded when no longer useful.
Chronologically, Lira’s arrest followed on the heels of the CCD’s publication of its mission statement regarding “infoterrorism.” There can be no doubt that Gonzalo Lira fell into the category of “infoterrorism” as far as Ukraine was concerned, as did anyone who collaborated with him.
This is a critical point that must be understood by anyone following Lira’s saga—in the eyes of the Ukrainians, he is an enemy combatant, not an individual with rights. He is a terrorist. Enemy combatants/terrorists are either eliminated or turned into a tool to be used to further the fight against “infoterrorists.”
When Gonzalo Lira was released by the SBU in April 2022, he was not the person he was when he had been arrested. That person was neutralized in Ukraine’s war on “infoterrorism.” Gonzalo Lira’s every move was, and is, controlled by the SBU to assist them in their larger information war against other “infoterrorists.”
If the many people who interacted with Gonzalo Lira, both before and after his April 2022 arrest, do not recognize this reality, then they are playing directly into the hands of the Ukrainian security services, because Gonzalo Lira is a Ukrainian weapon being used as part of a larger information operation being waged against everyone in the alternative media universe who produces content Ukraine might consider running counter to its goals and objectives in its conflict with Russia.
I don’t approach the topic of information warfare, or its derivative activity, information operations, lightly. In my time as an intelligence professional, both with the US Marine Corps and, later, with the United Nations, I was personally involved in information manipulation operations managed by US and UK intelligence services. One involved a joint CIA-CNN/Time collaboration, “The Inspector’s Story,” to produce a documentary which, according to the presenter, CNN’s own Bernard Shaw, used “the inspectors’ own stories told through interviews, documents, videotape and surveillance photographs” to “help explain why the United States and Britain threaten to bomb Iraq if inspections are not allowed to continue unimpeded.”
The timing of the release of the CNN/Time documentary was critical—I was scheduled to lead an inspection team into Iraq in the first week of March 1998 which was designed to provoke Iraq into blocking our work. The US government had deployed extensive military forces into the Persian Gulf and was prepared to use any evidence of Iraqi noncompliance to justify a military strike on Iraq. As Shaw noted, the documentary was designed to prepare an American audience for the need for military action against Iraq.
The collaboration between UNSCOM, the CIA, and CNN/Time wasn’t the only example of information operations designed to influence public opinion. The British government was concerned about the effectiveness of the Iraqi-Russian-French collaboration on shaping an anti-UNSCOM narrative and was keen on flipping the script back to a story line which emphasized Iraqi non-compliance with its disarmament obligation. In the Fall of 1997, I was approached by MI-6 regarding an information operation they were running known as “Operation MASS APPEAL.” MI-6 informed me that they had “connectivity” with highly-placed editors in major newspapers around the world in nations which had shown a proclivity for being swayed by the Iraqi-Russian-French story line.
What MI-6 proposed was for UNSCOM to provide it with intelligence reports we had gathered over the years from various sources which had not been of sufficient quality to “weaponize” into an on-site inspection. These reports were languishing in my safe until which time additional corroboration could be found. The problem was, most of these reports were dated, and even if corroboration could be had, we couldn’t justify an inspection on the grounds that the information lacked currency.
After getting approval from the UNSCOM Executive Chairman, Richard Butler, I passed onto MI-6 several reports which were then processed by MI-6 into “leads” that were leaked to newspapers in eastern Europe and South Asia, where they were turned into news reports that the British government could then use to bolster its case that Iraq was noncompliant with its disarmament obligation. I met with two MI-6 officers in London in June 1998 where we discussed expanding “Operation MASS APPEAL.” However, my resignation from UNSCOM in August 1998 brought this collaboration to an end.
Information warfare, and its derivative, information operations, are an ever-present reality in warfare. The Ukrainians, through the work of the CCD and it’s SBU-run cousin, the so-called “Myrotvorets kill list,” have taken the war on ideas to a whole new level. However, they are not without significant help from both the United States, which provides funding, training, and operational assistance, and the United Kingdom.
Jeremy Fleming, the Director of GCHQ, the British communications spy agency, has acknowledged that there is significant cooperation between his organization and their Ukrainian counterparts regarding information warfare. While neither Fleming nor the Ukrainians have discussed the details of this cooperation, leaked documents from the trove of material released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 provide critical insight into how GCHQ and, by extension, Ukraine approaches information operations in the digital age, and how someone like Gonzalo Lira could factor into such plans.
Within GCHQ is a special unit known as the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group, or JTRIG. Within the JTRIG is a more specialized team known as the Human Science Operations Cell, or HSOC. One of the mission statements of the JTRIG is to use “online techniques” to “make something happen in the real world.” This is done through the conduct of targeted information operations designed to influence and/or disrupt the target, something known in the “business” as “effect operations.”
The HSOC conducts active overt internet operations, including online human intelligence collection and effect operations. In the case of Ukraine, the aim of the HSOC and/or its Ukrainian counterpart team in the SBU would be to disrupt the dissemination of information deemed to be pro-Russian propaganda and/or disinformation, to discredit websites hosting such information along with the individuals and/or groups using them, to conduct online human intelligence collection, and to host pro-Russian sites in order to enable the collection of signals intelligence data.
The techniques used by HSOC and their Ukrainian counterparts could include the uploading of YouTube videos containing persuasive messages; establishing online aliases with Facebook, Telegram and Twitter accounts, blogs and forum memberships for conducting human intelligence or encouraging discussion on specific issues; establishing online aliases/personalities who support other aliases; sending spoof e-mails and text messages from a fake person or mimicking a real person; providing spoof online resources such as magazines and books that provide inaccurate information; providing online access to uncensored material; sending instant messages to specific individuals giving them instructions for accessing uncensored websites; and contacting host websites asking them to remove material and/or deplatform/demonetize a targeted individual or group.
Such operations are not “spur of the moment” affairs, but rather involve detailed planning which incorporates human behavioral science. HSOC in particular incorporates the so-called “Hofstede Dimensions” developed by Dutch psychologist Geert Hofstede, which employs cross-cultural ideas of “collectivism” and/or “group think” to influence individuals and/or groups through psychological conditioning and manipulation, into every aspect of its operations.
A critical aspect of employing “Hofstede Dimensions” to their full effect is the ability to develop a detailed behavioral model of the targeted groups and individuals. One of the most effective ways of achieving this is to have an operative insert an alias into a targeted group and/or community, HSOC has demonstrated the ability to carry out the following intelligence collection objectives:
1) Count the number and/or location of views (e.g., for YouTube video) or hits to a website to see if people have accessed the message;
2) Check online and/or collect SIGINT to see if a message has been attended to, understood, accepted, remembered, and changed behavior (e.g., people have spread the message and communicate support for it, people lack trust in the discredited individual/group/regime, people are delayed or deterred from an activity or interaction);
3) Count the number and significance of friends that an alias has, people who have joined the Facebook group, Telegram channel, people who have responded to a blog or post;
4) Analyze the content of communication between a potential source of online human intelligence and the alias to see if he/she is providing useful intelligence;
5) Count the number of times a potential source of online HUMINT initiates communication with the alias;
6) Check online and/or collect SIGINT to see if people have accessed uncensored material that has been made available to them;
7) Check online to see if hosts who have been asked to delete material have done so;
8) Count the number of websites taken down;
9) Check if an individual or group does allow their site to be hosted (unknowingly) by HSOC or Ukrainian intelligence.
Of course, another way of achieving the same objective would be to have someone on the inside operating in a similar role. This would be the ideal operational purpose behind the SBU using Gonzalo Lira as a controlled asset.
One of the documents released by Edward Snowden was a slide presentation entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations.” Here the JTRIG openly talks about building so-called “cyber magicians” who “conjure with information” through formal training intended to produce “accredited computer network operators” (ACNO)—modern day information warriors. For those who question the scope and scale of potential information operations that can conceivably be conducted against unwitting targets, the JTRIG training document provides three slides which, when viewed in sequence, demonstrate how “cyber magicians” such as those who would oversee the weaponization of Gonzalo Lira conceive their operational space.
Slide one, ACNO Key Skill Strands
The first slide lists the three “key skill strands” that define the work of an ACNO—Online Human Intelligence, Influence and Information Operations, and Disruption and Computer Network Attacks. Under each skill strand, the slide lists the so-called “magic” techniques and experiments that are used by the operators in their work. Online human intelligence focuses on individual, group, and global collection sets. The influence and information operations focus on four “effects” types: psychology, deception, performance, and media. For disruption and computer network attack activities, an ACNO will emphasize professionalism, elegance, creativity, and intuition.
Slide two, filled-in skill strand chart
The second slide begins to populate the skill strands with actions done to develop the skill into something that relates to an actual discernable activity and objective. Note the role played by “Hofstede Dimensions” in developing skill strands that deal with human behavior. This approach should impress anyone who is dismissive of the value of having a trusted agent operating on the inside of any targeted group, or able to interact with a targeted individual. Gonzalo Lira would have been an invaluable resource in facilitating access to the kinds of information and insights being developed by the involved ACNOs.
Slide three, developed operational thinking
The third slide is perhaps the most damning of all, highlighting as it does the critical importance of having “insiders” in position to facilitate “destructive operational psychology” in support of “planned interventions.”
Again, this is a role ideal for a controlled asset such as Gonzalo Lira.
On April 30, 2022—some two weeks after he was released by the SBU—Lira started up his new YouTube channel, “The Roundtable,” using a “nine-year old Mac” computer—the social media infrastructure he used to rely upon was still in the custody of the SBU. His stated objective was to keep posting material “until I get arrested again.”
Lira’s “Roundtable” forums were a literal petri dish for the creation and collection of invaluable data for the kind of “Hofstede Dimension” analysis carried out by persons conducting information operations. I’ve watched a dozen or more of Lira’s “Roundtable” forums. Lira is an artful conductor, leading his guests through an emotional roller coaster of provocative positions on a variety of issues, making common cause in what is a textbook example of group bonding. Lira assumed the role of the brave dissident, continuing to post critical content with the help of like-minded guests.
Lira’s “Roundtable” podcast provided a platform for alternative media personalities such as Mark Sleboda, Brian Berletic, Alexander Mercouris and Alexander Christoforou from The Duran, Larry Johnson, and a host of others. One thing all these guests have in common, beyond their critical appraisal of Ukraine, is that all believe that Gonzalo Lira cannot be an asset of the SBU. In short, they reject out of hand any notion that the SBU could have recruited him following his arrest back in April 2022.
Mark Sleboda found the notion of Lira having been turned by the SBU “baseless, absurd, and puerile slander.” Brian Bertelic, Alexander Christoforou, and Alexander Mercouris’ all found the notion of Gonzalo Lira being recruited—or even recruitable—by the SBU “crazy.” Frankly speaking, I don’t take too much umbrage at their objections—none of them are intelligence professionals (although Alexander Mercouris, as a former senior barrister, should be well-acquainted with the concept of Police Confidential Informants).
Larry Johnson, however, is an intelligent professional. He has called my contention that Lira is an SBU asset “utter nonsense.” According to Johnson, “No CIA case officer in their right mind would sign up someone like Gonzalo for several reasons. First, he is an American citizen. CIA is prohibited from recruiting US citizens as intelligence assets. Second, Gonzalo’s commentary, analysis and hosted roundtables did not in any way advance a US Government position. Just the opposite — he was (and is) a strong critic.”
This line of thinking is nonsensical. First and foremost, there is no discussion of Lira being recruited by the CIA—that entire argument is a red herring. Second, it is Lira’s “commentary, analysis and hosted roundtables” which make him the ideal candidate for recruitment by the SBU. The JTRIG, in outlining its approach to conducting information operations, emphasized the importance of creating aliases for the purpose of infiltrating online forums such as Lira’s “Roundtable.” With Lira, the need to create an alias was eliminated—the SBU was now, literally, running the show.
All Lira had to do was what he always did—guide a discussion involving like-minded people. The SBU then could pick the topics, have Lira ask some leading questions, stroke some egos, emphasize certain points while downplaying others, and the “Roundtable” became a laboratory for human behavior ideal for the collection of data suitable for “Hofstede Dimension” analysis.
As Larry knows only too well, this kind of recruitment occurs all the time in the intelligence business. The way the CIA and MI-6 avoid the pitfalls associated with unpredictable characters like Gonzalo Lira is to have a partner intelligence service do the actual recruiting and running of an asset, while the CIA and MI-6 monitor and advise.
When I was with UNSCOM, I was involved in several human recruitments of this nature. Perhaps the most relevant was the recruitment of a Romanian aeronautical engineer who was trying to sell surface-to-surface missile production equipment to Iraq in violation of Security Council sanctions.
The British and Israeli intelligence services were both monitoring the preparations being made by Iraq to send a delegation to Romania. Based upon this information, the Romanian aeronautical engineer—who had been engaged in numerous illicit activities involving theft of government property and black-market sales of sensitive military technology—was selected as the best candidate for recruitment. After detailed planning on the part of all parties to this effort, a concept of operations was developed, and a timeline of action created.
The Romanian engineer was confronted by Romanian security officers with evidence of his illegal activities and given the option of going to jail or working for the Romanian intelligence service. By controlling the engineer, MI-6, through the Romanians, was able to manage every aspect of the meetings between the Iraqis and Romanians, including where the meeting would take place (so it could be monitored with video and audio recordings), and when it would take place. By turning the Romanian engineer, into a police confidential informant, MI-6 was able to shape the visit of the Iraqi delegation to conform with the timeline of desired outcomes all the while collecting all the desired intelligence necessary to achieve the overall operational objectives.
Diagram showing how tension can be used to cause groups to self-destruct.
By controlling Gonzalo Lira, the SBU was able to do the same thing. The best example of how this is done, and for what purpose, can be found in one of the JTRIG training slides. One of the best “events” that a side conducting information operations can arrange is to have opposing groups engage in self-destructive behavior. To accomplish this, the SBU would need to be able to identify the factors that push a group together, and those which pull a group apart. Then the SBU would need to create tension by setting members against members using fracture points in the structure of the group that had been identified during the intelligence collection phase of the effort.
Based upon this model, one might reasonably conclude that the current tension between myself and like-minded persons in the alternative media universe, and Larry Johnson, Brian Bertelic, The Duran, and others, regarding whether or not Gonzalo Lira was an SBU asset was, in fact, a successful information operation “event” planned by the SBU to drive a wedge between like-minded individuals who were of a like mind when it comes to Russia’s ongoing conflict with Ukraine.
It was an event which began back in June 2022, when Gonzalo Lira published a video on YouTube in which he attacked me personally. It was an interesting video, one which seemed derived from the kind of behavioral science that drives the JTRIG and SBU methodologies regarding human network disruption. Lira pushed every button imaginable, clearly trying to trigger a response from me. While I was not immune to his attacks, I quickly recognized that Lira had fallen under the control of the SBU, and publicly called him out as such.
In retrospect, my reaction was predictable—like Pavlov’s Dog, I responded to appropriate stimuli. The split between myself and Lira, which continues to this day, appears to be the goal of an SBU information operation “event” on the grounds that anything which weakens the bonds of cooperation between members of the alternative media community can only be seen as a good thing by the SBU.
People often point out that Gonzalo Lira has not been found guilty of any wrongdoing by a system of reputable justice, and as such should not be condemned of a crime he may not have committed. But this ignores the reality that we are at war. If Gonzalo Lira’s behavior raises red flags—and no rational person can look at the details surrounding Lira’s April 2022 “catch and release” escapade without their being significant questions—then as combatants in this conflict, my fellow alternative media members and I would do well to treat all interaction with Mr. Lira—past, present, and future—with extreme caution.
At a minimum, the Gonzalo Lira saga has demonstrated that the alternative media community has great uncertainty about who Mr. Lira is, and where his allegiance ultimately falls. We have been blinded by our own egos, which benefited from Mr. Lira’s attention, which means in many ways we do not even know ourselves. Unless we collectively become wise to the reality of the situation, we are on a path toward losing the information war which, in our case, means the end of free and critical speech and thought.
I have been honest and open about my feelings regarding Gonzalo Lira. I also recognize that my actions were probably incited by Lira, in collaboration with the SBU, to achieve this very result. But at least I am willing to confront this matter straight on, respectful of both the facts and the circumstances.
Who among my critics can honestly say the same thing?
We are at war.
When viewed in this light, Gonzalo Lira is not a simple wayward US citizen with misplaced notions of protected speech in a hostile country which operates outside of the protections afforded by the US Constitution, but rather a collaborator trying to bring harm to our collective embrace of fact-based truth.
We are at war.
“Know the enemy and know yourself,” Sun Tzu wrote, lest you “fear the result of a hundred battles.” However, “If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
It is high time for the alternative media collective to start learning.
About themselves.
About their enemies.
Otherwise, we will fail in our mission of providing an alternative to the mainstream narrative.
We are at war.
Start acting like it.
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Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, the newly minted successor to Dr Anthony Fauci at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), was recently one of America’s chief hype women for an antiviral drug that is now unanimously considered an unsafe and catastrophically failed treatment for Covid-19.
Prior to moving to her Government Health post, Marrazzo was the longtime director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).
In partnership with Big Pharma drugmaker Gilead, UAB played a major role in the research and development of Remdesivir. The drug was developed over a decade ago with the hopes to treat Hepatitis C and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), but was suddenly repurposed to “treat” Covid-19 when coronavirus hysteria reached the United States.
Given the UAB-Gilead partnership, one would think that Dr. Marrazzo would refrain from commenting on issues through which she maintained a clear conflict of interest. Or at the very least, she had the duty to disclose her conflict of interest when speaking to the media about the UAB-developed “wonder drug.” She did no such thing.
Even worse, Dr. Marrazzo bashed harmless and low cost alternatives like hydroxychloroquine, while hyping the super expensive Gilead-UAB competitor drug.
“The hope was maybe, if you treat early in the disease, you don’t need a silver bullet” such as remdesivir, she told The Washington Post in a July 2020 piece. “Hospitals are on the razor’s edge,” she added, contributing to the fear and paranoia that was enveloping the nation at the time.
In interview after interview, Dr. Marrazzo had nothing but good things to say about remdesivir, despite the incredible lack of data available to support her outandish claims about the drug.
On social media, Marrazzo lavished endless praise upon Remdesivir, declaring it the best agent against coronavirus disease, and boasting that her hospital tries to use it on every covid-hospitalized patient.
“We don’t have enough remdesivir to treat everybody who’s in the hospital,” she said in a late 2020 news conference about the state of her hospital system. “It’s a really challenging situation.”
Her predecessor at the NIAID, Mr Fauci, infamously paraded Remdesivir as the “standard of care” for Covid-19 treatment, adding that it can “block the virus.”
Unsupported pseudoscientific claims about very expensive drugs (a full course of remdesivir costs the patient thousands of dollars) is nothing new for NIAID officials, who, under Fauci’s leadership, have created an agency that acts as a government marketing department for pharmaceutical companies.
Undoubtedly, Marrazzo’s Remdesivir maximalism had disastrous implications for patients hospitalized at UAB. The so-called silver bullet later took on a morbid nickname, “run, death is near,” because of the severe side effect portfolio associated with the IV drug.
The headlines speak for themselves:
Remdesivir not only failed, but actively harmed hospitalized patients, who were being injected with the antiviral agent following the recommendations of Dr. Marrazzo.
The most exhaustive studies on the Gilead-UAB drug show that there are zero clinical benefits to injecting patients with remdesivir. Many studies show that Remdesivir can severely injure vital organs such as the heart and kidneys.
Dr. Marrazzo has never publicly expressed remorse for her longtime promotion of the drug she once described as a “silver bullet” against Covid-19. She last promoted the unsafe drug in December, 2021, long after most hospital systems stopped treating patients with the Gilead-UAB disaster drug.
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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***
John Kiriakou looked up from his desk at CIA headquarters and was stunned to see The Washington Post investigative reporter, Bob Woodward, walking through the secure area without an agency escort. On another occasion, Kiriakou—who rose at the CIA to become executive assistant to the deputy in charge of operations, the spy agency’s dark activities—saw CNN host Wolf Blitzer wandering unattended through the same area, despite the CIA’s ban on communicating with the media.
“We like to think there’s a Chinese wall between the CIA, especially senior CIA officials, and the American media,” Kiriakou recently told the London Real podcast. “In fact, they’re in bed together.”
Kiriakou later became a well-known whistleblower. He was the only CIA employee who went to prison for the agency’s torture program, sentenced in 2013 to 30 months behind bars—not because he himself tortured anyone, but because he told an ABC News reporter about the waterboarding to which the agency subjected a war on terror captive.
These days, Kiriakou is outraged for a different reason: the tight connection between the CIA and the media elite. All too often, he says, the national security journalists who are granted access by Langley can be trusted to see world affairs—and the U.S. empire’s dominant role in them—the way the CIA wants them to. Whether it’s the war in Ukraine, tensions with Russia and China, or U.S. military exploits in the Middle East and Africa, coverage in The New York Times, The Washington Post and on television reflects the slanted view of the national security establishment.
When Kiriakou was a CIA official, he says, the agency leaked regularly to The Washington Post correspondents Woodward, David Ignatius and Joby Warrick—as well as “a half-dozen reporters” at The New York Times—because Langley spymasters knew they “will carry your water.”
Washington journalists who contradict the U.S. national security line—even legendary ones like Seymour Hersh, who enjoyed CIA access for many years—soon find themselves in the cold, according to Kiriakou. Hersh once worked for The New York Times and The New Yorker, but was forced to publish his exposé on the lethal U.S. raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, which tied the alleged 9/11 mastermind’s execution more to clandestine collaboration with Pakistani intelligence than to American heroics, in the low-circulation London Review of Books. Last year, Hersh was relegated to Substack to publish his investigative report on the explosion of Russia’s Nord Stream pipeline, which blamed the act of war on U.S. Navy divers in a secret CIA operation ordered by President Joe Biden. (The New York Times still finds the sabotage a “mystery.”)
Hersh forced to self-publish? “That’s how bad it’s gotten in the United States,” Kiriakou says.
“Back in the good old days, when things were more innocent and simple, the psychopathic Central Intelligence Agency had to covertly infiltrate the news media to manipulate the information Americans were consuming about their nation and the world,” observed Caitlin A. Johnstone in MR (Monthly Review) Online. Now the CIA is the media, she ruefully concluded.
In 1977, Johnstone reminded her readers, Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame exposed the fact that the CIA supervised 400 reporters as agency “assets.” (Bernstein conveniently overlooked The Washington Post, which has a long history of coziness with intelligence. The newspaper’s current owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is a major CIA contractor.) When Bernstein’s article ran in Rolling Stone, it caused a tempest. Nowadays, nobody blinks an eye when “liberal” TV channels like CNN and MSNBC openly employ veterans of the CIA, FBI, NSA and other security agencies, such as commentators John Brennan, Jeremy Bash, Michael Hayden, James Clapper and Malcolm Nance.
Even Rolling Stone, once the voice of 1960s counterculture, which published radical and progressive writers like Tom Hayden, David Harris, Dick Goodwin and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—can no longer be trusted by free-thinking readers. RS is one of the publications vacuumed up by the upstart empire, Penske Media, which also purchased Variety, Hollywood Reporter and most of the entertainment industry media as well as New York Magazine.
Under Penske Media—run by Jay Penske, the 44-year-old known for his floppy hair, model-like looks and not much else save the fact that his father is trucking mogul Roger Penske—Rolling Stone has taken a sharp turn to the right. When not attacking Kennedy as an “anti-vaxxer” and “conspiracy”-obsessed lunatic, RS touts the bloody stalemate in Ukraine and the presidency of “boring” Biden.
Jay Penske went on his media buying spree courtesy of investment from Saudi Arabian royalty and New York hedge fund billionaire Daniel Loeb, who reportedly used former CIA agents to teach his staff deception techniques. (For the first time, Penske Media even brought CIA recruiters to the SXSW festival, the annual lollapalooza of indie music and technology which the media juggernaut also snapped up. The CIA’s message to young festival-goers: it’s cool to be a spy!)
In 2021, Penske Media hired 50-year-old Noah Shachtman to be the editor-in-chief of Rolling Stone. It was a strange choice to run the iconic music magazine. Shachtman was known mainly as an entrepreneurial national security journalist whose publications were avidly read by generals and weapons manufacturers. He uses military lingo to describe his editorial targets at Rolling Stone, referring to them as “bad actors” like Eric Clapton and Kennedy. Although he worked for the 1992 Bill Clinton presidential campaign, Shachtman says we need more leaders like Clinton’s opponent, former President George H. W. Bush—a man who was “a coalition-builder, someone who talked sense and had a bit of decency to him… an old-school internationalist.” And a former CIA director—but definitely not a “bad actor.”
The view that the world is a dangerous place, filled with bad actors—and must be dominated by the U.S. militarily—now prevails not only at Rolling Stone, but throughout our mainstream media.
Social media also has been colonized by the national security ideology. Last December, after buying Twitter, Elon Musk stated that internal documents revealed the company had taken money from the FBI to censor tweets the bureau considered objectionable.
Last week, Glenn Greenwald interviewed Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger, who charged that government security agencies have imposed an “over-the-top biased view” on the online encyclopedia since 2008.
“We do have evidence that as early as 2008 CIA and FBI computers were used to edit Wikipedia,” Sanger told Greenwald. “Do you think they stopped doing that? No. We know that a great part of intelligence now, information wars, is conducted online. And where if not on websites like Wikipedia? So, they pay off the most influential people, to push their agendas—which they’re mostly already in line with. Or they just develop their own talent within the community, learn the Wikipedia game, and then push what they want to say with their own people.”
Kennedy recently sued YouTube and its parent company Google, charging the social media giant with censorship. Among the RFK Jr. videos taken down by YouTube are his interviews with Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson and his speech at Saint Anselm’s College, all from this year.
“This complaint concerns the freedom of speech and the extraordinary steps the United States government has taken under the leadership of Joe Biden to silence people it does not want Americans to hear,” the lawsuit reads. “Mr. Kennedy is not the only victim of this censorship campaign, which is unprecedented in American history. But he is a high-profile victim, especially since he is now challenging President Biden for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.”
Democracy can’t function without a free press. But there is no such thing as unfettered journalism when secretive agencies control the media. Spooks have no place in the newsroom. And yet most of our reporting comes from closely supervised news outlets or even subsidiaries of the permanent government.
It’s time to reject the brainwashing and think for ourselves.
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***
Incrementalism—the tendency to inch forward rather than to take bold steps—is usually preferred by political and military leaders in warfare, because the introduction of a few forces into action puts fewer personnel at risk, and, in theory, promises a series of improvements over time, often through attrition.
In 1950, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, led by the then-chairman General J. Lawton Collins, recommended short envelopments along the Korean coastline that were designed to gradually increase the size of the U.S. and Allied enclave known as the Pusan Perimeter. The idea was to buy time to assemble enough forces to launch a breakout on the Normandy model. But General of the Army Douglas MacArthur disagreed. He argued for a daring, deep envelopment that promised to cut off the North Korean Forces south of the 38th Parallel that were encircling Pusan.
As it turned out, MacArthur was right. Today, we know that the short envelopments were exactly what the North Korean command was prepared to defeat. In retrospect, it is certain that along with their Chinese allies, the North Koreans were familiar with the operational employment of U.S. and Allied forces during WWII. Eisenhower’s insistence on a broad front strategy that moved millions of troops in multiple armies in parallel across France and Germany to Central Europe conformed to the low-risk formula.
In light of this history, it was reasonable for the North Koreans to believe that MacArthur would never split his forces and launch an amphibious assault far behind North Korean lines. It was simply too risky. And the operational concept for Inchon was also inconsistent with the way U.S. forces were employed during the Civil War and World War I—wars won through attrition, not maneuver.
In February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin opted for incrementalism in his approach to the “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine. Putin committed fewer than 100,000 Russian troops to a shallow penetration attack on a broad front into a country the size of Texas. Having failed over a period of nearly 15 years to persuade Washington and the collective West of Moscow’s opposition to NATO’s advance to the east, Putin seems to have concluded that Washington and its NATO allies would prefer immediate negotiations to a destructive regional war with unknowable potential for escalation to the nuclear level.
Putin was wrong. He made a false assumption based on rational choice theory. Rational choice theory attempts to predict human behavior based on the assumption that individuals habitually make choices in economics, politics, and daily life that align with their personal best interest.
The problem with the theory is that human beings are not rational. In fact, the human mind is like a black box. It is possible to observe what goes into the black box and the decisions that come out of it, but the actual decision-making process that unfolds inside the black box is opaque.
In international relations and war, the defining features of human identity—history, geography, culture, religion, language, race, or ethnicity—must also figure prominently in any strategic assessment. For reasons of culture, experience, and innate character, MacArthur was a risk-taker. As Peter Drucker reminds his readers, culture is the foundation for human capital. These realities routinely defeat the unrealistic expectations that rational choice theory creates.
Instead of approaching the negotiating table, Washington discarded the caution, given Russia’s nuclear arsenal, that had guided previous American dealings with Moscow. Washington’s political class, with no real understanding of Russia or Eastern Europe, subscribed to the late Senator John McCain’s notion that Russia was a “gas station with nuclear weapons.”
Putin is not a risk-taker. But he abandoned incrementalism, and rapidly reoriented Russian forces to the strategic defense, an economy of force measure designed to minimize Russian losses while maximizing Ukrainian losses until Russian Forces could return to offensive operations. The Russian change in strategy has worked. Despite the unprecedented infusion of modern weaponry, cash, foreign fighters, and critical intelligence to Ukrainian forces, Washington’s proxy is shattered. Ukraine’s hospitals are brimming with broken human beings and Ukrainian dead litter the battlefield. Kiev is a heart patient on life support.
Russia’s attrition strategy has achieved remarkable success, but the success is making the conflict currently more dangerous than at any point since it began in February 2022. Why? Defensive operations do not win wars, and Washington continues to believe Ukraine can win.
Washington discounts Ukrainian losses and exaggerates Russian losses. Officers present at meetings in the Pentagon tell me that minor Ukrainian battlefield successes (that are almost instantly reversed) loom large in the discussions held in four-star headquarters, the White House, and Foggy Bottom. These reports are treated as incontrovertible evidence of inevitable Ukrainian victory. In this climate, staff officers are reluctant to highlight effective Russian military performance or the impact of Russia’s expanding military power.
The Western media reinforce these attitudes, arguing that the Russian generals and their forces are dysfunctional, mired in corruption and sloth, and that Ukraine can win if it gets more support. As a result, it is a good bet that Washington and its allies will continue to provide equipment and ammunition, though probably not in the quantities and of the quality they did in the recent past.
Warsaw, whose leadership of NATO’s anti-Russian crusade is prized in Washington, finds comfort in the Beltway’s belief in Russian military weakness. So much so, that Warsaw seems willing to risk direct confrontation with Moscow. According to French sources in Warsaw, if Ukrainian forces are driven back, “the Poles may introduce the first division this year, which will include the Poles, the Balts, and a certain number of Ukrainians.”
Now, Washington is misjudging Moscow. The Russian national command authorities may well think that Warsaw’s actions align with Washington’s intentions. President Biden’s executive order to extend hazard pay to American soldiers currently serving in Ukraine (who are not supposed to be there) no doubt reinforces this opinion.
But it is far more likely that the Polish tail wants to wag the American dog. The Poles know their military intervention in historic Galician Ukraine will provoke a military response from both Belarus and Russia, but Warsaw also reasons that Washington’s air and ground forces in Europe are unlikely to sit quietly in Ukraine, Romania, and the Baltic littoral while Polish forces fight a losing battle.
America’s proxy war with Russia has transformed Ukraine into a graveyard. Indulging Poland’s passion for war with Russia encourages Poland to follow the Ukrainian example. The very idea must leave Moscow no choice but to bring all of Russia’s military power to bear simultaneously against Ukraine, before the collective West stumbles into regional war. Make peace, you fools, before it’s too late.
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Douglas Macgregor, Col. (ret.) is a senior fellow with The American Conservative, the former advisor to the Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, a decorated combat veteran, and the author of five books.
Featured image: “Plans love silence. There’ll be no announcement of the start.” Photo credit: Ukraine Defense Ministry
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***
More than 700 academics and public figures from Israel, Palestine and other countries have signed an open letter equating Israel’s occupation of the West Bank with apartheid, signalling what supporters say is a “watershed moment” for how Israel’s occupation is viewed.
The letter, which began circulating on Friday, has received around 200 signatures per day with “more coming in, quite literally, by the minute”, Omer Bartov, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University and organiser of the letter, told Middle East Eye.
The letter featured 752 signatories at the time of publication.
The authors said there was a direct link between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to overhaul Israel’s judiciary and its illegal occupation of millions of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian Territories.
“The ultimate purpose of the judicial overhaul is to tighten restrictions on Gaza, deprive Palestinians of equal rights both beyond the Green Line and within it, annex more land, and ethnically cleanse all territories under Israeli rule of their Palestinian population,” the letter said.
Notably, the letter made a clear reference to “the elephant in the room: Israel’s long-standing occupation that, we repeat, has yielded a regime of apartheid.”
“There cannot be democracy for Jews in Israel as long as Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid,” it added.
Bartov told MEE that there were a number of Israeli academics who signed the letter who previously would have likely refused to equate the occupation with apartheid. One of the most prominent he identified was Benny Morris, professor emeritus at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
“The main change is that Israeli behavior, in the West Bank, but also apparently unfolding vis-a-vis Israel’s Arabs now, has become increasingly brutal over the past few years, and especially more in the past half year. It has made more and more people realise that continued occupation is morally and politically impossible,” he said.
‘Watershed Moment’
Leading academics such as Peter Beinart from the City University of New York, and Avrum Burg, the former speaker of the Knesset and chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel also signed the letter.
Academics whose backgrounds span from evolutionary biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to choreography and rabbinical studies at Hebrew College also endorsed the letter. Besides leading academics in Israel, it received support from professors at Yale, Brown, Columbia, and Harvard University in the United States.
On social media platform X, previously known as Twitter, one user anticipated potential accusations of anti-semitism.
This is an impressive list of Jewish Studies scholars, both within and outside of Israel, signing a statement explicitly stating the Occupation now amounts to apartheid: https://t.co/udb1aAw1CE
Benny Morris even signed! I don't see how they can all be dismissed as antisemites.
“The broad inclusion of so many academics representing a stunningly broad spectrum of distinguished Jewish voices, indicates a watershed moment also in American Jewish views about Israel, and a new willingness by public figures, reflecting the sentiments of the younger generation, to honestly criticise Israeli policies,” Bartov added.
According to a Middle East Eye tally, at least 208 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire this year, including 36 children – a rate of nearly one fatality per day.
A total of 172 people have died in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, making 2023 one of the bloodiest years in the occupied Palestinian territories. Another 36 people were killed in the Gaza Strip.
Lior Sternfeld, an associate professor of history and Jewish studies at Penn State University and organiser of the letter, said people were beginning to see a link between the moves by Israel’s far-right government to remake the country’s judiciary and the occupation.
“Now more than ever before, regular middle-way people, intellectuals, and leaders see that unbreakable connection between the occupation and the current political moment,” she told MEE.
“Israelis and Americans who in the past disagreed with the occupation but were willing to look past it are fed up.”
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***
Chinese exports in July 2023:
– 23% to the US
– 21% to the EU
– 21% to ASEAN
+ 52% to Russia
Overall, a reduction in July of 14.5% in total Chinese exports.
China’s property market is down, and in spite of few young Chinese people, the youth unemployment is running above 20%.
South Korea depends on exports to China (especially chips) and saw its exports fall 16.5% in July.
Biden and the Neocons are rejoicing — their anti-China trade & sanctions policy is succeeding.
The West is decoupling from China, and China is being destroyed by lack of access to chips and hi-tech.
The bad news for many Chinese manufacturers and exporters is that rich countries in the West are reducing their reliance on Chinese goods. U.S. officials and their allies in Europe have been prompting firms to move production away from China toward a circle of trusted nations instead. See this.
The total effects hit the whole world, however.
The IMF expects world trade to slow by 2% in 2023 – a clear sign of global economic setback. See this.
This is also bad news for the US, the EU – and even India, ASEAN, and Africa.
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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Trade containers are seen at the Horgos Port in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region, February 6, 2021. Photo: Xinhua
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***
On May 27, 2023, I wrote a substack article about multiple COVID-19 vaccinated family members, who died suddenly.
Now, I am starting to see multiple COVID-19 vaccinated family members develop Turbo Cancers (often stage 4) and their stories are shocking and difficult to believe.
(See video above) July 18, 2023, San Juan Capistrano, CA – Parents of 3 children, Zak and Cori Salazar were both diagnosed with cancer, mom Cori with an “aggressive form of thyroid cancer” had two surgeries and dad Zak was diagnosed with aggressive Stage 4 Astrocytoma and just had surgery (click here).
July 23, 2023, Davenport, FL – Michael Ruopoli was just diagnosed with “cancer of the blood”, presumably leukemia, after developing a whole body rash while his mother is currently battling Stage IV Lung Cancer (click here).
June 29, 2023, Baraboo, WI – Three family members develop cancer! – Both of Jessica Dominguez’s parents have been battling end stage cancer, her mother fighting lung cancer last 4 years, and her father diagnosed with late stage Colon cancer in March 2023. Jessica Dominguez herself has just been diagnosed with a brain tumor!
June 26, 2023, Brampton, ON – Daniel Siewdass and Ferria Siewdass were both diagnosed with high grade cancer, Daniel with brain cancer glioblastoma and Ferria with high grade breast cancer (triple negative). (click here)
June 26, 2023 – Brazil – 37 year old mother Heliana Barbary was diagnosed with breast cancer in March 2023 and within 20 days her 18 year old daughter Emanuely was diagnosed with a rare Hodgkin’s lymphoma tumor in the lungs (click here).
June 8, 2023, Mamaroneck, NY – John Flynn suffered a catastrophic brain bleed while his wife EJ Flynn was diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer (click here).
June 6, 2023, Agoura Hills, CA – Julie Ranoa and her mother Janis Ranoa have both been diagnosed with breast cancer at the same time (click here).
Mar.16, 2023 – Atlanta, GA – Three family members develop cancer. 34 year old Chasity Nolton was dealing with her mother’s recent breast cancer diagnosis and had recently lost another family member to breast cancer, when she herself was diagnosed with breast cancer. (Click here)
Feb. 10, 2023 – Hamburg, NY – Kelly Englert is a nurse who was diagnosed with Stage IV Lung Cancer 3 years ago that has recently spread to her brain. Her daughter Kaitland was just diagnosed with recurrence of her brain tumor which has “mutated into an aggressive form and is a Grade 4 Glioma”. Both have simultaneous CANCER RECURRENCES into more aggressive forms! (Click here)
Jan, 2023, Aitkin, MN – Mother and son are both fighting cancer. Sarah Fjeld had Stage 3 breast cancer in 2017 and was cancer free. She developed COVID in March 2021 and was found to have Stage 4 breast cancer recurrence that spread to lungs, bones and liver. Her 20 yo son Noah Fjeld was diagnosed with rare Nasopharyngeal cancer in Nov. 2022 (click here).
Nov 8, 2022, Valley Cottage, NY – Nicole Smit is a teacher. In Dec.2021, Nicole’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. In June 2022, Nicole was diagnosed with the same type of breast cancer as her mother and was also diagnosed with a secondary breast cancer. (Click here)
June 24, 2022, Waverly, AL – Husband and wife battle cancer together. Chris was diagnosed with lung & bone cancer while his wife Tina Wright was diagnosed with breast cancer. (Click here)
My Take…
Genetics may be a factor in some of these cases, for example involving mother and daughter battling the same type of breast cancer, etc.
But there are also many couples coming down with aggressive late stage cancers at the same time.
Turbo Cancers can develop following COVID-19 vaccination and often present at Stage 4. They are often described by oncologists as “rare” or “aggressive”.
The most common and most aggressive turbo cancers we are seeing now are leukemias, lymphomas, brain cancers (glioblastomas) and breast cancers.
When multiple family members come down with cancer and a COVID-19 vaccine induced turbo cancer is suspected, always look for the presence of at least one of these: leukemia, lymphoma, brain cancer, breast cancer.
Presumably, if multiple family members went to get their COVID-19 vaccine at the same time, they may have received a “bad batch” or “hot lot”, a toxic pharmaceutical product with poor quality control that may have had too much mRNA or may have been contaminated with DNA plasmids containing the carcinogenic SV40 promoter (discovered in Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine), for example. Or that vaccine vial may have contained something much worse than mRNA.
The immune system damage and organ damage that those family members could then experience from a “bad vaccine batch” or a “hot lot”, may be similar and may give rise to turbo cancers in multiple family members.
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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
Many nations in the Americas have suffered from US promoted coups, dictatorships, sanctions and outright invasions. Nicaragua may take the cake for being the most victimized. Dan Kovalik has written a book which reviews the history of intervention and resistance up to the present day.
It is important to have a short look at the history of this battle for more women’s rights. That is why I will shortly explain the ideology and social movement of Feminism, the factor which has driven women in their battle for equal chances and respect.
The situation in Niger is still in flux. On 26 July 2023 a military coup took place in that West African state that led to the ouster of its elected President, Mohamed Bazoum, by Brigadier General Abdourahmane Tchiani. The Brigadier General has proclaimed that he is the new president of the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP).
While some estimates of Ukrainian dead vary between 300,000 and 400,000 Ukrainian sources admit to 310,000 deaths and the Wall Street Journal estimates between 20,000 and 50,000 have lost one or more limbs. Other estimates are that several hundred thousand are severely wounded.
Israeli airstrikes on Syria have become routine and deadly. On Monday, Israeli airstrikes on Damascus at 2:20 am local time killed four Syrian soldiers and wounded four others.
After months and months of US media lies about how “phantastic” Ukraine is doing, it is for the cynical a fun to watch how the US narrative is breaking down these days. After months of heavy losses and no gain, the US belief that Ukraine can ever win is vanishing – even CNN cannot keep tight about it anymore.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at a press conference that he thought his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva “had a broader understanding of the world.” The comments were triggered by Lula suggesting that Zelensky, as a minimum, needs to accept that Crimea is a part of Russia.
The COVID con is back on. The usual COVID con-artists have their scripts and the propaganda is being churned out by mainstream media. I have zero concerns about EG.5.1 or “Eris” variant. This variant is BS – just more theatre for the COVID-19 vaccine addicted, and the brainwashed.
Similar to the last summit, the agenda of this year’s summit included technology transfer and development of industry and critical infrastructure in Africa, developing power engineering, agriculture and mineral extraction, and ensuring food and energy security.
The United States and Papua New Guinea recently concluded a comprehensive Defense Cooperation Agreement. The agreement will give the US military unimpeded access to many PNG key naval facilities. This new agreement is expected to increase the US military presence in the Pacific region amid the intensifying US–China rivalry.
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“He didn’t expect such opposition, he fully realized that messing with people’s lives is not as easy as putting a virus in a computer. Around the world thousands of people are looking for evidence to put him in court.”
Il ne s’attendait pas à une telle opposition, il a pris pleinement conscience que jouer avec la vie de gens n’est aussi facile que de mettre un virus dans un ordinateur. Dans le monde entier des milliers de personnes cherchent des preuves pour le mettre devant un tribunal. pic.twitter.com/sUpBADy8qZ
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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As I was reading an editorial in the Washington Post yesterday condemning Russia for its war of aggression in Ukraine and the torture of Ukrainians, I just kept asking myself: Why isn’t the Post condemning the U.S. government for the same thing? And yet, not one single mention of what the U.S. government did to the people of both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Why? Why not use the opportunity to show the world that U.S. officials deserve to be punished for what they did to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq just as much as Russian officials deserve to be punished for what they are doing in Ukraine?
Let’s begin with Iraq, a nation that never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so. The U.S. war on that nation was a pure, unadulterated “war of aggression,” the type of war condemned by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal.
