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The line separating Big Chemical and Big Food is blurring, according to Carey Gillam, an investigative journalist reporting for more than 25 years on corporate America.

Gillam is the author of “The Monsanto Papers: Deadly Secrets, Corporate Corruption, and One Man’s Search for Justice.” She also is managing editor at The New Lede.

Her first book, “Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science,” about Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller, won the 2018 Rachel Carson Book Award from the Society of Environmental Journalists.

Gillam and Kennedy on Friday discussed Gillam’s recent project covering the AltEn LLC ethanol plant in Nebraska, which produced massive quantities of toxic, pesticide-laced waste, polluting the surrounding land and water.

AltEn produced biofuel by “recycling” seed companies’ unwanted stocks of seeds coated with neonicotinoids, which can have neurotoxic effects on people and animals.

Gillam called it a “tragic situation,” saying,

“It really is emblematic of the destructive things that can happen when you have such a lack of regulation.”

“We are living in this pervasive toxic soup of chemical exposure,” she added.

The plant is now closed and a massive cleanup is underway, but the chemicals have damaged the soil, water, animals and possibly people in the area, she said.

Kennedy and Gillam agreed that powerful companies such as Bayer, Dow, Monsanto and others use money and influence to control regulatory agencies that are supposed to be protecting the public.

Farmers “can hardly find seed anymore that isn’t coated with these chemicals, because the big chemical companies now also are the big seed companies,” Gillam said.

“They control the market to such a degree that farmers can’t really escape these chemicals when they’re planting conventional crops.”

Kennedy agreed.

“The agricultural regulators are captive agencies that are essentially just subsidiaries for these big chemical companies — in the same way the pharmaceutical companies run the public health regulatory agencies,” he said.

Click the image below to watch the podcast.

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Susan C. Olmstead is the assistant editor of The Defender.

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Judicial Watch announced today that it received 466 pages of records from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regarding biodistribution studies and related data for the COVID-19 vaccines that show a key component of the vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), were found outside the injection site, mainly the liver, adrenal glands, spleen and ovaries of test animals, eight to 48 hours after injection.

Pfizer/BioNTech’s mRNA-based COVID vaccine relies on LNPs as a delivery system. Pfizer said in a January 10, 2022 press release that Acuitas Therapeutics LNP technology is used in COMIRNATY, the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

Judicial Watch also received 663 pages of records from HHS regarding biodistribution studies and related data for COVID-19 vaccines, which show that Johnson & Johnson relied on studies showing that vaccine DNA particles and injected virus particles were still present in test animals months after injection.

The records also show that Johnson & Johnson, as part of its submission to the FDA for approval of its COVID vaccine, did not include studies of the spike protein encoded in the J&J vaccine.

Biodistribution is a method of tracking where compounds of interest travel in an experimental animal or human subject.

Judicial Watch obtained the records in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:21-cv-02418)) filed after the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease failed to respond to a June 8, 2021, FOIA request for:

[A]ccess to biodistribution studies and related data for the Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines used to treat and/or prevent SARS-CoV-2 and/or COVID-19.

The Pfizer records include a report, which was approved in February 2021, on the animal trials on the distribution of the Pfizer COVID vaccine in rat subjects, in a section titled “Safety Pharmacology,” the report notes, “No safety pharmacology studies were conducted with BNT162b2 [the BioNTech vaccine] as they are not considered necessary for the development of vaccines according to the WHO guideline (WHO, 2005).” Similarly, under “Pharmacodynamic Drug Interactions,” is “Nonclinical studies evaluating pharmacodynamic drug interactions with BNT162b2 were not conducted as they are generally not considered necessary to support development and licensure of vaccine products for infectious diseases (WHO, 2005).”

This Pfizer report notes that when lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) “with a comparable composition,” to that used in the Pfizer COVID vaccine were injected into rats, “Total recovery (% of injected dose) of LNP outside the injection site was greatest in the liver and was much less in the spleen, adrenal glands, and ovaries.” … “in summary” … “the LNP distributes to the liver.” In the detailed analysis, the report states, “Over 48 hours, the LNP distributed mainly to liver, adrenal glands, spleen and ovaries, with maximum concentrations observed at 8-48 hours post-dose. Total recovery (% of injected dose) of LNP, for combined male and female animals, outside of the injection site was greatest in the liver (up to 18%) …”

This same Pfizer/BioNTech study notes “No genotoxicity studies are planned for BNT162b2 [the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID vaccine] as the components of the vaccine constructs are lipids and RNA and are not expected to have genotoxic potential (WHO, 2005).” Similarly, “Carcinogenicity studies with BNT162b2 have not been conducted as the components of the vaccine construct are lipids and RNA and are not expected to have carcinogenic or tumorigenic potential.”