The Post clearly understands the concept of a “war of aggression” because it describes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “an unjustified war of aggression.” Given such, why didn’t the Post use its editorial to condemn both regimes — the U.S. regime and the Russian regime — rather than focus only on the Russian regime?
One of the fiercest battles in the U.S. war of aggression against Iraq occurred in the city of Fallujah. When that battle was going on, the mainstream media was referring to U.S. troops as the “good guys” and to the Iraqi defenders as the “bad guys.” I kept thinking: But those “bad guys” are just defending their country from illegal invaders. Why are they “bad guys” for doing that? The Ukrainian soldiers are not considered “bad guys” for defending their country, are they? Is it because U.S. forces are automatically and always to be considered “good guys,” even whey they are waging a war of aggression against another country?
Afghanistan was labeled a “good war” because Osama bin Laden, who was accused of orchestrating the 9/11 attacks, was living there. U.S. officials claimed that that fact removed that particular invasion from the realm of a “war of aggression.”
Not so! The reason that President Bush ordered his army to invade Afghanistan is that Afghanistan had refused to accede to his extradition demand for bin Laden. Bush called such refusal “harboring” terrorists. But Afghanistan had the legal right to refuse to accede to Bush’s extradition demand, given that there was no extradition treaty between the United States and Afghanistan. Moreover, there was never any evidence that the Afghanistan government was complicit in the 9/11 attacks. Thus, the U.S. war on Afghanistan was a pure, unadulterated war of aggression. Just as the U.S. war on Iraq was.
Sometime after the launching of those two wars of aggression, rumors began circulating that U.S. forces were torturing people. Here at The Future of Freedom Foundation, we immediately began calling for investigations and condemning all acts of torture.
We were inundated with vicious attacks from U.S. interventionists who fervently denied that U.S. forces would ever engage in torture and fiercely criticizing us for even suggesting the possibility that they would do so.
And then the proof began surfacing, such as the vicious torture at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, secret CIA prison camps, and elsewhere.
What did our critics say then? No, they didn’t apologize. Instead, they maintained that the torture was no big deal. Some of them even defended the torture, which to me was very bizarre, given that the people who were being tortured were the victims of U.S. wars of aggression.
I recall reading about one Iraqi man who kept exclaiming during his torture session, “Sir, why are you doing this to me?” I found it fascinating that he would refer to his torturer as “Sir,” and I concluded that it was because he had a high respect for Americans. I could easily see why he couldn’t understand why Americans were torturing him, given that he and his nation had never done anything against the United States. In fact, Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, had even been a partner and ally of the United States during the 1980s. Americans often tend to forget that but certainly the Iraqi people had not forgotten it.
At one point, it was discovered that the U.S. national security establishment was videotaping its torture sessions. My immediate reaction was: Why would they do that? For fun viewing later on? For future torture training sessions? When it was discovered that the torture tapes had been destroyed to prevent Congress from viewing them, I was not surprised that no one was prosecuted for intentionally destroying evidence of a crime. By this time, I had come to the realization that the higher-ups in the U.S. national security state form of governmental structure are immune from criminal liability.
One of the points I kept making about all this mayhem is that wars of aggression and torture are what communist and other totalitarian regimes do and that America should not be doing what they do. Supporters of these two U.S. wars of aggression and the torture that came with them had a difficult time seeing my point.
And that’s the real value of the Washington Post’s editorial yesterday condemning Russia for its war of aggression and the torture of prisoners and detainees. It’s always easy to pull the speck out of someone else’s eye. It’s not so easy to pull the plank out of one’s own eye. Even though the Post’s editorial fails to mention the U.S. government, one can easily apply the principles enunciated in the editorial to the U.S. wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq and to the U.S. torture of people from those two countries.
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Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.
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***
Many nations in the Americas have suffered from US promoted coups, dictatorships, sanctions and outright invasions. Nicaragua may take the cake for being the most victimized. Dan Kovalik has written a book which reviews the history of intervention and resistance up to the present day.
Kovalik includes his own experiences from several decades visiting Nicaragua. The first time was with a Veterans for Peace (VFP) convoy of trucks bringing aid to Nicaragua in 1987. Incredibly, for two months the US government blocked the aid trucks from exiting the US en route to Nicaragua. The story has a happy outcome. After months of effort, the antiwar activists succeeded in exiting the US and reaching Nicaragua wherea they were greeted with open arms and celebrations. That experience triggered a lifelong interest in Nicaragua by Kovalik, who has worked for decades as an international human rights lawyer and is a retired attorney for the United Steel Workers.
The book describes key periods of US intervention. In 1855, William Walker declared himself president of Nicaragua. Backed by a small army of European and US soldiers, he seized control of the Nicaraguan city of Grenada. Walker re-introduced slavery, arguing that it was introduced in the Americas “in a spirit of benevolence and philanthropy.” With the US Civil War on the horizon, he was also supported by southern US states. Within a couple years, Walker’s forces were defeated, and he was executed.
“La Pedrada” (The Stone), depicting the downfall of William Walker at San Jacinto.
Beginning in 1909, US Marines invaded and occupied Nicaragua. They dominated the country for the next three decades. The US occupation led to armed resistance organized by Augusto Cesar Sandino.
In 1934, the “National Guard” of Nicaragua (trained by US Marines) reneged on a peace agreement with Sandino and murdered him and his staff. The Somoza family dominated the country for the next forty-five years. They were notoriously corrupt and even robbed international donations following the devastating 1972 earthquake. Kovalik describes how Puerto Rican baseball great Roberto Clemente died while trying to bring relief aid to Nicaragua.
In 1961, armed opposition to the Somoza dictatorship was formed under the banner of the Sandinista Front for the Liberation of Nicaragua (FSLN). After fifty thousand deaths, with many caused by blanket bombing, the Somoza dictatorship was overthrown in July 1979. Under the FSLN, the country made huge strides toward eliminating illiteracy and peasant impoverishment. For the first time, medical help was made available in remote communities. For the first time, schools were open to all children.
Angered by the threat of a popular government outside their control and allied with Cuba, the Reagan administration was hell bent to stop the Sandinistas. They did this by creating a “Contra” army, which attacked Nicaraguan infrastructure such as gas pipelines, killed healthcare and rural cooperative members, and even killed foreign aid workers such as young US engineer Ben Linder. Nicaragua was forced to divert scarce resources into defending itself. Kovalik describes how Reagan kept funding the Contra war through a diabolical scheme whereby weapons were sent to the Contras and cocaine brought back, to be sold in crack form in poor and largely Black communities.
Despite the Contra war, the Sandinistas held national elections. In 1984 the FSLN won decisively. In 1990, with Washington explicitly threatening to continue the illegal war while the Sandinistas remained in power, the majority voted for the US-promoted candidate. Many Nicaraguans were exhausted from the continuing Contra war. The death toll was thirty thousand dead and many more injured in a country of only 3 million.
The US establishment and media was surprised when the Sandinistas acknowledged the electoral defeat and stepped down. Neoliberal policies reigned for the next 16 years. Public institutions were privatized. Unemployment and poverty increased dramatically. Government spending on healthcare was slashed, while illiteracy spread once again. Kovalik gives us that statistics and summaries from Oxfam, the UN and other sources.
The Sandinistas went through internal debates, including a split, but did not go away. In 2006, Nicaraguans voted Daniel Ortega and the FSLN back into power. Ever since then, they have gained increasing levels of support. Kovalik describes how they have invigorated the economy and prioritized policies favoring the working class and farmers. The FSLN re-instituted free education and healthcare plus small loans with “zero usury” for businesses. They made major infrastructure improvements with roads and a highway to the east coast. They have steadily expanded reliable and renewable electricity to all parts of the country. Nicaragua is now ranked #1 in the western hemisphere for gender equality.
Unfortunately, the popularity and effective management of the FSLN continues to be seen as a “threat” by Washington. In the spring of 2018, something close to a “color revolution” took place. With extensive quotes and descriptions from people who were on the ground, Kovalik analyzes and gives evidence showing that the turmoil was prepared and promoted by the US using social media techniques with support from conservative church, business and political rivals.
Kovalik describes how the Ortega administration took the unusual step of ordering police to stay in the barracks. They had to endure attacks and watch as the “peaceful protesters” attacked schools, clinics, and government offices. Ultimately the Sandinista strategy exposed who was instigating the violence and harming the economy with roadblocks. With minimal conflict, the uprising and “regime change” effort collapsed. The roadblocks were taken down and the economy slowly restored. Some coup leaders left for Costa Rica and others for the US.
Kovalik addresses the criticisms of Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas which are sometimes heard in the West. Regarding the opposition “Sandinista Renovation Movement” (MRS), Kovalik shows that their policies have little popular appeal. They are more popular in the West than in Nicaragua where their support is minuscule. Many western critics of Nicaragua and the Sandinistas have not been there for many years or even decades.
Opponents of the Sandinistas were hoping the FSLN would not do well in the November 2021 election. Instead, FSLN candidates Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo received 75% of the vote against five competing parties. This international observer was impressed with the high turnout, efficiency and authenticity of the election.
Kovalik covers all these topics with a good level of depth including sources. There are many references and interesting quotations from North Americans and Europeans who live in Nicaragua. The book also includes many references to movies, songs and poetry. Poets are still revered and music is still a big part of Nicaragua. At the recent 44th celebration of the Nicaragua revolution, the first two hours were devoted to songs.
Kovalik’s book on Nicaragua is highly relevant because US interference in Nicaragua and Central America continues. For years there has been a drumbeat of biased and false claims in western media about Nicaragua. Washington is steadily increasing sanctions on Nicaragua.
What happens in Nicaragua is important for other countries in Central America. Neighboring Honduras is currently trying to escape US dominance. Both Honduras and Nicaragua recently broke relations with Taiwan and established relations with China. That is, of course, their right as sovereign nations. But the US does not approve. The 200-year-old Monroe Doctrine has not been rescinded and we can safely predict US intervention in Nicaragua will continue.
Told in an engaging and persuasive way, this book presents the history of a small nation that has resisted continual efforts to dominate and control it. It is truly a David vs Goliath tale. Anyone interested in Latin American history or US foreign policy should add this book to their reading list.
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Rick Sterling is an independent journalist based in the SF Bay Area. He can be contacted at [email protected]
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Nicaragua: A History of US Intervention & Resistance
By Dan Kovalik
Publisher: Clarity Press (January 15, 2023)
Paperback: 332 pages
ISBN-10: 1949762602
ISBN-13: 978-1949762600
Reviews
“Professor Kovalik sweeps away fake news and fake history disseminated by the mainstream media concerning Nicaragua, documenting a gruesome history of US interventionism and crimes in Nicaragua. Highlighting the achievements of the Sandinistas in the field of human rights and social justice, he refutes US caricatures and denounces CIA attempts to destabilize Nicaragua to facilitate undemocratic ‘regime change’.” ALFRED DE ZAYAS, UN Independent Expert for the promotion of an international democratic and equitable order
“Kovalik demolishes the dominant Western narrative. He shares the hard-won gains of today’s Nicaragua, explains Daniel Ortega’s enduring popularity and powerfully defends why the Sandinistas are deserving of our continued solidarity. This book is must-read to understand Nicaragua in the 21st century and fills a stark gap in contemporary Latin American Studies. May it lead to further study in situ and less arm-chair pontificating by politicians and intellectuals.” — SOFIA M. CLARK, Professor of Political Science, UNAN-Managua.
“Daniel Kovalik, international human rights attorney, who has been visiting Nicaragua since 1987, has provided a clearly written and well-documented (453 Endnotes) factual account of an honest history of Nicaragua from the 1850s to the present in less than 180 pages. By reading this account, the reader will be well versed to contradict the constant lies presented to the public by the incredibly controlled corporate and Silicon Valley news media. Hats off to Mr. Kovalik, for setting the record straight.” S. BRIAN WILLSON, lawyer, author of Don’t Thank Me For My Service, resident of Nicaragua
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The situation in Niger is still in flux. On 26 July 2023 a military coup took place in that West African state that led to the ouster of its elected President, Mohamed Bazoum, by Brigadier General Abdourahmane Tchiani. The Brigadier General has proclaimed that he is the new president of the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP).
The coup has been condemned by the 15 member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) of which Niger is a member, the African Union, the European Union and the United States of America. On the 30th of July, ECOWAS whose current head is Nigeria (not to be confused with Niger) issued an ultimatum to the coup leaders to restore Bazoum to power within one week, or face the consequences including possible military action. The deadline has expired. ECOWAS has not acted. It is alleged that the regional grouping would now prefer diplomacy.
One of the reasons why ECOWAS has changed its stance is because of strong opposition to any military intervention from some of its member states. Mali and Burkina Faso have made it explicitly clear that they would view military intervention as a “declaration of war” against the people of Niger and would defend the newly installed military junta. Besides, Niger is geographically one of the biggest countries in West Africa and possesses a well-trained army.
But an even more compelling reason why military intervention may not be an option for ECOWAS or anyone else for that matter is because the 26th July coup, it is obvious to most observers, has widespread support among the people. The people see the coup as an attempt to end continuous Western — mainly French and now also American — exploitation and dominance of Niger. Niger, once a French colony, is rich in natural resources, uranium, oil and gold. Its uranium industry for instance is owned and operated by a so-called joint venture between Niger and France, the Societe des mines de l’Air (Somair). 85% of Somair is owned by France’s Atomic Energy Commission and two French companies, while 15% is owned by Niger’s government. Niger is the world’s seventh largest producer of uranium, vital for nuclear energy while France relies heavily upon nuclear energy for 70% of its domestic power supply. As Vijay Prasad and Kambala Musavuli put it in a recent article,
“One in three lightbulbs in France are powered by uranium from Niger, at the same time as 42% of the African country’s population live below the poverty line.”
France’s grip over Niger’s uranium is just one example of the former colonial power’s hold on Niger’s economy. This neo-colonial dominance expresses itself in many other ways. Niger, like other ex-French colonies in Africa, is tied to the French currency and the French financial system. It uses the Communaute Financiere Africaine (CFA) for its domestic and foreign financial transactions. 50% of the reserves of these African states are held in the French Treasury as part of an arrangement forged between the ex-colonies and France. Consequently, when France devalued the CFA, the impact upon the African economies including Niger was disastrous. If we look at these economies as a whole, it is only in the fields of external trade and investments that some positive changes have occurred in recent years largely because of the emergence of China as an important partner.
Outside the Nigerien economy, the neo-colonial presence is most visible in the form of French and American soldiers and bases. French and American militaries were brought in by the government to fight Muslim insurgents. The rise of these insurgents is linked — to some extent at least — to the US-NATO overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 which paved the way for the growth of so-called jihadist groups in parts of North and West Africa. Of course, the Jihadist phenomenon cannot be divorced from US and British intelligence operations in the post 9/11 period.
Resentment against French and American troops has reinforced the perception that leaders like Bazoum, though elected, were mere puppets of Western interests. This explains why in the huge demonstrations that have taken place in the Nigerien capital, Niamey, and elsewhere Bazoum was denounced for betraying the people. It is not just in Niger that anti-French and anti-Western sentiments have peaked. In three other states, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea such sentiments have also found expression. The presence of French and American troops in those states has also played a role in the mounting anger towards Western power. Economic difficulties faced by the people which are often attributed to Western dominance have exacerbated popular feelings. It is significant that in all 3 states military coups had taken place between August 2020 and September 2021.
As feelings against France in particular and the West in general have become more pronounced in West Africa, the mood towards Russia seems to have become more positive. An article in The Guardian (5 August 2023) notes that
“Russian flags were brandished by those demonstrating outside the French embassy in Niamey, with many calling for Vladimir Putin to replace Macron as their biggest global backer.”
Putin himself has been critical of the coup and has expressed the hope that civilian rule would be restored.
And indeed, civilian rule should prevail in Niger and other states in the region. But civilian rule should reflect the people’s legitimate desire for liberation from neo-colonial dominance. Civilian rule should uphold the dignity of the human being and the sovereignty of the people. It should protect the independence of the people which must include their right to own and control their economy and define and defend their own security.
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Dr Chandra Muzaffar is the president of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) Malaysia. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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Preface
It is important to have a short look at the history of this battle for more women’s rights. That is why I will shortly explain the ideology and social movement of Feminism, the factor which has driven women in their battle for equal chances and respect. Finally, I will come to my main topic which is the specific problems with which women have to deal concerning politics in Western democracies of (post)industrialized societies.[i] For instance, the question is: What is the representation of women in Western politics today? It would be taken a look at their representation in the Parliaments, and in which number they are able to occupy some key political positions. It will be discussed some evolutions and also the difficulties they still have to deal with because of their gender belonging. The crucial examples are coming from the European Union (the EU) and its Member States. Consequently, it is also important to try to propose some solutions to the issue of female representation in the Parliaments, for instance. Here, I will present the EU’s policy towards this issue as an example to try to answer two questions: Is a policy of active interference positive or not? What is about quota policy?
Feminism
Feminism can be seen as an ideology and a social movement that historically has been concerned with the unequal status of women (Steans, 2006, pp. 7-8).
In history, there were three big waves of feminism as a social movement; the first one is situated in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and refers mainly to women’s suffrage movements which were political and mainly concerned with women’s right to vote. The second wave is situated in the 1960s and refers to the ideas and actions associated with the women’s liberation movement which campaigned for legal and social equality for women. The third wave is situated at the beginning of the 1990s and still goes on. This wave refers to a continuation of, and a reaction to the perceived failures of second-wave feminism (Krolokke & Soronsen, 2005, pp. 24).
Furthermore, feminism can be seen as an ideology with different writings and investigations on the unequal status of women. In the 1920s and 1930s social science began to investigate gender[ii]. There was a main focus on sex roles investigation and while social scientists did not see sex and gender as synonymous, they believed that they were closely connected. They claimed that the particular characteristics of men and women led to the performances of particular social roles. The prevailing sexual division of labor reflected the close correspondence between gender traits and sex roles. Gender was thus held to be, if not immutable and natural, then at least relatively stable and fixed and, moreover, socially useful. It was even possible to speak about deviancy in relation to those people who were held to be insufficiently ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ and who could not be accommodated within this schema.
In the 1960s there was an upraise of feminist analyses which claimed that sex roles were assigned by society and male-identifying roles were frequently seen to be more important and deserving of greater social rewards than female-orientated roles. The theories that explained women’s particular status in terms of either their ‘natural’ or ‘essential’ characteristics were ideological, serving to legitimize an unjust social order that valued men and the ‘masculine’ more highly than women and the ‘feminine’.
On the basis of this analysis, feminists argued that the route to sexual equality and women’s liberation lay in challenging conventional sex roles. This was not an easy task as sex roles were deeply entrenched in a complex system of stereotyping, supported by a whole range of social institutions and practices and the state as a patriarchal power (Steans, 2006, pp. 8-10).
The feminist movement has given rise to a large body of theory that attempts to explain gender inequalities and set forth agendas for overcoming those inequalities. While feminist writers are all concerned with women’s unequal position in society, their explanations for it vary substantially. Competing schools of feminism have sought to explain gender inequalities through a variety of deeply embedded social processes, such as sexism, patriarchy, capitalism, and racism (Giddens, 2004, pp. 114).
An example of a feminist school is liberal feminism, which focuses on inequalities in social and cultural attitudes and independent deprivations from which women suffer, such as sexism, unequal payment, and the ‘glass ceiling’. Liberal feminists do not focus on gender study though and they do not deal with the root causes of gender inequality and do not acknowledge the systemic nature of women’s oppression in society, unlike radical feminists. Radical feminists believe that men are responsible for and benefit from the exploitation of women and belief the world system is a patriarchal one. Radical feminists do not believe that women can be liberated from sexual oppression through reforms or gradual change. Because patriarchy is a systemic phenomenon, they argue, gender equality can only be attained by overthrowing the patriarchal order. (Giddens, 2004, pp. 114-115).
There are many other feminist schools that are worth taking a look at, to mention a few others there is also black feminism, critical feminism, Marxist feminism, poststructuralist feminism, and postcolonial feminism. To discuss all is very interesting but then, I would not have the time left to discuss my main point of focus; the influence of gender in politics.
Politics and Gender
In most political systems, women are vastly underrepresented. Throughout the world, women face obstacles for their participation in politics. These barriers exist in prevailing social and economic systems, as well as in existing political structures. It is not the case that women are not represented, rather than that, they do not have the share of political power that would be expected given free and equal access. In other words, there is a democratic deficit (European Commission).
In 2007, the rate of female representation at the national level stands at merely 18 percent globally. Although this figure has increased in recent years, minimal progress has been made, meaning that the ideal of parity between men and women in national legislatures remains distant (IDEA).
Moreover, there are also very few women in ‘high politics’ (or key positions in politics). The achievements of some female individuals like I. Gandhi, G. Meir, B. Bhutto, and M. Thatcher, remarkable as they are, mask a considerable imbalance in the number of women who have political power (Clements & Spinks, 2006, pp. 82-83). The question can be asked if this is a consequence of discriminatory practices based on the belief that women are not ‘up’ for the job (Steans, 2006, pp. 28), a belief that is a consequence of traditions and stereotypes.
Some factors which make it hard for women to rise to the top levels of industry and commerce operate with even more vigor in politics. This includes firstly, the enormous drain on an individual’s time if they are to rise to the key political functions. Far fewer women, particularly if they choose to have children (and then become locked into a childcare role), are able to devote the time it takes to reach the top positions. Research made clear that childcare and housework are very unequally shared with the women taking on most of the burden. Secondly, the alleged operation of the ‘old boys’ network in the selection of key positions. Even where the policy is one of promotion to key jobs on merit alone, there are far fewer suitable qualified women (in terms of experience) to choose from. This is largely because access to such suitable qualified previous positions is not there for them in the first place. Thirdly, men also set the very standards by which women will be judged when they apply for senior positions, and these may discriminate against women because they are based on male assumptions of a ‘woman’s place’. Fourthly, political power might well represent the ultimate ability to influence things. Are men especially reluctant to loosen their grip on this? (Clements & Spinks, 2006, pp. 83, 85-87).
Women have certainly boosted their presence in European governments, thanks in part to electoral quotas, but are still under-represented despite high-profile exceptions like Angela Merkel and Margaret Thatcher. According to a study by the commission, the European Union’s executive arm, even if there are increasing numbers of women candidates their male counterparts still have a better chance of getting elected due to ingrained prejudices and customs.
‘It’s wrong to blame women voters. The main problem is that male voters vote for male candidates, argues Drude Dahlerup, a professor in the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University.’We are changing from the idea that equality will come by itself. Today we realize this is not the way things work, added Dahlerup, who has researched gender quota systems (European Commission).
The proportion of female members of national parliaments (single/lower house) across the EU has risen by around half over the last decade, from 16% in 1997 to 24% in 2008. Sweden, the Netherlands, and Finland are the only EU countries with more than 40% women in parliament, the majority (17) of the EU Member States still have less than 25% women Members of Parliament.
The European Parliament is just above the national parliament’s figure with 31% women and 69% men. This is a better balance than in national parliaments[iii] but progress towards gender equality has stagnated and there has been little change since the 1999 elections, the representation of women remains more or less static. The 2009 elections represent an opportunity to take the next step forwards. On average, men outnumber women among ministers in national governments by around three to one (25% women, 75% men) (European Commission).
While the last few years have seen a general increase in the number of women in decision-making positions in Europe, women remain very much in the minority in the political (and economic) spheres. In parliaments, governments, and ministries and in the private sector too, power is still firmly in men’s hands. The EU sees equality between women and men as a fundamental right. The Commission that handles the subject of gender equality is the ‘European Commission for Employment, Social Affairs, and Equal Opportunities’. The EU is committed to promoting gender equality in decision-making positions, raising awareness of the gender gap in this area, and taking action to improve the situation. That is why the Commission’s ‘Roadmap for Equality between Women and Men 2006-2010’ lists equal participation of women and men in decision-making as one of its priorities. Thus, the Roadmap is the basis for action towards gender inequality in the EU in which the participation of women in decision-making is a part.
The Commission has made an investigation around this issue and has come to some general facts which are worthwhile to take a look at.
A balanced choice of candidates for election ought to result in equality amongst elected representatives. Data from across Europe show that in general more women candidates result in more women being elected but that men still have a better chance of being elected. Extrapolation of results from the most recent national elections across Europe implies that, on average, an election with 50% women candidates would result in a parliament with just 39% women members or, putting it another way, there would need to be 63% women candidates to achieve parity in the final assembly.
Positive action in the form of electoral gender quotas can help bring about rapid change but they are not a guarantee of success. The way in which political parties allocate candidates to winnable seats or distribute them on lists has a significant part to play in the limited success to date in electing more women from the available candidates. Some types of electoral systems are more open to promoting favored candidates than others and the result is that women candidates are too often left with a low chance of being elected. The re-election of incumbents severely restricts the rate of member turnover at each election. Estimates suggest that, on average, around two-thirds of members are reelected on each occasion meaning that there are limited opportunities for new faces and, therefore, for change in the gender balance. At the last European elections in 2004 around two-thirds of the candidates were men and just one-third women. If the 2009 elections are to bring about any real progress in terms of gender equality then more women candidates need to be found. Although many voters indicate that they would like to see more women in elected positions, there is no strong evidence to suggest that people actually vote on the basis of gender (so it is wrong to think that people that want more women in politics, also in practice vote on the basis of gender).
Possible solutions
It is a mistake to think that the problem of the underrepresentation of women in parliaments, governments, and high politics will solve itself. The problem is a direct consequence of the gender inequality problem, which is very complex and has a lot of causes that are deeply rooted in society and its people. Therefore there is a need for a concrete policy on this issue.
In the EU document ‘Women in European Politics – time for Action (2009)’, of the European Commission certain methods of closing the representation gap are evaluated.
Quotas
The introduction of gender quotas, whether legislative or voluntary, can help to speed up change but they are not without controversy –some would argue that such affirmative actions contradict the principles of equal opportunity– and they are also not always the quick fix they might appear to be. Quotas can quickly boost the number of women candidates but do not guarantee that these women are positioned fairly on candidate lists or in electoral districts where they have a reasonable chance of being elected. Further action may therefore be necessary to ensure a coincident increase in the number of women, actually, elected.
In Slovenia, the elections held at the end of September were the first to be held at a national level since the 2006 National Assembly Elections Act, which imposes a quota for candidates by gender (minimum 25% in the transitional period, 35% thereafter). The quota was well respected with women accounting for more than one-third of the candidates but the final result saw just one more woman elected compared to the previous, pre-quota, parliament, and an overall membership of just 13% women and 87% men. Interestingly, the 2007 elections in Belgium (49% candidates; 37% elected) and the 2008 elections in Spain (47% candidates, 36% elected) both gave results very close to the projected result with 50% women candidates. However, there are of course exceptions on either side of the trend – the most recent elections in Slovenia, France, and Romania all saw far fewer women elected than would be expected from the fairly high shares of candidates, whilst in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden more women were elected compared to the general trend and the final results were even ahead of the parity line. Thus, on average, as would be expected, more women candidates generally result in more women being elected but it is striking how far the trend line deviates from parity.
Quotas can help the move towards gender parity but are not a guarantee of success. The first step in promoting female representation must be to promote more women candidates.
Electoral Systems and Political Parties
The most important factors that do prevent quotas from working are the allocation of candidates between electoral districts and/or the position of each candidate on lists (where relevant). All political parties want to win elections and even though many parties promise action on improving the representation of women, the bottom line is that their electoral strategy will always focus on maximizing the number of candidates elected ahead of any other issues.
Quotas are hardest to apply in single-winner systems where each party nominates a single candidate per constituency so that it is not possible to offer individual voters any choice by gender. Even if an overall quota is applied, the party is still at liberty to allocate candidates between constituencies and put favored candidates into ‘safe’ seats where votes for the party are generally secure. In multiple-winner systems where candidates are selected from party lists, usually by some form of proportional representation, then the order of candidates on the list significantly influences who is elected. In completely closed lists, voters effectively choose only which party they want to support and candidates are elected based on their position in the list and the proportion of votes received by the party. Even in the most open list systems, where voters select individual candidates who are then elected purely on the basis of the total number of votes received, analysis of voter behavior indicates that those near the top of the list have an advantage over those at the bottom. There is a variety of list-based electoral systems and most fall somewhere between the extremes of fully open or fully closed and offer considerable scope to influence who is elected from the full complement of candidates. In short, although quota systems can dramatically improve the gender balance amongst candidates, if they are to succeed in getting more women elected they need to be applied in a way that pays careful regard to the intricacies of the electoral system.
Thus the historical predominance of men and electoral systems combine to restrict the rate at which women are integrated into political life.
Re-election of incumbents
More women candidates usually means more women elected, yet a man has a better chance.
Politics is often a career choice and many incumbents seek re-election. Incumbents are more likely to be (re)elected than new candidates. given a choice of candidates from the same political party, voters tend to choose the well-known ones (usually the incumbents).
Political parties have an important role in determining the composition of elected bodies, to the extent that they can override the effect of quotas. At election time, voters will always tend to support someone that they know, and most of the time that will be the incumbent member. As a result, incumbents seeking re-election will tend to be favored by the party and benefit from any strategy to ensure electoral success for the party.
One solution to the problem of incumbent retention at infrequent elections could be to impose term limits, where elected members are only allowed to be re-elected a fixed number of times, thereby increasing turnover, or even prohibiting immediate re-election, which would immediately bring zero retention and 100% turnover. However, this type of approach can reduce the effectiveness of the legislature by excluding experienced policymakers and is unlikely to be voted in by the current incumbents. Nevertheless, it seems clear that the rate at which women can be integrated into political decision-making will remain slow unless the incumbency problem is addressed. Of course, once there is a good gender balance in an elected assembly then retention of incumbents can help to maintain that balance but this situation has not been reached in many assemblies.
Other measures
Of course, there are also other actions to think of to help solve the problem of unbalanced representation. The recruitment and selection of female candidates by political parties could be made better (more open), policies or action plans with the purpose of stimulating girls to take on political studies, women to make different career choices, and to take the step to political functions, to stimulate the ‘political sector’ to be more open towards women and to adapt itself.
Also, anti-discrimination policies in general could help people to think less about stereotypes and to change their mentality towards women and politics.
In elections also the role of the media is also playing, they could make an effort to increase their focus on female candidates.
Final remarks
We have seen that gender differences can lead to inequality in treatment and chances people get in life, simply based on the fact that they are a woman or a man. However, equality between women and men is a fundamental right. That is why the representation of women in politics requires an active policy to solve this democratic deficit.
However there have been some improvements in the situation, and there is still no equality in chances to be elected or to build out a political career, this is even less so at the very top.
Solutions are very diverse, and cannot stand alone, but need to be interactive. A policy towards this issue has to be full and involve a package of solutions to really be effective.
Further investigation towards the solutions and the effects of the solutions, not only on the representation of women in parliaments but also on their representation in high politics, is necessarily to close the gap of female representation in politics.
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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Sources
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) (2009). Democracy and Gender.http://www.idea.int/gender/
Krolokke, C. & Sorensen, A.S. (2005). Gender Communication Theories and Analyses: From Silence to Performance. Sage.
[i] About modernist industrial society, see [Brooker P. at al (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Modernisms, Oxford‒New York: Oxford University Press, 2016]. About the postmodern societies, see [Malpas S., The Postmodern, London‒New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2005]. The term post-modernity usually refers to a fully developed modernity which emerged in the affluent societies of West Europe and of European descent in the 1970s. [Kuper A., Kuper J. (eds.), The Social Science Encyclopedia, Second Edition, London‒New York: Routledge, 1996, 654‒655].
[ii] In the early social sciences, sex differences were largely taken for granted, reflecting the degree to which gender differences where uncontested –or perhaps unnoticed- among male-dominated scholarly communities (Steans, 2006, pp. 8-10).
[iii] The result of women representation may be better in European parliament because the perception of the European Parliament may also affect the selection of candidates and voter behavior. Although the European Parliament deals with a range of issues including environmental protection, consumer rights, equal opportunities, transport, and the free movement of workers, capital, services and goods, all of which have a direct impact on the daily lives of citizens, a recent survey reported that 51% of respondents were not interested in European elections. It may be that this contributes to making it easier for women to be selected as candidates for European elections than for national elections where voters tend to vote for well known individuals – often the established, and mostly male, incumbents (European Commission).
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While some estimates of Ukrainian dead vary between 300,000 and 400,000 Ukrainian sources admit to 310,000 deaths and the Wall Street Journal estimates between 20,000 and 50,000 have lost one or more limbs. Other estimates are that several hundred thousand are severely wounded.
This horrendous death total is not far short of the total British deaths during the whole of the Second World War and it is the result of the West’s genocidal exploitation of Ukraine as a battering ram for American neocon attempts to destroy Russia and the irresponsible hubris of hurling poorly trained troops (increasingly draftees with no military experience), with insufficient artillery, little missile defence and no air support, across dense minefields against well-entrenched Russian positions.
An Australian TV channel showed a story about foreign mercenaries fleeing Ukraine: they are simply afraid. To the question “What is it like on the front lines now? At the zero line?”
A mercenary replied: “At “zero” – horror. Just awful. It’s just genocide. It’s creepy there. Dead people everywhere. Corpses of Ukrainian soldiers. They were just left there. Just left there and I don’t know why.” It was into this cauldron that a British Foreign Secretary urged (illegally) British and other troops to go and fight!
The Ukrainian channel Rezident published a video, saying:
We thought for a long time whether to publish the video, but then we decided to show the reality of what the massacre of Azov (troops) looks like, to which the West sent the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the Office of the President supported this plan.
8 units of equipment burned down in a matter of minutes. All fields are monitored (by the Russians) 24/7 from copters that coordinate artillery fire. All fields are mined and do not allow the use of Zaluzhny’s tactics of quick cuts in the front and strikes on the flanks. In each attack (even a successful one), we lose dozens of pieces of equipment and a hundred soldiers.
In audio negotiations, you can hear how the fire is being coordinated, at the moment when our equipment is not supported by artillery and one (Russian) enemy tank stops the movement of the column.
So massive have troop losses been that, according to The Guardian journalist Nick Hauer, one of the problems of the Ukrainian counter-offensive is the lack of time to train fighters to make up for losses. As an example, he cites a conversation with the battalion commander of the 68th brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
These guys are not so young, are they?
Yes, they are completely different. Actually, I don’t like it. It reminds me of Germany in 1945: here is a group of fighters who have never served and two weeks of training is not enough, but we simply do not have time.
Also, his interlocutor noted high losses during the winter battles on the Ugledar front: out of 420 people, 100 were killed and wounded. According to the Ukrainian commander, “we are losing the best.”
Ukraine is also losing its youth. This young man was not even 17. The post was followed by over 700 angry comments filled with pain and denial.
“The West knew that Kiev would not have enough weapons for the offensive, but they believed in the “resourcefulness” of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
Those who threw these troops into a battle they knew they could not win but were trying to make some meagre gains “in order to better negotiate” are guilty of genocide of Ukrainians. One of the soldiers of the 23rd brigade told reporters from the New York Times that his battalion was literally destroyed by artillery fire. Of the attack, in which ten American MaxxPro armored vehicles took part, only one returned. The losses were horrific. In one month of fighting, as a Ukrainian military man told the NYT, only ten people remained in the ranks of the entire battalion (about 400-500 men).
63% of Ukrainians now say they know at least one close relative or friend who have died in the war, with the average number being three. This is a huge increase from the last survey in February, which found only 17% of Ukrainians reported a loss, while the figure in September of 2022 was just 9%. Link to the original survey data by KIIS.
Press Gangs Roam the Streets and “Snitch on a Draft Evader”
Daily there are videos on the internet of Ukrainian men of all ages being seized on the street for recruitment into the armed forces. Often they – or their women – folk fight back – and win! Ukrainian gas receipts contain the following:
‘You can receive a discount on payment for services if you report a collaborator or an (draft) evader using the єVorog bot.’
The extent to which the western press, especially in the USA, are at last awakening to the pointless slaughter is this report of the New York Times about the full cemeteries in Lviv:
“The old, unmarked graves of those who died in past wars will be dug up to make way for a seemingly endless stream of the dead.”
One woman who lost her 30-year-old son says: “The best of the best died. He graduated from the university. He had an honours degree. Why did he die?” Another: “It’s so hard to think – last summer there were so few of them [the dead), and now there are so many of them.”
Western Support Ebbing Away
The tensions within the western alliance are growing, with Germany unable to supply more tanks, the USA refusing to supply the latest Abrams tanks and Germany terminating an agreement with the Polish authorities on the repair of Leopard 2 tanks transferred to the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the territory of Poland (Handelsblatt) because Poland was asking 10 times the reasonable price for repairs!
SWITZERLAND has refused arms to Ukraine and ISRAEL denied Ukraine the supply of the Iron Dome air defense system and other heavy weapons, citing the fact that these weapons, if they get to Ukraine, could fall into the hands of Iran. (There is also an understanding with Russia that Israel does not supply heavy weapons to Ukraine, and Russia does not supply certain weapons and technologies to Iran.
Ukraine’s Zelensky was blocked from attending the summit of the EU and Community of Latin American and Caribbean States despite an invitation by the Spanish PM
Poland (which has historic claims on western Ukraine) demands more thanks for its support of Ukraine and an apology for the Volyn massacre in WW2. In 2022, Poland took in almost 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees which has resulted in a 50% rise in the population of Rzeszów, the largest city in south-eastern Poland. Warsaw’s population has increased by 15%, Kraków’s by 23%, and Gdansk’s by 34%). Poland has sent over 20,000 fighters to Ukraine.
Support for the war is falling in all European countries and only 31% of Americans are prepared to see US troops fighting in Ukraine (although of course many already are!)
Time to End this Mad War
I have already described the madness of this war which could so easily have been settled by agreeing to devolution for Russians and Russian speakers in Eastern Ukraine and the guaranteed neutrality of Ukraine. But that did not fit the long held plans of the American neocons who were determined to use Ukraine as a battering ram to “break up Russia” and have “regime change in Moscow”.
These imperialist US notions were mad enough but to use them to sacrifice not Americans but hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives is unforgivable. PEACE NOW!
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Since this article was first published almost three years year ago on July 11, 2020 under the title LancetGate: “Scientific Corona Lies” and Big Pharma Corruption. Hydroxychloroquine versus Gilead’s Remdesivir on July 3, 2020, there has been a virtual censorship of debate on Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and Ivermectin largely directed against medical doctors.
On June 29, 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is the head of NIAID granted the “Greenlight” to Gilead Sciences Inc. despite the fact that the study of the new experimental drug was “preliminary”.The NIH-NIAID sponsored report (May 22) was used to justify a major agreement with Gilead Sciences Inc.
A $1.6 billion agreement between the HHS and Gilead Sciences Inc. was announced on June 29th, 2020 despite the fact that NIH NIAID study published in the NEJM was considered “preliminary”. In the late 1990s, Gilead Sciences Inc was headed by Donald Rumsfeld (1997-2001), who later joined the George W. Bush administration as Secretary of Defense (2001-2006).
In recent developments, there is an ongoing campaign to suppress both Hydroxycholoroquine as well as Ivermectin as effective preventive and curative drugs.
The objective has been to sustain the vaccination campaign on behalf of Big Pharma.
A revised version of this article was published as a chapter in the author’s E-book. Free Download. See below
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, October 25, 2020, August 10, 2023
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’État Against Humanity
Translations in several languages are envisaged. The book is available in print form in Japanese. 仕組まれたコロナ危機:「世界の初期化」を目論む者たち
As a means to reaching out to millions of people worldwide whose lives have been affected by the corona crisis, we have decided to distribute the eBook for FREE.
LancetGate: “Scientific Corona Lies” and Big Pharma Corruption. Hydroxychloroquine versus Gilead’s Remdesivir
By Michel Chossudovsky
Introduction
There is an ongoing battle to suppress Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a cheap and effective drug for the treatment of Covid-19. The campaign against HCQ is carried out through slanderous political statements, media smears, not to mention an authoritative peer reviewed “evaluation” published on May 22nd by The Lancet, which was based on fake figures and test trials.
The study was allegedly based on data analysis of 96,032 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 between Dec 20, 2019, and April 14, 2020 from 671 hospitals Worldwide. The database had been fabricated. The objective was to kill the Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) cure on behalf of Big Pharma.
While The Lancetarticle was retracted, the media casually blamed “a tiny US based company” named Surgisphere whose employees included “a sci-fi writer and adult content model” for spreading “flawed data” (Guardian). This Chicago based outfit was accused of having misled both the WHO and national governments, inciting them to ban HCQ. None of those trial tests actually took place.
While the blame was placed on Surgisphere, the unspoken truth (which neither the scientific community nor the media have acknowledged) is that the study was coordinated by Harvard professor Mandeep Mehra under the auspices of Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) which is a partner of the Harvard Medical School.
When the scam was revealed, Dr. Mandeep Mehra who holds the Harvey Distinguished Chair of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital apologized:
I have always performed my research in accordance with the highest ethical and professional guidelines. However, we can never forget the responsibility we have as researchers to scrupulously ensure that we rely on data sources that adhere to our high standards.
It is now clear to me that in my hope to contribute this research during a time of great need, I did not do enough to ensure that the data source was appropriate for this use. For that, and for all the disruptions – both directly and indirectly – I am truly sorry. (emphasis added)
But that “truly sorry” note was just the tip of the iceberg. Why?
Studies on Gilead Science’s Remdesivir and Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) Were Conducted Simultaneously by Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH)
While The Lancetreport (May 22, 2020) coordinated by Dr. Mandeep Mehra was intended “to kill” the legitimacy of HCQ as a cure of Covid-19, another important (related) study was being carried out (concurrently) at BWH pertaining to Remdesivir on behalf of Gilead Sciences Inc. Dr. Francisco Marty, a specialist inInfectious Disease and Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School was entrusted with coordination of the clinical trial tests of the antiviral medication Remdesivir under Brigham’s contract with Gilead Sciences Inc:
Brigham and Women’s Hospital began enrolling patients in two clinical trials for Gilead’s antiviral medication remdesivir. The Brigham is one of multiple clinical trial sites for a Gilead-initiated study of the drug in 600 participants with moderate coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and a Gilead-initiated study of 400 participants with severe COVID-19.
… If the results are promising, this could lead to FDA approval, and if they aren’t, it gives us critical information in the fight against COVID-19 and allows us to move on to other therapies.”
While Dr. Mandeep Mehra was not directly involved in the Gilead Remdesevir BWH study under the supervision of his colleague Dr. Francisco Marty, he nonetheless had contacts with Gilead Sciences Inc: “He participated in a conference sponsored by Gilead in early April 2020 as part of the Covid-19 debate” (France Soir, May 23, 2020)
What was the intent of his (failed) study? To undermine the legitimacy of Hydroxychloroquine?
According to France Soir, in a report published after The Lancet Retraction:
The often evasive answers produced by Dr Mandeep R. Mehra, … professor at Harvard Medical School, did not produce confidence, fueling doubt instead about the integrity of this retrospective study and its results. (France Soir, June 5, 2020)
Was Dr. Mandeep Mehra in conflict of interest? (That is a matter for BWH and the Harvard Medical School to decide upon).
Who are the Main Actors?
Dr. Anthony Fauci, advisor to Donald Trump, portrayed as “America’s top infectious disease expert” has played a key role in smearing the HCQ cure which had been approved years earlier by the CDC as well as providing legitimacy to Gilead’s Remdesivir.
Dr. Fauci has been the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since the Reagan administration. He is known to act as a mouthpiece for Big Pharma.
Dr. Fauci launched Remdesivir in late June (see details below). According to Fauci, Remdesevir is the “corona wonder drug” developed by Gilead Science Inc. It’s a $1.6 billion dollar bonanza.
Gilead Sciences Inc: History
Gilead Sciences Inc is a Multibillion dollar bio-pharmaceutical company which is now involved in developing and marketing Remdesivir. Gilead has a long history. It has the backing of major investment conglomerates including the Vanguard Group and Capital Research & Management Co, among others. It has developed ties with the US Government.
In 1999 Gilead Sciences Inc, developed Tamiflu (used as a treatment of seasonal influenza and bird flu). At the time, Gilead Sciences Inc was headed by Donald Rumsfeld (1997-2001), who later joined the George W. Bush administration as Secretary of Defense (2001-2006). Rumsfeld was responsible for coordinating the illegal and criminal wars on Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003).
Rumsfeld maintained his links to Gilead Sciences Inc throughout his tenure as Secretary of Defense (2001-2006). According to CNN Money (2005): “The prospect of a bird flu outbreak … was very good news for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld [who still owned Gilead stocks] and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences”.
Anthony Fauci has been in charge of the NIAID since 1984, using his position as “a go between” the US government and Big Pharma. During Rumsfeld’s tenure as Secretary of Defense, the budget allocated to bio-terrorism increased substantially, involving contracts with Big Pharma including Gilead Sciences Inc. Anthony Fauci considered that the money allocated to bio-terrorism in early 2002 would:
“accelerate our understanding of the biology and pathogenesis of microbes that can be used in attacks, and the biology of the microbes’ hosts — human beings and their immune systems. One result should be more effective vaccines with less toxicity.” (WPo report)
In 2008, Dr. Anthony Fauci was granted the Presidential Medal of Freedom by president George W. Bush “for his determined and aggressive efforts to help others live longer and healthier lives.”
The 2020 Gilead Sciences Inc Remdesivir Project
We will be focussing on key documents (and events)
Chronology
February 21: Initial Release pertaining to NIH-NIAID Remdesivir placebo test trial
Gilead Sciences Inc. funded the study which included several staff members as co-authors.
The testing included a total of 61 patients [who] received at least one dose of remdesivir on or before March 7, 2020; 8 of these patients were excluded because of missing postbaseline information (7 patients) and an erroneous remdesivir start date (1 patient) … Of the 53 remaining patients included in this analysis, 40 (75%) received the full 10-day course of remdesivir, 10 (19%) received 5 to 9 days of treatment, and 3 (6%) fewer than 5 days of treatment.
The NEJM article states that “Gilead Sciences Inc began accepting requests from clinicians for compassionate use of remdesivir on January 25, 2020”. From whom, From Where? According to the WHO (January 30, 2020) there were 82 cases in 18 countries outside China of which 5 were in the US, 5 in France and 3 in Canada.
Several prominent physicians and scientists have cast doubt on the Compassionate Use of Remdesivir study conducted by Gilead, focussing on the small size of the trial. Ironically, the number of patients in the test is less that the number of co-authors: “53 patients” versus “56 co-authors”
Below we provide excerpts of scientific statements on the Gilead NEJM project (Science Media Centre emphasis added) published immediately following the release of the NEJM article:
“‘Compassionate use’ is better described as using an unlicensed therapy to treat a patient because there are no other treatments available. Research based on this kind of use should be treated with extreme caution because there is no control group or randomisation, which are some of the hallmarks of good practice in clinical trials. Prof Duncan Richard, Clinical Therapeutics, University of Oxford.
“It is critical not to over-interpret this study. Most importantly, it is impossible to know the outcome for this relatively small group of patients had they not received remdesivir. Dr Stephen Griffin, Associate Professor, School of Medicine, University of Leeds.
“The research is interesting but doesn’t prove anything at this point: the data are from a small and uncontrolled study. Simon Maxwell, Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Prescribing, University of Edinburgh.
“The data from this paper are almost uninterpretable. It is very surprising, perhaps even unethical, that the New England Journal of Medicine has published it. It would be more appropriate to publish the data on the website of the pharmaceutical company that has sponsored and written up the study. At least Gilead have been clear that this has not been done in the way that a high quality scientific paper would be written. Prof Stephen Evans, Professor of Pharmacoepidemiology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
“It’s very hard to draw useful conclusions from uncontrolled studies like this particularly with a new disease where we really don’t know what to expect and with wide variations in outcomes between places and over time. One really has to question the ethics of failing to do randomisation – this study really represents more than anything else, a missed opportunity.” Prof Adam Finn, Professor of Paediatrics, University of Bristol.
An independent data and safety monitoring board (DSMB) overseeing the trial met on April 27 to review data and shared their interim analysis with the study team. Based upon their review of the data, they noted that remdesivir was better than placebo from the perspective of the primary endpoint, time to recovery, a metric often used in influenza trials. Recovery in this study was defined as being well enough for hospital discharge or returning to normal activity level.
Preliminary results indicate that patients who received remdesivir had a 31% faster time to recovery than those who received placebo (p<0.001). Specifically, the median time to recovery was 11 days for patients treated with remdesivir compared with 15 days for those who received placebo. Results also suggested a survival benefit, with a mortality rate of 8.0% for the group receiving remdesivir versus 11.6% for the placebo group (p=0.059). (emphasis added)
In the NIH’s earlier February 21, 2020 report (released at the outset of the study), the methodology was described as follows:
… A randomized, controlled clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the investigational antiviral remdesivir in hospitalized adults diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) …
Numbers. Where? When?
The February 21 report confirmed that the first trial participant was “an American who was repatriated after being quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship” that docked in Yokohama (Japanese Territorial Waters). “Thirteen people repatriated by the U.S. State Department from the Diamond Princess cruise ship” were selected as patients for the placebo trial test. Ironically, at the outset of the study, 58.7% of the “confirmed cases” Worldwide (542 cases out of 924) (outside China), were on the Diamond Cruise Princess from which the initial trial placebo patients were selected.
Where and When: The trial test in the 68 selected sites? That came at a later date because on February 19th (WHO data), the US had recorded only 15 positive cases (see Table Below).
“A total of 68 sites ultimately joined the study—47 in the United States and 21 in countries in Europe and Asia.” (emphasis added)
There were 60 trial sites and 13 subsites in the United States (45 sites), Denmark (8), the United Kingdom (5), Greece (4), Germany (3), Korea (2), Mexico (2), Spain (2), Japan (1), and Singapore (1). Eligible patients were randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to receive either remdesivir or placebo. Randomization was stratified by study site and disease severity at enrollment
“The preliminary results, disclosed at the White House by Anthony S. Fauci, … fall short of the magic bullet or cure… But with no approved treatments for Covid-19,[Lie] Fauci said, it will become the standard of care for hospitalized patients …The data shows that remdisivir has a clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery,” Fauci said.
The government’s first rigorous clinical trial of the experimental drug remdesivir as a coronavirus treatment delivered mixed results to the medical community Wednesday — but rallied stock markets and raised hopes that an early weapon to help some patients was at hand.
The preliminary results, disclosed at the White House by Anthony Fauci, chief of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which led the placebo-controlled trial found that the drug accelerated the recovery of hospitalized patients but had only a marginal benefit in the rate of death.
… Fauci’s remarks boosted speculation that the Food and Drug Administration would seek emergency use authorization that would permit doctors to prescribe the drug.
In addition to clinical trials, remdesivir has been given to more than 1,000 patients under compassionate use. [also refers to the Gilead study published on April 10 in the NEJM]
The study, involving [more than] 1,000 patients at 68 sites in the United States and around the world (??), offers the first evidence (??) from a large (??), randomized (??) clinical study of remdesivir’s effectiveness against COVID-19.
The NIH placebo test study provided “preliminary results”. While the placebo trial test was “randomized”, the overall selection of patients at the 68 sites was not fully randomized. See the full report.
May 22: The Fake Lancet Report on Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ)
Immediately folllowing its publication, the media went into high gear, smearing the HCQ cure, while applauding the NIH-NIASD report released on the same day.
Remdesivir, the only drug cleared to treat Covid-19, sped the recovery time of patients with the disease, … “It’s a very safe and effective drug,” said Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. “We now have a definite first efficacious drug for Covid-19, which is a major step forward and will be built upon with other drugs, [and drug] combinations.”
When the Lancet HCQ article by Bingham-Harvard was retracted on June 5, it was too late, it received minimal media coverage. Despite the Retraction, the HCQ cure “had been killed”.
June 29: Fauci Greenlight. The $1.6 Billion Remdesivir Contract with Gilead Sciences Inc
Dr. Anthony Fauci granted the “Greenlight” to Gilead Sciences Inc. on June 29, 2020.
The Report was largely funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The earlier Gilead study based on scanty test results published in the NEJM (April 10), of 53 cases (and 56 co-authors) was not highlighted. The results of this study had been questioned by several prominent physicians and scientists.
Who will be able to afford Remdisivir? 500,000 doses of Remdesivir are envisaged at $3,200 per patient, namely$1.6 billion (see the study by Elizabeth Woodworth)
If this contract is implemented as planned, it represents for Gilead Science Inc. and the recipient US private hospitals and clinics a colossal amount of money.
[error in above title according to HHS: $3200]
According to The Trump Administration’s HHS Secretary Alex Azar (June 29, 2020):
“To the extent possible, we want to ensure that any American patient who needs remdesivir can get it. [at $3200] The Trump Administration is doing everything in our power to learn more about life-saving therapeutics for COVID-19 and secure access to these options for the American people.”
Remdesivir versus Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ)
Careful timing:
The Lancet study (published on May 22) was intended to undermine the legitimacy of Hydroxychloroquine as an effective cure to Covid-19, with a view to sustaining the $1.6 billion agreement between the HHS and Gilead Sciences Inc. on June 29th. The legitmacy of this agreement rested on the May 22 NIH-NIAID study in the NEJM which was considered “preliminary”.
What Dr. Fauci failed to acknowledge is that Chloroquine had been “studied” and tested fifteen years ago by the CDC as a drug to be used against coronavirus infections. And that Hydroxychloroquine has been used recently in the treatment of Covid-19 in several countries.
According to the Virology Journal (2005) “Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread”. It was used in the SARS-1 outbreak in 2002. It had the endorsement of the CDC.
HCQ is not only effective, it is “inexpensive” when compared to Remdesivir, at an estimated “$3120 for a US Patient with private insurance”.
Below are excerpts of an interview of Harvard’s Professor Mehra (who undertook the May 22 Lancet study) with France Soir published immediately following the publication of the Lancet report (prior to its Retraction).
Dr. Mandeep Mehra: In our study, it is fairly obvious that the lack of benefit and the risk of toxicity observed for hydroxychloroquine are fairly reliable. [referring to the May 22 Lancet study]
France Soir: Do you have the data for Remdesivir?
MM: Yes, we have the data, but the number of patients is too small for us to be able to conclude in one way or another.
FS: As you know, in France, there is a pros and cons battle over hydroxychloroquine which has turned into a public health issue even involving the financial lobbying of pharmaceutical companies. Why not measure the effect of one against the other to put an end to all speculation? …
MM: In fact, there is no rational basis for testing Remdesivir versus hydroxychloroquine. On the one hand, Remdesivir has shown that there is no risk of mortality and that there is a reduction in recovery time. On the other hand, for hydroxychloroquine it is the opposite: it has never been shown any advantage and most studies are small or inconclusive In addition, our study shows that there are harmful effects.
It would therefore be difficult and probably unethical to compare a drug with demonstrated harmfulness to a drug with at least a glimmer of hope.
FS: You said that there is no basis for testing or comparing Remdesivir with hydroxychloroquine, do you think you have done everything to conclude that hydroxychloroquine is dangerous?
MM: Exactly. …
All we are saying is that once you have been infected (5 to 7 days after) to the point of having to be hospitalized with a severe viral load, the use of hydroxychloroquine and its derivative is not effective.
The damage from the virus is already there and the situation is beyond repair. With this treatment [HCQ] it can generate more complications
FS Mandeep Mehra declared that he had no conflict of interest with the laboratories and that this study was financed from the endowment funds of the professor’s chair.
He participated in a conference sponsored by Gilead in early April 2020 as part of the Covid-19 debate.
France Soir, translated by the author, emphasis added, May 23, 2020)
In Annex, see the followup article by France Soir published after the scam surrounding the data base of Dr. Mehra’s Lancet report was revealed.
Concluding Remarks
Lies and Corruption to the nth Degree involving Dr. Anthony Fauci, “The Boston Connection” and Gilead Sciences Inc.
The Gilead Sciences Inc. Remdesivir study (50+ authors) was published in the New England Journal of Medicine (April 10, 2020).
Harvard Medical School and the BWH bear responsibility for having hosted and financed the fake Lancet report on HCQ coordinated by Dr. Mandeep Mehra.
Is there conflict of interest? BWH was simultaneously involved in a study on Remdesivir in contract with Gilead Sciences, Inc.
While the Lancet report coordinated by Harvard’s Dr. Mehra was retracted, it nonetheless served the interests of Gilead Sciences Inc.
It is important that an independent scientific and medical assessment be undertaken, respectively of the Gilead Sciences Inc New England Journal of Medicine (NEMJ) peer reviewed study (April 10, 2020) as well as the NIH-NIAID study also published in the NEJM (May 22, 2020).
ANNEX
Retraction by France Soir
The fraud concerning the Lancet Report was revealed in early June. France Soirin a subsequent article (June 5, 2020) points to the Boston Connection: La connexion de Boston, namely the insiduous relationship between Gilead Sciences Inc and Professor Mehra, Harvard Medical School as well as the two related Boston based hospitals involved.
The often evasive answers produced by Dr Mandeep R. Mehra, a physician specializing in cardiovascular surgery and professor at Harvard Medical School, did not produce confidence, fueling doubt instead about the integrity of this retrospective study and its results.
… However, the reported information that Dr. Mehra had attended a conference sponsored by Gilead – producer of remdesivir, a drug in direct competition with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) – early in April called for further investigation
It is important to keep in mind that Dr. Mandeep Mehra has a practice at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in Boston.
That study relied on the shared medical records of 8,910 patients in 169 hospitals around the world, also by Surgisphere.
Funding for the study was “Supported by the William Harvey Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The development and maintenance of the collaborative surgical outcomes database was funded by Surgisphere.”
The study published on May 22 sought to evaluate the efficacy or otherwise of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, alone or in combination with a macrolide antibiotic. …
It is therefore noteworthy that within 3 weeks, 2 large observational retrospective studies on large populations – 96,032 and 8,910 patients – spread around the world were published in two different journals by Dr. Mehra, Dr. Desai and other co-authors using the database of Surgisphere, Dr. Desai’s company.
These two practising physicians and surgeons seem to have an exceptional working capacity associated with the gift of ubiquity.
The date of May 22 is also noteworthy because on the very same day, the date of the publication in The Lancet of the highly accusatory study against HCQ, another study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine concerning the results of a clinical trial of…remdesivir.
In the conclusion of this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, “remdesivir was superior to placebo in shortening the time to recovery in adults hospitalized with Covid-19 and evidence of lower respiratory tract infection.”
Concretely: on the same day, May 22nd, one study demeaned HCQ in one journal while another claimed evidence of attenuation on some patients through remdesivir in another journal.
It should be noted that one of the main co-authors, Elizabeth “Libby”* Hohmann, represents one of the participating hospitals, the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, also affiliated with Harvard Medical School, as is the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where Dr. Mandeep Mehra practices.
Coincidence, probably.
Upon further investigation, we discovered that the first 3 major clinical trials on Gilead’s remdesivir were conducted by these two hospitals:
“While COVID-19 continues to circle the globe with scientists following on its trail, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) are leading the search for effective treatment.
“Both hospitals are conducting clinical trials of remdesivir.”
MGH has joined what the National Institute of Health (NIH) describe as the first clinical trial in the United States of an experimental treatment for COVID-19, sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of NIH. MGH is currently the only hospital in New England to participate in this trial, according to a list of sites shared by the hospital.
” It’s a gigantic undertaking, with patients registered in some 50 sites across the country, getting better.
“The NIH trial, which can be adapted to evaluate other treatments, aims to determine whether the drug relieves the respiratory problems and other symptoms of COVID-19, helping patients leave hospital earlier.**
As a reminder, the NIAID/NIH is led by Antony Fauci, a staunch opponent of HCQ.
Coincidence, probably.
“At the Brigham, two additional trials initiated by Gilead, the drug developer, will determine whether it alleviates symptoms in patients with moderate to severe illness over five- and ten-days courses. These trials will also be randomized, but not placebo controlled, and will include 1,000 patients at sites worldwide. Those patients, noted Francisco Marty, MD, Brigham physician and study co-investigator, will likely be recruited at an unsettlingly rapid clip.”
As a result, the first major clinical trials on remdesivir launched on March 20, whose results are highly important for Gilead, are being led by the MGH and BWH in Boston, precisely where Dr. Mehra, the main author of the May 22nd HCQ trial, is practising.
Small world! Coincidence, again, probably.
Dr. Marty at BWH expected to have results two months later. Indeed, in recent days, several US media outlets have reported Gilead’s announcements of positive results from the remdesivir clinical trials in Boston.:
“Encouraging results from a new study published Wednesday on remdesivir for the treatment of patients with COVID-19.**
Brigham and Dr. Francisco Marty worked on this study, and he says the results show that there is no major difference between treating a patient with a five-day versus a 10-day regimen.
…”Gilead Announces Results of Phase 3 Remdesivir Trial in Patients with Moderate COVID-19
– One study shows that the 5-day treatment of remdesivir resulted in significantly greater clinical improvement compared to treatment with the standard of care alone
– The data come on top of the body of evidence from previous studies demonstrating the benefits of remdesivir in hospitalized patients with IDVOC-19
“We now have three randomized controlled trials demonstrating that remdesivir improved clinical outcomes by several different measures,” Gilead plans to submit the complete data for publication in a peer-reviewed journal in the coming weeks.
These results announced by Gilead a few days after the May 22 publication of the study in the Lancet demolishing HCQ, a study whose main author is Dr. Mehra, are probably again a coincidence.
So many coincidences adds up to coincidences? Really ?
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Introduction
For the last 40 years, the media and the academics of the West have been telling us that North Korea has all the sins and none of the virtues in the world, whereas the U.S. has all the virtues and no sins in the world. That is, North Korea is a bad boy while the U.S. is a good boy.
Therefore, if the “nuclear crisis” is not resolved, it is the fault of the bad boy; if it succeeds, it results from the good deeds of the good boy.
Such a terribly simplified picture of the nuclear crisis drawn by Washington has prevented us from understanding what has been really going on between North Korea and the U.S.
I have been watching the West’s dichotomous version of the nuclear crisis of North Korea and I have come to the conclusion that we must find the real picture of the crisis outside the analytical frame of the West’s media an academic writings.
We all know that the story of North Korean nuclear crisis is terribly complex, complicated and confusing. This is so because the lawmakers and policymakers involved in the crisis hide truth or manufacture stories in order to promote the interests of their countries or their own personal interests. This is so particularly in the case of the strong countries which can dictate media information.
The story of the nuclear crisis is the story of the unipolar world in which Washington tries to manipulate the regional security dynamics of East Asia. It is a story of how the Pro-Japan conservative South Korea (PJCSK), Japan and the U.S. China and Russia have been trying to define their North Korea policy in function of their national interests.
It is especially the story of the tiny country known as Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) which has been struggling to survive with dignity and pride and advance in a hostile geopolitical situation.
The 75-year history of North Korea is the story of how the North Korean people have dealt with America’s persistent nuclear threat, multinational merciless economic sanctions, the West’s policy of perpetual diplomatic alienation and blind ideological attacks.
To write these stories, I need to write several books, which I cannot. What I am trying to do is to write a short article focussing on the drama from a Korean perspective of the so-called, “nuclear crisis.”
I am fully aware that many countries have been involved directly or indirectly in the dynamics of the nuclear crisis. But in this paper, I am limiting my thoughts to the bilateral nuclear relations between Pyongyang and Washington.
To be more precise, this paper asks the following questions:
What is the origin of the North Korean nuclear crisis?
How has the North Korean nuclear crisis evolved?
Which country is responsible for the North Korean nuclear crisis?
What are the real objectives of America’s policy on the North Korean nuclear crisis?
What will happen to the North Korean nuclear crisis?
1. What is the Origin of the North Korean nuclear crisis?
U.S. War Crimes against the People of North Korea
The origin of the North Korean nuclear crisis is the mutual hate and mistrust between the country of Juche and the country of Uncle Sam.
For North Korea, the U.S. is a hateful enemy. For America, North Korea is hateful but a useful enemy.
North Koreans have reasons to dislike and even hate the U.S. government. They were crucified by the Americans during the Korean War and they have been demonized.
During the Korean War, North Korea lost more than 20% of its population due to US napalm bombing and the use of chemical and biological weapons. Its women were raped en masse on the streets by GIs.
Every single standing structure was destroyed by American planes and canons.
Pyongyang 1953
General Curtis LeMay who coordinated the bombing raids against North Korea during the Korean War (1950-53) candidly acknowledged that:
“We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, someway or another, and some in South Korea too.… Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure?” Strategic Air Warfare: An Interview with Generals (1988)
The criminal bombings of Pyongyang in 1951 ordered by president Truman, were acknowledged by General Douglas MacArthur who was commander of allied forces in Korea:
“A defiant Douglas MacArthur appeared before Congress and spoke of human suffering so horrifying that his parting glimpse of it caused him to vomit.
“I have never seen such devastation,” the general told members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. At that time, in May 1951, the Korean War was less than a year old. Casualties, he estimated, were already north of 1 million.
“I have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man,” he added, “and it just curdled my stomach.” (quoted by the Washington Post, August 10, 2017)
Video: The Criminal Bombing of North Korea
The Country of Juche
The country of Juche has been the most demonized by Americans on the basis of lies or intentionally fabricated information. One thing we have to know is the fact that most of the published information on North Korea come from North Koreans who left their country for personal reasons including crimes committed.
In many cases, these people are forced by anti-Pyongyang Intelligence services to fabricate stories. Moreover, in many cases, these defectors are generously paid for lies.
The country of Juche doctrine is blamed for not believing in God. But North Koreans believe in their gods which can be different depending upon the believer. However, religion should not be used for political interests.
It is accused for having concentration camps torturing 100,000 prisoners. Nobody knows where such information came from. However, in the 1950s and 1960s, there was a scale purge for re-education of those who were against the Juche regime.
North Korea is suspected for executing people on the street. It is possible that it happened. In one case, the person was executed because of treason. But it should not happen. Even in developed countries, the police kill people on the street because of skin colour. Is it not the case of street execution?
The North Korean leaders are labelled as merciless dictators. They may be dictators like most political leaders in the world. Remember this. The dictatorship may come from the money, the power and the corruption.
The North Korean government is accused for making its people suffer from hunger. This accusation is partly true. The hunger comes from various sources including the will of Mother Nature, bad economic policy and, especially, economic sanctions imposed by Washington and the UN.
North Korean political regime is ridiculed for violating human rights. This is the most regular item found in the menu of international diplomacy. But, which human rights are we talking about?
One thing we should know is that there are two principal types of human rights adopted by the UN.
One is the civic and political rights. When public authority prevents the citizen from participating in demonstrations against government policy, the public authority violates such human rights. Every country violates these human rights including the U.S. The other is the economic, social and cultural human rights. This is the right to physical survival, that is, the right to eat, to dress up and to live in decent housing.
In other words, if the government fails to provide food, clothing and housing, it violates such human rights. For this human right, it can be said that North Korea is trying its best despite economic sanctions. Does Washington respect this type of human rights with its awesome wealth?
Above all, I may add that the West led by Washington use human rights issues as an unethical diplomatic weapon. I think that it is a shame.
The recent trend is that the most popular criterion for human right abuse is whether the target country is pro-U.S. or not pro-U.S.
Above all, the country of Juche is made a global outcast for the alleged reason that North Korea threatens the regional security with its nuclear weapons. This is something difficult to digest.
Remember this. The combined GDP of South Korea, Japan and the U.S. is about USD 32,000 billion as against about USD 45 billion for North Korea. The combined annual national defence budget of the U.S., South Korea and Japan is about USD 1,000 billion against USD 10 billion for North Korea.
You tell me how such a tiny country can be threat to the region? Besides, as far as I know, North Korea has no intention to invade any country. In fact, peaceful cooperative co-existence with neighbouring countries is what Pyongyang wants.
Thus, the crucifixion and the demonization of North Korea by Americans are good reasons for which North Koreans to dislike and mistrust Americans, especially the pro-war elite group in Washington.
On the other hand, the U.S. hates North Korea for all sorts of reasons. It killed GIs; it prevented the U.S. from winning the Korean War; it has refused to become America’s vassal state.
Image: United States Navy Lockheed EC-121M Warning Star Bu. No. 135749 in pre-1969 paint scheme. (Licensed under the Public Domain)
Moreover, North Korea captured US spy ship, Pueblo, on 23 December 1968 and shot down US Air Force spy plane, EC-121M on April 15 1969. These events humiliated VIPs in Washington.
Washington wanted to make South Korea the model of democratic and rich country so that North Koreans envy South Koreans.
But to the displeasure of Americans, North Koreans have little respect for the military dictatorship and the corruption culture created by the pro-Japan conservative government. For this, the U.S. is displeased with North Korea.
Under these circumstances, North Korea and the U.S. are enemies; they dislike each other, they do not trust each other.
Moreover, ever since the armistice of 1953, the U.S. has been threatening North Korea with nuclear attacks. In fact, Washington had been deploying (since 1953) 100 nuclear war heads in South Korea until 1991.
In short, there are two factors responsible for the origin of the nuclear crisis.
The first factor is Washington’s hatred against North Korea and its decision to destroy the country of Juche even with nuclear weapons.
The second factor is Pyongyang’s hatred against and its mistrust of Washington forcing North Korea to defend itself with nuclear weapons.
Since the initiative of nuclear confrontation was taken by Washington, the U.S. is the origin of the U.S.-DPRK nuclear conflict.
2. How Has the North Korean Nuclear Crisis Evolved?
By the way, I define the nuclear crisis used in this paper. The word “crisis’ means a situation which can become “dangerous” if it is not corrected. In this paper, nuclear crisis refers to the Washington-Pyongyang nuclear confrontation even without imminent military confrontation. Therefore, the nuclear crisis in North Korea has existed ever since 1953.
My definition of nuclear crisis may be a little broader than the usual definition which relates to imminent military attack.
The evolution of the nuclear crisis has taken place in three stages:
North Korea’s nuclear development planning
Vicious circle of denuclearization
Nuclear development for nuclear statehood
2.1. The stage of North Korea’s nuclear development planning: 1953-1991
This is the stage where North Korea felt obliged to prepare nuclear weapons to defend itself from the American nuclear threat.
1953: This year was the year of armistice and not the end of the Korean War. Washington’s possible hidden purpose was to maintain the state of war so that the Washington can control Korean affairs and sell weapons
1957: North Korea started to develop tactical weapons
1959: Soviet assistance for nuclear research and the establishment of the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center
1965: North Korea obtained 2-MW light water reactor. The Soviet left North Korea
1980s: North Korea started to build 5-MW natural uranium reactor which could produce 6kg weapon-grade plutonium. Washington begun to pay attention
1985: North Korea joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) under pressure of Washington.
1991: With the closing of the Cold War, the U.S. removed 100 nuclear warheads from South Korea, which facilitated the negotiation for denuclearization.
2.2. The stage of vicious circle of denuclearization, 1992-2016
1992: Since the U.S. removed the nuclear weapon from the Korean soil, North Korea thought of denuclearizing and promised the following:
No nuclear weapon testing,
No nuclear weapon production,
No receiving of nuclear technology and
No deployment of nuclear weapons.
1993:
The U.S carried out the Team Spirit military exercises
North Korea withdrew from NPT
North Korea refused IAEA inspections
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton planned to attack North Korea
Former president Jimmy Carter went to North Korea and met Kim Il-sung in order to denuclearization
And, in 1993, there as a hope that Washington would not continue nuclear threat and in 1994, North Korea signed so called the Framework Agreement.
But, North Korea’s dream for denuclearization was shattered because of what I call, the vicious circle of denuclearization.
There were fivesteps in the vicious cycle of denuclearization in the period 1992-2016:
Step 1: International pressure for dialogue
Step 2: Denuclearization agreements
Step 3: North Korea’s implementation of the Agreement
Step 4: Washington’s claims that North Korea cheats, hides something
Step 5: North Korea stops denuclearization and resumes nuclear development programs
Vicious cycle 1: The Framework Agreement, October 21, 1994
Step 1: 1993: U.S. President Jimmy Carter persuaded President Bill Clinton to abandon his plan to attack North Korea, which led to the agreement of denuclearization after the Geneva Meeting in October, 1994.
Step 2: The Framework Agreement, October 21, 1994
North Korea agreed to
stop plutonium enrichment program,
stop the construction of nuclear facilities.
The U.S. agreed to
remove sanctions,
provide 500,000 crude oil,
build two light water reactors for civil use.
Step 3: North Korea implemented the agreement 1994-2003
Step 4: Washington spoiled the agreement arguing that North Korea did not implement the agreement
Clinton hoped that North Korea would collapse due to the death of President Kim Il-sung (July 8, 1994) and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
North Korea tested a missile in 1998 (August 31); Washington argued that this was the violation of the agreement. But it was not included in the agreement
In 2002, President George W. Bush put North Korea on “the axis of evil”
Step 5: North Korea being disappointed with Washington’s strategy resumed its nuclear development program.
Vicious Cycle 2: The September-19 Joint Statement of 2005
Here, I may say a few words about the 6-Party Talks. After the failure of the 1994 Agreement, the international community put pressure on Washington to engage dialogue with Pyongyang. Washington could do it, rather it should do it, but it did not for some reasons.
Perhaps, because, it wanted to let North Korea to continue its nuclear development program provided that it would not be a threat against the U.S. I will explain later why.
But, given the international pressure, Washington had to do something. The something was to ask China to organize the dialogue. China accepted to organize and lead the dialogue.
At first, it was 3-Party Talk: China, the U.S. and North Korea. But the U.S. invited South Korea and Japan which prevented the 3 Party Talk from succeeding.
Washington knew that Tokyo and Seoul were not in favour of denuclearization so that they could reap electoral benefits from the North-South tension. The continuation of the North-South tension resulting from North Korea’s nuclear weapon development has been one of the best allies of electoral wins of South Korea and Japan.
On its side, China invited Russia which would favour dialogue. Thus, from the beginning, the 6-party talk took place among three countries in favour of the dialogue and three other countries against the dialogue.
Thus, from the beginning, the 6-Party-Talk had little chance of success. However, owing to China’s leadership and devotion, the Talk produced three Joint Statements (Agreements), although they were all made useless by Washington.
We will see below what happened to these agreements. Now, we come back to the second vicious circle of denuclearization.
Step 1: The pressure of the 6-Party Talk members
Step 2: The September-19 Joint Statement of 2005
North Korea agreed to
give up all current nuclear programs,
return to NPT.
The U.S. agreed to:
provide light water reactors to North Korea,
not to invade North Korea and guarantee security,
normalize relations with North Korea,
the U.S sanctions remained.
Step 3: North Korea implemented the agreement.
Step 4: The agreement was not carried out due to U.S. behaviour
September 25, 2005: the U.S. Treasury Department accused North Korea of money laundering with funds in the Banco Dela Asia (BDA) in Macao; the funds were frozen;
October 21, 2005: Washington put North Korea back on the list of state sponsor countries
Step 5: North Korea
Resumed its nuclear development program.
North Korea conducted its first nuclear test on October 9, 2006 in order to continue the talks in a better bargaining position.
Vicious Cycle 3: The February 13 Joint Statement of 2007
Step 1: Pressure of the 6-Party Talk member
Step 2: The February-13 Joint Statement of 2007
North Korea agreed to
shut down the nuclear facilities in Yongbyon,
abandon nuclear program.
The U.S. agreed to
accept the bilateral talk,
remove North Korea from the list of state sponsor countries,
Step 3: North Korea was ready to implement the agreement.
Step 4: G.W. Bush qualified North Korea as “as brutal regime”.
Step 5: North Korea did not object and refrained from conducting nuclear development program.
Vicious Cycle 4: The October 3 Joint Statement of 2007
Step 1: Pressure by the 6-Party Talks members.
Step 2: The October-3 Joint Statement of 2007.
North Korea agreed to:
disable the nuclear reactor,
declare all nuclear programs,
disable the 5-MW reactor in Yongbyon,
declare all the nuclear development programs.
The U.S. agreed to
increase bilateral meetings to increase mutual trust,
remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism,
provide 100,000 tons heavy fuel oil,
Step 3: North Korea implemented the agreement.
Step 4: The U.S. made North Korea disappointed by Rice’s behaviour.
The U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, raised the issue of the verification of North Korea claims; the verification was not in the agreement.
Step 5: North Korea slowed down its denuclearization.
In April 2009, North Korea launched a satellite of communication, but Washington insisted it was ICBM.
Disappointed once again with the American attitude, North Korea left the 6-party talks for good on April 14, 2009
North Korea conducted its second nuclear test on May 25, 2009 to show its displeasure with Washington’s behaviour.
Vicious Cycle 5: Leap Day Agreement of February 29 of 2012
Step 1: International pressure for the restoration of the dialogue and the 6-Party Talk
Step 2: Leap Day Agreement February 29, 2011
North Korea agreed to
suspend nuclear tests and long-range missile tests,
not to undertake uranium enrichment activities,
allow the IAEA to verify and supervise North Korean nuclear activities.
The U.S. agreed to
stop hostility toward North Korea,
provide 240,000 tons of nutritious foods to North Korea.
Step 3: North Korea was ready to implement the agreement
Step 4: North Korea announced that it would launch a satellite; Washington said that it violated the agreement. But the satellite launch was not in the agreement.
Step 5: Dissatisfied with Washington’s accusation, North Korea resumed its nuclear development program.
Thus, the U.S. had five chances to denuclearize North Korea. But, it has obliged North Korea to continue its nuclear development program. Why? We come back to this question later.
North Korea’s 3rd Nuclear test on February 12, 2013 was designed to show that North Korea can go further with the development of nuclear weapons.
2.3. The stage of nuclear development for nuclear statehood
This period was characterized by the projection of two images of North Korea. One was North Korea’s pride of having become at last a bona fide nuclear state. The other image was the bold and self-confident behaviour of Chairman, Kim Jong-un as the head of a nuclear state.
2016 February 7: North Korea launches a satellite with a long-range rocket
2016 March-April: The U.S. and South Korea conducted the Key Resolve joint military exercise with 300,000 South Korean soldiers and 17,000 American soldiers with carrier battle group and performed the simulation of “decapitation” meaning cutting off the head of the North Korean leader.
2016 June 6: North Korea’s 4th Nuclear Test
This test was a step closer to North Korea’s nuclear statehood. This test was a hydro bomb test and North Korea thinks that it has attained its nuclear goal to have effective deterrence against any foreign invasion.
2016 September 9: the 5th Nuclear Test
This nuclear test was intended to show to the world that North Korean nuclear technology is further progressing.
2017 January: Donald Trump becomes US president
2017 July 4: launching of ICBM Hwasong-14. This event was the most important moment in the evolution of North Korean nuclear technology. The message was that now North Korea had the capacity to carry miniaturized nuclear weapon as far the U.S. territory.
Hwasong-14 flight test, July 2017. Photo: KCNA
2017 September 3: 6th nuclear test (hydro bomb). This test took place two month after the Trump’s threat of nuclear attack against North Korea and was intended to tell Trump that North Korea is ready to defend itself.
The launching of Hwasong-14 combined with the three latest nuclear tests meant that North Korea has become a nuclear state deserving respect.
2017 November: North Korea was put back on the list of state sponsor of terrorism
2018 February 9-25: Pyongchang Winter Olympics. This event and a series of summits which took place after the Winter Olympics showed the possibility of the North-South and the U.S-DPRK dialogue and peace process was possible.
The brilliant diplomatic performance of Kim Yo-jong, now number 2 leader in North Korea, showed that, in North Korea, there were well-educated and world-class leaders. She contributed to the projection of favourable image of North Korea.
2018 April 27: Moon – Kim summit at DMZ. This summit between Moon Jae-in, President of South Korea and Kim Jong-un, the Chairman of North Korea showed North Korea’s wish of ending the Korean War and the establishment of peace on the peninsula and sustained economic cooperation.
2018 June 12: Kim-Trump summit, Singapore:
This summit between Chairman, Kim Jong-un of North Korea and Donald Trump, President of the U.S. was of historical importance.
The summit did not produce any concrete results, but it indicated the possibilities of Washington-Pyongyang direct peace dialogue.
I may add that this summit was possible owing to the inspiring diplomacy of Moon Jae-in, President of South Korea.
2018 September 6: Kim-Moon Summit in Pyongyang. The outcome of this summit may be summarized in terms of demilitarization of hot regions in the east coast lines and the west coast lines on the one hand and, on the other, the mutual wish for the reunification of two Koreas.
2019 February 27-28: Kim-Trump summit in Hanoi. Chairman, Kim Jung-un made a 6-day train trip by train to meet with Trump.
The hope was high. Both Presidents, Donald Trump and Chairman, Kim Jong-un seemed eager to solve the nuclear crisis. The two leaders were supposed to simply sign the agreement prepared before hand by advisors.
Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un shake hands at the Hanoi Summit in Vietnam, February 27, 2019. Photo credit: White House
But, at the critical moment, John Bolton, the champion of for the Complete, Verifiable and Irreversible Denuclearization (CVID) gave a small piece of paper which made Trump leave the conference room. The world wonders about the contents of the piece of paper.
It is likely that it contained some sort of threat forcing Trump to abandon the peace-process with North Korea.
2019 June 30: Kim-Trump summit in DMZ South Korea. It was said that they would resume the peace process, if and when time comes for it.
2023 April 13: launching of ICBM Hwasong-18 which can reach 15,000 km.
This took place 13 days before the Yoon-Biden summit to warn against Washington-Seoul military alliance. North Korea can be a real threat to the U.S, if the Pentagon or Seoul or Japan attack North Korea.
2023 April 26: Yoon-Biden summit in Washington. In this summit, South Korean President, Yoon Suk-yeol would have asked Joe Biden, President of the U.S. to protect Yoon’s government and the pro-Japan conservatives in South Korea from North Korean nuclear attack in exchange with the deployment of South Korean armed forces to China-Taiwan War.
Biden promised two things. On the one hand, Washington would deploy, if needed, American war assets including nuclear submarines at the cost of South Korea. On the other hand, South Korea would be a part of a nuclear consultative committee.
As a result, the Yoon-Biden summit has intensified the nuclear crisis of North Korea
2023 July 18: Proposal of Summit with no conditions. Biden’s Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan proposed DPRK-U.S. bilateral talks without preconditions.
He surely knows that North Korea is not naïve enough to fall again into the trap of Washington’s “without condition” proposal. Then, why did he make such empty proposal?
If Pyongyang refuses, then Washington’s favourite rhetoric comes in and tells the world that North Korea refuses the peace dialogue.
But, as far as North Korea is concerned, this is an empty gesture with no meaning. It is hard to see how talks without conditions can achieve anything.
Kim Yo-Jong, key member of the State Affairs Commission (SAC) replies with dismay and even with anger,
“It is a day dream for the U.S. to think that it can stop the advance of the DPRK and, furthermore, achieve irreversible disarmament by reversible by such incentives as sanctions relief, suppression of Pentagon’s joint military exercises with South Korea and a halt to deployment of strategic weapons in the region.” (Rt report quoted in 21cir Century, July 18, 2023)
The evolution of the North Korean nuclear crisis may be summed up this way.
The DPRK planned nuclear development for 37 years (1953-1991) under the leadership of late President Kim Il -sung;
North Korea has experienced the vicious circles of denuclearization for 23 years, (1993-2016) under the government of late Supreme leader Kin Jong-il who really wanted to denuclearize his country.
In 2002, he was reported to have told the Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi who visited Pyongyang that North Korea was so eager to get rid of nuclear development program and that North Korea had to have nuclear weapons only to defend his country.
And, since 2017, under the chairmanship of Kim Jong-un, North Korea has been ready to meet any external threat with its nuclear weapons as a full-fledged nuclear state.
3. Which Country Is Responsible for the North Korean Nuclear Crisis?
To find the country responsible for the nuclear crisis in North Korea, we have to find the country which has done two things.
First, we have to find the country which has forced North Korea to undertake the development of nuclear protection. As we saw above, it was the United States which forced North Korea to feel obliged to develop nuclear arsenal.
Second, we have to find the country which has been responsible for the continuation of the North Korean nuclear crisis. As we saw above, it has been Washington which has prevented North Korea from abandoning nuclear development
So, to sum up, the responsible of the nuclear crisis is Washington, because it forces North Korea to go for nuclear defence on the one hand, and on the other, it allowed the crisis to perpetuate.
But, why did Washington behave the way it behaved? Now we turn to this question:
4. What Are the Real Objectives of America’s Policy on the North Korean Nuclear Crisis?
It appears that the North Korean nuclear crisis serves two policy objectives of Washington, namely weapon sales and the regime destruction.
The nuclear crisis of North Korea creates North-South tension and it allows the Pentagon to justify bigger defence budget and higher profit for the American war industry.
Moreover, the nuclear crisis provides excuse to Washington to qualify the Juche regime as “dangerous regime” deserving to be changed, or rather, to be destroyed.
In this way, the nuclear crisis serves the double purpose of making money and destroying a regime which is unacceptable to the West led by the U.S.
The destruction of the North Korean regime is a common wish of pro-Japan conservative South Korea, Japan and the U.S. for different reasons.
For the pro-Japan conservative South Korea (PJCSK), the survival of the Juche regime leading to the peaceful unification of Korea means that the PJCSK people becomes shrinking minority leading to the loss of power and wealth.
For Japan, the survival of the Juche regime leading to peaceful unification of the Korean peninsula means increasing economic, political, trade and even military threat.
Now, we may also examine why Washington is so eager to destroy North Korean regime. As far as Washington is concerned, North Korea’s regime is bad and it can pollute good regimes.
In short, all these three countries wish the destruction of the Juche regime. There are two ways of doing it, namely, by force or by internal turmoil. But the regime destruction by force is costly, at least for now.
So, the best way of destroying the North Korea regime is the maintenance of nuclear crisis which will harm the economy and increase North Korean people’s suffering thus leading to internal revolt. Therefore, the nuclear crisis should be allowed to continue.
The nuclear crisis combined with economic sanctions will destroy the Juche regime.
Moreover, as mentioned above, the nuclear crisis is the good source of profit for the American war industry. South Korea buys each year American weapons amounting to USD 10 billion to USD 20 billion. Japan buys much more. The Philippines buys American military wonders along with other East Asian countries.
But, despite the pressure coming from nuclear weapons programs and economic sanction, there is no sight of North Korean people’s uprising; the Juche regime is solid.
Here, the Washington has underestimated the Juche regime which makes North Koreans to be loyal and devote themselves to their country and to their leaders.
The North Korean life philosophy is the combination of Taoism (pragmatism), Buddhism (freedom from secular desires) and Confucianism (hierarchical social order). These traditional values make North Korean people to be practical, to be ready to endure hardship and to give greater priority to common goods than to private interests.
The Juche doctrine (or religion) is, in a way, an integration of these Asian values into “the belief of trinity.”
The Juche doctrine begins with the notion that man is free and master of himself. Now, the individuals identify themselves, out of free will, with .the nation. Moreover, the individuals identify themselves with the leader.
The individuals are the center of the nation. Moreover, the individuals, the nation and the leader are “one” and “the same.”
What the leader is doing and thinking is what the individual and the nation are doing and thinking.
What the individual is doing and thinking is what the leader and the nation are doing and thinking.
What the nation is doing and thinking is what the leader and the individual are doing and thinking.
In this doctrine, when individual is revolting against the leader, the individual is revolting against himself.
In this doctrine, the individual is in the leader; the leader is in the individual.
That is why North Koreans do not revolt against the leader.