The conclusion of the study begins: “The nonclinical program demonstrates that BNT162b2 is immunogenic in mice, rats, and nonhuman primates, and the toxicity studies support the licensure of this vaccine.” The report notes that “boost immunizations” were also being tested on the animals in the trial. Also, “Vaccine-related microscopic findings at the end of dosing for BNT162b2 were evident in injection sites and surrounding tissues, in the draining iliac lymph nodes, bone marrow, spleen, and liver.”

Also included in the Pfizer records is a report, approved in January 2021, titled “Pharmacokinetics Tabulated Summary.” A table in the report shows the biodistribution of lipid nanoparticles containing mRNA used in the vaccine using rats as the clinical trial subjects reports LNPs accumulating after 48 hours, especially in the lymph nodes, ovaries, small intestine and spleen.

A summary of a study, approved in November 2020, of LNP mRNA distribution in rats, sponsored by Acuitas Therapeutics, notes that the concentrations of the LNP mRNA saw “levels peaking in the plasma by 1-4 hours post-dose and distribution mainly into liver, adrenal glands, spleen and ovaries over 48 hours. Total recovery of radioactivity outside of the injection site was greatest in the liver, with much lower total recovery in spleen, and very little recovery in adrenals glands and ovaries. The mean plasma, blood and tissue concentrations and tissue distribution patterns were broadly similar between the sexes and … did not associate with red blood cells.”

A September 2020 “Confidential” appendix to the clinical trial studies submitted for the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID vaccine (BNT162b2), titled “Justification for the absence of studies in CTD Module 4 (part of 2.4)” notes under “Safety Pharmacology” that “No safety pharmacology studies were conducted as they are not considered necessary according to the WHO guideline (WHO, 2005).”

And under “Pharmacodynamic Drug Interactions,” is written: “Nonclinical studies evaluating pharmacodynamic drug interactions were not conducted as they are not generally considered necessary to support development and licensure of vaccine products for infectious diseases (WHO, 2005).”

Under the heading “Genotoxicity,” is: “No genotoxicity studies are planned for BNT162b2 as the components of the vaccine constructs are lipids and RNA that are not expected to have genotoxic potential (WHO, 2005).”

Regarding “Carcinogenicity (including supportive toxicokinetics evaluations)” is written:

Carcinogenicity studies with BNT162b2 have not been conducted as the components of the vaccine constructs are lipids and RNA that are not expected to have carcinogenic or tumorigenic potential. Carcinogenicity testing is generally not considered necessary to support the development and licensure of vaccine products for infectious diseases (WHO, 2005).

In a “Confidential” Pfizer study, approved in April 2020, looking at four COVID vaccine variants, the company tested a vaccine with an RNA strand “that self-amplifies upon entering the cell.” It “encodes the Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) virus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RDRP or replicase).”

In the same Pfizer study, the authors note that, “Although liver function tests will be carefully monitored during the clinical development of these vaccines, BioNTech’s prior clinical experience indicates that the distribution to the liver does not pose a safety concern.”

Also, the Pfizer study authors note, “Based on previous nonclinical and clinical experience with the three RNA platforms, a beneficial safety profile is anticipated, and may include transient local reactions (such as swelling/edema or redness) and body temperature increases.”

The Johnson & Johnson records include a 2007 study of the biodistribution of an intramuscular-administered adenovector-based viral vaccine using New Zealand white rabbits, which showed that the vaccine accumulated in “the spleen, iliac lymph node, and the muscle at the site of injection.”

A biodistribution table included as an appendix to the 2007 rabbit study showed that the vaccine DNA particles were still present in the iliac lymph nodes 91 days after injection.

A chart of pharmacokinetics data from a November 2020 report of a study on “VAC31518 JNJ-78436735,” the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, on rabbits shows collection of the injected virus particles in the spleen and iliac lymph nodes up to three months later, as well as particles found in the skin and muscle at the injection site.

In a November 4, 2020, report submitted to the FDA regarding the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine, the authors discuss the 2007 New Zealand rabbit study in which adenovirus-vectored vaccine is trialed, but note that “No pharmacokinetic or biodistribution studies have been conducted with AD26.COV2.S specifically.”