The Juche doctrine was the idea of late president, Kim Il-sung but refined by his son, late Kim Jong-il, who was quite a thinker. But, it took decades of education before the doctrine has become North Koreans’ way of living and thinking.
If there were no popular protests against the government despite nuclear threat, despite economic hardship largely due to sanctions and despite years of famine, it was the results the Juche doctrine.
The Juche doctrine was something which the Washington did not understand or did not want to understand.
Thus, Washington’s anti-North Korea policy failed as far as the regime destruction is concerned. However, it succeeded in weapon sales and making huge profit for the American Pro-War Community (AMPC).
5. What Will Happen to the North Korean Nuclear Crisis?
We can think of the following scenarios in connection with the future of the North Korean nuclear crisis.
First Scenario: the nuclear crisis will continue as long as the North Korea is not a real threat, because the nuclear crisis brings money and weaken further the North Korean economy. North Korea has never been a real threat and it will remain so, unless provoked.
Second Scenario, North Korea undertakes moratorium on nuclear development and allows the opening of its huge reserve of rare earth to the U.S. and Japan in exchange of sanction lifting and even normalization of Washington-Pyongyang relations.
The amount of rare earth reserve of 7 countries which are in the American camp (Vietnam, India, Brazil, U.S., Australia, Greenland and Canada) is 40 million MT s against 65 million MT for combined reserve of Russia and China.
The world reserve is 130 million MT. But, imagine, North Korea has 216 million MT. Remember this. The issue of the future world war depends much on the access to semiconductors, which cannot be produced without rare earths.
The combination on the moratorium on nuclear development with the access of the American war camp to North Korean rare earths may persuade Washington to terminate the nuclear crisis.
The third scenario is troublesome. If the U.S.-DPRK confrontation continues, if the trilateral (ROK-Japan-U.S.) military alliance becomes a reality and if the alliance threatens Chairman, KIm Jong-un, North Korea might join the war camp of China-Russia.
This possibility was shown in a dramatic way by the participation of Russia’s Defence Minister, Sergey Shoigu at the Pyongyang military Parade of July 27 organized to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Armistice of the Korean War.
When this happens, there will be no more nuclear crisis in North Korea, but, the third world war will come sooner that we might have thought.
The fourth scenario is a situation where North Korea becomes an ally of Washington in exchange with relations normalization, economic aid, invitation to Washington-led international organizations. If this happens, the West’s striking power will increase so that the probability of the 3rd world war will increase.
What are the probabilities of realization of theses four scenarios? Here is my evaluation.
Scenario 1: 80%: this scenario is the most probable, but at the same time the most undesirable.
Scenario 2: 40%: This scenario is highly desirable, but it needs special efforts by Washington.
Scenario 3: 70%: This scenario is the worst scenario because it increases the probability of the global nuclear war.
Scenario 4: 10%: This scenario is unlikely, but if it happens, it may hasten the step of the global nuclear war, because the combination of the mighty armed forces of ROK and those of DPRK may strengthen the American temptation to hit China.
Conclusion
I may conclude this paper this way.
First, Washington is responsible for initiating and perpetuating the North Korean nuclear.
Second, Washington has failed to change (destroy) the Juche regime due to its lack of will or insufficient capacity to understand the Juche doctrine.
Third, nonetheless, the American pro-war community (APWC) made a fortune through weapons sales to pro-U.S. East Asian countries who would have accepted North Korea as regional security threat
Fourth, of the 4 scenarios examined, the first scenario of perpetuation of the nuclear crisis is the most probable, because it the most lucrative.
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Dr. Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics at the Quebec University in Montreal (UQAM) and member of Research Centre on Integration and globalization (CEIM-UQAM). He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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After months and months of US media lies about how “phantastic” Ukraine is doing, it is for the cynical a fun to watch how the US narrative is breaking down these days. After months of heavy losses and no gain, the US belief that Ukraine can ever win is vanishing – even CNN cannot keep tight about it anymore.
“Russians have a number of defensive lines and they [Ukrainian forces] haven’t really gone through the first line,” said a senior Western diplomat. “Even if they would keep on fighting for the next several weeks, if they haven’t been able to make more breakthroughs throughout these last seven, eight weeks, what is the likelihood that they will suddenly, with more depleted forces, make them? Because the conditions are so hard.” See this.
US support for Ukraine is crumbling.
55% of voters now saying Congress should not authorize additional funding to support Ukraine.
71% of Republicans think that Congress should not authorize new funding. See this.
Republicans control the House of Representatives – the part of Congress where members are on election every second year, that is, all the time. House Republicans on election therefore cannot afford to ignore that 71%, close to three-quarters of their voters want them to block any future aid to Ukraine.
And many Republicans of the Trump wing are already against giving Ukraine more money and weapons. This is a desperate situation for US Neocons like Biden, Blinken, Sullivan, and Nuland who want to continue the Ukraine war at all costs, not only in Ukrainian lives, but even in US treasury. No more big money for Ukraine will come through Congress.
The last big NATO weapons package to Ukraine will be precisely that, the last big weapons package. All there is left for Ukraine will be drip-drip – small handouts. Millions, not billions. The US and NATO have no more left to give.
Germany cannibalized its own small tank army in order to give Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. Those Leopard 2 tanks are all mostly gone already. Wasted for nothing. Germany will not do that again.
The same for the UK, which cannibalized their minuscule tank army for Challenger tanks as well.
Poland stripped itself of available tanks to give Ukraine. Poland has no more to give either. Even small NATO countries like Denmark are left in the desert after sending their best equipment for destruction in Ukraine.
Denmark sent all its most “precious” CAESAR artillery to Ukraine – only enough to be destroyed by Russia in just a few days.
The US set to make special constrution of Abrams tanks to Ukraine (which are not even delivered yet) – that will also not happen again.
NATO has no more artillery ammunition – the US itself has only got ammunition left for 30 days in case of a conflict.
The US stripped Middle East countries for Patriot missiles and even took Hawk air defense away from Taiwan in order to send it for destruction in Ukraine. NATO has no more air defense to send. NATO has nothing to send – at all.
As the CNN articles linked above also show, NATO is also suddenly becoming aware, that NATO cannot train Ukrainian soldiers to become a modern complicated force in just 8 weeks. What a surprise. Ukraine itself has lost 350,000+ dead and probably 3-5 times as many wounded for a total loss of 1-2 million Ukrainian men.
Due to refugees, war losses, and losses of territories, Ukraine itself is reduced to a country of just 18-20 million people and cannot make any big recruitments of soldiers anymore. After the break-down of the fake grain-deal which never sent significant amounts of food to poor countries, Russia has blocked Ukraine’s remaining ports and Ukraine has become a landlocked country. Ukraine is crushed.
On the frontlines, we these days see the result of this.
Nowhere is Ukraine making progress. On the contrary.
Russia is rolling Ukraine back in the north on the Kupyanks-Lyman line.
As Ukraine bleeds manpower, trying to hold the Kupyansk-Lyman line stretches Ukraine’s forces thin to the breaking point everywhere else.
In spite of US lies, Russia on its side has plenty of forces in reserve everywhere – even to meet a possible NATO invasion of Ukraine from Poland. Ukraine’s efforts around Artemovsk (Bakhmut) have been stopped too.
Even in the south, Ukraine’s defined main strategic thrust “towards Crimea”.
Russia has started to push Ukraine back at “Bradley square”, the graveyard of burned-out Bradley and NATO vehicles south of Orekhov. Come Autumn 2023, and Ukraine will be pushed back everywhere and Ukraine’s front will be breaking down against superior Russian forces. This is a tragedy brought upon Ukraine by the Kiev puppet régime, Ukrainian Nazis, and US neocons like Biden and Nuland.
The ensuing spectacle in the US is a comedy, however.
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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at a press conference that he thought his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva “had a broader understanding of the world.” The comments were triggered by Lula suggesting that Zelensky, as a minimum, needs to accept that Crimea is a part of Russia.
On August 3, Lula suggested that Ukraine accept that it lost sovereignty over Crimea as part of efforts to end the war with Russia, stressing that Zelensky “cannot want everything.”
“The world needs tranquillity… We have to find a solution,” Lula added.
This naturally triggered adverse reactions from Zelensky, who is suffering a major humiliation after figureheads of the Kiev regime promised to be in Crimea within weeks of launching the much-lauded Ukrainian counteroffensive, which began over two months ago in the first week of June.
“To be honest, I thought he [Lula] had a broader understanding of the world. I think it’s very important to see the world as a whole,” Zelensky said in an interview at the presidential palace in Kiev on August 6.
Previously, the Brazilian president stated that Zelensky and Putin would not be interested in a peace agreement to end the Ukraine conflict.
“For now, we haven’t heard from Zelensky or Putin the idea that ‘we’re going to stop and let’s negotiate.’ For now, the two are in that phase of ‘I’m going to win, I’m going to win, I’m going to win, I’m going to win,’ you know? Meanwhile, people are dying,” Lula said on August 2.
The Brazilian president is not wrong that neither side at this moment in time are interested in a peace deal – the Kiev regime delusionally believes it can conquer lost territories, including Crimea, while Russia is in a prime position to liberate the territories in Zaporozhye, Luhansk and Donetsk still held by the Ukrainian military, and even push on to take the historically Russian cities of Odessa and Kharkov.
Following Lula’s comments about the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, Brazil’s special advisor for international affairs, Celso Amorim, stated that an eventual agreement should consider the Russian security concerns. Moscow’s concern for NATO’s unrelenting expansion into Eastern Europe was a major reason for the special military operation, especially as Zelensky continually announced Ukraine’s intentions to become an alliance member.
Commenting on the Brazilian government’s statements, Zelensky told a press conference on August 6 that he did not understand what was happening and that Lula’s statements did not bring peace.
“I think President Lula is an experienced person, but I don’t quite understand one thing: does he believe that his society [Brazil] does not fully understand what is happening, and he is counting on that? Lula’s statements do not bring peace at all. It’s strange to talk about Russia’s security. Only Russia, Putin and Lula talk about Russia’s security, about the guarantees that must be given for Russia’s security. I believe that he [Lula] has his own opinion. But the ideas do not have to coincide with Putin’s,” said Zelensky indignantly.
Zelensky also declared that Brazil is a respected and peaceful country, as well as the Brazilian people and that they should disagree with Putin. After the press conference, analysts stated that Zelensky was trying to embarrass and pressure the Brazilian government.
In an interview with Folha de São Paulo, Gunther Rudzit, a specialist in international security and professor of international relations, stated that Zelensky’s words aimed to embarrass the Brazilian government and force the Latin American country to take a firmer position.
“President Lula is running away from a meeting with Zelensky. And the Ukrainian’s insistence puts Brazil on the defensive and in an uncomfortable position to say it is neutral,” said the specialist.
The attempt to embarrass the Brazilian government, according to Rudzit, tries to force Brazil to take a firmer stance. The strategy is justified by the leadership exercised by Brazil over other countries in Latin America – a factor also mentioned by Zelensky in an interview with Folha de São Paulo.
Zelensky arrogantly believes that Brazilians have a major interest in the war in Ukraine, which could not be further from the truth as they are interested in their country’s development and regional issues. Instead, his lambasting of Lula will only make even more Brazilians indifferent and disinterested in a conflict thousands of kilometres away. Now the Ukrainian president will realise he cannot shame countries, besides the masochistic West, into severing their ties with Russia and providing financial and/or military aid to Ukraine.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
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I will review latest COVID variant propaganda published on Aug. 7, 2023 by USA today, and a substack by one of USA’s top COVID con-artists Dr.Eric Topol:
EG.5.1 – “Eris Variant”
On Aug. 7, 2023, USA Today ran a story about the new COVID-19 variant being pushed by big pharma as becoming the prevalent one in the US and UK: EG.5.1, nicknamed “Eris”.
EG.5.1 is a subvariant of Omicron B.1.1.529
2023 COVID Variants that Didn’t Catch On
Let’s review some of the 2023 COVID “scariants” that failed to catch on:
Kraken was a great name (although Jimmy Fallon sang a horrible cringe-worthy song with it’s other name XBB.1.5), Arcturus was awkward and a mouthful, neither caught on. Anyone remember Deltacron? Gryphon? Hyperion? Acrux? Orthrus?
The latest COVID-19 variant is oddly named “Eris”. USA Today tells us the name was invented by a Canadian COVID con-artist, University of Guelph biology professor Ryan Gregory (who has blocked me on Twitter).
It’s fitting that a Canadian academic is credited with choosing “Eris”, the Greek Goddess of Chaos and Discord, often depicted as a DEMON who enjoys “inflicting pain, suffering and destruction”. Very fitting for Canada, and the pain, suffering and destruction being inflicted on our population by gleeful demons.
Where Is the New Variant Eris Spreading?
Eris has already surpassed Arcturus in the US, becoming the most prevalent variant in the two-week period ending on August 5, with 17% of cases, according to CDC.
Both the US and UK have an increase in COVID hospitalizations over the summer months, with the U.S. seeing a recent 12% increase in hospital admissions and UK 41% increase in admissions.
Ireland seems to have the most “Eris”:
Some UK hospitals seem to have the most hospitalizations from Eris:
What Are the Signs of Eris Variant?
Eris has similar symptoms to Omicron. The most common include:
Runny or stuffy nose
Headache
Fatigue
Sneezing
Sore throat
Coughing
Changes to sense of smell
COVID Booster Push
Professor Gregory tells us what the COVID-19 vaccine push in the fall will be like:
The “FLIP Variant” is a set of two adjacent spike protein mutations L455F and F456L that significantly increase binding to ACE2 receptor and decrease neutralizing antibodies.
EG.5.1 has only one of these two mutations. So one more mutation and you get the FLIP Variant. It can also arise from Kraken (see the complicated chart above).
“(FLIP Variant) evolution of the virus will be more troubling than EG.5.1 and we can expect it to show further growth advantage in the weeks ahead. At present, it is at low levels globally (~2%)”
Brazil and Spain are the hot spots for the FLIP Variant:
Again, Topol tells us that the new Omicron booster (designed for XBB.1.5 Kraken) will be effective against EG.5.1 because they only differ by two mutations.
He’s just upset that the new Omicron booster shots are taking too long and may not be released until October 2023.
Topol concludes: “Whatever tricks beyond FLip the virus will find are not known, but what is incontrovertible is that SARS-CoV-2 will unfortunately be with us for many, many years to come. Yet we’re not using our big advantage—human intelligence—to get ahead of it. Even just getting an updated, monovalent, well aligned (XBB.1.5) booster out there in a timely manner, which is not a monumental achievement, by any means. We can and must do better than this….”
Indonesia Variant – “Most Mutated Variant Ever” (113 Mutation Delta)
On July 28, 2023, Business Today reported a “morphed version of the Delta variant” collected from a patient in Jakarta that has 113 unique mutations, with 37 mutations in the spike protein.
In comparison, Omicron had only 50 mutations.
“This highly mutated variant has sparked concerns among the scientific community due to its potential impact on immunity and vaccine efficacy.”
“The emergence of this variant further highlighted that the virus continues to mutate as it spreads”
My Take…
The COVID con is back on. The usual COVID con-artists have their scripts and the propaganda is being churned out by mainstream media.
I have zero concerns about EG.5.1 or “Eris” variant. This variant is BS – just more theatre for the COVID-19 vaccine addicted, and the brainwashed.
Who will be hospitalized with EG.5.1? The 5x, 4x and 3x COVID-19 vaccinated (in that order). The more jabs you have, the more likely you are to end up in hospital or dead from EG.5.1 or “Eris”. Expect another “pandemic of the vaccinated”.
The spikes in hospitalizations in the UK and Ireland are already being used to push masking, testing and of course COVID-19 booster shots.
25% of Canadians took Omicron bivalent boosters (9.4 million), so I’d expect the same population to line up for the Jimmy Fallon booster or Kraken booster that will be released in the fall (designed against XBB.1.5 which is apparently close enough to EG.5.1).
Soft Propaganda Push
What I see right now, is a soft propaganda push to get COVID-19 mRNA booster shots going again, and they know they have 25% of the population guaranteed to line up like sheep for their next dose of mRNA poison.
But what they are really after are the rest of the 85% who took 2 doses but have stopped taking boosters. This is the target. And it’s tricky to get them back.
This EG.5.1 Eris theatre won’t work and they know that. They also don’t want to overplay their hand so they tell us EG.5.1 is not too worrying.
But there are 3 key messages they are pushing right now:
The COVID-19 pandemic is not over – #CovidIsNotOver
They want to bring back masking – #MaskUp
The COVID-19 virus is evolving and there are “scary” variants ahead
This is how the propaganda looks on Twitter:
Conclusion
Whether it’s Kraken or Eris, or EG.5.1, these variants are of concern ONLY to the COVID-19 vaccinated whose immune systems have been destroyed.
They are at risk of hospitalization or death, even more so if they take the Kraken booster in the fall as well. More jabs = more immune destruction = more deaths.
For the rest of us, I’m far more concerned about the attempts to jail Trump, and ongoing efforts to silence and destroy all dissident doctors. Canada is going all out on internet censorship and Twitter is glitching again, with shadowbans and suspensions.
Whatever catastrophe they’re going to hit us with next, they want a lot of us silenced first. And that is what frightens me at this point.
Eris “delights in the bloodshed” and enjoys inflicting pain, suffering and destruction.
They are laughing at us in the process.
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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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From 27-28 July 2023, the second Russia-Africa Summit took place in Russia’s St Petersburg. Initially, the summit was scheduled in Addis Ababa in October 2022. However, the summit got postponed, most likely due to complications emerging from Russia’s war against Ukraine. Despite the presence of 49 out of 54 African nations, there were Ministers from only 27 countries: 17 Heads of Stateand 10 Prime Ministers. This is in high contrast with the 2019 summit, where 43 African Heads of State and two Vice Presidents were in attendance, along with 109 ministers and the Heads of the African Union (AU) Commission, the African Export–Import Bank and several regional economic communities.
Similar to the last summit, the agenda of this year’s summit included technology transfer and development of industry and critical infrastructure in Africa, developing power engineering, agriculture and mineral extraction, and ensuring food and energy security. As the 2023 edition expanded to include a humanitarian element, a Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum also took place in parallel. Additionally, there were exhibitions and a platform for holding business meetings.
At the end of the summit, both parties agreed upon a 74-point joint Declaration for collaboration on security, trade, and the environment. However, with the frequent use of words such as neo-colonialism, neo-Nazism, neo-fascism, Russophobia, illegal sanctions, import substitution, and traditional values, the document appears to be an implicit African endorsement of Russia’s justification for its war against Ukraine. Indeed, the 4,000-plus words document contains multiple statements subtly used to encourage Africa to back Moscow’s position in the war.
In the wake of the summit, ever-deteriorating food security was the key concern for African policymakers. On 17 July, nearly one year after it was signed in Istanbul, Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to withdraw from the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI). The BSGI was intended to ease the Russian blockade, thus allowing Ukraine to export grain to Africa. During the summit, Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, and five other leaders who were part of the African Peace initiative urged President Putin to change his mind. But their request was firmly rejected. Instead, the declaration attributed the entire blame for the food shortages to Western sanctions.
Definitely, the pledge from President Putin to deliver 25,000 to 50,000 tons of free grains to six countries, namely Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Central African Republic and Eritrea, is encouraging for these poor nations. However, it will not be done immediately but within three or four months- too little for a continent of 54 countries.
Decoding the Summit’s Achievement: Advantage Russia
Indeed, Russia has waived off a large part of its debt to different African nations worth $23 billion. This is almost 90% of the total African debt. According to President Putin, this leaves Africa with no more “direct” debts for Russia but some financial obligations. However, given Russian loan to Africa is only a tiny part, this will have minimal impact on this highly indebted continent. Putin added that his government would also provide over $90 million for development purposes at the request of African countries. Last but not least, Russia announced that it will spend about US$13 million on “large-scale assistance” to healthcare systems in Africa.
Indeed, Russia lacks the resources to compete with the US, France, Germany and Japan or China as a bilateral development donor. However, it does have some cards to play. Last year it was Africa’s largest source of fertiliser, supplying 500,000 tonnes. It is also a significant power in oil, gas and mining. Another significant effort by Russia to strengthen ties with Africa is its commitment to education. In 2023, Russia offered a record 4,700 scholarships to African students, a considerable increase from the 1,900 scholarships awarded in 2019. Currently, there are about 35,000 African students in Russia, and about 6,000 of them are on different government scholarships.
Arms trade consists the most successful pillar of Russia’s conventional trade with Africa, which is mostly managed by state-controlled Rosoboronexport. Currently, Russia accounts for 44 percent of major arms imports to the continent between 2017 and 2021, surpassing other major players like the US (17 per cent), China (10 per cent), and France (6.1 per cent). Alrosa, which manages diamond projects in Angola and is exploring possibilities in Zimbabwe; Rusal, which mines bauxite in Guinea; and Rosatom, which is constructing a nuclear power station in Egypt, are some other Russian companies with substantial interests in Africa. During the latest summit, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe signed nuclear development contracts with Rosatom.
In addition to importing weapons, many African nations have hired Russian mercenaries. These Russian mercenaries in Africa work under the Wagner Group, a company connected to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a personal friend of Vladimir Putin. About the future of the Wagner group in Africa, particularly in the backdrop of mutiny by the Wagner group, both Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, in separate statements, have clarified that the group will continue to operate in parts of Africa. And the cameo appearance of Prigozhin during the summit and his celebratory in Niger make it clear that Wagner will continue to expand in Africa.
An Evaluation in Lieu of a Conclusion
Russia has shown a remarkable commitment to engaging with Africa, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov making three visits to the continent this year. These diplomatic efforts underscore the increasing importance Moscow places on support from African countries. Clearly, Russia wanted to demonstrate its strong support base of many old and loyal allies from Africa in its fight against Western hegemony. And from that perspective, the gathering served the Russian purpose. And for Africa, except for some of these garden-variety announcements, African leaders have very little concrete to take home from the event.
However, it was also crucial for African leaders to demonstrate to other foreign powers that they were open to hearing various points of view. African leaders are used to foreign leaders making bold promises but falling short of keeping them. The low attendance at the summit may also suggest that African leaders are readjusting their place in the multipolar world.
And they realised that in the new age of multilateralism, jeopardising their relationships with either the West or Russia is not the best diplomacy. Almost all African nations are nonaligned, eschewing global power blocs and resenting Western pressure. This is also probably why the Heads of State and Ministers stayed away but sent their representatives. Africa’s representation in the summit can be hailed as a statement from Africa: blind loyalty to one state is no longer the norm. Therefore, Africa had gained nothing from the conference mirrors Macbeth’s half-truth instrument of darkness: it is neither a simple fact nor a deliberate lie.
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Featured image: Azali Assoumali and Vladimir Putin during the conclusion of the summit on 28 July (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)
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Israeli airstrikes on Syria have become routine and deadly. On Monday, Israeli airstrikes on Damascus at 2:20 am local time killed four Syrian soldiers and wounded four others.
Damascus residents were awoken from sleep to sounds and flashes of bright lights from the attacks. Regardless of the numerous attacks, the civilian populations are held hostage to the Israeli military and their relentless attacks which cause emotional distress on innocent people sleeping in their own homes, while trying to survive in a collapsed economy which has pushed the majority to the poverty line.
The US has strangled the Syrian civilians with years of sanctions which have prevented pharmacies and hospitals from ordering special medicines from US and European manufacturers. For example, in a case last month, a woman in Syria had a case of ocular herpes (herpes virus attack in the eye) and the required injections of a medicine made in France were unavailable due to US and EU sanctions.
While the US sanctions deprive Syrian civilians from medicines, the US military is occupying the northeast of Syria and has confiscated the oil produced at the largest production wells. This has translated into chronic gasoline shortages and long lines at the gas pumps, sometimes for days.
The US supports the Kurdish militia, SDF and YPG, which are considered by Turkey to be linked to the outlawed terrorists group PKK, responsible for 30,000 deaths in Turkey over decades. Although the US government is anti-communist, the Kurdish administration in northeast Syria is run under strict communist political ideology and supported by the White House and US Congress.
The Syrian government condemned the Monday attack and requested the UN Security Council to take action to prevent further Israeli attacks on Syria.
This latest attack on Damascus, the oldest capital in the world, targeted areas near Damascus International Airport, Dimas Airport and Kisweh causing deaths, injuries and property damage.
The attack was launched from the Golan Heights, which is Syrian land according to international agreements, but is occupied by Israel since 1967. The local population is living under a brutal and long lasting military occupation. During the Trump regime, the US recognized the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights, contrary to UN resolutions.
Syrian air defenses intercepted the Israeli missiles and shot down some of them according to a Syrian military source reporting to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).
Israeli forces attacked seven targets in Damascus in July. They were said to include warehouses used by the Lebanese Resistance group and other allies of the Syrian military.
Israel has attacked Syria hundreds of times over the years, and all have been unprovoked attacks on a sovereign state. In every case but one, Syria has never retaliated and attacked Israel. In fact, Syria has been fighting terrorists who could have threatened the security of Israel, and Syria has kept their borders with Israel secure. However, in the armed conflict which began in Syria in 2011, which was a failed US-NATO plan for regime change, armed Radical Islamic terrorists with Jibhat al Nusra, the Al Qaeda affiliate, crossed into Israel from the Golan Heights to receive medical treatment in the Israeli public hospitals, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally made bedside visits to injured terrorists.
By 2015, terrorists had occupied large swaths of land across Syria. Iran, Russia and the Lebanese Resistance group all were called upon to participate in the liberation of Syria, as well as the fight against terrorists, including the ISIS.
President Trump would have you believe his administration defeated ISIS across Iraq and Syria, but in reality it was a large international effort by Iraq, Iran, Russia and Syria which defeated the group.
On July 19, Israeli air strikes near Damascus killed three Syrian soldiers and wounded four others.
On June 14, Israel carried out air strikes near Damascus wounding a soldier.
In late May, Israeli air strikes hit Damascus wounding five.
Previous Israeli strikes have put both Damascus and Aleppo airports out of service. Both airports are vital international lifelines for humanitarian aid after the February 6 earthquake registering 7.8 and called the earthquake of the century. Those airports are also commercial passenger terminals for Syrians leaving and returning, as well as international aid group delegates and international diplomatic delegations. Experts have expressed shock and concern that Israel could have shot down a fully loaded commercial passenger plan in their air strikes.
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We stand together against the rise of a new McCarthyism that is targeting peace activists, critics of US foreign policy, and Chinese Americans. Despite increased intimidation, we remain steadfast in our mission to foster peace and international solidarity, countering the narrative of militarism, hostility, and fear.
Instead of being taught the three R’s of education (reading, writing and arithmetic), young people are being drilled in the three I’s of life in the American police state: indoctrination, intimidation and intolerance.
The United States and Papua New Guinea recently concluded a comprehensive Defense Cooperation Agreement. The agreement will give the US military unimpeded access to many PNG key naval facilities. This new agreement is expected to increase the US military presence in the Pacific region amid the intensifying US–China rivalry.
Ever since the start of Russia’s counteroffensive against NATO aggression in Europe, the question of the economic fallout of this dangerous confrontation was always presented as a one-way street – the Russian economy is doomed. However, time and again, the Eurasian giant is demonstrating not only resilience, but also pushback that’s historically unprecedented.
This is used for one of the very few deliberately humorous notes in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023) film, which came out last week. I am in the process of writing a longer review of that, and will probably post something else on it here, but it has served as an instigator for me to push out a blog post I had been working on in draft form for several months about this question of the “honeymoon.”
On August 5th, 2023, 40-year-old Dr. Krystal Cascetta shot herself and her 4 month old baby dead at their $1 million Westchester home in what police are calling a murder-suicide. (click here)
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), famed for its hidden agendas and its preference to operate in the shadows, has featured in a couple of recent breaking stories. On July 22nd the White House announced that CIA Director William Burns would be stepping up to cabinet level in the Joe Biden Administration.
Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland of “EuroMaidan” infamy traveled to Niger to hold discussions with its interim military-led government after the expiry of ECOWAS’ one-week deadline for reinstalling ousted President Mohamed Bazoum.
On 21 June 1942 the Axis divisions in North Africa, consisting of German and Italian forces, finally completed the capture of Tobruk in the far north-east of Libya, inflicting a decisive defeat there on the Allies made up of British, South African and Indian soldiers.
The latest political situation unfolded in Niger, the unexpected removal of democratically-elected President Mohamed Bazoum late July and the deepening differences in perception across Africa explicitly shows Africa’s level of political illusions and, practical reality towards attaining unity dimension in Africa.
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***
“The lockdown under no circumstances could be considered as a means of containing an epidemic because when you want to contain an epidemic, you must make sure that your economy is functioning,” said Prof. Chossudovsky at the National Citizens Inquiry.
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
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***
“Every day in communities across the United States, children and adolescents spend the majority of their waking hours in schools that have increasingly come to resemble places of detention more than places of learning.”—Investigative journalist Annette Fuentes
This is what it means to go back-to-school in America today.
Instead of being taught the three R’s of education (reading, writing and arithmetic), young people are being drilled in the three I’s of life in the American police state: indoctrination, intimidation and intolerance.
Instead of raising up a generation of civic-minded citizens with critical thinking skills, government officials are churning out compliant drones who know little to nothing about their history or their freedoms.
Under the direction of government officials focused on making the schools more authoritarian (sold to parents as a bid to make the schools safer), young people in America are now first in line to be searched, surveilled, spied on, threatened, tied up, locked down, treated like criminals for non-criminal behavior, tasered and in some cases shot.
draconian zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior,
overreaching anti-bullying statutes that criminalize speech,
school resource officers (police) tasked with disciplining and/or arresting so-called “disorderly” students,
standardized testing that emphasizes rote answers over critical thinking,
politically correct mindsets that teach young people to censor themselves and those around them,
and extensive biometric and surveillance systems that, coupled with the rest, acclimate young people to a world in which they have no freedom of thought, speech or movement.
This is how you groom young people to march in lockstep with a police state.
In Nazi Germany, the schools became indoctrination centers, breeding grounds for intolerance and compliance.
In the American police state, the schools have become increasingly hostile to those who dare to question or challenge the status quo.
America’s young people have become casualties of a post-9/11 mindset that has transformed the country into a locked-down, militarized, crisis-fueled mockery of a representative government.
Roped into the government’s profit-driven campaign to keep the nation “safe” from drugs, disease, and weapons, America’s schools have transformed themselves into quasi-prisons, complete with surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs, strip searches and active shooter drills.
Students are not only punished for minor transgressions such as playing cops and robbers on the playground, bringing LEGOs to school, or having a food fight, but the punishments have become far more severe, shifting from detention and visits to the principal’s office into misdemeanor tickets, juvenile court, handcuffs, tasers and even prison terms.
Students have been suspended under school zero tolerance policies for bringing to school “look alike substances” such as oregano, breath mints, birth control pills and powdered sugar.
Look-alike weapons (toy guns—even Lego-sized ones, hand-drawn pictures of guns, pencils twirled in a “threatening” manner, imaginary bows and arrows, fingers positioned like guns) can also land a student in hot water, in some cases getting them expelled from school or charged with a crime.
Not even good deeds go unpunished.
One 13-year-old was given detention for exposing the school to “liability” by sharing his lunch with a hungry friend. A third grader was suspended for shaving her head in sympathy for a friend who had lost her hair to chemotherapy. And then there was the high school senior who was suspended for saying “bless you” after a fellow classmate sneezed.
Having police in the schools only adds to the danger.
Thanks to a combination of media hype, political pandering and financial incentives, the use of armed police officers (a.k.a. school resource officers) to patrol school hallways has risen dramatically in the years since the Columbine school shooting.
Funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, these school resource officers have become de facto wardens in elementary, middle and high schools, doling out their own brand of justice to the so-called “criminals” in their midst with the help of tasers, pepper spray, batons and brute force.
In the absence of school-appropriate guidelines, police are more and more “stepping in to deal with minor rulebreaking: sagging pants, disrespectful comments, brief physical skirmishes. What previously might have resulted in a detention or a visit to the principal’s office was replaced with excruciating pain and temporary blindness, often followed by a trip to the courthouse.”
Not even the younger, elementary school-aged kids are being spared these “hardening” tactics.
In almost every case, these undeniably harsh methods are used to punish kids—some as young as 4 and 5 years old—for simply failing to follow directions or throwing tantrums.
Very rarely do the kids pose any credible danger to themselves or others.
Unbelievably, these tactics are all legal, at least when employed by school officials or school resource officers in the nation’s public schools.
This is what happens when you introduce police and police tactics into the schools.
Paradoxically, by the time you add in the lockdowns and active shooter drills, instead of making the schools safer, school officials have succeeded in creating an environment in which children are so traumatized that they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, anxiety, mistrust of adults in authority, as well as feelings of anger, depression, humiliation, despair and delusion.
These police state tactics have not made the schools any safer.
The fallout has been what you’d expect, with the nation’s young people treated like hardened criminals: handcuffed, arrested, tasered, tackled and taught the painful lesson that the Constitution (especially the Fourth Amendment) doesn’t mean much in the American police state.
So what’s the answer, not only for the here-and-now—the children growing up in these quasi-prisons—but for the future of this country?
How do you convince a child who has been routinely handcuffed, shackled, tied down, locked up, and immobilized by government officials—all before he reaches the age of adulthood—that he has any rights at all, let alone the right to challenge wrongdoing, resist oppression and defend himself against injustice?
Most of all, how do you persuade a fellow American that the government works for him when, for most of his young life, he has been incarcerated in an institution that teaches young people to be obedient and compliant citizens who don’t talk back, don’t question and don’t challenge authority?
As we’ve seen with other issues, any significant reforms will have to start locally and trickle upwards.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if we want to raise up a generation of freedom fighters who will actually operate with justice, fairness, accountability and equality towards each other and their government, we must start by running the schools like freedom forums.
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We stand together against the rise of a new McCarthyism that is targeting peace activists, critics of US foreign policy, and Chinese Americans. Despite increased intimidation, we remain steadfast in our mission to foster peace and international solidarity, countering the narrative of militarism, hostility, and fear.
As the US government grapples with a major crisis of legitimacy, it has grown fearful of young people becoming conscious and organized to change the world. Influential media outlets like The New York Times have joined right-wing extremists in using intimidation tactics to silence these advocates for change, affecting not only the left but everyone who supports free speech and democratic rights.
The political and media establishments, both liberal and conservative, have initiated McCarthy-like attacks against individuals and organizations criticizing US foreign policy, labeling peace advocates as “Chinese or foreign agents.” This campaign uses innuendo and witch hunts, posing a threat to free speech and the right to dissent. We must oppose this trend.
Scientists, researchers, and service members of Chinese descent have been falsely accused of espionage and unregistered foreign agency, often with cases later collapsing due to insufficient evidence. Similar to the old “Red Scare” and McCarthy periods, when scores of organizations and leaders like W.E.B Du Bois, Eugene Debs, Emma Goldman, Paul Robeson and Martin Luther King Jr and others were attacked with fact-less accusations, today, prominent organizations and individuals, including CODEPINK, The People’s Forum, and Tricontinental Institute have been targeted, with smears and accusations propagated by outlets like The New York Times.
Their strategy paints a sinister image of a secret network funding the peace movement. However, there’s nothing illegal or fringe about opposing a New Cold War or a “major power conflict” with China, views shared by hundreds of millions globally. Receiving donations from US citizens who share these views is not illicit.
Media outlets have tried to scandalize funding sources of several organizations that are on the frontlines working with anti-racist, feminist, anti-war, abolitionist, climate justice, and other movements throughout the United States and globally. Meanwhile, when white neoliberal philanthropists flood the non-profit complex with significant funds to support their political agendas this is rarely scrutinized or made accountable to the communities they impact.
From The New York Times to Fox News, there’s a resurgence of the Red Scare that once shattered many lives and threatened movements for change and social justice. This attack isn’t only on the left but against everyone who exercises their free speech and democratic rights. We must firmly resist this racist, anti-communist witch hunt and remain committed to building an international peace movement. In the face of adversity, we say NO to xenophobic witch hunts and YES to peace.
Signed,
CODEPINK The People’s Forum Tricontinental Institute for Social Research ANSWER Coalition Anticapitalism for Artists Defend Democracy in Brazil Families for Freedom Mulheres de Resistencia do Exterior Nodutdol NYC Jericho Movement NYC Young Communist League Pivot to Peace Radical Elders
Abby Martin Andy Hsaio Ben Becker Ben Norton Bhaskar Sunkara Brian Becker Carl Messineo Chris Hedges Claudia de la Cruz Corinna Mullen David Harvey Derek R. Ford Doug Henwood Eugene Puryear Farida Alam Fergie Chambers Gail Walker Geo Maher Gerald Horne Gloria La Riva Hakim Adi Heidi Boghosian Immanuel Ness James Early Jeremy Kuzmarov Jill Stein Jim Garrison Jodi Dean Jodie Evans Johanna Fernandez Karen Ranucci Kenneth Hammond Koohan Paik-Mander Lee Camp Lisa Armstrong Manolo de los Santos Manu Karuka Mara Verheyden-Hilliard Matt Hoh Matt Meyer Matteo Capasso Max Lesnik Medea Benjamin Michael Steven Smith Nazia H. Kazi Radhika Desai Rania Khalek Richard M Walden Robin D.G. Kelley Roger Waters Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz Ruth Wilson Gilmore Salvatore Engel di-Mauro Sheila Xiao Stella Schnabel Vijay Prashad Vivian Weisman
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Ever since the start of Russia’s counteroffensive against NATO aggression in Europe, the question of the economic fallout of this dangerous confrontation was always presented as a one-way street – the Russian economy is doomed. However, time and again, the Eurasian giant is demonstrating not only resilience, but also pushback that’s historically unprecedented.
Namely, it was expected that Russia would outperform Germany and the United Kingdom which are among the most powerful Western economies. This is partially due to Berlin’s suicidal subservience to Washington DC, as this disastrous strategic miscalculation has led to Germany’s deindustrialization, a process that has only accelerated its dethroning by Russia.
There have been numerous wide-ranging and long-term consequences since the start of Moscow’s special military operation (SMO). This includes a surge in weapons sales from the United States and South Korea, both of which have benefitted greatly from this, a consequence that was certainly predicted by the belligerent thalassocracy.
The US knew that the fledgling European economies would have been unable to produce enough weapons and munitions for a head-on collision with Russia. That’s precisely why it was essential for Washington DC to back Moscow into a corner. And yet, just like for the umpteenth time in history, this has backfired in ways the Eurasian giant’s enemies never anticipate, causing shock and disbelief among their political elites.
Worse yet for US hegemony and the chorus of its numerous vassals and satellite states, the actual world is also benefiting from this shift. Central Asian and Arab Gulf oil producers have profited enormously from the surge in oil prices, while Indian refineries have experienced an unprecedented (and completely unexpected) windfall by reselling Russian oil to the European Union.
Washington DC’s geopolitical pendant is suffering greatly due to this, as it’s paying exorbitant prices for commodities that used to be cheap, particularly oil and natural gas. This has resulted in a ripple effect that’s still ravaging entire sectors of the EU’s economy, as the aforementioned commodities simply cannot be replaced.
In addition, the loss of access to the massive Russian market was a major hit for the troubled bloc. In addition, many Russian companies kept their funds in European banks, but the attempted theft of this money has resulted in a complete destruction of trust that once existed, promoting not only Russians, but many others to lose interest in the EU’s once virtually unrivaled finance sector.
In the meantime, China, India, the Arab Gulf states, Turkey and other countries have filled the gap in the Russian market. In years since the unfortunate dismantling of the Soviet Union, Moscow was seen as a sort of “sick man of Europe”, serving largely as the source of cheap but essential natural resources, while providing its top talent and hundreds of billions of dollars in investment.
Concurrently, Russia was also seen as the leading market for the much-needed expansion of the EU’s exports. Now, all this is largely a thing of the past. EU economies are simply unable to replace Russia as both the source of cheap commodities (particularly oil and natural gas) and a massive, growing market that is actually one of the world’s largest in many respects.
Germany is by far the biggest loser in this case, as its industrial might has experienced an unprecedented unraveling, almost a sort of reverse of what was once called the “German economic miracle” in the aftermath of the Second World War. Berlin wrongfully assessed Moscow’s resilience as it anticipated that launching the unparalleled sanctions war against Russia will actually work.
Still, the fact that only Japan, South Korea and Singapore imposed any sanctions among non-Western countries (although they can rightfully be seen as Western satellite states) and that no sanctions could be passed through the UN, meant that the attempt to isolate Russia failed miserably.
In addition, this was one of the key contributing factors to Moscow’s economic rise, particularly as its trade with the actual world surged to epic proportions. The Eurasian giant’s import substitution program, well organized and executed swiftly, created massive market expansion opportunities for Chinese, Indian, Iranian and numerous other companies from around the globe. It has also pushed the rise of countless Russian companies that are replacing import products with domestic equivalents.
This process has paved the way for the emergence of entire industrial sectors which effectively didn’t exist before the sanctions were imposed. Coupled with the cutting of massive flow of funds out of Russia and the rise in energy exports, this provided a massive boost to Moscow’s economy.
The results of these historically unprecedented economic shits were revealed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in early August, when they published new data on the world economy for 2022.
The newly released information revealed that Russia is now the largest economy in Europe and also the world’s fifth for the very first time since Soviet times. In doing so, it overtook Germany, and is now behind China, the US, India and Japan, standing at a staggering $5.51 trillion.
Even more astonishingly, the figure is 38% larger than the official projected estimate of $3.993 trillion. The report showed Russia’s GDP PPP (purchasing power parity), which is the metric used by the CIA, the World Bank and many other organizations to most accurately measure the economic might of any given country, as the much-touted nominal GDP is mostly irrelevant in practical terms and largely serves for propaganda purposes. Russia is also expected to boost its position in many key industries, including advanced communications and high-tech, particularly as it further connects to China and provides additional support to domestic companies in the sector. In part due to Germany’s aforementioned deindustrialization, Moscow is expected to keep its fifth place for the foreseeable future.
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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
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This is used for one of the very few deliberately humorous notes in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023) film, which came out last week. I am in the process of writing a longer review of that, and will probably post something else on it here, but it has served as an instigator for me to push out a blog post I had been working on in draft form for several months about this question of the “honeymoon.”
As the post title indicates, my conclusion, after spending some time looking into this, is that the honeymoon story is more probably than not a myth. Stimson did go to Kyoto at least twice in the 1920s, but neither trip could be reasonably characterized as a honeymoon, and explaining his actions on Kyoto in World War II as a result of a “honeymoon” is trivializing and misleading.
Nolan’s portrayal of Stimson is, well, not very charitable. Within the narrative construction of the film, Stimson exists to emphasize a growing theme of Oppenheimer becoming sidelined as a “mere” technical expert by the military and government officials.
In the one meeting that Stimson appears (it is a fictionalized version of the May 31, 1945, meeting of the Interim Committee that Oppenheimer attended as a member of a Scientific Panel of consultants), Oppenheimer strains to get Stimson and others to see the atomic bomb as something worth taking seriously as a weapon and long-term problem. (This was the same meeting in which Oppenheimer reports on the Scientific Panel’s conclusions against a demonstration of the bomb.)
In the film, Stimson expresses some skepticism at the impressiveness of the bomb (Oppenheimer has to convince him otherwise), shoots down any suggestions about warning the Japanese ahead of it, impresses on the men there that the Japanese are intractably committed to war in the face of defeat, and then agrees that the atomic bomb might save American lives.
He then, at the end, looks over a list of 12 possible targets, and without fanfare or opposition removes Kyoto from the list, smiling and saying it was an important cultural treasure to the Japanese, and incidentally, where he and his wife had their honeymoon. In both showings of the film, this gets a big laugh. We’ll come back to that laugh.
Stimson’s opening statement to the Interim Committee meeting on May 31, 1945.
The reality of Stimson, and that meeting, is a lot more complicated than that. One could unpack each of the various components of that meeting as depicted in the film (they are all wrong in some way), but I would just emphasize that Stimson was probably the most high-placed government official to see the atomic bomb in the kinds of terms Oppenheimer cared about. Stimson was the highest-ranked government official to closely follow the atomic bomb’s development, and cared deeply about it as a wartime weapon and as a long-term issue. (His interest in the atomic bomb was essentially the only reason he had not retired from his office.)
He absolutely did not believe the Japanese were intractable (he was one of those advocating for a weakening of the terms of unconditional surrender, because he understood the Japanese need to protect their Emperor, even before the MAGIC decrypts showed concrete evidence of this as a sticking point), he absolutely did not frame the atomic bomb’s usage as something that would save American lives. To give a sense of Stimson’s mindset, here is how Stimson opened the May 31, 1945, Interim Committee meeting, according to the minutes:
The Secretary [Stimson] expressed the view, a view shared by General Marshall, that this project should not be considered simply in terms of military weapons, but as a new relationship of ·man to the universe. This discovery might be compared to the discoveries of the Copernican theory and of the laws of gravity, but far more important than these in its effect on the lives of men. While the advances in the field to date had been fostered by the needs of war, it was important to realize that the implications of the project went far beyond the needs of the present war. It must be controlled if possible to make it an assurance of future peace rather than a menace to civilization.1
Could one imagine a sentiment more aligned with that of Oppenheimer’s? Anyway, I digress — but my point is to emphasize that the movie does Stimson dirty here, in turning him into a dummy stand-in representing “the powers that be” and how much their interests could diverge from Oppenheimer’s. In reality, Oppenheimer’s positions were pretty well-represented “at the top” for quite some time; making him into an “outsider” here, I think, obscures the reality quite a bit. There will be more on this in my actual review.2
But let’s get back to the question of Kyoto and the alleged “honeymoon.” I don’t mention the “honeymoon” story in my own work, because I’ve never been able to substantiate it, despite trying.
I am quite interested in the events that led to Kyoto being “spared” from the atomic bombing (and all other bombing) in World War II.
I believe, and will be writing quite a bit more on this in my next book, that this incident has not been taken seriously enough by historians. For one thing, it was the only targeting decision that President Truman actually directly participated in, when he backed Stimson in removing it from the list.
For another thing, the fact that Truman was involved at all was because Stimson was (correctly) afraid that the military (in the personage of Groves and his subordinates) would not recognize his authority as a civilian to make “operational” decisions of this sort.
So it is an important moment in the question of civilian-military relations regarding nuclear weapons. And I believe there is other significance to the Kyoto incident that I have written on elsewhere, and will write on more in the future. The point I’m trying to make is that perhaps more than others, I have really wanted to get into the ins-and-outs of the Kyoto question, including Stimson’s motivations, for some time now.
Target map of Kyoto, June 1945, with atomic bomb aiming point indicated, from General Groves’ files — a sign of how far along the plans were for Kyoto to be the first target of the atomic bomb. For more on the non-bombing of Kyoto, see my 2020 article.
I’ve come to the conclusion, after digging and digging, that the “honeymoon” story is false both in its strict sense (in the sense that Stimson did not “honeymoon” there, under any reasonable definition of “honeymoon”) and in its broader sense (attributing his actions on Kyoto during the war simply to that is misleading).
I was suspicious of it early on, when I found that no serious sources actually asserted this apparently-verifiable fact, and because it has a “too clever by half” feeling to it. It feels like a “fact” that was a factor tailor-made for catchy headlines and click-bait news stories, the notion that an entire city and the million people who lived there were saved by the fortunate fact of a pleasant trip of a single man. Now, history often does have such coincidences and idiosyncrasies, to be sure. But you’ve got to be on the watch for fake ones, for half-rumors that get elevated to the status of full facts — especially when such “simple” explanations get used at the expense of interrogating more complex ones.
None of the serious, scholarly accounts of the Kyoto incident mention that he took a honeymoon there. Stimson himself never claimed this in any of his published writings, from what I have been able to find. There are, as well, several biographies and even an autobiography of Stimson. Thanks to the essential service of the Internet Archive, perusing these quickly is a trivial task. Here are the ones I looked at, searching for any discussion of a honeymoon to anywhere, coming up with nothing:
Now, not all of the above are as equal in rigor or quality as the others. (Of them, Morison, Hodgson, and Malloy are the ones which dive deepest into his early life.) And yet not one of the above authors has any indication towards the “honeymoon” story. Would not a single of the above authors found it an interesting thing to point out, had they come across any positive proof of it?
And it is not that the above do not discuss the Kyoto incident — many of them do, although they do not take it as centrally important as I do. It is often discussed in terms of the apparent contradiction of Stimson’s “old values” (not bombing cities) with his advocacy of the atomic bomb use in general. If the Kyoto “honeymoon” story was true, surely that would inform such a discussion. In addition to the above, I also looked at scholarly articles in JSTOR, and it shows up in the work of no scholars of World War II history, either.
The photo of Henry Stimson used for his 1917 passport application. Scanned by Ancestry.com.
Did Stimson have a honeymoon? Yes. But to where? That is somewhat unclear, but it doesn’t sound like Asia. Henry Lewis Stimson married Mabel Wellington White in New Haven, Connecticut, on July 6, 1893, after a long and difficult five-and-a-half-year courtship. The delayed marriage was in part to Stimson wanting to secure a solid career “position,” which by 1893 he had done: he had been, at the age of 25, made full partner in the law firm of the famous and prestigious Elihu Root, and his star would just continue to rise from them onward. Their wedding was of sufficiently high social class to carry a notice in both the New York Times and the New York Sun. The only indication that they took any kind of honeymoon that I have found comes from the Times‘ announcement, which mentions that: “The wedding tour of Mr. and Mrs. Stimson will last several weeks.”3
It is hard to get a firm sense of where Stimson may have gone in this period. This is several years before he began keeping a daily diary (he started in 1909, and it was originally not very verbose in any event). Morison says that “from 1893 through 1903 he went either to Canada or, more frequently, to the old stamping ground in the West.” He mentions trips to Europe, including a climbing of the Matterhorn in 1896, and hiking in Montana. He mentions no trips to Asia in this period, and no honeymoon. Again, one would think, especially given his later high involvement with the affairs of several Asian nations, that if there was such a trip, it would have been noticed and noted. Again, none of the above biographies of Stimson imply that he honeymooned in Asia, nor his autobiography.
The end of Stimson’s 1926 “Trip to Orient” diary, in which he mentions his arrival to Kyoto: “Kyoto at 6. [???] room a delicious dinner at Miyako Hotel. October 3rd. Beautiful day devoted to sightseeing.”
In the summer of 1926 — over thirty years after their wedding — Stimson and his wife (ages 59 and 60) engaged on what he called in his diary the “Trip to Orient.” They started out from New York City by train in late June, crossing through various parts of Canada in July, making various stops along the way to Vancouver. By July 10, they were at sea, crossing the Pacific on a ship. Over the course of July and August, he tracked his progress: Yokohama, Kobe, Shanghai (“very hot”), Nanking (“very hot”), and finally, on August 3, Manila. From here, most of his time was spent in the Philippines, either in meetings in Manila, or traveling to different cities for more meetings.
This was not really a pleasure trip. Stimson treated it largely as a “fact-finding” mission regarding complicated diplomatic relations with regards to Asian nations and the United States, and had been invited by the Governor General of the Philippines, General Leonard Wood, a friend of Stimson’s.
He documented this trip extensively, in over 80 pages of hand-written notes, mostly about conversations he had with people in the Philippines (including the rather dubious views about the “self-governing” potential of different races of man offered up by the Governor General — a reminder of the colonial and imperial nature of this endeavor). On the basis of his mission, in that impressively inexpert way of elite politics in the 1920s (apparently being rich and smart and connected with other rich and smart people was enough to make one a regional expert) was sufficient to later get him audiences with the President, would lead to Stimson becoming Governor General of the Philippines in two years, and Secretary of State after that. So it was quite an important trip for him.
In mid-September the Stimsons began the return trip, which was more leisurely and included stops in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Peking, Kobe, and Kyoto. In China and Japan, he visited temples, dined with Americans and locals. He describes many things he saw, in all of these cities, as “beautiful.” He arrived in Kyoto on October 6, and wrote that he had a “delicious dinner at Miyako Hotel.” The next day, October 3, he describes a “beautiful day devoted to sightseeing,” mentions a Buddhist monastery and temple “on high hill” (“Kiyumizu“), mentions going into Gion, and other things that are still fun to do there. Then the diary ends, which is both frustrating and remarkable, given that his time in Kyoto is what we care about, and that he documented pretty much every aspect of the trip in detail except Kyoto. Through other evidence, we know that on October 5, the Stimsons boarded a ship at Yokohama which arrived in San Francisco on October 20, so he could not have spent too much more time in Kyoto.4
The brief mention of Kyoto in Stimson’s 1929 diary, and his stay (for a second time) at the Miyako Hotel.
Three years later, in March 1929, the Stimsons spent the night in Kyoto. This visit came when Stimson was returning to the United States having ended his position as Governor General of the Philippines, in order to be sworn in as Herbert Hoover’s Secretary of State. It was basically an overnight stay: according to his diary, they arrived around 6pm, went to their hotel, and were on a train to Tokyo by 8:15am.
I would not call any of the above a “honeymoon” under even a broad definition of the term. Certainly Stimson did not appear to call it this in anything he ever said or wrote, which is really what matters. It is also not at all clear, from the above, that Kyoto was particularly “special” to Stimson in any particular way. His 1926 diary entry seems to reflect he had a nice time there. But it doesn’t contain anything that “cracks the code.” (“Sure would hate to see this city ever bombed!”)
I am absolutely fine with suggesting that Stimson had a really nice time in Kyoto, and that he saw it as something wonderful, and that these resonances played a part in his later decision. It is a remarkable city — I visited it myself for several days in 2016, and one can see why it is regarded as an important cultural monument today, with its ancient temples, castles, streets, districts, and so on. (Some of this specialness is a little circular: Kyoto is one of the only major cities in Japan that has significant pre-war architecture and infrastructure because Stimson had it spared.)
But let us posit that Stimson had a special attachment to it because of his trip(s) there. That is not, I don’t think, a totally satisfactory answer to why he went to such lengths to keep it off of the target list — nor, I would say, were his professed reasons, which related to avoiding the postwar animosity of the Japanese — but let us, for the sake of argument, accept that it played a role. This is still something different than saying that his took a “honeymoon” there. It is a rather significant trip (in 1926, anyway) that involved a lot more than sightseeing, and his acquaintance with Asia was not superficial. It was not some kind of kooky coincidence, and in any event, the reasons behind Stimson’s actions on Kyoto were more significant than just having a nice time with his wife.5
So where did the “honeymoon” story come from? I haven’t definitively traced the source, but it seems to come purely out of the world of journalism. If you search for “Stimson + Kyoto + honeymoon” in the ProQuest Historical Newspapers Archive (which is not comprehensive, but has many major newspapers in it), the first relevant entry is a bit of British journalism from 2002 (which describes it as his “second honeymoon,” an interesting qualifier). It appears in another British newspaper in 2006, and then “jumps the pond” to the Wall Street Journal in 2008. None of these stories attribute the statement to any source, or any expert, in particular.
A photo I took in the Gion district of Kyoto, 2017.
Forgive me for implying that these are not what I would consider particularly strong cases of journalistic research. I have not found any invocations of this trope in any databases I have access to (which are considerable). All of which makes me suspect this is a very recent (~20 years old) myth, one propagated by journalists and the Internet into the realm of “fact.” If I had to guess, calling his 1926 trip a “second honeymoon” was a bit of inventive flourish used by a journalist that, because of its potency as an idea, became repeated and repeated until it took status as fact.6
So why does this matter? Let’s get back to the Nolan film and that audience laugh I mentioned. Why laugh? Why is it funny, or interesting, to assert that Stimson scratched Kyoto off the list because he honeymooned there? Because it is discordant: one is talking about something of great historical importance and tremendous weightiness (the atomic bombings of Japan) being influenced by the idiosyncratic coincidence of an old man having fond memories of a city. It is deeply unexpected, because it pushes against the idea of the targeting of the Japanese cities as being part of a strictly rational, strategic process.
And so here’s the rub, for me: the removal of Kyoto was due to the idiosyncratic sensibilities of a single person (however inscrutable), and the targeting process wasless strictly rational and strategic as most people think. But it was not quite as arbitrary and capricious as “Kyoto was spared because of a honeymoon” would imply, and the trivializing of the sparing of Kyoto obscures the actually weighty issues regarding authority (who decides the targets of an atomic bomb?) and Truman’s actual role in the bombings (far less than people think). There’s an interesting and important story here, and treating it for a laugh is, well, annoying to me, to say the least. But more to the point, we should stop repeating the honeymoon myth. If I were giving an alternative framing for journalists (and others) to use, it would be this: “For reasons both personal and strategic, Stimson fought to remove Kyoto from the target list, and to keep it off the list after the military repeatedly tried to put it back on.” That gives Stimson a bit more credit, for one thing, and also invites further interest, rather than closing the door with a too-clever-by-half explanation.
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Notes
“Notes of the Interim Committee Meeting,” (31 May 1945), copy in Correspondence (“Top Secret”) of the Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1946, microfilm publication M1109 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1980), Roll 4, Target 6, Folder 3, “Interim Committee and Scientific Panel.” This entire folder is so interesting that I have opted to, unusually, upload it.
Also, they did not give the actor playing Stimson, James Remar, a mustache. I counted three prominently “missing mustaches” — characters whose appearances were quite defined by their mustaches in real life, but whose actors did not have any: Henry Stimson, Richard Tolman, and Kenneth Nichols (in his postwar visage). In each of these cases, the roles were relatively minor, but it’s mysterious to me why they wouldn’t have had them grow one, or use some makeup. In the case of Tolman, I feel it would have made him stand out a bit more from the crowd, as his presence is used in a non-trivial way in the plot of the film, but he has only one speaking line. The actor playing Nichols is quite small and a “babyface,” which makes it a little hard to see him as a hard-nosed Nichols, especially when he is in his postwar role. This is not really meant as a serious critique, but is the kind of thing that puzzled me, given that the film put a lot of emphasis on small details.
“Weddings Yesterday,” New York Times (7 July 1893), 4.
For this account, I both looked at Hodgson’s book, which describes some of it, but then also turned to Stimson’s diary: The Henry Lewis Stimson Diaries, microfilm edition retrieved from the Center for Research Libraries, original from Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, New Haven, Connecticut. His “Trip to the Orient” is labeled as volume 6a of his diaries. The date of his return trip aboard the S.S. President Taft I got from a manifest on Ancestry.com.
I don’t want to take the time here to go into my own theory of what Kyoto meant for Stimson, but let us just say I find more compelling an interpretation which sees Kyoto as a symbolic representation of Stimson’s guilt about the burning of Japan in general, which he was not a fan of. Stimson could not spare Japan, for many reasons, but he could spare Kyoto. Stimson attempted, at various times, to rationalize this — he could hardly convince anyone with that kind of emotional and vague argument — but my sense is that the rationalizations came after the decision. Of all of the speculations about Stimson’s motivations for Kyoto, the most interesting ones are contained in Otis Cary, “The Sparing of Kyoto: Mr. Stimson’s ‘Pet City,’” Japan Quarterly (Oct.-Dec. 1975), 337-347, which suggests that it was the affection of a “ward” of the Stimson’s for Kyoto that pushed him in that direction, but even that seems a little too “literal” for making sense of Stimson’s actions.
And Wikipedia may be partially to blame as well, in a process that XKCD’s Randall Munroe calls Citogenesis. Perhaps this post will be dubbed sufficiently rigorous to change how it discusses the matter? We shall see. One of the tricky aspects of Wikipedia’s internal epistemology is that for an issue like this, where a myth is asserted by not-great sources but not explicitly debunked by good ones, it becomes all-too-easy for something that experts don’t talk about to become talked about as a fact.
Featured image: Stimson was not invited by Truman to attend the Potsdam Conference — his rivals, like Byrnes, appear to have gotten him excluded — but the “old man” showed up anyway, with this defiant look on his face. Truman would tell him that he was glad, as Stimson was Truman’s primary conduit of information about the Trinity test and the atomic bomb.
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The Financial Times newspaper reported that since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, European companies have lost €100 billion. The media outlet indicated, citing preliminary data from a survey of 600 European groups’ annual reports and 2023 financial statements, that 176 European companies faced the depreciation of their assets while other companies closed or reduced their activities due to the sale, closure, or reduction of Russian businesses.
According to FT, energy companies such as BP, Shell, and TotalEnergies, suffered the most losses, losing €40.6 billion in total. “The losses were far outweighed by higher oil and gas prices, which helped these groups report bumper aggregate profits of about €95bn ($104bn) last year,” the outlet reported.
Financial corporations such as banks, insurance companies and investors lost approximately €17.5 billion, while car manufacturers lost €13.6 billion. The countries that lost the most are the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Ireland, and Denmark.
After the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, several foreign companies announced their withdrawal or suspension of work in the Russian market, starting a series of losses in Europe. In fact, the sanctions and exit from the Russian market have only hurt European companies and economies, and not Russia, as has been proven beyond a doubt.
The bloc’s industry has been especially hurt by rising energy costs since Brussels sanctioned Russia. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the decline in industrial production in the European bloc is responsible for the crisis.
The demand for electricity in the European Union (EU) will fall 3% this year, to the lowest level in two decades, predicted the International Energy Agency (IEA) in a report on July 20. The agency pointed to the decline in EU industrial production as the main factor behind the crisis.
Combined with last year’s 3% drop in demand, the fall is now the biggest in EU history, bringing the bloc’s electricity consumption back to levels not seen since 2002, the report said. According to the report, two-thirds of the reduction came from energy-intensive industries last year, and “this trend has continued well into 2023, despite the prices for energy commodities and electricity falling from their previous record highs.”
Combined with increased demand following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the power embargo pushed wholesale electricity prices in Europe to a record €430 per megawatt-hour in August 2022, a more than double increase since January. Although prices have stabilised, the EU’s manufacturing sector has not recovered.
According to the EU statistics agency, industrial production across the bloc fell 1.3% between February 2022 and March 2023. The decline was most pronounced in Germany, which relied heavily on Russian energy to power its huge industrial sector before the imposition of sanctions. Some of Germany’s biggest manufacturers – such as chemical giant BASF and carmaker Volkswagen – have cut production at home and announced the construction of new factories abroad.
At the same time, an unexpected drop in Germany’s industrial output in May sparked fears of a prolonged recession, which is now deepening since industrial production in Europe’s biggest economy fell 1.5% in June compared with May. Although Germany narrowly avoided a deepening recession in the April-to-June period, the latest provisional data suggests the slight economic improvement will not be sustained.
The declining economic situation brings into question why Europe is insistent on imposing self-sabotaging sanctions against Moscow, especially in light of the Wall Street Journal admitting that targeting the Russian economy has been a “failure.” The article’s authors highlight that sanctions have become a frequently used foreign policy tool of the US and even recalled how a White House official assured that the strategy would reduce the Russian economy in half.
The WSJ points out how a year and a half after the US and its allies made the Russian economy the most sanctioned globally, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced its projected growth for Russia of 1. 5% by 2023. The article also cited Cornell University history professor Nicholas Mulder, who specialises in sanctions, as saying that the West’s failed attempt to restrain Moscow could become a long-term warning and that Russia’s sheer size makes it impossible to isolate it from the world economy.
Despite the impossibility of isolating and economically ruining Russia through sanctions, something every self-respecting economist and analyst forewarned before the West unleashed its barrage of sanctions, the West continues its destructive policy. A year and a half on since the imposition of sanctions, and it is the Russian economy thriving, in relative terms, compared to Europe – the most shocking part obviously being that it is Europe causing its own economic ruin.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
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Westchester County, NY – On August 5th, 2023, 40-year-old Dr. Krystal Cascetta shot herself and her 4 month old baby dead at their $1 million Westchester home in what police are calling a murder-suicide. (click here)
New York State Police have said 40 year old Dr. Krystal Cascetta, entered the baby’s room around 7am on Saturday in the town of Somers, which is in Westchester County, New York, and shot the baby before turning the gun on herself.
Dr. Cascetta was a well renowned hematology and oncology specialist with Mount Sinai in New York City
She was married to 37 year old Timothy Talty, an enterpreneur and energy bar tycoon, who was not home at the time.
Cascetta and Talty were married in 2019 at a ceremony in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Talty owns the protein bar company Talty Bars.
The company’s website says that Cascetta used her medical and science background to help advise in the creation of the product.
Officials said Cascetta’s parents were inside their $1 million house during the fatal shootings.
Cascetta was a breast cancer researcher and an award winning doctor:
COVID-19 mRNA vaccine spike protein in the brain?
I have written several substack articles about COVID-19 vaccine spike protein accumulation in the brain and the resulting neurological and psychiatric injuries.
As a top Mount Sinai, New York hematologist/oncologist, she would have taken at least 4 or 5 COVID-19 vaccines to be considered “up to date” on her vaccinations and to “protect her cancer patients”.
I have heard this argument advanced by my own Oncology colleagues in Alberta, Canada, all of whom are 4 or 5 COVID-19 vaccines deep and continue taking them as they think the mRNA jabs protect their cancer patients (they don’t).
Canadian doctor suicides have skyrocketed since COVID-19 vaccines rolled out in 2021. (click here)
In the biggest mainstream media hit piece that was done on me by Global News and 20-something year old reporter Ashleigh Stewart, she claimed that after “months of investigation”, of the 80 Canadian doctor sudden deaths I reported at the time, she discovered 6 had died by way of suicide.
The number is probably a bit higher than that. Here are the Canadian doctors rumored to have died by way of suicide. Most of them are very young:
While Global News latched onto the doctor suicides as a way of “discrediting” me, in reality, they simply confirmed that there is a very serious problem with COVID-19 mRNA vaccinated Canadian doctors committing suicide in high numbers.
Suicide Attempts Post-Pfizer or Moderna
Here are the types of post COVID-19 vaccine reactions being recorded in the literature. These are from a previous substack article I wrote in March 2023:
Case 1: 37 yo Japanese man has psychosis after Moderna
A 37 yo Japanese man with no psychiatric history had Moderna booster shot and complained of headache, a floating sensation and difficulty concentrating. (Kita et al)
He presented 4 days later with talkativeness, and grandiose delusions, saying that he had won 2 billion yen in horse racing. He also presented with emotional instability, such as crying, sleeplessness, excitement, hyperactivity and sexual deviance.
He was discharged. Nine days after Moderna booster he jumped from the 2nd floor of his house, and was brought back to hospital by ambulance. He exhibited flight of ideas, hyperactivity, distraction, hyperthymia and religious delusions, such as saying “my child is God”. He displayed lack of insight and became enraged when his actions were restricted.
He was diagnosed with acute mania with psychotic features and stayed 66 days in the hospital.
Case 2: 45 yo Latvian man has psychosis & suicide attempt after mRNA
45 yo Latvian man with no psychiatric history presented 1 month after 2nd dose of mRNA vaccine, accompanied by his parents because of bizarre behavior and an attempted suicide by hanging in the early morning. (Renemane et al.)
Immediately after his 2nd mRNA dose, he developed insomnia, unreasonable anxiety and tremor.
After 2 weeks, he realized that he has been jinxed as he found some white powder under the carpet in his apartment. From that moment, he became cautious, did not leave the apartment, and reported persecution.
On the last day before his visit to the psychiatric clinic, the patient saw a man walking past the windows of his apartment and watching him. The patient described the thoughts in his head as not his own, giving him commands to observe the person on the street. He did not sleep that night and had a strong belief that he should commit suicide. He attached a rope, tried to hang himself, but his father stopped him.
Case 3: 45 yo Croatian man has psychosis & suicide attempt after AstraZeneca
45 yo Croatian man developed unusual behavior 5 days after AstraZeneca. He became anxious, suspicious, paranoid, disorganized and complained of headaches. (Borovina)
Two weeks after COVID-19 vaccination, persecutory delusions and delusions of reference led him to suicide attempt by stabbing himself in the abdomen.
He had surgery and spent 23 days in the hospital.
My Take…
We simply never hear about the post COVID-19 vaccination suicide attempts documented above .
According to UK Goverment Data (Dept of Work and Pensions), psychiatric injuries and disabilities are up 124% in 2022:
2022 Psychiatric: +124%
anxiety and depressive disorders +126%
hyperkinetic disorder +336%
stress reactions +191%
mood disorders +106%
I believe that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine spike protein accumulates in the brain and causes tremendous injuries which can be neurological and psychiatric.
I believe that COVID-19 mRNA vaccinated individuals have a much higher risk of developing mental health conditions that lead to suicide ideation and attempt, than the unvaccinated.
I now wonder if this same mechanism of spike protein injury in the brain translates to an increased risk of mental health conditions that lead to homicide ideation and attempt.
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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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***
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), famed for its hidden agendas and its preference to operate in the shadows, has featured in a couple of recent breaking stories. On July 22nd the White House announced that CIA Director William Burns would be stepping up to cabinet level in the Joe Biden Administration. That means that beyond being in theory a principal government source for reliable information that can be used to make policy, he would himself become a policy maker, co-equal with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Though the gesture is largely symbolic and creates some bureaucratic scrambling of roles and functions, it is not unprecedented. President Ronald Reagan included his CIA Director and close friend William Casey in the cabinet and the inevitable Bill Clinton elevated no less than two Directors, John Deutch and George Tenet.
Interestingly, of the four cabinet level CIA Directors, only Casey was an experienced intelligence officer, having served in the OSS during the Second World War and he became a controversial director who was inclined to support unnecessarily risky operations, particularly in Latin America. Deutch was something like a professional bureaucrat, having worked at the Pentagon before moving on to the Agency. He left CIA after little more than a year in office in December 1996 and it was subsequently learned that he had been keeping classified material on his own laptop computer, which appears to be a Democratic Party trait. Bill Clinton pardoned him before he could be prosecuted for failing to protect classified information. Tenet was a congressional staffer before becoming Director and he, of course, gifted the American people with the massive intelligence failure known as the Iraq War.
Burns likewise is a career diplomat, not a spy, and the two roles are very different, though perhaps not to Joe Biden and whoever is pulling his strings. At the beginning of his administration, Biden engaged Burns as his global trouble shooter—a man with a title and credentials that enabled him to communicate confidentially with foreign leaders outside of normal diplomatic channels. His role was to bridge the important space between overt and covert and to deal with national security from a civilian perspective. This has resulted in travel back and forth from Washington to foreign capitals, most recently involving Ukraine and Russia, where Burns once served as the US Ambassador.
Burns and the president reportedly have met frequently and Burns has been particularly influential on Biden decision-making as it relates to Ukraine. The CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) had been using satellites and communications intercepts to monitor Russia’s military buildup near the border with Ukraine and in November 2021, three months before the actual invasion, Biden sent Burns on a low-keyed trip to Moscow to warn the Kremlin of the possible consequences of any attack. Russia responded that the bid for Ukraine to join NATO plus the aggression against the ethnically Russian Donbas region of Ukraine were red lines, but no one in Washington was listening.
The elevation of Burns has a considerable potential downside as it muddles responsibilities and roles in the government. The CIA exists to provide information that is hopefully reliable to enable policy makers to understand and respond sensibly to complex situations involving foreign governments. To make sure that intelligence and policy are not self-validating, the Agency traditionally limits collaborative contact between the case officers who collect the information in the field and the analysts who produce the finished reports that go to policy makers. That the Director of CIA is now both providing intelligence while also participating in discussions of the appropriate responses runs the risk of the intelligence itself being tainted by policy considerations. The dual role will also subtly impact on the Agency’s perspectives and priorities. In other words, there will be a tendency to shape the intelligence based on White House, State Department and Pentagon expectations, which might themselves be distorted due to purely partisan political considerations. What this means is that if the Administration wants a war with Russia, someone like Burns will possibly cull and shape the information to deliver just that.
The move regarding Burns should come as a surprise to no one as Joe Biden has a clear tendency to surround himself with “yes” men and women rather than knowledgeable managers and leaders. Burns has, in fact, been an enthusiastic cheerleader for the war, often contradicting reports that it is going very badly for Ukraine. And hold on, there is yet another story circulating about the CIA and it also involves William Burns, who has commented how he sees a great opportunity to recruit Russian spies given the turmoil that he thinks prevails in Moscow in the wake of the alleged Yevgeny Prigozhin “mutiny.”
At a lecture at the Ditchley Foundation in London on July 1st, Burns stated that
“Disaffection with the war will continue to gnaw away at the Russian leadership, beneath the steady diet of state propaganda and practiced repression. That disaffection creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us at CIA, at our core a human intelligence service. We’re not letting it go to waste. We recently used social media — our first video post to Telegram, in fact — to let brave Russians know how to contact us safely on the dark web. We had 2.5 million views in the first week, and we’re very much open for business.”
Burns was referring to a slickly produced, cinematic recruitment video that appeared online in the middle of May entitled, “Why I contacted the CIA: My decision,” which shows individual Russians making the choice to contact the Agency. CIA’s material was posted initially on a channel on Telegram, the social media network that is believed to be a highly popular source of unfiltered news in Russia. The video, in Russian, incorporates instructions on how to get in touch with the CIA anonymously and securely. The video has also been picked up by other social media platforms, including YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
The project comes after a previous recruitment drive following the launch of the invasion of Ukraine that CIA officials have claimed to be successful, with “contact coming in.” Which, of course, might be a lie. There are also reportedly several Russian-produced comical versions lampooning the video. The video itself may or may not be having an impact on Russians who are concerned about Ukraine, but Burns’s revelation of what the Agency is doing to recruit Russians demonstrates that he is no intelligence officer. And the video itself is more Hollywood than Langley as revealing one’s intentions and activities to a targeted adversary is bad tradecraft, to put it mildly, as it reveals “sources and methods,” a capital offense in the spy business. Also, the conditions that bred pre-1991 Soviet era defectors no longer exist as Putin is undeniably popular and the disparities between life in Russia and life in the west, both in terms of materialism and personal liberties, are currently barely noticeable.
Russia Today (RT), the state-owned media outlet, also reports that the CIA is stepping up its on-the-ground efforts to recruit the presumably unhappy Russians. Relying on coverage of a recent “CIA at 75” event held at George Mason University in Virginia, RT quotes the Agency’s Deputy Director for Operations David Marlowe, who told a “select audience” that CIA officers abroad have recently been engaged in a major effort to exploit “fertile ground” to recruit Russian agents from “among disgruntled military officers, oligarchs who have seen their fortunes thinned by sanctions, and businesspeople and others who have fled the country.”
Marlowe elaborated how it works, saying “We’re looking around the world for Russians who are as disgusted with [the conflict in Ukraine] as we are.” Marlowe then used the slogan that Burns used in England “…Because we’re open for business.” The Russian government has in fact denounced what appear to be several overt attempts to recruit its remaining diplomats and military attaches in Europe and the US using what are referred to as “cold pitches,” where someone approaches a target on the street or in a social setting and offers money or other inducements in return for information. Russian reports indicate that American officers have been hanging around Russian Embassies passing out to those leaving or entering the building cards with phone numbers to contact the FBI and CIA.
Inevitably, cold pitches very rarely work because even if the target were so inclined, he or she would have to consider the possibility that his or her own loyalty was being tested by the agency that he or she works for. In fact, the comments by Burns and the CIA video will likely reduce the possibility that some Russian official thinking of defecting will do so. The Russian government, angered by the crude overt attempts to have its citizens commit treason, will be watching more closely its employees who have access to highly sensitive information and they will also be increasing the surveillance of the movements of foreign diplomat-spies in Moscow and elsewhere. That makes a Director of Central Intelligence speaking out about what he is up to combined with videos making crude proposals a losing proposition if one is seriously interested in penetrating the security surrounding an adversary.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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***
Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland of “EuroMaidan” infamy traveled to Niger to hold discussions with its interim military-led government after the expiry of ECOWAS’ one-week deadline for reinstalling ousted President Mohamed Bazoum. A regional war is looming over West Africa in the event that this NATO-backed bloc invades like it earlier threatened and/or that country’s former French colonizer acts unilaterally, which is why it’s important to analyze what she revealed about her trip there.
Her special briefing to the press began with platitudes about restoring Niger’s constitutional order following the patriotic military coup last month and then referenced the aid that the US would be legally obliged to cut off if this doesn’t happen. Nuland then mentioned that she also met with “a broad cross-section of Nigerien civil society. These are long-time friends of the United States. They are journalists. They are democratic activists. They are human rights activists.”
Considering her role in Ukraine’s Color Revolution that ultimately led to the ongoing NATO-Russianproxywar in that country, it’s reasonable to suspect that she might have signaled to these civil society forces that the US supports them initiating large-scale and riotous protests against the military authorities. This scenario could unfold either in lieu of a NATO-backed and possibly French-supported Nigerian-led ECOWAS invasion of Niger, as a pretext for publicly justifying the aforesaid, or during such an invasion.
Nevertheless, that doesn’t appear to have been the main reason for her trip since such signals could more conveniently and securely be sent to those forces remotely without a top US diplomatic official having to do so directly in-person, but this still can’t be ruled out. Moving along, Nuland then disclosed that her discussions
“with the self-proclaimed chief of defense of this operation, General Barmou, and three of the colonels supporting him…were extremely frank and at times quite difficult”.
She explained that this was because “we were pushing for a negotiated solution”, which could either be an insincere effort designed to get the Nigerien military’s guard down ahead of the potentially imminent destabilization scenarios that were just described or might actually be the US’ preferred way forward. The first possibility is plausible owing to the Ukrainian precedent, while the second might be due to fears that a wider regional war could go awry and eventually create space for Russia to expand its influence.
The next part of her briefing was very interesting. She said that she wasn’t allowed to see Bazoum despite talking to him on the phone and also wasn’t permitted to meet interim President General Abdourahamane Tiani. Keeping her away from Bazoum could have been meant to retain some ambiguity about his status so as to deter the earlier mentioned destabilization scenarios while also reaffirming President Tiani’s legitimacy, whereas the latter’s refusal to meet Nuland was a deliberate snub.
She then said that
“I hope they will keep the door open to diplomacy. We made that proposal. We’ll see. As I said, they have their own ideas about how this goes forward. They do not – their ideas do not comport with the constitution, and that will be difficult in terms of our relationship if that’s the path they take. But we gave them a number of options to keep talking and we hope they take us up on it.”
Simply put, the interim military-led government isn’t backing down despite this jeopardizing ties with the US.
Another intriguing detail that was revealed during her briefing is that
“General Barmou, former Colonel Barmou, is somebody who has worked very closely with U.S. Special Forces over many, many years. So we were able to go through in considerable detail the risks to aspects of our cooperation that he has historically cared about a lot.”
It’s remarkable that a close US military ally ended up participating in the overthrow of his US-backed leader, became the new defense chief, and then didn’t back down.
This shows that even those high-ranking foreign military officials who closely cooperate with some of the US’ best-trained forces “over many, many years” don’t always become its puppets, which suggests that other similarly positioned officials elsewhere across Africa might follow in General Barmou’s footsteps. It can therefore no longer be taken for granted that the US’ foreign military programs successfully lead to the cultivation of elite proxies. They sometimes backfire as proven by this particular case.
Near the end of her briefing, Nuland answered two questions about Wagner and Russia in the following way:
“Of course I raised the – Wagner and its threat to those countries where it is present, reminding them that security gets worse, that human rights get worse when Wagner enters. I would not say that we learned much more about their thinking on that front.
…
With regard to Wagner, you will have seen some boasting by Prigozhin in St. Petersburg. I will say that I got the sense in my meetings today that the people who have taken this action here understand very well the risks to their sovereignty when Wagner is invited in.”
These statements are obviously contradictory, so she either got confused or is lying in one of her answers.
Regardless of the signals that the interim military-led government might have sent to Nuland pertaining to speculation that it might request Wagner’s “DemocraticSecurity” services, it would have likely been meant for deterrence purposes. Entertaining this scenario could hint that the US risks losing even more of its influence if it doesn’t stop a regional war from breaking out, while downplaying it could be intended to convince the US that it shouldn’t overreact to the consequences of the coup.
Altogether, the top takeaways from Nuland’s trip are that: the US is making a public effort of dubious sincerity to show the world that it doesn’t want a regional war; her meeting with Nigerien civil society means that a Color Revolution can’t be ruled out; the interim military-led government isn’t backing down despite its new defense chief being a close years-long partner of the Pentagon; and its envisaged post-coup relations with Russia and Wagner remain unclear.
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Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Since the publication of this article pertaining to the ICC Arrest Warrant directed against President Putin, NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has confirmed (on behalf of NATO) that the “war didn’t start in 2022”.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Stoltenberg stated that “the war started in 2014″. In so doing he tacitly admits that it was not Russia which took the decision to declare war on Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
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Lee Hockstader, Washington Post Editorial Board: How has the war led NATO to recalibrate its defense posture and doctrine?
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: The war in Ukraine has fundamentally changed NATO, but then you have to remember the war didn’t start in 2022. The war started in 2014. And since then, NATO has implemented the biggest reinforcement of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War.
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What this admission by Jens Stoltenberg confirms is that the Ukraine war commenced in the immediate wake of the US sponsored illegal February 2014 EuroMaidan Coup d’Etat which was conducive to the installation of a Neo-Nazi regime in Kiev. The legal implications of Stoltenberg’s admission are far-reaching.
“….respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.” [Additional Protocol 1, Article 48]
Civilian population (children) and civilian objects (schools, hospitals, residential areas) were the deliberate object of UAF and Azov Battalion attacks in blatant violation of the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC).
In accordance with the LOAC, Moscow took the decision starting in February 2014 to come to the rescue of Donbass civilians including children.
Visibly the president of the I.C.C. Piotr Hofmanski in accusing President Putin of “unlawful kidnapping of Ukrainian children” hasn’t the foggiest understanding of Article 48. of the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC). Is this an issue of incompetence? Or has Piotr Hofmanski been co-opted into endorsing crimes against humanity?
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, August 8, 2023
***
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and his Children’s Rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, over the alleged “unlawful kidnapping of Ukrainian children’. According to the I.C.C:
“there are reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect bears responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, in prejudice of Ukrainian children.” (emphasis added)
The I.C.C. accusation directed against Vladimir Putin of “kidnapping” or “deportation” of Ukrainian children borders on ridicule.
The president of the I.C.C. Piotr Hofmanski (see below) refers to the Geneva Convention, without the foggiest understanding of the rights of civilians in a war zone.
The Azov Battalion as well as Ukrainian forces have routinely bombed civilians in Donbass since 2014. The I.C.C. fails to acknowledge that killing children in a war zone is a crime against humanity.
Swastika, Azov Battalion’s SS Wolfsangel symbol, NATO Flag (Right to Left)
These are the Nazi terrorists who are killing children in Donbass. Their legitimacy is tacitly upheld by the I.C.C. They are generously funded by the “International Community”.
The Nazi SS Wolfsangel symbol
The war did not start in February 2022. Since 2014, Donbass residential neighbourhoods, schools, hospitals, ambulances, etc. have been routinely targeted. From the 2014 Euromaidan and the US sponsored Coup d’Etat to February 2022, up to 14,000 Donbass residents have been killed.
Bombing of schools: It’s terrorism instigated by Kiev against Ukrainian Children.
What is the truth? What is the lie?
Thousands of children were killed by the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion (which is supported by US-NATO).
Fleeing the war zone to save your children is tagged by the I.C.C. as “deportation”.
The people of Donbass have been under constant shelling for nearly a decade now and they don’t even duck when hearing incoming shells and rockets.
Children born in the besieged region don’t know what peace is. For them, shells hitting their homes is a “normal”, regular occurrence.
They never got the chance to see anything else. (Drago Bosnic, June 1, 2022, emphasis added)
Starting in 2014, thousands of Donbass families including children were provided safe haven in Russia, as part of a humanitarian initiative under the auspices of Moscow’s Ministry of Emergency Situations.
Russian families have welcomed them and provided assistance.
Many of the children who were provided safe haven in Russia are orphans whose parents were killed by the Azov Battalion.
And this is categorized by the I.C.C. and the mainstream media as the “kidnapping of children” by the President of the Russian Federation. What absolute nonsense. It’s not only “nonsense”, it’s the “criminalization of mainstream media”.
Video: A Russian Youth Camp categorized as War Crimes against Children
Who are The War Criminals
The I.C.C. has carefully turned a blind eye to the endless war crimes committed by US-NATO. Millions of civilians killed, not to mention Tony Blair and GWB’s illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Twenty Years Ago.
Donbass. Humanitarian Endeavor or “War Crimes”?
Russia’s initiative in support of Donbass civilians has been ongoing since the outset in 2014. Thousands of lives have been saved.
It started in Rostov on the Don ( about 100 km from the border with Ukraine, see map below) which had established facilities starting in 2014 to assist the people of Donesk and Luhansk.
One can see how the Rostov region [June 2014] is gradually turning into an area neighboring the combat zone. Thousands of refugees cross the border fleeing the territory of Donetsk People’s Republic. It becomes clear we face a serious disaster with grave consequences to follow. On June 4 [2014], Vassily Golubev, the Rostov region governor, declared emergency in 15 border areas.
According to regional authorities, 995 Ukrainians including 489 children, found refuge in the region as of June 6. 2014.
The flow increased the following days. The recent report [June 2014] says 7335 Ukrainian citizens entered the Rostov region while 4272 left. A local source informed that there were 2102 people, 930 children, given refuge in 15 municipal districts. About half of the refugees were given accommodation by local people while many of them are living in tents.
It was my job to take care of refugees – or potential refugees – from Donbass. The people from Ukrainian Lugansk region also go to the office of unrecognized Donetsk People’s Republic to ask for help. We do our best, but it’s not that easy. We help the refugees from the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics to cross the border and we temporarily accommodate them but the resources are scarce.
We should admit that the local branches of Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations are doing a perfect job. Still the problems are plentiful. The refugee’s legal status is to be defined. Are they foreigners? Immigrants compelled to change the place of residence? They never know what is in store for them and how long they are going to stay in Russia. The tragedy is immense. Summer will fly away soon. It’ll become colder. What next?
They tell a lot of things media outlets never report, especially war stories. A former special operations officer saving the children from shells, 17 year old boys on barricades defending the Donbass populated areas from Ukrainian tanks.
The people in Rostov and other Russian cities call and send letters and e-mails offering help.
Time will pass and many things will be obliterated.
But these unobtrusive people ready to act like heroes will always stay in memory.
What is happening on the territory of Donbass declared a combat zone by Kiev where it conducts its “anti-terrorist operation”? There is a large concentration of Ukrainian troops there. …
The Azov Battalion’s Nazi Indoctrination Camp for Children and Adolescents
The Azov battalion is not only involved in killing children in Eastern Ukraine, it has also been running a Summer Camp military training project (starting in 2014-2015) for young children as part of its broader Nazi indoctrination program.
The Nazi Wolfsangel SS symbol on their T-Shirts
The Nazi Summer Camps constitute a crime against Ukrainian children, which the I.C.C., Western governments and the media have casually ignored.
Compare the Nazi children’s training camp to the Russian Youth Camp for Alleged Kidnapped Donbass orphans, which is tagged by the I.C.C. as a crime against humanity.
And the media applaud. And this article is the object censorship.
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On 21 June 1942 the Axis divisions in North Africa, consisting of German and Italian forces, finally completed the capture of Tobruk in the far north-east of Libya, inflicting a decisive defeat there on the Allies made up of British, South African and Indian soldiers. Tobruk was a strategically important fortress city, and the Axis troops found a very large amount of supplies inside Tobruk, which included more than 1,000 intact armoured cars and thousands of tons of petrol and food.
Tobruk was taken at the end of the 4 week long Battle of Galaza, and the city succumbed for various reasons. Axis morale was high and the same could not be said of the Allies at this time. The German and Italian troops learned from previous mistakes in 1941, and they had amassed a good knowledge of the Tobruk region. In 1942 the Axis soldiers attacked Tobruk at its most weakly defended point, the south-eastern sector, whereas in 1941 they had attacked blind in the city’s strong south-western sector.
The Allies allowed the defences beside Tobruk to deteriorate in the first half of 1942. The mines around the city had been removed, and the anti-tank ditches and trenches were partially covered back in. The British had only 70 anti-tank guns to defend the 33 miles of perimetre around Tobruk.
A serious blow was already struck against the Allied forces when, just over a week before the defeat at Tobruk, a major tank battle took place in Knightsbridge close to Tobruk. Colonel-General Erwin Rommel, the de facto overall commander of Axis forces in North Africa, was helped by the fact that, on the night of 11 June 1942, the Germans and Italians fortuitously gained access to British plans by intercepting orders the latter had made over the open radio.
Erwin Rommel with Italian governor of Libya, General Italo Gariboldi (on Rommel’s right), in Tripoli, February 1941 (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 de)
Rommel therefore set a trap for the Allied armour, in which they unwittingly went straight into a pincers movement implemented by the Axis troops and that resulted in severe losses for the Allies. Their armoured brigades suffered a mauling by the Axis tanks on either side of them. Among these vehicles was Italy’s M13/40 medium tank, the most widely produced Italian tank of World War II and which had a fine record in destroying British tanks.
Furthermore, historian Samuel W. Mitcham wrote, bn
“On June 12 the British lost their command of the battlefield right from the start… It was an excellent day for the German antitank gunners. The weather conditions were very hazy. Under this perfect cover, the gunners could easily get within killing distance of the British armored vehicles without being seen. Tank after tank was knocked out”. (Mitcham, Desert War, p. 70)
In the hours after the taking of Tobruk, Rommel dispatched a telegram to the German military attaché in Rome, Lieutenant-General Enno von Rintelen. Rommel outlined,
“The first objective of the Panzerarmee – to defeat the enemy’s army in the field and capture Tobruk – has been attained. Request you ask the Duce [Benito Mussolini] to lift the present restriction on freedom of movement, and put all the troops now under my command at my disposal, so I can continue the battle”.
As Mussolini knew, what Rommel meant by “continue the battle” was the imminent Axis attack on Egypt, which borders Libya to the east.
With Libya secure and Tobruk at their back, the Axis forces could proceed unmolested with their invasion of Egypt, and on 23 June 1942 the Axis troops were amassing on the country’s western borders. The Germans and Italians thereupon entered Egypt and, on June 29th, they took the port of Mersa Matruh in north-western Egypt on the Mediterranean Sea.
In spite of having insufficient armour, Rommel’s plan was to advance further east of Mersa Matruh and take Alexandria, Egypt’s second largest city, followed by the capital, Cairo. In a British war cabinet directive of 28 April 1941, prime minister Winston Churchill had said “the loss of Egypt and the Middle East would be a disaster of the first magnitude to Great Britain” (Goodspeed, p. 381). The only worse scenario than this, according to Churchill, was the Axis conquest of the British Isles.
General Claude Auchinleck, commander of the main Allied force in North Africa, the British 8th Army, was considering giving up Egypt completely and sending his army to Sudan, Palestine and Iraq. Auchinleck quickly dropped the idea. Elsewhere panic was spreading, unreasonably. In Alexandria, Allied military officials and diplomats were losing faith in the British 8th Army’s prospects of stopping the German and Italian troops.
With Rommel’s armoured spearhead advancing in late June 1942, the British Mediterranean Fleet stationed at Alexandria set sail for the Red Sea, and demolition crews were ready to blow up the harbour installations. Most of the soldiers left Alexandria and large numbers of pro-Allied civilians fled 120 miles south-east to Cairo, where long traffic jams built up. Smoke was seen coming from the chimneys of the British embassy in Cairo, where valuable documents were being burnt. The same sight was on show at different military headquarters in the Egyptian capital.
A German Signals reception unit in the desert (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 de)
Columns of trucks, laden down with equipment belonging to the British General Staff and the General Headquarters, were seen leaving Cairo and driving in the direction of Palestine. The American Liaison Staff disappeared. Units of the British 10th Corps which were still operational dug in on the Nile Delta.
Of Rommel’s attempt to subdue Egypt, Mitcham wrote that “he was halted at El Alamein” which was “60 miles from Alexandria”. The Axis troops were unable to defeat the Allied forces in the First Battle of El Alamein, which finished in stalemate on 27 July 1942, and final victory was to elude the Axis powers in North Africa.
One reason for this was that American material resources were beginning to pour into the continent. America’s economy had been placed on a war footing, and half a million tons of military supplies reached the Allied soldiers in North Africa in the last 2 weeks of August 1942, which was so much more than the Axis divisions received in the same period (13,000 tons). The Axis forces needed 60,000 tons of provisions a month to sustain them in North Africa. Instead they were receiving well below that number, and the Germans and Italians had to rely mostly on captured equipment.
It must be mentioned that the Soviet military’s ongoing resistance was destroying the vast majority of Nazi Germany’s war resources. The great ability of the Russian soldiers, to thwart a Nazi victory in the western USSR, resulted in very significant effects in other war theatres like North Africa. The Nazi regime’s focus, which was largely on Russia since June 1941, ensured they could furnish only limited supplies to German forces in North Africa. It can be said, as a result, the Russians had considerable influence over the ultimate Axis defeat in North Africa also.
At the start of the First Battle of El Alamein on 1 July 1942, Rommel had a modest 55 panzers remaining, along with 77 field guns of different calibres and 65 anti-tank guns (Mitcham, p. 100). On July 26th, the Axis troops fired their last shell for heavy artillery, and their medium artillery was rapidly running out, while Allied warplanes had gained supremacy of the North African skies from the Luftwaffe.
With the German and Italian failure to advance past El Alamein during the high summer, in retrospect it is clear the Axis lost the war in North Africa during July 1942. Mussolini himself might have realised this. In late June and early July 1942, Mussolini had anticipated the expansion of Axis rule into Egypt, but by July 20th his mood seems to have changed (Goodspeed, p. 426). Canadian author Donald J. Goodspeed wrote “the outcome of the war in North Africa was never really in doubt after First Alamein”.
Through August 1942 the British built up their tank force in North Africa to more than 700, while the Germans now had 259 panzers. Many of these panzers came hastily from the repair shops and were in need of total refitting. Due to lack of time this was not possible in the summer of 1942. Rommel unwisely chose to launch another offensive.
In northern Egypt, Rommel struck on the moonlit night of August 30th about 15 miles south-east of El Alamein, during what is called the Battle of Alam el Halfa (30 August–5 September 1942). Goodspeed noted, “Like the First Battle of El Alamein, the Battle of Alam el Halfa proved to be a mistake on Rommel’s part” (Goodspeed, p. 427). The new commander of the British 8th Army, Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery, was expecting such an attack and he fought a well-organised defensive battle laid out for him by his predecessor Auchinleck, who Churchill had harshly sacked on 8 August 1942.
Attacking from the south, the Axis armour was assailed by British warplanes and stopped by the strong Allied defences at Alam el Halfa Ridge. Rommel was almost killed on 1 September 1942 during a British air attack, but he managed to jump into a trench at the last moment; 7 of his fellow soldiers nearby were not so fortunate and had been hit by shrapnel. In the Battle of Alam el Halfa, the Allies lost 68 tanks in comparison to 49 Axis tanks destroyed; but Montgomery could replenish his tank fleet more easily than Rommel.
British SAS patrol in armed jeeps (Licensed under the Public Domain)
The Axis tanks were dangerously short of fuel, with almost all of the petrol captured at Tobruk two months before having been consumed. On September 1st with his attack failing, Rommel ordered a withdrawal to a position just in front of their original starting line. British aircraft, including Hawker Hurricanes and Spitfires, continued to harry the retreating Axis divisions over the next few days and inflict losses. British casualties came to 1,750 in the Battle of Alam el Halfa, as opposed to 2,910 Axis casualties, 1,859 of them German, 1,051 Italian. (Goodspeed, p. 427)
After a lull in the fighting, the British began their long-awaited offensive on 23 October (Second Battle of El Alamein, 23 October–11 November 1942). Montgomery’s superiority for this offensive is plain to see: at the outset the Allied divisions had 4 times more troops than the Germans, 5 times more tanks and artillery, 4 times more aircraft and 3 times more anti-tank guns. (Mitcham, Field Marshals, p. 184)
Montgomery’s plan of battle at El Alamein designated his main thrust to take place in the north, between the Ruweisat Ridge and the Mediterranean coast, while diversionary attacks were to fall further south. There was to be an extensive artillery bombardment, and the British infantry would subsequently proceed to clear pathways through the Axis minefields. After these actions were completed the Allied armour would then advance.
The main attack opened at 9:40 pm on 23 October 1942. It went very slowly at first and British casualties were high. Deep penetrations were made in the enemy’s minefields, but no clear hole was punctured through them. At Rommel’s urging, the Axis troops fought back viciously and they launched counterattacks on October 25th. By the end of the first week of fighting, October 30th, the British 8th Army was yet to break through the Axis defences.
At the end of October the Axis divisions were in a real predicament, however. Rommel had about 90 tanks left in the field whereas Montgomery had 800 tanks. Rommel reported that their position was critical and his front might crack apart at any moment.
Rommel attempted another counterattack, which failed, and by November 2nd there were just 30 panzers remaining (Goodspeed, p. 428). Early on November 3rd Montgomery’s armour at last blew a hole through the Axis’ rearguard. The previous night Rommel had decided to retire 60 miles west to the locality of Fouka in north-western Egypt, but a telegram came through to Rommel from Hitler. He ordered Rommel’s forces “to stand fast, yield not a yard of ground, and throw every gun and every man into the battle”.
With some reluctance, Rommel obeyed Hitler’s command to hold El Alamein and he halted the retreat. This decision simply resulted in further losses, including the destruction of more than half of the remaining panzers and heavy damage inflicted on Italian armoured and infantry forces.
On the night of 3 November 1942 another attack broke through the Axis lines as the Allied troops, which included a New Zealand division, wheeled north in an attempt to cut off the enemy soldiers at the Mediterranean coast. South African troops advanced too, including black South African soldiers who often proved to be both courageous and skilful fighters.
Rommel did not wait for more orders from Hitler and he duly retreated. The attempted encirclement by the Allies did not fully succeed, in part because it failed to strike far enough to the west to reach the sea in time, and partly because Montgomery was again indecisive.
Due to this the opportunity of taking Rommel prisoner, which had been a genuine possibility, was also disappearing. On 4 November 1942 the British did manage to capture a prominent German officer, General Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma, who was caught adrift in a minefield and forced to surrender.
Regardless of that, the Axis troops held up the Allied advance long enough, allowing them to pull some of their forces out along the coastal road. When the Second Battle of El Alamein concluded in a decisive Allied victory on 11 November 1942, they had taken prisoner around 10,000 German soldiers and the Axis armour was seriously depleted. Goodspeed noted these events “meant that the end of the Axis’ power in Africa was only a matter of time”.
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This article was originally published on Geopolitica.RU.
Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree and he writes primarily on foreign affairs and historical subjects. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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The latest political situation unfolded in Niger, the unexpected removal of democratically-elected President Mohamed Bazoum late July and the deepening differences in perception across Africa explicitly shows Africa’s level of political illusions and, practical reality towards attaining unity dimension in Africa.
In a nutshell, Africa remains sharply divided. Tracking down the Africa’s unity propagated by the Big Six politicians including Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere etcetera, during the time of their struggle for political independence and the creation of an organization for Africa. More than 60 years, the important question of continental unity has been pursued with with great fanfare.
The Telegraph notes that
“the removal of Mohamed Bazoum has completed a coast to coast corridor of African nations under military rule running across the continent’s Sahel region. Niger’s turmoil follows coups in Sudan, Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso in the past few years, sweeping away governments that were often already struggling against jihadist violence and some of the world’s worst poverty.”
The rapid overthrows have alarmed African democracies, but also Western countries who had been attempting to help subdue the jihadists, and boost economies to stem northward migration, according the newspaper’s article published early August.
We can also look at the situation in another perspective: The French-speaking military leaders have raised multiple complaints over the dominance of neo-colonial tendencies, particularly against France for exploitation of natural resources, for their gross under-development and the abject economic poverty these several years after political independence.
A billboard in Niamey criticizing Niger’s pro-western, pro-French attitude (2019) (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)
The English-speaking and Portuguese-speaking are similarly also talking about the United States and Europe. Most of them have increasingly acknowledged widespread terrorism and insurgency jihadist attacks as key reasons for the removal of their civilian governments.
Ultimately the situation is also developing in the Horn of Africa, it is rapidly deteriorating due to frequent militant attacks and terrorists’ pressures in the region. Across Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Uganda, the crisis poses a huge critical challenge for governments and regional organisations as well as the African Union.
Seemingly it’s largely the battle for influence, the scramble for resources too. Africa is now the focus; it becomes the focal point for the emerging world order as players are bolstering campaign to edge out Western influence in the region.
The African Union, the organization which primarily coordinates the continental political and economic as well as the socio-cultural activities, observes the new trends as military rule spread in the West African region. There must be an extensive political awareness among the people in the Sahel region to focus on democracy, development, security and stability.
That however, on July 26, 2023, the African Union officially informed of an attempt by certain members of the military to undermine the stability of democratic and republican institutions in Niger, which is tantamount to an attempted coup d’état, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, strongly condemns such actions by members of the military acting in total betrayal of their republican duty.
Further urging them to immediately cease these unacceptable actions, the Chairperson calls on the people of Niger, all their brothers in Africa, particularly in ECOWAS, and around the world, to join their voices in unanimous condemnation of this coup attempt, and for the immediate and unconditional return of the felon soldiers to their barracks.
Writing in the media, Khalid Cherkaoui Semmouni, Specialist in Political and Security questions in the Sahel, explains that popular support for the military in Niger which followed that of Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea endangers spreading to more countries in West Africa, such as Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and others countries in the region. The evolving situation has the possibility of changing the regional order in the Sahel.
Gathering of Islamic State fighters on the Mali-Niger border in July 2021 (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)
Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Mali and Niger, these landlocked West African states with an impoverished population, face increasing isolation from the international community over their political power grab. Even as the African Union (AU), the continental organization, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the regional bloc, both suspended their memberships.
ECOWAS Sanctions Against Niger
Reports indicated that Niger’s self-declared new leader would not bow to pressure to reinstate ousted President Mohamed Bazoum, intensifying a standoff with the West African bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The bloc has struggled to contain a democratic backslide in West Africa and had vowed that coups will no longer be tolerated after military takeovers in member states Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea and an attempted coup in Guinea-Bissau in the last two years.
As already known, the United States, France and the European Union have suspended financial assistance to Niger. According to the executive order, ECOWAS imposes eight (8) stringent sanctions. The decision was taken at an extraordinary session of the Authority presided over by President of Nigeria Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Abuja. Below is a list of Economic Sanctions placed on Niger Republic:
1. Closure of Land and air borders between ECOWAS and Niger.
2. Institution of ECOWAS no flight zone to all commercial flights to and fro Niger.
3. Suspension of all commercial and financial transactions between ECOWAS member states and Niger.
4. Freeze all service transactions including energy transactions.
5. Freeze assets of Niger Republic in all ECOWAS Central banks.
6. Freeze all Niger State and the state enterprises and Parastatals in commercial banks.
7. Suspension of Niger from all financial assistance and transactions with all financial institutions.
8. Impose travel bans on the military officials and their families involved in the coup attempt including anyone who accepts to take a position in the military government.
Previous AU and ECOWAS Positions
The African Union has made some attempts in resolving the crisis.
Moreover, in the immediate term, the increasing proliferation of military coups and the attempts to take power through force of arms, has to be addressed swiftly and firmly in order to halt the further erosion of the authority of the AU Executive Council along with the Peace and Security Council. The AU founding documents and protocols categorically prohibit military coups. It is up to the leadership of the AU to develop means to implement these regulations.
Besides these measures to maintain relative control on members in the West African region, African Union and ECOWAS have to jointly ensure its previous decisions. For instance, in March 2021, the ECOWAS Commission held a one-day workshop on the modalities for implementing the Silencing the Guns agenda in West Africa, a flagship programme of the Africa Union’s Agenda 2063.
That workshop was organized through the ECOWAS Directorate of Political Affairs in collaboration with the African Union Commission’s Silencing the Guns Unit. The objective of the workshop was to further discussions on an ECOWAS strategy and approach to the regionalization of the ‘Silencing the Guns Agenda’ in West Africa and in coordination and alignment with the African Union.
As we understand, the meeting was considered highly relevant to the determination of ECOWAS to increase cooperation and enhance synergy in addressing conflict at its roots and to develop robust response approaches and mechanisms across the region. In our assessment, next to nothing has happened to these series of fanfare meetings.
Long before that, an Extraordinary Humanitarian Summit and Pledging Conference held on May 27 and 28 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, by African leaders to address the current humanitarian challenges and problems facing Africa. It categorically stated to find root causes, and besides natural disasters and climate change, the frequency of military is creating additional problems on the continent.
At the conference, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, stressed the significance of the gathering and highlighted details of some of the causes, and increased demands for humanitarian support.
Moussa Faki Mahamat, in his speech, illustrated figures and statistical data drawn up and compiled by the United Nations specialised agencies, based on the general trends that emerge in the five regions of the continent, there are 15 most affected member States, 113 million people urgently waiting for emergency assistance in 2022. These are refugees, returnees, internally displaced persons in Africa.
In his speech, Macky Sall, Chairman of the African Union and President of Senegal, pointed to emergencies linked to climate change, natural disasters and terrorist attacks which have become endemic in certain countries but also emergencies linked to armed conflicts.
Macky Sall passionately called for laying down military arms, to engage in dialogue to settle our differences peacefully, the culture of rejection to embrace care that repairs social fragilities by relieving those who suffer from hunger, disease and poverty, emphasized access to power by peaceful means and to agree on spaces for dialogue and consultation for a peaceful exercise of power, and an inclusive development, following the principles of social justice, so that each citizen feels heir to a part of the national resources.
“We cannot dream of a better future when the poverty of some leaves others indifferent. The state must constantly serve as a lever to give confidence to those who think they are right to doubt and lose hope. In return, the State and the institutions that embody it deserve respect and protection from all”, the Senegalese leader Sall stressed.
When the state is in danger, when it is destabilized in any way, the foundations of living together falter to make way for chaos. The scourge of terrorism calls for a more substantial mobilization of member states, according to new methods of intervention, transcending traditional peacekeeping operations which have shown their limits.
Almost in all speeches at the conference, emphasis was laid on frequency and the new waves of military takeovers, particularly in West Africa. It, therefore, seriously reviewed the Malabo Declaration on Terrorism and Unconstitutional Changes of Government in Africa.
Several experts have been discussing the situation, both inside Africa and foreign media are dominated by the latest development in the continent. Concerns are actually skyrocketing while much is partly blamed on African leaders.
Some Expert Analysis
Dr Mohamed Chtatou, a senior professor of Middle Eastern politics at the International University of Rabat (IUR) and Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco, has explained on several occasions that some components and elements of the emerging new world order, and positions taken by a number of African states threaten Africa’s unity.
According to this well-experienced academic professor, regional integration of the continent has been a dream of many African leaders and led to the creation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963. This organization later transformed into African Union.
Over the years, many other institutions have been created in different parts of Africa. But on the whole they have noticeably done little to improve the basic development needs of the estimated 1.4 billion population in the continent. In many cases, many of them still continue to have the most extensive relationships with their former colonial powers. Despite that the main focus has to be on utilizing resources for necessary development across Africa.
The record of regional integration in Africa is so far poor, and many regional alliances are characterized by uncoordinated initiatives, political conflicts, and little intra-regional trade. However, analysts note that some of the external and internal factors that have hindered Africa’s integration in the past have abated somewhat in recent years, and there is therefore reason for cautious optimism, Professor Chtatou maintained in his academic paper at a scientific conference.
Today, both the Western world: The United States and Europe, and its Eastern counterpart: China, India and Russia have eager eyes on Africa under the excuse of helping develop the economy of this part of the world, but, in reality, it is just another manifestation of the Scramble for Africa. These powers are interested in minerals and rare earth’s metals that are in Africa.
Still discussing and assessing the developing situation today, Africa is rich in rare earths and minerals that are highly desirable for many industries, including electronics, renewable energy, and defence. As a result, many great powers, including China, India, Europe, the United States and Russia, are highly interested in securing access to these resources.
However, it is important to note that while the presence of valuable resources can be a source of economic opportunity, it can also lead to exploitation, corruption, and political instability. It is essential that African nations have the ability to manage their resources in a sustainable and equitable way, to ensure that the benefits of these resources are shared by all citizens and that their extraction does not come at the expense of the environment or human rights.
Solution Pathways
It beholds, therefore, on our leaders to find effective concrete solutions to the present crises that are also essential in fostering political stability, continental unity, sustainable development and genuine sovereignty in the years ahead.
How can Africa develop itself away from the greed of some developed nations? There is no easy answer to this question, as it is a complex issue that involves many different factors. However, there are some steps that Africa can take to promote sustainable development and reduce the influence of developed nations:
Promote good governance: African nations should work to establish transparent and accountable systems of governance that promote the rule of law, protect human rights, and combat corruption.
Invest in education and human capital: Developing the skills and knowledge of the African people is crucial to building a sustainable and prosperous future for the continent. Investing in education, health care, and other social services can help to build a strong and healthy workforce.
Support local industries: African nations can promote economic development by investing in local industries, rather than relying solely on exports of raw materials. This can create jobs, generate income, and promote sustainable growth.
Foster regional integration: African nations can work together to promote regional integration and reduce dependency on external actors. This can involve developing common trade policies, investing in regional infrastructure, and promoting cooperation on issues of mutual interest.
Encourage foreign investment on African terms: African nations should strive to attract foreign investment on their own terms, by negotiating fair and equitable deals that benefit both the investor and the host country. This can help to promote economic development and reduce dependency on aid.
In view of its abundant resources, its ambitious youth, its vibrant society, and its geo-strategic potential, Africa needs to achieve unity and full integration, at once, to face the immense greed of the developed world and to defend its interest in the best possible ways.
Within the context of geopolitical changes and complexities, African leaders have to absolutely rethink and take strategies to save their straddling economy. Several years have elapsed after the United Nations declared Africa’s political independence. It was precisely on May 25, 1963, more than 60 years ago but Africa is still far away from attaining its economic freedom despite the huge natural and human resources there. The resources are still untapped, development remains shabby while about 60% of the population impoverished.
In addition, rhetorics are not only ineffective in terms of conflict resolution but also may, in fact, be aggravating tensions and violence. Instead, African leaders require comprehensive development-oriented policies combined with good governance, these are the best solutions, at least, to minimizing social conflicts and economic disparities, ultimately ensure long-term peace and harmony in the continent.
Nevertheless, African leaders have to adopt progressive policies and, at the same time, deal with the dangers of neocolonial tendencies perpetrated, and the scramble for resources in the continent. The crucial challenges and priority tasks obviously require working towards the provision of sustainable development and that is line with the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
At this stage of Africa’s development, it is necessary to examine thoroughly how the geopolitical changes are influencing Africa’s unity and development, how it is impacting on African countries across the continent. The time has really arrived to look at the development processes and review obstacles, determine the level and extent of participation of foreign players and specific roles in emerging new world order, as well as taking cautious steps in understanding the implications for Africa. The rising neo-colonial tendencies should be considered as the highest challenging task for all African leaders, the regional organizations and the African Union.
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Professor Maurice Okoli is a fellow at the Institute for African Studies and the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is also a fellow at the North-Eastern Federal University of Russia. He is an expert at the Roscongress Foundation and the Valdai Discussion Club.
As an academic researcher and economist with keen interest in current geopolitical changes and the emerging world order, Maurice Okoli frequently contributes articles for publication in reputable media portals on different aspects of the interconnection between developing and developed countries, particularly in Asia, Africa and Europe. With comments and suggestions, he can be reached via email: markolconsult (at) gmail (dot) com
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Abas La France! Vive le Niger!
Down with France, Down with ECOWAS, Down with the European Union!
Thousands of people demonstrate in the streets of Niamey, the capital of Niger. They do not want an ECOWAS intervention. ECOWAS stands for Economic Community of West African States. And ECOWAS stands for western influence.
Image: Mohamed Bazoum, who was President of Niger from 2021 until the 2023 coup (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)
On 26 July 2023, Niger’s official French-supported President, Mohamed Bazoum, was over-thrown by a military junta, led by General Abdourahamane Tiani.
ECOWAS, France, the European Union (EU) and other western governments may be thinking they are domineering over the sovereignty of other nations. They slammed down sanctions on Niger. Among the “sanctioning” countries was also the United States.
Reuters reported that one participant was seen carrying a sign that read
“Long live Niger, Russia, Mali, and Burkina Faso. Down with France, ECOWAS, and the EU.” “We are demonstrating [against] all the countries of ECOWAS and all who are taking inhumane and unpopular measures toward Niger.”
The creation of ECOWAS in 1975 via the Treaty of Lagos was prompted by Europe and the US, to keep a closer grip on the 15 resources-rich member countries. The official reason was free trade and economic integration. ECOWAS members include, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.
A little anecdote. When US President Biden threatened to withhold US aid to Niger due to the military coup, the Niger military leader said,
“they should keep their aid money and give it to their millions of homeless people in the US. Charity begins at home.”
This clear vision can only be congratulated.
ECOWAS continues to be strongly influenced by the west, notably France and the EU. It has lost the trust of many members, all those which defy the western impositions and colonial standards.
ECOWAS has threatened with military intervention in Niger if the military junta under General Abdourahamane Tiani does not re-instate the “legitimately and democratically” elected President, Mohamed Bazoum, who is apparently detained in the Presidential Palace. They gave the junta a deadline until 6 August 2023.
The country will not submit to threats no matter where they come from, the junta’s president General Tiani has said.
General Tiani insists that the military takeover “remains the safeguard of [the] homeland, Niger.”
An ECOWAS military intervention would never work, unless it was fully driven by the west – God forbid, by NATO. All is possible, since dearly sought-after resources of Niger’s are at stake.
Mr. Putin has already said that non-regional powers interfering in Niger will not help the situation would undoubtedly enlarge the conflict far beyond Niger’s frontiers.
So far, nothing has happened. Most likely nothing will happen. ECOWAS is not united and has no common front. The ECOWAS members of Mali, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, have recently had a military coup, for basically the same reason, the military stood up against western-implanted and western-favoring leaders, to finally free themselves from the chains of western new-colonial slavery.
The only reaction so far, as of 7 August, Niger has closed her airspace and Air France, possibly other airlines, have stopped flying to nearby countries.
General Tiani, the former head of Niger’s presidential guard, the coup’s mastermind, has since created a coalition of different civil society groups. He also has the support of the neighboring military juntas of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria. They all had recently similar military coups of liberation.
When the west talks of “democratically” elected West African leaders, they are lying, the same way they are lying when talking about free and democratic elections in Europe or even the United States for that matter.
These ex-French colonies’ heads of states were all groomed by the west, especially by France, and very likely by the World Economic Forum (WEF). Many of them emanate from the WEF’s academy for Young Global Leaders (YGLs), so that they are in line with western thinking and most notably with the western agendas, i.e., TheGreat Reset, aliasUN Agenda 2030 which are basically identical and in pursuit of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
The real meaning of the 17 SDGs can be found by the proper interpretation behind the colorful SDG insignias. See this.
No wonder that Africans are waking up. In a first go, it appears West Africa has had enough of French usurpation and decided to exit the bond. Others may follow.
Niger preceded her 63rd anniversary of independence on 3 August 2023 by about a week – with a coup to liberate themselves from “Independence” which they never really had, since like most other “former French colonies”, they were never free, economically free, politically free to ally with whom they chose, and free to trade with whomever they desired.
As of this day, France has more than 1,000 military personnel stationed in Niger. General Tiani has said they must go, and France responded that they will be withdrawn. But why were they there in the first place – 63 years after “independence”? And there were many more in earlier years, the same as in other former French colonies.
USAFRICOM operates the Niger Air Base 201 close to Agadez. “It is owned by the Nigerien military but built and paid for by the United States”. Air Base 201 is allegedly designed to fight Islamic insurgents in coordination the the Niger military.
According to USAFRICOM, the US has some 1,100 U.S. special forces in Niger “to carry out military missions and the training of Niger troops”. See this.
The official version is to protect the countries from Islamic terrorists – “terrorists” which ever so often are conveniently engaged to cause upheavals, when anti-French “instability” could be sensed in Niger or other former French colonies. And, foremost, to protect French and European enterprises interests, while exploiting the riches of these former colonies.
Western Interest in Niger
Niger is the world’s seventh biggest producer of uranium, according to the World Nuclear Association (WNA).
The radioactive metal is the most widely used fuel for nuclear energy. It is also used in treating cancer, for naval propulsion, and in nuclear weapons.
Niger, which has Africa’s highest-grade uranium ores, produced 2,020 metric tons of uranium in 2022, about 5% of world mining output according to the WNA.
The world’s three biggest producers are Kazakhstan, Canada and Namibia.
Niger has one major mining operation in the north operated by France’s state-owned Orano, another major mine is under development. For more details, see this.
Niger has also other western-coveted economically valuable raw materials, such as crude oil, natural gas, coal, tin, and columbite (an iron-bearing mineral that accompanies tin). Petroleum, first discovered in 1956, is the most important source of government revenue and foreign exchange.
Demonstrators hold a Russian flag and banners during the gathering in support of the putschist soldiers in the capital Niamey, Niger July 30, 2023. The signs read Down with France and its allies, Down with imperialism. (Reuters)
The CFA Franc Zones
The key to Niger’s true independence – as well as that of the other 13 Central and West African nations — is breaking loose from their dependence on French imperialism, by cutting the chain of their CFA currency to the French Treasury.
Niger and all 14 of the West (8 nations) and Central African (6 countries) sub-Saharan former French colonies remained tied and monetarily enslaved to France through the Franc CFA (CFA = Communauté Financière Africaine or African Financial Community) – which remains guaranteed by the Bank of France without any justification. To get this guarantee they must deposit 50% of their reserves in a special account of the Bank of France. Thereby the CFA-countries are not free of moving CFA currencies as they wish and find advantageous to themselves and their people. They need the Bank of France’s approval to use their own money!
For more flexibility and monetary stability (France’s stability), France created two CFA zones. Each of the 14 countries is affiliated with one of two monetary unions. Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte D’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo comprise the West African Economic and Monetary Union, or WAEMU, founded in 1994 to build on the foundation of the West African Monetary Union, founded in 1973. The remaining six countries — Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon — comprise the Central African Economic and Monetary Union, or CAEMU.
These two unions maintain the same currency, the CFA franc. West African CFA countries belong to the West African Monetary Unions (WAMU); and Coopération Financière en Afrique Centrale (Financial Cooperation in Central Africa), or the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC). WAMU and CAMAC account for 14 percent of Africa’s population and 12 percent of the Continent’s GDP.
While both CFA francs have the same exchange value against the Euro (CFA 655.74 = 1 Euro – [6 August 2023]). Yet, the two CFA francs are not inter-changeable and the two monetary units have two separate Central Banks, the Central Bank for West African States (BCEAO – French acronym – 8 countries) and the Bank for Central African States (BEAC – French acronym – 6 countries).
If all of this sounds confusing, it is because it is confusing.
CFA Franc – History and Future
The CFA franc was created in December 1945 when the French government ratified the Bretton Woods Agreement; it became the currency of the “French Colonies of Africa”. Today, the French Treasury guarantees the currency under a fixed exchange rate but requires a deposit of 50% of CFA franc reserves into the French central bank. Immediately following independence, this figure stood at 100 per cent (and from 1973 to 2005, at 65 per cent).
Imagine, all their reserves were blocked at the French Central Bank until 1973. They could not use any of their reserves, without the approval of the French Treasury or Central Bank. Today it is down to 50% without any justification. Today, there is absolutely no need for a French guarantee of the West and Central African currencies.
The Frech argue, this arrangement is a quid pro quo for the French ‘guarantee’ of convertibility. The accords stipulate that foreign exchange reserves must exceed money in circulation by a margin of 20 per cent. Before the fall in oil prices, the money supply coverage rate (the ratio of foreign exchange reserves to money in circulation) consistently approached 100 per cent, implying that Africans could dispense with the French ‘guarantee’.
So far, the French do whatever they can to avoid “letting go” of their former colony. It warrants their continued grip on the colonies in terms of controlling trade as well as natural resources. And the former French colonies, through this usurping monetary arrangement, contribute significantly, directly and indirectly, to the French economy. Rough unproven estimates range from 15% to 25% of France’s GDP stems from the former French colonies. Maybe more.
In 2015, Chad’s President Idriss Debby said, he considers the CFA as “pulling African economies down,” and that “time has come to cut the cordon that prevents Africa to develop.” He called for a restructuring of the currency in order to “enable African countries which are still using it to develop.”
French President Macron ignored the statement. Nothing has happened to change, or abandon altogether the CFA arrangement between France and their former West- and Central African colonies.
Earlier this year, Luigi Di Maio, Italy’s former deputy prime minister and current minister of foreign affairs, raised the controversy about the role of the CFA franc on Africa’s development with an even more provocative statement, than the one of Chad’s President in 2015: “France is one of those countries that by printing money for 14 African states prevents their economic development and contributes to the fact that the refugees leave and then die in the [Mediterranean] Sea or arrive on our coasts.”
It is time that the former French colonies take their lives and economic development and prosperity under their own control. Perhaps the recent military coups against French-imposed leaders are the first steps – and may be replicated in other former French colonies. Not that military governments are ideal, they are not. But it is hoped and expected that eventually these military juntas will call for public elections, as democratic as possible, without foreign interference.
Africa, as part of the Global South has a major role to play in the structure of our future world order. To do so, they need economic and political independence.
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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank (30 years). He has worked for eight years in West Africa, Frances former colonies, including in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. He knows about the “CFA-arrangements” which continue making the 14 West and Central African CFA-zones dependent on France.
He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
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Die Rolle der Macht im Leben der Menschen
Die folgenden Zeilen sollen – ungeachtet des Problems der Gewalt – Mut machen und anknüpfen an Albert Camus und seine Leidenschaft,gegen das Unrecht zu revoltieren. Camus‘ Gerechtigkeit wagte es, sich mit der ungerechten Welt in den notwendigen Kampf einzulassen – und zwar hier auf Erden und nicht erst im Himmel. Seine große Liebe zur Welt und zum Menschen überstrahlten die düsteren Schilderungen in seinen Dramen, Romanen und philosophischen Essays.
Die gegenwärtigen Ereignisse wie der Stellvertreterkrieg in der Ukraine oder auch Massenterror und Diktaturen vermitteln uns einen gründlichen Anschauungsunterricht über die geschichtliche Bedeutung der Gewalttätigkeit im Leben des Einzelnen und der Gemeinschaft. Die Flut von legalisierten Verbrechen berauben uns so mancher Illusionen; in der Frage der Bändigung der Gewalt scheint sich die Menschheit noch ganz am Anfang der Humanisierung zu befinden.
Das Machtstreben in Wirtschaft und Politik führt immer wieder zu Katastrophen, in denen der Reichtum unserer Kultur verschleudert und die Ernten unserer Zivilisation zerstört werden. Doch unsere Lethargie führt dazu, dass wir uns dadurch nicht aufrütteln lassen, sondern dass wir uns weiterhin in Sicherheit wiegen. Die beruhigende Selbsttäuschung ist uns lieber als der Gedanke an die Gefahr. Die Gewalttätigkeit bringt alle unsere kulturellen Bemühungen zum Scheitern. Indem wir nicht gegen sie ankämpfen, billigen wir sie in der Hoffnung, sie werde uns verschonen. Keiner kann sich der Verantwortung entziehen, immer sind wir mitschuldig, selbst dann, wenn wir Opfer sind.
Der Weg des Einzelnen in einer gewalttätigen Kultur gerät unweigerlich in den Einflussbereich des Macht- und Herrschaftsbestrebens. Alle Vorbilder und Ideale dieses Kulturkreises sind vom Machtwillen gefärbt. Groß sein, mächtig sein wird zum Ziel, das sich die Schwäche setzt, um stark zu werden.
Bereits zu Beginn des letzten Jahrhunderts schreibt der Individualpsychologe Alfred Adler :
„In die Elternliebe schleicht sich das Gift der Herrschsucht (…). Da wird es zur Aufgabe der Kinder, über ihre Erzieher hinauszuwachsen, mit ihnen fertig zu werden. Nicht anders beim Lehrer. (….). Die moderne Seelenkunde hat uns aber gezeigt, dass die Züge von Herrschsucht, Ehrgeiz und Machtstreben über den anderen samt ihrer Fülle von hässlichen Begleiterscheinungen nicht angeboren und unabänderlich sind. Sie werden vielmehr dem Kinde frühzeitig eingeimpft, das Kind empfängt sie willenlos aus einer Atmosphäre, die vom Machtkitzel getränkt ist. (…).
Die Herrschaftsgelüste von Eltern, Dienstverhältnisse im Hause, die Privilegien des kleinen Kindes lenken unwiderstehlich den Sinn des Kindes auf die Erringung von Macht und Vorherrschaft, lassen ihm nur diese Position als lockend erscheinen. Um einiges später erst fließen Gemeinschaftsgefühle in seine Seele, geraten aber meist unter die Herrschaft des bereits ausgebildeten Machtbegehrens. (…). (1)
Krieg und Gesellschaftsordnung
Die Entwicklung einer Kultur besteht jedoch darin, dass sich die Stimme des Menschheitsgewissens mehr und mehr Gehör verschafft und dass der Geist der Verantwortlichkeit an die Stelle der Gewalttätigkeit tritt. Das Anwachsen des menschlichen Gemeinschaftsgefühls, das Wissen um die Zusammengehörigkeit aller, die Menschenantlitz tragen, wird die ethische Errungenschaft der Zukunft sein. Noch leiden wir an der Fiktion der Macht und der Selbstherrlichkeit des Individuums.
Überall kommt es auf den Gemeinsinn an, auf das Gefühl der Zusammengehörigkeit, des Miteinanderseins. Das heißt, wir müssen zusammenhalten und uns die Hände reichen. Der Abbau der Machtgier und des Gewaltstrebens ist für das gemeinschaftliche Leben eine dringende Notwendigkeit.
Wegen der Friedfertigkeit der menschlichen Natur ist es ein Irrtum, den Krieg auf die Natur der Menschen zurückzuführen. Nur die Machtgier derer, die innerhalb der Völker als Obrigkeit fungieren und durch ihre soziale Stellung vom Geist der Gewalt durchdrungen sind, treibt immer wieder zu kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen, in denen die Völker zugunsten ihrer Herren und Ausbeuter verbluten. Zwar kann man die Mahnrufe des menschlichen Gemeinschaftsgefühls unterdrücken, gänzlich ausmerzen kann man sie nie. Denn das Geschenk der Evolution besteht im sittlichen Bewusstsein des Einzelnen, in der Einsicht in die Verantwortung aller gegenüber allen.
Deshalb verwundert es, wenn man die abendlichen Fernsehbilder betrachtet und feststellen muss, dass große Unterschiede gemacht werden bezüglich der Nationalität der getöteten Soldaten. Ist nicht jeder tote Soldat in der Ukraine oder einem anderen Teil der Welt ein toter Mann zu viel? Egal, ob er westeuropäischer, russischer, ukrainischer, afrikanischer oder US-amerikanischer Nationalität ist? Ist es nicht immer ein Mitmensch, der umgebracht wird? Wie können wir das vergessen und trotzdem gut leben und schlafen?
Kriege sind ein gutes Geschäft
Die anderen Völker zu bezwingen, die anderen zu beherrschen, das ist ein gutes Geschäft. Die horrenden Gewinne der deutschen Rüstungsgüter-Firma „Rheinmetall“ oder der international tätigen US-amerikanischen Investmentgesellschaft „BlackRock“ mit über 10 Billionen US-Dollar an verwaltetem Vermögen, sind nur zwei Beispiele unter vielen.
Wo wir uns umsehen ist Profit. Es gibt nichts, wo das nicht spielt in unserer Gesellschaftsordnung. Ein weiteres Beispiel ist das Drogenproblem, an dem ungeheuer viele Jugendliche zugrunde gehen. Wenn damit nicht viel Geld zu verdienen wäre, müssten sich Eltern keine Sorgen machen. Jugendliche würden nicht an die Rauschmittel herankommen, der Markt wäre leer. Aber darauf wird keine Rücksicht genommen. Ganz im Gegenteil: die Freigabe bestimmter Mengen von Rauschgiften wird inzwischen in vielen Ländern nicht nur diskutiert, sondern bereits praktiziert.
Noch ist es in unseren kapitalistischen Ländern so, dass eine verschwindend kleine Minderheit von Menschen auf Kosten der Mehrheit lebt. Und diese Schere zwischen Arm und Reich klafft immer weiter auseinander. Während das Volksvermögen in die Produktion von Rüstungsgütern investiert werden, sind Hunger und Armut für Millionen oder gar Milliarden von Menschen auf der Welt Realität. Während Kapitalisten durch rücksichtsloses Handeln immer reicher werden, werden auf der anderen Seite zahlreiche Menschen immer ärmer.
Ein Zitat des deutschen Dramatikers Bertolt Brecht bringt das gefühlvoll zum Ausdruck:
„Reicher Mann und armer Mann standen da und sahn sich an. Und der Arme sagte bleich: ‚Wär ich nicht arm, wärst du nicht reich‘.“
Wird neuer Staatenbund (BRICS) ohne Gewalt auskommen?
Die BRICS-Staaten (Brasilien, Russland, Indien, China, Südafrika) sind eine Vereinigung aufstrebender Volkswirtschaften. Wegen der wirtschaftlichen Stagnation in den Industrienationen wenden sich die Investoren nun diesen fünf Ländern zu. Vor dem Hintergrund des Ukrainekrieges und des Konflikts um Taiwan strebt er neue Staatenbund nach mehr politischem Gewicht und versucht, sich als Alternative zu den G7-Ländern zu positionieren.
Für kritische Beobachter stellt sich die Frage, ob dieser neue Staatenbund ohne Gewalt auskommen will und auch kann. Wieso sollte man die mächtigen Führer dieser fünf Staaten in einem anderen Lichte sehen sollte als die Führer aller anderen Staaten. Warum einen Unterschied machen?
Der neue Staatenbund wird mit denselben Methoden Gewalt anwenden, Menschen zu zwingen, in den Krieg zu ziehen und Krieg zu führen wie ehemals Adolf Hitler oder heute die Führer der US-NATO-Staaten oder Russlands und Chinas. Und zwar deshalb, weil unsere ganze Gesellschaft, alle unsere Institutionen, unser ganzes Um und Auf ohne Ausnahme vom Gedanken der Gewalt durchsetzt sind.
Auch wenn der Westen offensichtlich mit allen erlaubten und unerlaubten Mitteln gegen den Osten kämpft, sollte man – wenn man gegen jede Diktatur und gewalttätige Gesellschaft ist – nicht Partei ergreifen. Bereits während der Russischen Revolution konnte man sehen, dass dort etwas geschah, was mit Befreiung, Freiheit oder Sozialismus nichts zu tun hatte.
Das Experiment in Russland ist misslungen. Diejenigen, die das sagen hatten, haben die Menschen nicht erfasst, nicht richtig eingeschätzt. Sie haben sich mit den Arbeitern nicht assoziiert, sondern sich über sie gestellt. Das Prinzip der Gewalt, der Unterdrückung, der Bezwingung der Menschen hat schließlich zur Katastrophe geführt. Wenn das richtig geführt worden wäre, wäre eventuell kein Zweiter Weltkrieg ausgebrochen. Der sozialistische, antimilitärische Gedanke des Friedens und der Freiheit, die Hoffnung der Proletarier der ganzen Welt sind zunichte gemacht worden.
Die Idee des Sozialismus kann eben nur in Frieden und Freiheit gedeihen, ob in Russland, in China oder in einem anderen BRICS-Staat. Bis heute fehlt die Psychologie – und die Menschen sind nicht zufrieden.
Ohne Psychologie wir die Menschheit nicht vorankommen
Die Menschheit muss sich die Ergebnisse der psychologischen Forschung zu eigen machen, um ein menschenwürdiges Leben zu schaffen. Wenn wir uns selbst und die Mitmenschen erkennen, ändert sich auch die Sichtweise auf die staatlichen Gegebenheiten, die gesamte Gesellschaftsordnung.
Da die Geschichte ein Werk der Menschen ist, muss die Veränderung der Welt aus ihnen selbst kommen, aus der Gemeinschaft mündiger Bürger. Die Menschen müssen ihre eigene Natur, ihre seelische Verfassung, ihre bewussten und halbbewussten Vorurteile sowie die eigenen Reaktionsweisen und auch die ihrer Mitmenschen kennenlernen. So sollten sie einschätzen können, wie sie selbst und wie ihre Mitmenschen auf konfliktträchtige Krisen und heraufziehende Kriege reagieren werden.
Noch scheint die Menschheit nicht in der Lage zu sein, ohne Gewalt und Kriege zusammenzuleben, sich zu assoziieren. Doch das kann sich jederzeit ändern. Dabei ist die Aufklärung, die Reinigung des menschlichen Bewusstseins von individuellen und kollektiven Vorurteilen von großer Bedeutung.
Wichtiger noch als die Aufklärung ist das Problem der Erziehung. Die tiefenpsychologische Forschung hat ihre ungeheure Tragweite deutlich gemacht. Somit wissen wir heute, dass die Menschen in einem derartigen Maße das Produkt ihrer frühkindlichen Erziehung sind, dass man hoffen darf, dass durch psychologische Erziehungsmethoden, die auf das autoritäre Prinzip verzichten, Menschen herangebildet werden, die gegen die Verstrickungen des Machtwahns gefeit sein werden.
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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Schul-Rektor, Erziehungswissenschaftler und Diplom-Psychologe. Nach seinen Universitätsstudien wurde er wissenschaftlicher Lehrer in der Erwachsenenbildung. Als Pensionär arbeitete er als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. In seinen Büchern und Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung sowie eine Erziehung zu Gemeinsinn und Frieden. Für seine Verdienste um Serbien bekam er 2021 von den Universitäten Belgrad und Novi Sad den Republik-Preis „Kapitän Misa Anastasijevic“ verliehen.
Er schreibt regelmäßig für Global Research.
Note
1 Adler, Alfred (1928). Psychologie der Macht. In: Grasenack, Moritz (HG.). (2005). Die libertäre Psychotherapie von Friedrich Liebling. Lich / Hessen, S. 139f.
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“X” marks the spot. For the modern advertiser, this is problematic. It breathes pornographic escape, self-denial, elusive treasure, irresistible capture, compelling lasciviousness. And now Elon Musk has decided to impose himself upon a brand he loved as a plaything of juvenile ecstasy. Farewell the bird of Twitter; welcome the X of Musk.
The company rebrand is certainly all Muskian in manner, part of his monomaniac obsession with the letter. In 1999, he created the online bank X.com, which eventually merged with PayPal the following year. Just shy of two decades later, Musk reacquired the X.com site from PayPal. Over time, it seems to have become an ideology and practice, a purpose and an end. X is seen as an “everything app” that will function as a platform to transfer money, order meals, and share posts.
Linda Yaccarino, the company’s chief executive, described it as follows: “X is the future of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities”. As if this did not sound sinister, Yaccarino also declared that there was “absolutely no limit to this transformation. X will be the platform that can deliver, well….everything.”
Like a spreading cult, it has rushed through the Musk empire, afflicting all manner of products and themes. Twitter even has conference rooms with X-oriented names, be they the cringeworthy “eXposure”, or the less revolting “s3Xy”.
For even the most junior of advertising minions, the whole matter has been an example of counter-intuitive madness. “It’s a rookie mistake to throw away decades of equity in those assets [the name Twitter and the blue bird logo],” remarked marketing consultant Gareth Turner. Negative assessments of the rebrand exercise have suggested that billions of dollars have been wiped from the value of the company.
The company is being tanked with a fanatic’s relish, submerged in a sea of depraved indulgence. Its mutilating, despoiling owner hardly seems to care. In the meantime, there is a lot of management rot that’s crept in, just to replace the initial management rot that seeped through prior to Musk’s acquisition.
The substance of the rebrand, for all the lamentations about extinguishing the bird logo, is hard to discern. There is the lexical dimension, which seems to have bothered a goodly number of social media users. What, for instance, are posts on the renamed platform meant to be? Has the verb of tweeting been abandoned altogether? According to the Associated Press stylebook, the platform is to be referred to “as X, formerly known as Twitter.” Usage of the term “tweet” is still considered acceptable.
Beyond the labels, the Musk experiment remains infantile. Far better to simply reflect on the boy-child nature of the entire enterprise, a Peter Pan mad venture that rejects adulthood in favour of an arrested, preserved adolescence. The video game designer Ian Bogost is certainly on to something in noting that “Twitter, like other social platforms and the very internet itself, is already redolent of a seventh grader’s mindset that Musk’s behaviour betrays.”
The seventh grader mindset is one based on noise, shouting, and deafening declarations. It repudiates the notion of trusted small communities, where limits and protocols of good conduct matter. “The shift from social networks to social media,” writes Bogost, “was culturally destructive. It set the expectation that everyone deserves – is owed, even – an audience for every notion, quip, photo, or activity.” The consequences that follow have been manifold: the surfeit of public data, the stratospheric rise of the outrage culture, the prevalence of misinformation, the normalising of shame.
As if to serve up a perfect illustration of the problem, Musk decided last month to fire off a number of social media posts challenging his technology rival and Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, to a penis “measuring contest” and cage fight. Much of this came about because of Zuckerberg’s own efforts to create Threads, a shameless rival platform to Twitter that apes many microblogging features of the latter. Aiming low, Zuckerberg agreed, requesting that Musk send him the location. “Vegas, Octagon,” Musk shot back. To date, the man child bullies have yet to go through with their arrangements, which was hardly surprising.
In a sense, Musk and Zuck resemble the generation of another era, one so beautifully and plangently captured by Cyril Connolly in his memoir, Enemies of Promise. Published in 1938, a year before the catastrophe of the Second World War, it captures a distinct, spoilt view of human development, one where privilege and luxury blight, and where growth is to be feared. On leaving Eton, Connolly distilled his “Theory of Permanent Adolescence”, where the “boys at the great public schools” undergo experiences “so intense as to dominate their lives and to arrest their development.” For Musk and his fellow tech nerds, the future is a necessarily stunted one.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
The Coutts fiasco is emblematic of the political capture of Canada’s now mostly-dysfunctional criminal justice system. The latest “pre-trial” phase of this major scandal-in-the-making, unfolded in late July in a Lethbridge Alberta courthouse. In that courthouse a process is sporadically underway based on the government’s accusation that four men at the Coutts protest conspired to murder members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
I recently wrote a report for PJ Media speculating on the true motivations behind the elite media and Swamp creatures’ recent preoccupation with so-called “unidentified aerial phenomena” or UAP (a government/media rebrand for whatever stupid reason away from UFO)– as if unidentified objects in the sky and secretive military installations with zero transparency are some new development.
The following lines – regardless of the problem of violence – are meant to encourage and tie in with Albert Camus and his passion to revolt against injustice. Camus’ justice dared to engage in the necessary struggle with the unjust world – here on earth and not only in heaven. His great love for the world and for humanity outshone the bleak depictions in his dramas, novels and philosophical essays.
As I wrote in 2016, Trump had no knowledge of Washington.He threw down the gauntlet to the ruling powers, but had no idea who to appoint, who would support his challenge and was quickly staffed up with his establishment enemies.
The patterns of neocolonial intervention in the majority world by the United States and its allies since their victories over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945 are very clear. Almost immediately the Western countries started a cycle of bloody aggression against peoples resisting colonialism, followed later by the dependence of most African and Asian countries on the ruthless Western economic system.
In 1462 the crucial aspect of Russian participation in international relations was, in fact, zero as the state was almost in absolute isolation from the rest of the world. In other words, Moscovy Russia was in the mid-15th century isolated from almost all contact with the outside communities simply by the hostility of its direct neighbors.
Most Americans oppose Congress authorizing additional funding to support Ukraine in its war with Russia, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, as the public splits over whether the US has already done enough to assist Ukraine.
The would be masters of totalitarian control have turned-up the heat in a calculated push to make sure responsibility for the bush and forest fires that have broken-out in the Mediterranean during the recent heatwave, are squarely blamed on ‘global warming’.
29 year old Elisabetta Caon, who just completed her PhD at University College London in biotechnology, was on holiday in Greece with her partner, when she collapsed on the beach, could not be revived and died of sudden cardiac arrest (click here).
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I recently wrote a report for PJ Media speculating on the true motivations behind the elite media and Swamp creatures’ recent preoccupation with so-called “unidentified aerial phenomena” or UAP (a government/media rebrand for whatever stupid reason away from UFO)– as if unidentified objects in the sky and secretive military installations with zero transparency are some new development.
There is still much secrecy and thus uncertainty — thanks in no small parts to the millions and millions of needlessly classified documents that protect the government from public scrutiny under the guise of “national security” – regarding the true nature of what the government knows and what technology it may or may not have pilfered through reverse-engineering of recovered alien spacecraft, etc.
But what’s for sure is that there’s some agenda afoot beyond merely disclosing to the public what the government’s been up to for decades. We can know this because the government and media despise the public and would never voluntarily expose it to the deeds done in their dark using public money.
I believe, that at least part of the reason is increased defense industry spending, as evidenced by Space Force’s recent budget increase request.
President Biden’s $842 billion budget request for the Defense Department for fiscal year 2024 includes $30 billion for the U.S. Space Force, the largest funding request to date for the military space branch.
The $30 billion request is $3.7 billion more than what Congress enacted for the Space Force in 2023.
“The largest space budget ever,” DoD said in budget documents released March 13 on the Biden administration’s funding request for the coming fiscal year that begins Oct 1. The proposed budget ‘procures and modernizes capabilities to secure the use of space in the face of increasing threats to U.S. national security space systems,’ the Pentagon said in budget documents…
The heftiest increase is in the [research, development, testing and engineering] account. Funding for low and medium orbit missile-tracking satellites nearly doubles from $1.2 billion in 2023 to $2.3 billion in 2024.”
Hrvoje Moric graciously brought me onto his TNT Radio show to discuss the matter and others of import.
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Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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The Role of Power in People’s Lives
The following lines – regardless of the problem of violence – are meant to encourage and tie in with Albert Camus and his passion to revolt against injustice. Camus’ justice dared to engage in the necessary struggle with the unjust world – here on earth and not only in heaven. His great love for the world and for humanity outshone the bleak depictions in his dramas, novels and philosophical essays.
Current events such as the proxy war in Ukraine or mass terror and dictatorships give us a thorough visual lesson on the historical significance of violence in the lives of individuals and communities. The flood of legalised crimes deprives us of many illusions; in the question of taming violence, humanity still seems to be at the very beginning of humanisation.
The striving for power in business and politics leads again and again to catastrophes in which the wealth of our culture is squandered and the harvests of our civilisation are destroyed.
But our lethargy means that we do not allow ourselves to be shaken up by this, but continue to lull ourselves into security. We prefer the comforting self-delusion to the thought of danger. Violence brings down all our cultural efforts.
By not fighting it, we condone it in the hope that it will spare us. No one can escape responsibility, we are always complicit, even when we are victims.
The path of the individual in a violent culture inevitably comes under the influence of the desire for power and domination.
All the role models and ideals of this culture are coloured by the will to power. To be great, to be powerful becomes the goal that weakness sets for itself in order to become strong.
Already at the beginning of the last century, the individual psychologist Alfred Adler wrote:
“The poison of imperiousness (…) creeps into parental love. It becomes the children’s task to outgrow their educators, to come to terms with them. It is no different with the teacher. (….). Modern psychology has shown us, however, that the traits of imperiousness, ambition and striving for power over others, together with their abundance of ugly concomitants, are not innate and unchangeable. Rather, they are inculcated into the child at an early age; the child receives them willy-nilly from an atmosphere drenched in the thrill of power. (…).
The parents’ lust for domination, service relationships in the home, the privileges of the small child irresistibly direct the child’s mind towards the attainment of power and dominance, making only this position seem enticing to it. It is only some time later that feelings of community flow into his soul, but they are usually subordinated to the already developed desire for power. (…). (1)
War and Social Order
The development of a culture, however, consists in the voice of the human conscience making itself heard more and more and in the spirit of responsibility taking the place of violence. The ethical achievement of the future will be the growth of the human sense of community, the knowledge of the togetherness of all those who bear humanity’s face. We still suffer from the fiction of power and the self-importance of the individual.
What matters everywhere is a sense of community, a feeling of belonging together, of being with one another. That means we have to stick together and join hands. The reduction of the lust for power and the desire for violence is an urgent necessity for communal life.
Because of the peacefulness of human nature, it is a mistake to attribute war to human nature. Only the lust for power of those who function as authorities within the peoples and are imbued by their social position with the spirit of violence, drives time and again to warlike conflicts in which the peoples bleed to death for the benefit of their masters and exploiters. While it is possible to suppress the admonishing cries of the human sense of community, they can never be completely eradicated. For the gift of evolution consists in the moral consciousness of the individual, in the insight into the responsibility of all towards all.
That is why it is surprising when one looks at the evening television pictures and sees that great differences are made with regard to the nationality of the soldiers killed. Isn’t every dead soldier in Ukraine or any other part of the world one dead man too many? No matter whether he is of Western European, Russian, Ukrainian, African or US nationality? Is it not always a fellow human being who is killed? How can we forget this and still live and sleep well?
Wars Are Good Business
To conquer the other nations, to dominate the others, that is good business. The horrendous profits of the German armaments company “Rheinmetall” or the internationally active US investment company “BlackRock” with over 10 trillion US dollars in assets under management are just two examples among many.
Where we look is profit. There is nothing where that does not play in our social order. Another example is the drug problem, which is killing an enormous number of young people. If there wasn’t a lot of money to be made from it, parents wouldn’t have to worry. Young people would not be able to get hold of the drugs, the market would be empty. But this is not taken into consideration. On the contrary: the release of certain quantities of narcotics is now not only discussed but already practised in many countries.
It is still the case in our capitalist countries that a tiny minority of people live at the expense of the majority. And this gap between rich and poor is widening.
While national wealth is invested in the production of armaments, hunger and poverty are a reality for millions or even billions of people in the world. While capitalists are getting richer and richer through ruthless actions, numerous people are getting poorer and poorer on the other side.
A quote from the German playwright Bertolt Brecht expresses this sentimentally:
“Rich man and poor man stood there and looked at each other. And the poor man said pale: ‘If I were not poor, you would not be rich’.”
Will New Confederation of States (BRICS) Manage Without Violence?
The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) are an association of emerging economies. Because of the economic stagnation in the industrialised nations, investors are now turning to these five countries. Against the backdrop of the Ukraine war and the conflict over Taiwan, the new confederation is striving for more political weight and trying to position itself as an alternative to the G7 countries.
For critical observers, the question arises whether this new confederation of states wants to and can manage without violence.
Why should the powerful leaders of these five states [as well as new members ++] be seen in a different light than the leaders of all other states? Why make a difference?
Will the new confederation use the same methods to force people to go to war and wage war? And this is because our whole society, all our institutions, all our ins and outs, without exception, are permeated by the idea of violence.
Even if the West is obviously fighting the East with all permissible and impermissible means, one should – if one is against every dictatorship and violent society – not take sides. Already during the Russian Revolution one could see that something was happening there that had nothing to do with liberation, freedom or socialism.
The experiment in Russia failed. Those who had the say did not grasp the people, did not assess them correctly.
They did not associate with the workers, but placed themselves above them.
The principle of violence, of oppression, of conquering the people has finally led to disaster. If this had been conducted properly, there might not have been a Second World War. The socialist, anti-military idea of peace and freedom, the hope of the proletarians of the whole world have been destroyed.
The idea of socialism can only flourish in peace and freedom, whether in Russia, in China or in another BRICS state. Psychology is still missing today – and people are not satisfied.
Without Psychology, Humanity Will Not Progress
Humanity must embrace the results of psychological research in order to create a life worthy of human beings. When we recognise ourselves and our fellow human beings, our view of state conditions, the entire social order, also changes.
Since history is a work of human beings, the change of the world must come from within them, from the community of mature citizens. People must get to know their own nature, their mental make-up, their conscious and semi-conscious prejudices, as well as their own ways of reacting and also those of their fellow human beings. In this way, they should be able to assess how they themselves and how their fellow human beings will react to conflict-laden crises and emerging wars.
Humanity does not yet seem to be able to live together, to associate, without violence and wars. But this can change at any time. In this context, enlightenment, the purification of human consciousness from individual and collective prejudices is of great importance.
Even more important than enlightenment is the problem of education. Depth psychological research has made its immense implications clear. Thus we know today that people are to such an extent the product of their early childhood education that we may hope that psychological methods of education, which dispense with the authoritarian principle, will produce people who will be immune to the entanglements of power madness.
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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a school headmaster, educationalist and qualified psychologist. After his university studies he became an academic teacher in adult education. As a retiree he worked as a psychotherapist in his own practice. In his books and professional articles, he calls for a conscious ethical-moral education in values as well as an education for public spirit and peace. For his services to Serbia, he was awarded the Republic Prize “Captain Misa Anastasijevic” by the Universities of Belgrade and Novi Sad in 2021.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Note
(1) Adler, Alfred (1928). Psychology of Power. In: Grasenack, Moritz (ed.). (2005). The libertarian psychotherapy of Friedrich Liebling. Lich / Hesse, p. 139f.
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The wave of Russophobia in NATO and the EU is nothing new. Western states have been fomenting anti-Russian animosity for years and this situation is already starting to reach truly intolerable levels of persecution. In a recent announcement in Riga, it was revealed that the government will soon be issuing orders to thousands of Russian citizens to leave the country. As a post-Soviet state, Latvia has a significant number of ethnic Russians among its population, but apparently this is no reason for the pro-Western government to avoid persecuting its own residents.
This statement was made by Ingmars Lindaka, head of the parliamentary committee on citizenship and migration, during an interview with state media. He said that after receiving the orders, Russians will have 90 days to leave Latvia, otherwise they will be considered illegal migrants. According to him, these thousands of Russians are those who have not expressed interest in participating in the exams to obtain permanent residency certificates. These exams include tests of Latvian language, which has discouraged many Russians from taking part. Lindaka says those who have not been tested are illegally in the country and should be treated according to [recently imposed] Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs’ (PMLP) rules.
“Roughly 5,000 to 6,000, according to my estimates. These are people who have shown no desire – neither to take the exam nor obtain a temporary residence permit. These are the silent ones. If we look at the law as it currently stands, PMLP must send a notice to leave the country within three months”, Lindaka told journalists.
Other officials later confirmed the statement. Spokespersons for the Ministry of the Interior of Latvia informed the news agency “Elta” that “around 6,000” Russians are to receive official notification from the State in September.
“If a person does not have the right to stay in the country, they must leave for a country where they have the right to stay. The time for departure is three months. So the person can leave without haste. If a person continues to stay in Latvia illegally, there may come a moment when state structures find out about it and, accordingly, remind them of the need to leave. Criminal liability is not provided, but administrative liability is. The person may be fined,” Vilnis Vitolins, the Deputy Secretary of State of the Ministry of Interior Affairs, said.
As well as the other Baltic states, Poland and Ukraine, Latvia has a serious problem of racism against Russian citizens. Since Latvia’s independence from the USSR, there has been a strong growth in anti-Russian sentiments in the country. The resentful mentality towards the Soviet past and the revanchist ideology against the Russian Federation have been encouraged by Riga’s western partners as a way to mobilize the country’s population against NATO’s geopolitical enemies. For this reason, since 1991, ethnic Russians have been denied Latvian citizenship, increasing social polarization.
All this has worsened significantly since last year, when, in response to Russia’s special military operation, the Latvian government launched a series of racist de-Russification policies. Monuments honoring Soviet WWII heroes have been demolished, with the state classifying the memory of the war as a symbol of “occupation”. In August last year, then Latvian President Egils Levits also stated that all Russians in the country should be “isolated” for reasons of “national security”, given the conflict in Ukraine.
To avoid getting into legal problems, 1.8 million Russian ethnic citizens (around 25% of the country’s population) have been forced since 2022 to take Latvian language exams. If they prove fluency in the language, these citizens gain the right to stay in the country, but if they do not pass, they are forced to leave. This is an uncomfortable situation as Russian has been commonly spoken in Latvian territory for many decades, as this language was already official in that territory during the Soviet era. For this reason, many of the Russians who live there cannot pass the exam, since they have no skills in Latvian, being now considered criminals for simply speaking only Russian.
Recently, the case of a 74-year-old Russian woman went viral on the internet. Even though she has lived her entire life in Latvia speaking Russian, the pensioner is now required to prove skills in the Latvian language to avoid expulsion and loss of government social benefits. Thousands of other Soviet-era seniors are in a similar situation. This has already generated protests and has been considered by Russia as a case of cultural genocide, but Riga still seems willing to advance the agenda of de-Russification.
In fact, what is happening in Latvia is absolutely intolerable from a humanitarian point of view. A quarter of the country is being coerced into speaking a new language to avoid being expelled from the territory where they have lived their entire lives. These cultural genocide policies often precede the implementation of physical persecution against the “isolated”, “undesirable” citizens. So, it is possible that Latvia will soon take more serious Nazi-like measures, just as Ukraine did in 2014.
This tends only to further aggravate tensions in Europe, as the “right to protect” citizens abroad is an important and recognized principle in contemporary international law. Certainly, Moscow will do everything in its power to prevent its citizens from being mistreated in other countries.
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Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.
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***
July 29, 2023 – 29 year old Elisabetta Caon, who just completed her PhD at University College London in biotechnology, was on holiday in Greece with her partner, when she collapsed on the beach, could not be revived and died of sudden cardiac arrest (click here).
July 27, 2023 – 41 year old German doctor and anesthesiologist Dr.Klaus Ott, was on vacation in Croatia when he developed sepsis and died suddenly within 12 hours of getting to the hospital (click here).
July 24, 2023 – Graham, WA – 51 year old firefighter Todd Jensen, Graham Fire & Rescue Battalion Chief, died suddenly from a “medical event” while on vacation.
July 7, 2023 – Charlotte, NC – 60 year old Ritchie Starnes, Managing Editor of the Daily Courier, died unexpectedly while on vacation in Folly Beach, South Carolina.
July 4, 2023 – Wexford, Ireland – A woman in her 60s collapsed while walking with a friend on the beach. (click here)
July 3, 2023 – Melbourne, Australia – 43 year old businessman Rajiv “Raj” Jayarajah was snorkelling with friends in Bali (Jun.27). On June 30, 2023, he suffered a seizure in his hotel room, causing him to collapse, hit his head and suffer a brain haemorrhage. He died a few days later. (click here)
June 28, 2023 – Menorca, Spain – A 37 year old British Tourist died in a hotel room in Menorca, Spain after falling ill in his hotel bed next to his girlfriend. He began having “respiratory difficulties” in the early hours of June 28 which led to a cardiac arrest and sudden death (click here).
June 28, 2023 – 50 year old Nevada State Police Lieutenant Lorin Correll died suddenly, drowned while snorkeling in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, with his family and friends on vacation.
June 25, 2023 – Marcianise, Italy – 39 year old Giuseppe Amato died suddenly in his sleep while on vacation in Maratea, Italy. He was found dead in his room.
June 18, 2023 – Italy – 42 year old Italian doctor & surgeon Dr. Paolo Cappare had a medical emergency while swimming off a beach and died suddenly.
April 28, 2023 – Athens, GA – 21 year old University of Georgia student Liza Burke had brain bleed on Mar.10, 2023 while on vacation in Mexico, was diagnosed with glioblastoma on brainstem & died 4 weeks later.
April 26, 2023 – Southport, UK – 31 year old nursing student Ashleigh De Andrade returned from holiday, felt unwell, had several seizures & died suddenly on April 26, 2023 due to a “bleed on the brain”.
April 16, 2023 – 44 year old Canadian doctor Shannon Corbett (ObGyn & fertility specialist in Ontario) died suddenly of a heart attack while on vacation in Nassau, Bahamas.
April 16, 2023 – Australian amateur boxer, 28 year old Charlie James Bradley, died suddenly in Bali on April 16, 2023, he was found dead outside of a medical clinic in the middle of the road (click here).
April 10, 2023 – Morton, IL – 42 year old news anchor Lesley Swick Van Ness died suddenly on April 10, 2023. She was on vacation with her family in Florida when she “fell ill” on April 6, was hospitalized, died a few days later.
My Take…
Why are COVID-19 vaccinated people dying suddenly on vacations? Theories:
Getting a “recent COVID-19 vaccine booster shot” to travel
Travel stress can trigger arrhythmia in those with post jab myocarditis
Flying increases risk of forming blood clots in vessels damaged by spike protein
Higher risk of developing infections, sepsis
Higher risk of seizures
Heat may affect contents of “vaccine”
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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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***
Last week, Nobel physicist John Clauser came out of the Clausit to speak his own inconvenient truth about global warming and CO2 . No good deed goes unpunished. Another physicist who was a personal hero of mine has expressed similar views. This is a big subject, and I don’t feel engaged enough with the issue to write a book, But I will say a few things about which I feel pretty certain, but to which Right Thinking People may take exception.
Global ecosystems are indeed in crisis, and this is the result of human activity.
But greenhouse gasses, CO2 and climate change are peripheral to this story. The net effect of CO2 emission is likely to be beneficial, if at all relevant.
Environmental activism may be the most important movement on the planet today, and its diversion into a narrow focus on carbon is dangerous.
Weather manipulation is a well-developed, sophisticated science being practiced on a global scale, without open scientific backing and without democratic consent. This, too, is a crime and a major danger.
1. Ecosystem Collapse
Elizabeth Kolbert’s book, The Sixth Extinction, is the best single guide to what is at stake.
Species are disappearing at a rate that has only been rivaled five previous times in the 4-billion-year history of life on earth.
These are seminal events, changing the face of the earth and the nature of life.
The most recent extinction (#5) was the disappearance of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago.
We know just enough to realize that ecosystems are complex and interdependent in more ways than we can understand. Ecosystems are robust, and the loss or replacement of a few species triggers adaptations so that the ecosystem continues in a new equilibrium. But ecosystems can also collapse if a keystone species is lost, or if it is sufficiently disrupted.
Some large fraction of the species on earth is either extinct or rapidly disappearing. It is impossible to offer a more quantitative estimate because most of the macroscopic species have not yet even been catalogued, and of the microscopic species, including bacteria and fungi, our understanding has barely scratched the surface.
At some point, ecosystems collapse and species disappear because other species on which they depend are disappearing.
This is happening in large stretches of the world.
Ocean life is seeking a new equilibrium after the pollution, overfishing, and the killing spree of the last 50 years in particular.
Forests and wetlands the world over no longer support the diversity of life that they once harbored, and the collapse of biodiversity has a momentum that continues over decades.
widespread poisoning of insects, which are at the base of the animal food chain
insects are also pollinators, and plant life becomes fragile when insects disappear
draining of wetlands, mining of fossil water, and damming of rivers
deliberate targeting of apex predators, including lions, wolves, and whales
washing of topsoil into the rivers and oceans
wasteful practices in mining, agriculture, and industry
global travel, bringing invasive species that tend to homogenize ecosystems worldwide
Many people, consciously or otherwise, imagine a transhuman future in which the earth is paved over and food is grown hydroponically.
We’ll eat lab-grown meat and live in a virtual paradise, even after we kill the ecosphere.
This is a dangerous delusion! All life is interdependent.
No species can survive outside an ecosystem. Bacteria manufacture chemicals crucial for life. Insects pollinate. Fungi recycle waste, make atmospheric nitrogen biologically useful, and connect trees underground. No species can exist without a rich ecosystem, and we don’t begin to understand all the connections that create a functional ecosystem. Mankind’s one attempt to create an artificial ecosystem, dubbed Biosphere 2, fell flat on its face within weeks.
In murdering nature, we are destroying the foundation for human life as well.
2. Carbon Dioxide Has Little to Do with This
Anthropogenic global warming is a tiny fraction of the natural variations in earth’s temperature.
There are great natural cycles in the earth’s temperature. One of the best-documented is a cycle of about 100,000 years. The reasons are not well understood, but the present warm period in which human civilization has developed is not typical. Ice ages are typical.
As recently as 12,000 years ago, the part of Pennsylvania where I live was under a glacier two miles thick. When these conditions inevitably return, it will create a far greater disruption to animal life and to human activity than anthropogenic warming. “We’re overdue for the next ice age,” and it may be that “global warming” is helping to stave off that destiny, at least temporarily.
So, it’s true that we are at the warmest point in the last 100,000 years, but that has little to do with human activity. The 100,000 year cycle has a range of about 10o C, and human activity in the last 200 years is responsible for only about one 1o C.
Compared to local effects in America and Europe during the Little Ice Age of the 18th century, the effect of all our burning of fossil fuels is lost in the noise. Global warming is a worldwide average, while the Little Ice Age was regional; but the point is that even in the last few hundred years, ecosystems have had to adapt to much larger changes than those that global warming has imposed.
All the hype about a climate catastrophe based on carbon emissions is based on computer models that are woefully inadequate. These models have been wrong about the changes in the last 40 years since modeling began. They are no reliable guide to future climate response, though they are are continually being cited as authority.
In the last 7 years in particular, CO2 emissions have continued and accelerated, atmospheric concentration has increased steadily, but temperatures have gone up and down.
Freeman Dyson makes the point that plants grow faster when there is more CO2 in the air, and when temperatures are warmer. Plants are the productive basis for all ecosystems, so ecosystems are enriched by higher CO2 levels. John Clauser makes the point that there is no evidence that a pattern of extreme weather events can be related to more CO2 in the air.
3. The Environmental Movement Has Been Derailed by the Carbon Narrative
Many people of good will are passionate about reducing their CO2 footprint. Many companies and organizations are profiting from scaring the public about climate change and selling solutions to enrich themselves such as carbon credits, or pushing nuclear power as a friendlier form of energy than burning wood, coal or petroleum products. (It is not.)
Government policies regarding energy could certainly be improved. The most effective thing we can do is to adopt technologies that use energy much more efficiently than we now do.
Cars that get 200 miles per gallon of gasoline already exist, and public transit can be much more efficient. Buildings can be designed so that they remain comfortable with much less energy input. Rocky Mountain Institute has been creatively documenting the necessarily policy changes for decades.
There is an urgent need for all of us to get back to advocating the diverse policy changes that are required to preserve and restore ecosystems, to slow and mitigate the Sixth Extinction.
Reducing carbon emissions is dauntingly difficult, both technically and politically. Technically, because so much of what we do depends on fossil fuel energy, politically because the economic benefits of burning fossil fuels accrue locally, while the costs, if any, are spread across the globe.
Burning oil is associated with spills that devastate ocean life for decades; burning coal is associated with mountaintop removal; fracking causes earthquakes and pollutes groundwater. Cars cause smog and coal-burning power plants put mercury in the air. I’m not saying that fossil fuels are environmentally benign or that our dependence on carbon-based fuels is sustainable; only that atmospheric carbon dioxide is not the locus of the principal harms.
When vast machines capture carbon dioxide from smokestacks and pipe it thousands of miles to be pumped into the ground, I suspect something is seriously amiss. When companies get environmental brownie points for cutting down forests for woodchips and replanting seedlings, environmentalism has gone mad.
Focus on carbon emissions is the least effective kind of environmental advocacy, and it is probably counter-productive.
4. Weather Manipulation Is Everywhere, and It’s Unacknowledged
Chemtrails are real, though the motivation for this vast, multi-billion dollar project is unclear.
My best guess is that HAARP and similar large antennas are being used to push air masses around the globe with electrostatics and stratospheric heating, and that seeding the stratosphere with aluminum is part of a coordinated effort to send that radio energy to desired locations.
Dane Wigington has done more than anyone to document this. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of the phenomena, but I don’t believe he understands the motivation for weather manipulation. This is his introductory video.
Droughts and cold snaps are being weaponized to reduce agriculture output. Hurricanes are being steered toward inhabited areas.
It may be that weather manipulation could be applied in a productive and broadly beneficial program, but evidence is that the opposite is being pursued.
I believe that the long drought in California, floods in Texas, and the recent transport of smoke from Quebec to blanket the densely populated Eastern US are all examples of weather manipulation. I believe that these engineered weather anomalies are being put forward as evidence that CO2 is deranging the weather. I realize that it is difficult to prove that any particular weather anomaly is engineered, but Wigington’s evidence convinces me.
There is no doubt that the technology of weather manipulation has been maturing for many decades, and present capabilities are unacknowledged. Who is manipulating the weather and what is motivating them? I think these are important, open questions.
The Bottom Line
Please redouble your advocacy for environmental protection in all its forms. Please educate yourself about chemtrails and geoengineering. And don’t worry about CO2.
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This article was originally published on the author’s substack, Unauthorized Science.
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In a previous article (August 3, 2023) I explained why the indictments of President Trump are entirely fabrications for political and propagandistic reasons. Today I will answer the question how it is possible for a President of the United States to be indicted multiple times for behavior while in office.
A US president is surrounded by legal counsel.It is not possible for a president to go around breaking scores of laws.Normally such phony indictments as Trump faces would not be possible.Not only has no president in US history been previously indicted, the political party he represents would be up in arms pointing out the absurdity and political nature of the indictments.The indicting party would be overwhelmed with criticism and exposure.
But not in Trump’s case.Why?
As I wrote in 2016, Trump had no knowledge of Washington.He threw down the gauntlet to the ruling powers, but had no idea who to appoint, who would support his challenge and was quickly staffed up with his establishment enemies.
Consider Trump’s chosen vice president, Mike Pence.On August 1, Pence said that Trump put Trump above the Constitution and therefore should never be permitted to become president. See this.
What does Pence mean when he says Trump put himself above the Constitution?He means that Trump challenged the obvious electoral fraud that stole Trump’s reelection.
Let’s assume that the election was not stolen, but that Trump was convinced or influenced, as I am, by the claims made by many experts and the evidence that they presented that the election was stolen and did not want to be ushered out of office before the claims could be investigated.
But Pence refused to prevent the vote certification before it could be verified.Pence served the ruling establishment and got Trump out of office prior to knowing if the vote was honest. Remember, despite the hard evidence presented in many forums by many unrelated experts, nothing was done about the information they provided.The very minute Biden was declared the winner, the MSM “presstitutes” began the endless refrain: “there was no vote fraud.”
The coverup propaganda prevailed.And certainly Pence was not going to let anyone establish the truth by delaying the certification of an election that was clearly stolen.There is really no doubt about it.
Consider Trump’s attorney general, the establishment figure William Barr.One function, probably the most important, of a US attorney general is to keep an administration on the right side of all the many laws, treaties, agreements, of all the things that can result in embarrassments.In recent years, and perhaps always, attorney generals have protected presidents from consequences of illegal actions, such as George W. Bush’s and Obama’s illegal wars in the Middle East and North Africa based on orchestrated deceit and lies to the public, the allies, and the United Nations.
Today we are witnessing the attorney general protecting both President Biden and his son from known crimes that are well established.But not a word from the Justice (sic) Department, the media “presstitutes”, or the legal profession.
Here is how the turncoat Barr served the president who appointed him AG.On August 3 establishment member Barr said that the indictments against Trump are “legitimate,” but Trump’s claim that he has a free speech right to say his reelection was stolen is “not valid.” See this.
In other words, Trump broke some unknown law that if it existed would be unconstitutional for challenging the unexamined vote count on the basis of many experts’ evidence that his reelection was stolen.What is this alleged law?How can indictments be made on the basis of a non-existent law?
Try to imagine the extent of the gag being shoved in the mouth of a President of the United States.
Now consider President Trump’s chosen national security advisor, John Bolton.When Trump appointed Bolton national security advisor, I knew for certain that Trump was a defenseless babe in the woods.
Trump has no worst enemy than the neoconservatives of whom Bolton is the worst.
When Trump said one of his main goals was to “normalize relations with Russia,” the neoconservatives and the entirety of the military/security complex turned against him and regarded him as a deadly enemy.Here was Trump declaring the end to the neoconservatives dream of world hegemony and the termination of Russia’s enemy status that would diminish the budget and power of the US military/security complex. The CIA, NSA, FBI, US military, and the neoconservatives and their think tanks and publications instantly set about destroying Donald Trump.
John Bolton says Trump is in love with authoritarian rulers and rule, that Trump will cut defense spending, thus weakening the neoconservatives ability to start wars all over the world. See this.
I agree with Bolton that Trump does not know how to serve the agendas of the ruling elite and would fail to serve well the elite’s agendas.But from my standpoint, which differs fundamentally from Bolton’s, it is not the elite’s agendas that are important.What is important, if America is to be restored and continue as a free country, is that the massive attacks on US civil liberties be stopped and punished. To defend America means to defend the US Constitution.It does not mean to serve the profits of the powerful economic interests, the Woke ideologies of the universities, Democrat Party, and intellectuals, or the war-mongering of the neoconservatives.It is all to the good if Trump makes a mess of these agendas that are destroying the United States and the American people.
When people say Trump is unfit to be president, they don’t understand the reason why.The reason that Trump is unfit is that Trump does not have the background that permits him to differentiate enemy from friend.The two friends he had were quickly evicted from his administration, which ended up consisting entirely of the Washington Establishment.
And now in his dangerous difficulty, his own appointees are viciously damning him. Trump’s term was like a western frontier marshal setting out to arrest an outlaw by appointing the outlaw’s gang as deputy marshals.
Trump appointed to his government the enemies that he intended to destroy.
It seems that the American people, a majority of actual voters, are going to stick with Trump, but as time passes perhaps they will succumb to the propaganda against him.
The Rinos (Republicans in name only) are working hard with their theme that “we have to move on.”But if he is again elected, I doubt he will be permitted to assume the presidency.
He has seen and experienced too much.The corruption of everything that was America is vastly worse than Trump ever imagined or the American people know.If Trump gets power again and has the wits to appoint only the people who understand the erosion of America and have the will to fight to restore our rights and our country, it is the ruling Establishment that will rebel.
Biden and Obama have turned the US military into a corrupt Woke organization.The US military is the last organization that will come to America’s defense, or, to put it differently, they will come to Woke America’s defense, but not to the defense of traditional American valuesand the US Constitution.
The next election will determine whether America has a future.
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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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The patterns of neocolonial intervention in the majority world by the United States and its allies since their victories over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945 are very clear. Almost immediately the Western countries started a cycle of bloody aggression against peoples resisting colonialism, followed later by the dependence of most African and Asian countries on the ruthless Western economic system. In all this time, the United States and Europe demonstrated the most crude and brutal determination to guarantee at all costs control of the natural resources required by their capitalist system. Until the developments of recent years, they were able to achieve their goal through commercial and financial domination at the global level and, at the regional level, political co-optation of local elites. Whenever they have found it necessary, they have never hesitated to use military aggression either directly or indirectly.
However, in the last twenty-five years, the old imperialist regime imposed by the American and European powers has entered into crisis. It is instructive to make the comparison between the contemporary history of West Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. This is a period that began approximately with the election of our Eternal Comandante Hugo Chávez Frías in 1998 as president of Venezuela and our comrade Laurent Gbagbo as president of the Ivory Coast in 2000. Both leaders promoted socialist ideas that threatened the customary imperial control of their respective regions.
In both cases, the Western powers mounted campaigns to destabilize the new governments with repeated attacks and interventions of one kind or another. The intensification of the imperial aggression reached its peak in 2011 with the destruction of the Libyan Jamahiriya and the assassination of Brother Guide Muammar al Gaddafi; with the French attack in Ivory Coast to overthrow Laurent Gbagbo, with the treacherous complicity of the United Nations, and also the beginning of unilateral coercive measures by the United States against Venezuela and its oil company PDVSA. The institutional context of both regions of the world contains very similar components.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, the Organization of American States has served as the United States Ministry of Colonies since 1948. But in West Africa, it was not until the 1970s that the countries of the region completed their independence from the colonial powers, France, the United Kingdom and Portugal. So, it was not until 1975 that the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was founded. The ostensible objective of both institutions – the OAS and ECOWAS – is to promote regional cooperation, socio-economic development and political stability. In both cases, the dominant influence of the respective Western powers has distorted the practice of the institutions so that they serve in effect as tools of imperial regional control.
Throughout its history, the OAS has given its institutional support to imperial rule in the region, from supporting the 1954 coup in Guatemala and the exclusion of revolutionary Cuba to the illegal recognition of Juan Guaidó to represent Venezuela. After Cuba, only Venezuela and Nicaragua have had the courage to refuse to be members of this neocolonial institution. In the case of ECOWAS, while it is true that none of the former colonial powers is an actual member, France, and therefore the European Union, wields great influence because it dominates one of the main economic components of ECOWAS, the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) and also because most of the countries of the region use the CFA Franc currency, a direct inheritance from the colonial era.
The scope of ECOWAS has expanded beyond its original goal of “collective self-sufficiency” in a way similar to the development of the OAS, to now include the organization of peacekeeping missions in its member countries and the promotion of Western-style electoral democracy. ECOWAS now has a total population of over 440 million with a Gross Domestic Product of almost two trillion dollars (PPP). (It should be noted that if Nigeria’s oil wealth is subtracted that GDP drops dramatically to only US$600 billion indicating the relative poverty of the region). Almost all of the ECOWAS governments have faithfully fulfilled their neocolonial role in relation to the recent military insurrection in Niger, which has broad support among that country’s population, as is also the case with the other recent similar military insurrections in Guinea in 2021, Burkina Faso in 2022 and Mali in 2020.
The reasons for these coups include the presence of French and American military personnel on national territory, systemic corruption for the benefit of a small national elite and their foreign owners, and the lack of social and economic development for the population in general. However, perhaps even more urgently than these other factors has been the development of pseudo-Islamist terrorist forces such as Boko Haram and Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI) as a destabilizing factor in the entire region. In fact, the immediate origin of this component of regional instability was the destruction of Libya in 2011 and the consequent destabilization of the huge northern territory of Mali after the massacre in January 2012 of more than 100 Malian soldiers in the village of Aguelhok by terrorist movements.
In response to the lack of support from its government to defend its territory, the Malian army took power in a very similar way to what has just happened in Niger. A Committee for the Return of Democracy and the Restoration of the State was appointed. As now in the case of Niger, ECOWAS implemented economic coercive measures and threatened possible military intervention. Then came an agreement mediated by the United Nations, among others, and the intervention of a French military force. As in Niger this year (where the military has formed a National Council for Defense of the Nation), the 2020 military insurrection in Mali was largely a reaction against the presence of the French military. The fundamental difference between the events of 2012 and 2013 in Mali and the situation now ten years later is the united front agreed between Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Guinea, all ECOWAS member countries.
In this context, Guinea’s action could be crucial because its support for its three land-locked neighbors gives them access to commercial transit through the important port of Conakry, the capital of Guinea. Whereas in previous years, ECOWAS was always able to put more intense pressure and with greater ease on military insurrections in Burkina Faso or Mali, and now in Niger, because these countries lack access to the sea. The militaries of all four countries have concluded that the US and French military presence promotes neither stability nor security and, moreover, they suspect that the imperialist powers themselves covertly and indirectly support the terrorist forces they are supposedly fighting. Certainly, in 2012 a close Western ally at the time, Qatar, sent planes with armaments for the pseudo-Islamist groups via the city of Gao in northern Mali.
In West Africa, the recent military uprisings have been in support of nationalist and popular demands in the context of this counterproductive foreign military occupation and the cynicism of the predatory Western powers. In Latin America only Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the only countries to have rejected the OAS, have anti-imperialist armed forces defending their governments. The United States and its NATO allies have more than 70 military bases throughout the region, with most concentrated in Central America and the Caribbean, thus encircling Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. As in Africa, this regional military occupation is camouflaged under the spurious motif of security cooperation.
As in Africa too, this imperialist military harassment of the region goes hand in hand with endless pressure from giant Western energy and mining multinationals to ensure they get priority in controlling the region’s natural resources. It is also about ensuring the imposition of inappropriate economic priorities through international and regional financial institutions. Both the United States and the European Union are now intensifying their focus on Latin America and West Africa because they are afraid of losing their customary control over the natural resources of these regions to governments which, first, prioritize the needs and aspirations of their own peoples and, secondly, for the same reason want to seal more favorable agreements with China and Russia. This is the fundamental dynamic that will define the successful development of a genuine new world order.
It is a dynamic in which the corporate elites of the United States and the European Union will not be able to prevail because they still think they can to impose their interests over the needs and aspirations of the peoples of the majority world whom they want to continue marginalizing. They think they can forever keep entire populations in political impotence and economic distress by means of endless psychological warfare and its corollary, spreading malicious calumny to promote division and disunity. Many examples show how demented this assumption has become, whether the rejection in a country like Argentina of its subjugation to Western financial structures or the determined popular resistance in Haiti to systematic institutional destruction and grotesque exploitation by local private sector and foreign corporate predators.
Also relevant is Cuba’s heroic resistance to the genocidal US blockade and too, Venezuela’s and Nicaragua’s resistance to coup attempts and to constant US and EU provocation and intimidation or, elsewhere, the resistance to the coups in Bolivia and Peru. The advance of the political right in the region between 2015 and 2022 was brief and fragile. The Latin American and Caribbean nations continue the unstoppable development of their relations with the People’s Republic of China. All this is also reflected in the development of various similar events in West Africa. Resistance to the empire is inevitable among the peoples of the majority world who live the reality of all these processes. As our President Comandante Daniel noted in 2021,”Those countries that still dream of imposing their colonialist, neocolonialist policies on the world are simply out of touch with reality. That’s not possible anymore.”
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This article was originally published on Tortilla con Sal, translated from Spanish.
Stephen Sefton, renowned author and political analyst based in northern Nicaragua, is actively involved in community development work focussing on education and health care. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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On the night of August 4, the Kiev regime launched a sea drone attack against a Russian tanker. Luckily, the resulting damage was insufficient to sink the ship or cause any casualties among the 11 crew members, but it did hinder its operation. The attack happened at about 23:20 just south of the Kerch Strait, according to a statement by Russia’s Federal Agency for Sea and Inland Water Transport. The vessel was later identified as the chemical tanker SIG. The Russian maritime agency detailed that there is a hole “near the waterline on the starboard side, presumably as a result of a sea drone attack” and confirmed there were no casualties.
It’s important to note that the SIG is sanctioned by the United States for transporting jet fuel to the Russian military in Syria, making American involvement in the attack almost a certainty, particularly at a time when Washington DC’s aggression against Damascus is escalating. The targeting information was most likely provided by US ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) platforms which then relayed this to the SBU or the Neo-Nazi junta forces. The move aims to hamper vital Russian logistics in Syria, particularly operations by the VKS (Russian Aerospace Forces) which is regularly intercepting US/NATO aircraft illegally entering Syrian airspace.
To further conceal direct US involvement, the Kiev regime openly boasted about the attack, which is highly unusual given the fact that it normally maintains plausible deniability in the aftermath of such actions. According to NBC, “the tanker was transporting fuel for the Russian troops,” citing sources and adding that “it was well loaded” and that “the ‘fireworks’ could be seen from afar”. They said that a surface drone and TNT had been used to carry out the attack. A video was also released and shared by several Neo-Nazi junta officials, showing a sea drone moving towards the tanker, although it cuts just before reaching the ship, suggesting the explosion followed immediately after.
“Any explosions that happen with the ships of the Russian Federation or the Crimean Bridge is an absolutely logical and effective step in relation to the enemy,” the head of the SBU Vasyl Malyuk posted on Telegram, adding: “If the Russians want the explosions to stop, they should use the only option for this — to leave the territorial waters of Ukraine.”
Several hours before the attack on SIG, another sea drone damaged the “Olenogorsky Gornyak” landing ship, just off the port of Novorossiysk, one of Russia’s major export hubs. Coupled with attacks on tankers, such actions are obviously designed to hinder Moscow’s oil sales as the so-called “price cap” turned out to be a miserable failure, with even US vassals such as Japan ignoring it. By targeting Russian tankers and major ports, the US is hoping to stop or at least hamper oil sales. This is also connected to the issue of insurance for Russian vessels, meaning there would be no compensation in case of such attacks, possibly prompting other tankers to halt transporting Russian oil.
On the other hand, drone strikes on Russian cities aim to disrupt normal economic activity and discredit Russian authorities, probably in hopes of causing unrest of some kind. On August 6, Moscow’s Vnukovo airport was forced to temporarily halt all flights due to a failed drone attack. The Russian military’s electronic warfare (EW) assets downed the drone in the Podolsk region of the Moscow suburbs. The attack could have caused untold damage had it reached the airport, jeopardizing the lives of thousands of civilians. Since major drone attacks on buildings in Moscow (including the Kremlin itself), the Russian military strengthened its air defenses in and around Moscow, including by placing “Pantsir” SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems on rooftops.
Namely, although President Joe Biden vowed to “turn the ruble into rubble” just last year, this has proven to be nothing more than a fantasy, as the Russian economy is now outperforming those of its adversaries, the same ones enforcing the sanctions. Unable to face Moscow in a fair fight, be it militarily, economically or otherwise, the political West is left with underhanded tactics such as biological warfare, evident terrorist attacks and even covert nuclear proliferation. As previously mentioned, all this can only be described by two words – total war. And while it inevitably results in damage for Moscow on a tactical level, strategically and historically, Russia has never lost such confrontations, as evidenced by the last attempt by a certain failed painter with a peculiar mustache.
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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
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***
The period from 1462 to 1815 is of special importance for the history of Russia and the Russian people as well as for the history of Eurasia for at least five good reasons:
1) Russia became modernized according to the European pattern;
2) Russia became liberated from the foreign occupants;
3) The Russian people became territorially united into a single national state;
4) Eurasia experienced Russian territorial expansion in all directions from its original administrative center in Moscow and later St Petersburg; and finally
5) Russia as the mighty empire became a member of the European concert of Great Powers and even the most powerful state in Eurasia after the Napoleonic Wars.
The period started with the realm of Ivan the Great (Ivan III Vasilievich, 1462−1505) to be ended with the final decisions of the Congress of Vienna in 1815. That was the Grand Duchy of Moscow, known as Moscovy, as the state created by the Grand Dukes of Moscow in north-east Russia to be destined to commit two great historical tasks:
1) To recover the territories lost to the Swedish, Polish, Lithuanian, German, Ottoman, and Mongol/Tartar occupants (in the west and south), and
2) To expand Russian authority across North Asia (Siberia) up to the Pacific Ocean.
However, it has to be noticed that in 1462 the crucial aspect of Russian participation in international relations was, in fact, zero as the state was almost in absolute isolation from the rest of the world. In other words, Moscovy Russia was in the mid-15th century isolated from almost all contact with the outside communities simply by the hostility of its direct neighbors.
In particular, Moscovy Russia was not in a position to share in both scientific and cultural issues of Europe, and from this perspective became relatively backward compared with especially West Europe. However, lesser than four centuries later, in 1815 Russian Empire became the most powerful participant in European politics and international relations.
The territories of the Russian people ruled from Kiev (the Kieven Rus’) have been split due to the Mongol occupation in the mid-13th century followed by the occupation by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into two parts: eastern and western. The eastern lands were under the authority of Mongols while the western territories became crucial parts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (including Kiev) to be after the Lublin Union of 1569 (signed between Poland and Lithuania) incorporated into the Kingdom of Poland. Nevertheless, under the shadow of Mongol overlordship, the Grand Duchy of Moscow succeeded to dominate its Russian neighbors and finally threw off the Mongol/Tartar yoke.
Image: Ivan the Great (Licensed under the Public Domain)
The growing power of the Grand Duchy of Moscow was gradual and finally obtained political independence from the Mongols/Tartars under the rule of Ivan the Great in 1480.
The political-military power of Moscovy was first exerted eastward and later southeastward. The northern territories of Novgorod have been the next (in 1478) followed by Pskov (1510). Nevertheless, one of the most successful and important conquests by Moscovyte Russia (from 1547 the Empire) was in 1552 when the Khanate of Kazan became subjugated to Russian rule. Consequently, this conquest opened the way for Russia to advance across the Urals and into Siberia.
Subsequently, the Tartar Khanate of Astrakhan became conquered in 1556 which gave Russia control of the Volga and all ways to the Caspian Sea.
However, in the second half of the 16th century, Russia experienced certain setbacks during the Livonian War (1558−1583) under Ivan IV the Terrible (1533−1584) as this debilitating war for a quarter of a century on the Polish-Lithuanian and Swedish frontiers was, in principle, not successful for Russia. Moscow was in the year 1571 even sacked by the invading army of the Tartars from Crimea.
Nevertheless, Siberia became the biggest challenge of the Russian territorial expansion at the turn of the 17th century. Originally, it was the fur trade that involved Russian merchants in the unknown and rarely settled territory of Siberia (that was, in fact, terra incognita).
Russians finally reached the coast of the Pacific Ocean in 1639 followed by the establishment of the holds (like the Americans did in the Wild West).
In essence, the plenty of Siberian rivers very much facilitated fast exploration that became soon inforced by strategic forts and trading posts. In fact, all of Siberia except the Amur region became acquired from native primitive peoples (Tungusy, Ostyaks, Lamuts, Koryaks, Chukchi, Yakuts, Evenki…) – the Amur was annexed from China in the 1650s but was given up in 1689 according to the Treaty of Nerchinsk with China. Parallelly, the opening of the Volga trade route led to the fast growth of the silk trade with Persia/Iran via the Caspian Sea.
After the Time of Troubles in Russian history, which followed the deaths of Ivan the Terrible (1584) and Boris Godunov (1605)in 1613 Michael Romanov became elected Russian Tsar/Emperor – the founder of the Romanov ruling dynasty (1613−1917).
The Romanovs in the 17th century turned their attention to the recovery of West Russia which was for centuries under the Lithuanian-Polish occupation. At the beginning of this campaign, there were certain losses which have been caused mainly by the internal political chaos and disunity of the earlier period known as the Time of Troubles. However, important gains have been done from 1640 to 1686. For instance, in 1667, Kiev and the mid-Dneper territories were gained. The Cossacs of the lower Dniepr led by Bogdan Khmelnitski voluntarily accepted the Russian rule instead of the Polish Catholic yoke in 1654, and their land of Zaporozh’ye, therefore, became since that time claimed by Russia.
Image: Alexander I (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)
In the second half of the 16th century and throughout the 17th century, Russian colonization spread across the Oka River in the south while some Eastern Slavs migrated from Poland into the forest-steppe zone.
At the time, several towns in this zone started their existence as borderland outposts like, for instance, Orel (1564), Voronezh (1586), or Kursk (1586). Nevertheless, at the time, isolation from Europe was the focal problem for Russia until the time of Tsar Peter the Great (1682−1725).
On one hand, there was a huge demand for different products from the Russian forest and land by West Europeans but, on the other hand, Russia was unable to profit from such demand for the very physical reason that Poland-Lithuania, Sweden, and the Ottoman Empire simply blocked both oversea and overland links with Europe.
It is true that the Brits for commercial purposes succeeded to open up a very dangerous northern route to the White Sea via the Barents Sea and that Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible established the seaport of Archangel in 1584.
However, Archangel as the outlet for the export of Russian products to Europe was workable only during the summertime for a few months. For several reasons, therefore, Russian Tsar Peter the Great accepted as his focal national aim in foreign policy to break through to the shores of the Baltic Sea and consequently, took from Sweden Estonia and Livonia after the Great Northern War (1700−1725) which, in fact, Swedish King Charles XII started against Russia. The seaport of Riga became acquainted and a new Russia’s capital on the Baltic Sea was established in 1703 – St Petersburg. Consequently, Russia became a Baltic power with open access via the sea to Europe and its market.
What was done by Peter the Great for Russia in the north (the Baltic Sea) was done later in the same century by Russian Empress (of German origin) Catherine the Great (1762−1796) in the south (the Black Sea). She was waging several successful wars from 1768 to 1792 against the Tartar Khanate in Crimea which finally led to the destruction of the Tartar state in the peninsula.
It was followed by the substitution of Russian for Ottoman control along the northern littoral of the Black Sea, in the Crimean Peninsula, around the Azov Sea, and across the adjoining steppes. The seaport of Odessa was founded in 1794 and became for the region of the Black Sea of the same importance as the seaport of Archangel (est. 1584) was for the White Sea or St Petersburg for the Baltics – the focal outlet for Russian exports to Europe.
From the time of the First Partition of Poland-Lithuania (the Republic of Two Nations) in 1772 to the Vienna Congress of 1814−1815 Russia moved her state territory westward for 600 miles at the expense of Poland-Lithuania.
By the three partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772, 1793, and 1795 Russian Empire gained much of the former Polish Kingdom and all Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After the collapse of Napoleon’s Grand Duchy of Warsaw, the Vienna Congress authorized Russian Emperor Alexander I (1801−1825) to become King of a reconstituted Kingdom of Poland. Russia became a leader of the Holy Alliance (Russia, Austria, and Prussia) up to the mid-19th century and, in fact, the strongest power in continental Europe with borders from Warsaw to Vladivostok. At the time of the Napoleonic Wars, Russia included the region of the South Caucasus (1806−1813).
Russia during the period from Peter the Great to the Vienna Congress experienced fast economic development, especially in the military industry.
During that historical period, the Russian Empire was engaged in several wars for the purpose to obtain direct geophysical access to both the Baltic Sea in the north and the Black Sea in the south followed by pushing Russian borders westward into the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which main part of it was previously annexed from Russia and populated by Russians and other Eastern Slavs.
On these East Slavonic territories incorporated into Poland-Lithuania, the Eastern Orthodox Slavs have been experiencing systematic Catholization, forced acceptance of the church union with the Vatican, and denationalization (i.e., political Russophobia). Nevertheless, these wars required a huge investment in the armaments industry and, therefore, productive metallurgical foundations. These conditions were founded by Emperor Peter the Great according to the West European pattern, fundamentally in the Urals as this region was extremely rich in iron and copper ores as well as in huge forests which have been suitable for the production of charcoal.
The same Emperor founded factories, gave investment incentives, encouraged new management, and established the foundation for the further industrialization of Russia. In Central Russia, the textile and animal fat industries continued to be developed while by 1815, a new (third) industrial center arose in the north at a new capital St Petersburg.
Finally, Russia’s population in 1815 due to both territorial enlargement and prolific natural increase was significantly increased. For the year 1600, it is estimated that Russia (Moscovy) had circa 10 million inhabitants but when Peter the Great died, around 15,5 million.
According to the census data in the year of the Napoleonic invasion of Russia in 1812, the Empire had already 42,75 million people (including from Europe and Asia). The population of Siberia, for instance, had grown from around 500.000 during the time of Peter the Great to some 1.400.000 when Napoleon attacked Russia. However, at that time, only 4% of the total of Russia’s population was living in the urban areas, of which 30% lived in the two biggest cities – Moscow and St Petersburg.
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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Background
Most Americans oppose Congress authorizing additional funding to support Ukraine in its war with Russia, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, as the public splits over whether the US has already done enough to assist Ukraine.
Overall, 55% say the US Congress should not authorize additional funding to support Ukraine vs. 45% who say Congress should authorize such funding. And 51% say that the US has already done enough to help Ukraine while 48% say it should do more. A poll conducted in the early days of the Russian invasion in late February 2022 found 62% who felt the US should have been doing more.
Partisan divisions have widened since that poll, too, with most Democrats and Republicans now on opposing sides of questions on the US role in Ukraine.
And, all these come as American people are unhappy with a worsening economic situation. Earlier this week, the American rating agency Fitch downgraded the US government’s triple-A credit rating by one notch, putting it at double-A plus. The agency cited expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years as well as high and growing general government debt burden.
PressTV: Any comments?
Peter Koenig (PK): It is about time the American public wakes up to this scam of biblical proportions. Unfortunately, in Europe the awakening appears slower, because opposition is not made as public as in the US. Censorship in Europe has reached record proportions. We are way beyond George Orwell’s1984.
However, similar inquiries made in secret with people in Europe would yield similar results – or even stronger against putting more tax-payers’ money into a bottomless, corrupt rathole, called Ukraine.
In the US, Republicans see apparently much clearer through the scam than so-called Democrats – Dems — do. By scam is meant a last-ditch US attempt to weaken Russia to the point of a “regime change”, to a regime à la Yeltsin, so that Russia’s wealth of natural resources would become open for privatization and foreign / US exploitation; last ditch – means, before this wannabe empire disappears from the horizon of importance.
In the US, Dems are indoctrinated by Globalism. Though, adherents to the Democratic Party in States like California and New York, would hardly admit that their originally noble socially-inclined points of view, as in helping those in need, have been gradually highjacked in the last at least 2 to 3 decades by an incessant well-funded globalist propaganda.
This is a worldwide western trend. In Europe – same happens with left leaning people and political parties. What was left, is now globalist; what was right is now anti-globalist, defending national sovereignty and personal freedom. They apparently have seen through the scams of the elite.
The traditional western world party system – left vs. right – has disappeared. It is now simply globalists vs. anti-globalists.
And the western NATO provoked and incited Ukraine war is, next to the covid crime and the fake narrative on “climate change”, the worst crime the west is getting away with, because westerners are gullible to false media reports. And why is that so?
Because they love their comfort.
Going against the official narrative may risk their comfortable life, as they fear being exposed to ever more dictatorial regimes, if they do not obey.
But, quietly in their closed quarters and in their minds, in the US and in Europe, they have long discovered that money and ship-loads full of arms to Ukraine does not resolve the “problem” – that the war was not winnable, never was – against a mighty Russia.
Americans also recognize that there is an enormous poverty growing in the US. Countless homeless people are dotting the streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and other major US cities. US unemployment is rampant, despite official “statistics” to the contrary.
Plus, US infrastructure is breaking down in warp speed. In many cases roads, bridges and railroads have become extremely dangerous to human life.
All these are good reasons, why and how US tax money could be spent to much better use at home.
Up to now we are talking about an estimated US-dollars 150-plus billion sent in the form of weaponry and “budgetary” transfers to Ukraine. And this within about 18 months, since February 2022.
Compare this with about US$ 38.4 billion unemployment benefits paid in the same 18 months, from February 2022, when the NATO war against Russia began, to June 2023. The US$ 150-plus billion, represent almost four times more than paid US unemployment benefits in the same period. See this.
If you add to the US$ 150 billion another, say US$ 60 – 70 billion-equivalent from Europe’s spending in weaponry and “gifts”, or officially “budgetary transfers”, you get a total of about 215 billion dollars equivalent put down the bottomless black Ukrainian abyss.
This is not only a ridiculous but an economy-killing amount.
In addition, literally 70% of all the weaponry that the west sends to Ukraine ends up on the black market, instead of at the front. This was already reported a while ago by BBC, CNN, and other mainstream media.
So, US and European governments know it, but continue doing it – why?
Because they may want to supply the black market with sophisticated NATO weaponry.
Most of these arms end up in what the west calls “terrorist groups” – precisely what the west wants, because terrorist activities, violent protests and the like, as we have witnessed in France and other countries in the past few months, they are not random. They are planned. They are justification for increasing militarization and dictatorship in the west.
In recent vicious protests in France, NATO weapons have been spotted and reported, but to no avail, not picked up by the mainstream.
PressTV: The US Fitch Rating Agency recently down-graded the US credit rating from AAA to AA-plus. Yet, the useless spending on Ukraine continues, against all common senses, and against US economic interests.
PK: Fitch Rating Inc. is a US-UK credit rating agency. Agency Fitch, or any rating agency, would only make a US rating decision in complete accord with, or even by mandate from the US government, in tune with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Even though in this case Treasury Secretary Yellen complained officially, she might as well have been the initiator of the down-rating.
A lower rating gives the US more leeway or flexibility with potentially controversial policy decisions, i.e., increasing base interest rates again later this year … and more. Yet, most economists know that the FED’s raising the base-rate does more harm to the economy, brings more enterprises to their knees, and transfers their assets to Big Capital, i.e., BlackRock style financial behemoths, than lowering interests, so that business and production enterprises could pick up steam and catch up with what they lost during the covid times.
Of course, the same applies to Europe, and to most countries of capitalist economies. The convenient excuse of fighting inflation, does not stand its ground. Never did.
And that is known to the politicians and their economic advisers.
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PeterKoenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
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***
The would be masters of totalitarian control have turned-up the heat in a calculated push to make sure responsibility for the bush and forest fires that have broken-out in the Mediterranean during the recent heatwave, are squarely blamed on ‘global warming’.
There has barely been a day during July when the ‘horror’ of these events hasn’t occupied the headlines of the UK mainstream press and other such top-down compliant media outlets.
The horror is no doubt very real where fires have got out of control, putting lives and property under direct threat – and we should spare a thought for those afflicted in this way.
But the continuous repetition of headlines shouting “Record breaking heat!” “Devastating fires!” “Hell on Earth!” have become suspiciously familiar to those who saw through the Covid fear mongering scams of 2020/2021. An increasingly wary public are no longer so easily seduced by the mind controlling media manipulations employed to enforce public acceptance of the ‘great global warming hoax’.
Things haven’t being going so well for the ‘Net Zero’ lobby recently. Public sentiment is shifting away from the sort of ‘in-your-face’ simplistic headlines specifically designed to provoke fear and panic; especially when the fully insulated mainstream media agenda completely suppresses any attempt to express another opinion.
The Grecian islands of Rhodes and Corfu follow the pattern of much of mainland Greece. They have hot dry Summers. It is not uncommon for temperatures to reach the upper 30’s and low 40’s centigrade.
We have Vanessa Beeley, reporting for the UK Column News, to thank for pointing-out that the fires which were reported as breaking-out on Rhodes, actually caused significant damage in just three villages and surrounding farmland, some of which was badly scorched by wind driven fires, causing serious loss of income to the affected farmers, no doubt for years to come.
The World Economic Forum leadership has stated that it does not like small farms producing ‘real’ food. It’s ‘Green Deal’ wants such farms out of the way, to be replaced by synthetic laboratory look a’ likes. Such a view is now being taken up by all governments that subscribe to ‘The Great Reset’.
Greece has the highest number of small farms of any country in Western Europe. It’s farmers have frequently come out in support of ‘the people’ during political crises; selling staple foods direct from their farm trailers at give-away prices. However they rely heavily on the tourist trade in the Summer months, as sales during this season keep them solvent during the winter.
Scare mongering by the BBC and mainstream media in general, has kept visitors away this Summer, with fabricated reports of temperatures regularly exceeding the norm.
Southern Greece appears to have been targetted for special treatment by whoever sets the ‘hit agenda’ meted-out to various countries unwilling to conform to the strictures of the insidious WEF ‘net zero’ climate change agenda.
Adding to the dilemma of a country already dry by most European standards, is the recent rush to erect banks of ‘green’ wind turbines in countryside locations.
As has been the experience in North Germany and North Poland in recent years, the blades of these turbines generate a unique air flow the effect of which is to reduce rainfall and subtly alter local weather patterns, thus making areas in which they are situated drier than normal. Fires, some of which the Greek press are reporting as likely cases of arson, have spread faster and been more damaging due to this drying out.
It is my contention that the anti-life forces behind the creed of anthropogenic global warming are upping their programme via a globally coordinated agenda of deliberate weather disruption and the simultaneous spreading of critically biased information.
To keep the ‘Stop CO2’ Net Zero scam on course, the powers that be within the World Economic Forum, United Nations and affiliated corporate and banking institutions, must come up with a regular menu of disasters ostensibly caused by excess CO2. They must promulgate stories of rising temperatures threatening the future of life on earth.
This is a policy the elite cabal has been running for more than three decades. It is set in stone – and all other activities/issues are subordinate to it. ‘Stopping global warming’ is quite simply the concocted alibi with which to impose every conceivable form of restriction on the basic rights of all humanity.
Consider the fact that recent CO2 spewing volcanic eruptions in a number of countries are being kept out of the news. Why is this? Are volcanoes somehow now categorised as ‘conspiracy theories’ to be fact-checked out of the public eye?
Might this be because the amount of CO2 being released into the atmosphere by these eruptions dwarfs that contributed by man made activities? What if the public should wake-up to the fact that volcanic activity is not being factored-in as a serious threat to achieving the great Net Zero by 2045 agenda? In just the same way as ‘war’ has quietly been airbrushed out of the carbon contribution picture.
We should be on the lookout for a sudden ‘new scientific discovery’; something along the lines of “It has recently been established that previous analysis of matter released during volcanic eruptions was incorrect. Scientists have reanalysed recent data and discovered that CO2 only forms a minimal part of the elements released during eruptions.”
Strange isn’t it, that the composition of the upper atmosphere contains such a tiny proportion of CO2 – just 0.04% according to scientific research. But maybe not so odd, when one takes into account that CO2 is 1.5 times heavier than air (oxygen). How much is going to make it to the upper atmosphere?
I frequently repeat such observations in my articles, because we need every mortal still capable of rational thought and the ability to experience an emotional response, to grasp the significance of this vast climate deception.
A deception whose successful perpetuation forms the critical mass upon which the entire deep state globalist take-over of the planet currently depends.
Puncture this deceitful global fabrication – this hyper inflated lie – and the false agenda upon which the entire New World Order ‘Great Reset’ is based – will come crashing down.
Fires in Canada, fires in the USA; fires in China and fires in Europe. Now there will have to be such fires in the headlines every year. They will have to become more extreme, won’t they? If not, the story of disasters caused by continuous anthropogenic ‘global warming’ will cease to hold-up, and humanity will cease being spellbound by its horror.
Given such exceptionally high stakes, might not the perpetrators turn increasingly to the advanced EMF technology of scalar weapons and similar instruments of violence to start fires and keep them burning?
How long have such weapons – like HAARP – already been in use to provoke earthquakes and to change weather patterns?
What lengths will the psychopathic elite cabal go to achieve their ‘Net Zero’ Transhuman planet?
You know the answer.
But, as I also always stress in my writings, we who are awakening have it in our powers to put a stop to this demonic riot of destruction. We just have to get it into our heads that ‘they’ will stop at nothing, to achieve their Luciferian nightmare.
They will obliterate God’s work and replace it with their version, as professor Yuval Noah Harari has recently declared. Well, isn’t this the best possible incentive to prove him wrong?
Could there ever be a more powerful reason to channel our life energies into the unflinching defence of God’s creation?
Is there be a more powerful cause to commit to than that of freeing this jewel of a world, gifted to us as our physical home, from the deadly clutches of a small bunch of obsessed psychopaths?
Not in my book there isn’t.
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Julian is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, a writer, broadcaster and international activist. He is co-director of The International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside and a long time campaigner for the survival of small farms throughout the world. See his website www.julianrose.info.
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This article was originally published in March 2014.
In this video we’re going to provide you with compelling evidence that the crimes against humanity committed in Kiev earlier this year [2014] were in fact committed by the new coalition government and that officials in the E.U. and the United States knew full well who committed these crimes and that they are protecting and financially supporting the real criminals.
On February 20th of 2014 the world was shocked by video footage of snipers firing on protesters in Kiev Ukraine. Twenty one people were murdered, and it was widely assumed that President Victor Yanukovich and his supporters were behind the attacks. However a phone conversation between EU foreign policy chief Cathy Ashton and Estonia’s foreign minister Urmas Paet leaked to the public on March 5th reveals that the snipers in were actually from the new coalition government, and that Western diplomats knew this and covered it up.
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On 2 August 2023, the U.S. propaganda agency Newsweek headlined “U.S. Troops Should be Sent to Ukraine, Third of Americans Say”, and reported an alleged poll — though without linking to it or otherwise verifying that it existed or anything about its methodology if it did — that
“A total of 31 percent of eligible voters in the U.S. support or strongly support American military forces heading to the battlefields of Ukraine, polling conducted exclusively for Newsweek by Redfield & Wilton Strategies has revealed.”
Even if the poll existed, and if it was scientifically done, and it found that 31% did support sending U.S. troops into the battlefield of Ukraine to wage war against Russia there in that country which borders Russia, then what national-security interest of the American people would be served by the U.S. Government’s doing that?
Would it not instead enormously endanger us? If America’s troops there would win a conventional war there against Russia, then would not Russia escalate the conflict there on Russia’s very borders, raise it by going nuclear against the U.S., in order to prevent the U.S. Government from placing its nuclear missiles only a five-minute flying time away from blitz-nuking The Kremlin?
On 5 August 2023, I headlined and documented that the “IMF Has ‘Loaned’ $115B to Ukraine Without Requiring Any Proof Where It Went”, but the U.S. Government and its taxpayers have lent and donated far more than that to Ukraine, and if even the IMF (of which America’s Government is the top financial backer) is constantly postponing any audit of its ‘investments’ there, then how could things be any better for the ‘investments’ and donations by America’s taxpayers in Ukraine?
America’s Government is on the wrong side of the war in Ukraine — the side of the aggressor. Where Stoltenberg lied there was when he continued by saying,
To the extent that this information is not publishable in those nations, it’s proof of the given nation’s being a dictatorship — controlled behind-the-scenes by the very same ultimate rulers who also control its news media and censor-out this information, and call this information by such phrases as ‘Russian disinformation’.
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This article was originally published on The Duran.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
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On August 6, 1945, the United States US Army Air Forces dropped the atomic bomb “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, killing over 70,000 citizens and leaving at least as many ill from radiation sickness. It was the beginning of a horrible madness that seized the American soul.
The United States government dismissed all reports from Japan of radiation sickness, and other conditions, in the months that followed that bombing, claiming that such reports were just conspiracy theories. It would take enormous battles within the US, and around the world, to finally get the US to admit that this atomic weapon was different from a conventional weapon.
But everyone in the War Department knew exactly what sort of a bomb had been dropped and what it did to people. The Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb had undertaken horrible human experiments to determine the influence of radiation on the body, after all.
Moreover, the US government has never formally recognized the pointlessness and the brutality of this massive bombing at a moment that the surrender of Japan was a matter of days.
I want to take this opportunity, as an American running for president of the United States, to do what every previous president of the United States has lacked the decency to do. I want to take responsibility for this atrocity.
My deep apologies to the people of Japan, and to the people of the world, for what the United States did on August 6, 1945. I pledge that the United States will declassify all materials related to the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb and to the Army Air Force that planned the bombings and that the entire story will be made public for the world.
I believe that there were corporations and other distinct actors at the time who can be singled out as legally liable and that I think such a process of pursuing legal liability is meaningful.
I also pledge that the United States will eliminate all nuclear weapons from its arsenal in the next ten years, and that the United States will lead the effort to eliminate these weapons around the world. Only when we make such a commitment, and act upon that commitment, can we hope that other countries will stop their dreams of nuclear arsenals.
We are on the edge of an even more horrible nuclear war at this very moment. The time for action in the United States cannot be put off.
It is also worth mentioning that the journalist John Hershey broke the story of the radiation poisoning in Hiroshima in his article “Hiroshima” that was published in the New Yorker August 23, 1946.
I seriously doubt the increasingly fluffy and trite New Yorker today, aimed more at wealthy upper West Side homes than at thoughtful citizens, would be capable of publishing such an article today.
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This article was originally published on Fear No Evil.
Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020.
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Islamophobia in France: Stop the Fires of Hatred!
The summer period is notoriously prone to forest fires, a formidable threat to our natural resources and the surrounding biodiversity. However, there is an even more insidious danger spreading through our societies, undermining our values and cohesion: irresponsible hate speech. A reminder of some recent occurrences is in order.
Occitan Hearth
At the end of April, in elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools in the Academies of Toulouse and Montpellier [French southern cities of the Occitania region], a survey on “absenteeism” during the month of Ramadan and the Eid al-Fitr holiday, particularly affecting priority education zones [underprivileged areas with a significant Muslim community], targeted exclusively Muslim pupils. Commissioned by the Interior Ministry, this survey was required from schools by the police and the Ministry of Education. This situation provoked a legitimate outcry.
Following the denunciation of these stigmatizing practices—which turn a basic practice of Islam into a security issue—fraught with illegality, since religious statistics (even non-nominative ones) are strictly regulated in France, the authorities, as usual, talked a lot of hot air: “clumsiness”, “badly formulated message”, “autonomous research by an intelligence officer”, “study of the impact of certain religious holidays on the operation of public services”… As if cops were known for carrying out sociological investigations in schools; as if a religion other than Islam had ever been in the line of fire; as if occasional absences, provided for in the Education Code and legally unassailable (for the time being), could harm the functioning of Europe’s most overcrowded classrooms—after Romania.
A wet-finger estimate in [the right-wing newspaper] Le Figaro, announcing a “record absenteeism rate” on the day of Eid al-Fitr 2023 due to an alleged “TikTok trend,” is said to have prompted this investigation, which is perhaps intended to provide more quantified data for future witch-hunts. The data, moreover, is hardly usable, for while some school heads and inspectors have encouraged staff to respond to these tendentious surveys, which we can only deplore and denounce, others have fortunately dissuaded them from doing so—not to mention the fact that it is difficult to presume the reason for an absence on a Friday just before the national school holidays.
The question immediately arose as to the motives behind such a survey. Was it “only” a question of stirring up yet another unfounded controversy at the expense of the Muslim community? Or is the government planning to call into question an acquired right that is in no way contentious, in the name of an ever more narrow and misguided interpretation of secularism (which could tomorrow attack pork-free or meat-free menus in school canteens, ban any refunding of half-boarding fees for Muslim pupils during the month of Ramadan, etc.)? Will staff be the next targets of these investigations? Already, some non-teaching staff have been refused a “religious holiday” leave, which is illegal and unacceptable. Any attempt to generalize these measures on the pretext of “combating separatism” and “ensuring the smooth running of the public education service” must be fiercely opposed.
PACA Hearth and Ministerial Fuel to the Fire
On June 15, the Mayor of Nice and President of the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur (PACA) Regional Council, Christian Estrosi, issued an alarmist press release denouncing “several extremely serious incidents” which had occurred the previous day in three Nice elementary schools, and which were reported to the School Inspection Office, then to the Prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes Department, and the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne. The following day, the French Minister of Education, Pap Ndiaye, went even further, speaking of “intolerable facts,” the “mobilization of the Values of the Republic teams in all the schools concerned to ensure full respect for the principle of secularism on a permanent basis,” and the implementation of “the necessary government measures” to ensure respect for secularism—or “laïcité”—in schools.
Image: Pap Ndiaye and Christian Estrosi (Source: Norman G. Finkelstein)
The alleged “facts”? Some children in 4th and 5th grades were said to have “performed the Muslim prayer in their school playground” or organized “a minute’s silence in memory of the Prophet Mahomet[1].” These were nothing more than rumors, as the expressions of doubt (“it is reported to me,” “or”) and the conditional tense (“These unacceptable situations would also have taken place in secondary schools”) clearly underlines. Worse still, before even the slightest verification of these absolutely insignificant alleged facts (it’s just a handful of 9-10 year-olds having fun in the playground), Christian Estrosi likened these “attempts at religious intrusion into the sanctuaries of the Republic that are our schools” to “religious obscurantism attempting to destabilize us” and to “families who left to wage jihad in Syria,” who are reportedly beginning to return to France and sending their children “to our schools.”
And without even waiting for the results of “the General Inspectorate’s investigation to establish the facts precisely and draw the appropriate conclusions” (no kidding), the full force of the law was brought to bear against this allegedly dangerous “slide” (which at this stage has not even gone beyond the stage of gossip): “meeting with all the departments concerned to set up an action plan,” “reinforcement of State action to ensure that these attacks on secularism are firmly combated,” “campaign to prevent and combat radicalization,” “firm, collective, and resolute response,” setting up “secularism and values of the Republic training courses” which “will be the subject of a common module bringing together all personnel…” The joint press release from Christian Estrosi and Pap Ndiaye concluded with a fanfare worthy of this outpouring of catastrophist press releases, disproportionate means, and withering epithets: “the principle of secularism is non-negotiable in our Republic.” Such a display of paranoia and hysteria is not surprising from the reactionary clown Estrosi, whose secular fervor is otherwise well known, but considering what Pap Ndiaye was before he plunged body and soul into the political cesspool [Pap Ndiaye was a Professor at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, focusing his research on the compared history of racially discriminatory practices in France and in America, and the Director of the French national museum of immigration], one can only feel a bitter mixture of disgust and pity[2].
Christian Estrosi’s uncompromising crusade for secularism: “Defending our Christian traditions also means defending the heritage of our elders, who also built our Nice countryside”.
An Eternal Flame
The deep-seated motivations behind such Islamophobic outbursts are well known and have unfortunately become a constant in the discourse of Emmanuel Macron and his minions. Having faced massive popular opposition with the pension reform, they now resort to a despicable strategy of scapegoating, reminiscent of the darkest hours of France’s history. In a notorious debate with Marine Le Pen, President of the Far-Right Party “Rassemblement National” (National Rally), Macron’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin accused her of being “too soft” on Islam and refusing to “name the enemy”: “You say that Islam isn’t even a problem… You need to take vitamins, you’re not harsh enough!”
During a special evening dedicated to Samuel Paty [French teacher who was beheaded by a radicalized Islamist for showing his pupils derogatory Charlie Hebdo cartoons depicting the Prophet of Islam], Darmanin also denounced “communitarianism” and the “baser instincts” of “separatism” related to clothing or food (again, no kidding). He criticized clothing stores offering “community outfits” and the “halal sections” of supermarkets, portraying these as shocking practices. His aim was to link these cultural practices, which are perfectly harmless and consensual, to terrorism—a despicable process of amalgamation, stigmatization, and the appropriation of far-right discourse that is increasingly overt in the discourse and practices of Macron and his ministers.
Far from deterring the Rassemblement National’s electorate, this trivialization has only served to consolidate and grow it, providing a vigorous “vitamin” treatment regularly administered to hate speech by those in power and their media echo chambers.
The infamous Charlie Hebdo contributed on this ominous issue with a cartoon (“School reinvents itself” – “We bring our homework to school”) and a comment: “The question is how to deal with these cases, which involve particularly young children. The ten-year-old boy who incited his classmates to observe a minute’s silence for the Prophet was the subject of ‘worrying information’ sent to the Alpes-Maritimes departmental council, as the Nice education authority told Charlie Hebdo. An alert was also issued to the prefecture for ‘suspicion of radicalization’. ‘The child doesn’t become flagged as a serious threat to national security,’ we’re told. The idea is for the intelligence services to rule out any threat and check that the parents are not dangerous.’ In the meantime, the schoolboy has been excluded from the school canteen and has taken an early vacation. ‘We can’t afford another Samuel Paty,’ says a member of the Rector’s entourage.”
In any case, it wouldn’t be the first time that alleged TikTok “cyber-attacks on secularism” or other unverified gossip causes an uproar in the services of the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of National Education. Let us mention the controversies surrounding the wearing of the abaya and the deployment of the Orwellian concept of “improvised religious clothing,” promoted during the dubious “laïcité” training courses imposed on all teaching staff throughout France. These courses provide instructions and even rhetorical and legal tools to track down alleged intentions behind the “suspicious” dresses of presumably Muslim girls. A dress bought at H&M could thus fall under the “law banning ostentatious religious signs” (which really only targeted the Islamic veil) and earn the targeted schoolgirls summons, reprimands, or even threats and exclusion if they refuse to dress in a “republican” manner: a “morality police” doubled with a “thought police” in short. And it seems that the French authorities have just introduced a “children’s games police.” Are we soon to see SWAT teams in primary school playgrounds? The degree of insanity is such that a sneeze from a swarthy pupil that sounds vaguely like “Allahu Akbar” would be enough to trigger such an intervention.
Extinguishing the Fires or Fanning Them?
At a time when violence, including far-right terrorism targeting our fellow Muslim citizens, is reaching worrying proportions, the government persists in fanning the flames of hatred with its pyromaniac actions, exacerbating the real dangers threatening civil peace. The government’s approach involves all-out repression, police and security abuses with total impunity [the French police are lately becoming seditious and openly rebellious, literally demanding a license to beat up and even kill without being bothered by any kind of justice procedure], and over-instrumentalizing trivial facts to raise the specter of fantasized threats. These tactics only serve to pit citizens against each other and divide the French society.
The republican school urgently needs resources, not diversionary strategies, artificial tensions, or a perpetual call into question of the status and fundamental rights of users and staff. The “non-negotiable” secularism promoted and ardently defended by the CGT Educ’action aims to ensure the serenity and cohesion of the educational community, not to transform staff into zealous police auxiliaries or confine an entire population to the status of suspect or “enemy within,” to be constantly monitored and held at bay.
The Republic guarantees freedom of worship and equal treatment for all its citizens. Anyone committed to republican ideals must protest against this frenzied desire to ignite bonfires from the most microscopic twigs, and against stigmatizing and discriminatory practices that tarnish France’s image abroad and regularly elicit condemnations from human rights associations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. National Education staff, in particular, must oppose these practices and report them to local union sections, which must vigorously defend all members of the educational community (staff, pupils, parents…) who fall victim to them.
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Notes
[1] The minute’s silence isn’t precisely a well-known practice in Muslim liturgy. As for the spelling “Mahomet,” we can only deplore the fact that despite the presence of the first name Mohammed in the top 10 of most given names in the current French population, and its position in the top 50 of names on French war memorials from the First World War, this backward-looking and contemptuous name dating from an era of antagonism between Christianity and Islam, and felt as an insult by millions of Muslims, remains in use.
[2] Like a downsized version of Voltaire fighting fanaticism in the days of the Inquisition, Pap Ndiaye has also taken to TV to denounce these “manifestations of religious proselytism in schools,” gargling in big words, notably BFM WC (“These facts are not acceptable in the School of the Republic… It is only natural that the Nice Academy, the Nice Rector, and the Nice Mayor should react firmly to ensure respect for the principles of secularism, which is why I have signed this joint declaration with the Nice Mayor… The parents have been summoned… The pupils have been reminded of their obligations with regard to religious neutrality, and they have been given training, because we’re talking about children after all… In secondary schools, [for similar acts] there can be sanctions [or even] temporary or permanent exclusions…”). Pap Ndiaye did not hesitate to spread false Islamophobic information, namely that these children all belonged to the Muslim faith, which was denied by Eliane’s testimony to BFM Côte d’Azur, whose non-Muslim grandson took part in these children’s games: “He should check his sources because my grandson was part of the group playing and imitating prayer. There was no intention, no religion in the middle, it was really just a game… The stigmatization of children is really lamentable… That’s why we no longer have confidence in politicians, because everything is blown out of proportion to unbelievable proportions, and this harms solidarity and life together.”
[3] Let us remind that to be valid, Muslim prayer (especially in congregations) requires the age of puberty, a precise timetable, ablutions, specific clothing, orientation towards Mecca, etc.; so many conditions that it is simply impossible to meet in an elementary school playground during the lunch break.
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’État Against Humanity