The report notes that metabolism, excretion, and pharmacokinetic interactions with other drugs were not studied in this trial because they are “Not applicable to vaccines.” It is also noted that “biodistribution studies have not been conducted with Ad26.COV2.S.”

A table in the report shows that the vaccine virus continued to appear in the rabbits’ iliac lymph nodes 180 days after injection.

A June 2020 “Pharmacokinetics Written Summary” for the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines notes that:

Ad26COVS1 (also known as VAC31518 or JNJ-78436735) is a monovalent, recombinant replication-incompetent adenovirus type 26 (Ad26) vectored vaccine encoding a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Spike protein…. No specific pharmacokinetic studies have been performed with Ad26COVS1. However, to assess distribution, persistence, and clearance of the Ad26 vector (platform), biodistribution studies were conducted in rabbits using two other Ad26-based vaccines encoding [redacted] and [redacted] antigens…. [T]he available biodistribution results are considered sufficient to inform on the biodistribution profile of Ad26COVS1, for which the same Ad26 vector backbone is used.

“These documents show why many Americans have concerns about whether the novel COVID vaccines that were developed at such an accelerated pace were tested properly and thoroughly,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

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A dense coastal landscape, Broward County never expected to be a battlefield for the fossil fuel industry. More accustomed to tourists and traffic jams than drilling and hazardous trucks, Broward County wanted to keep it that way. So they banned fracking. Within a year, the fracked gas industry moved to town, undeterred, with their latest scheme. It was a liquefied fracked gas (LNG) export out of Broward’s busy Port Everglades.

Now, LNG tankers dock alongside cruise ships, as New Fortress Energy quietly expands fossil fuel operations in South Florida. Fracked gas from out of state is brought via pipeline to a liquefaction facility in Medley. That’s where it is transformed from a volatile gas to a volatile liquid – liquefied fracked gas. That is then loaded onto truck and rail cars and transported over 30 miles to Port Everglades, where it’s Caribbean-bound.

Transporting Volatile Fracked Gas Puts Floridians Directly In Harm’s Way

LNG transport and export keep our region locked into the very fossil fuels supercharging climate chaos, threatening our drinking water and way of life. It’s also putting Floridians directly in harm’s way. Liquefied fracked gas is no safer than regular fracked gas. It’s extremely volatile — leaks at the Medley facility or in transport to Port Everglades can form a flammable vapor cloud. If ignited, these vapor clouds can cause explosions up to a mile wide.

Those explosions have been fatal. In 2020, A gas tanker truck in China exploded on the highway, killing 19 and injuring over 100 people. It’s simply too dangerous to put trucks carrying volatile liquefied fracked gas on the roads, especially on high traffic highways like I-95 where a collision with a vehicle could spell disaster.

South Floridians are Unknowing Volunteers In A Dangerous Bomb Train Experiment

The use of trains in transporting liquefied fracked gas is new, untested, and extremely dangerous. South Florida is one of only three U.S. cities where the hazardous material can legally be transported by rail. All three of these dangerous rail transport approvals occurred during the Trump Administration. The Biden Administration has taken steps against the dangerous practice but stopped short of ending rail transport in South Florida. That makes South Floridians unknowing volunteers in a dangerous bomb train experiment.

To make matters worse, South Florida’s liquefied fracked gas “bomb trains” are transported on the same rail line as Brightline. That’s the high-speed train with the highest death rate of any line in the U.S. Adding fracked gas bomb trains to the mix, sharing tracks with passenger rail, is a terrible idea.

Despite Immense Risks, This Fracked Gas Project Escaped Public Oversight

South Florida’s liquefied fracked gas export operation has been active for several years, but not many people know about it. Why? Because New Fortress Energy, the company behind the scheme, sought as few permits as possible, generating almost no public oversight.

First, the corporation used loopholes in federal law to evade the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) jurisdiction. FERC is supposed to oversee gas liquefaction facilities, but New Fortress Energy successfully argued their way out of that process. New Fortress Energy got an air permit from Miami-Dade for the liquefaction facility. However, there wasn’t any oversight from the Broward County Commission when Port Everglades struck a deal with New Fortress Energy. This lack of government oversight means there were too few opportunities for public input. The public deserves an opportunity to weigh in on an operation that puts so many directly in harm’s way.

The Broward County Commission Must Halt The Transport of Liquefied Fracked Gas At Port Everglades

For too long, South Floridians have been subjected to the dangers of New Fortress Energy’s profiteering liquefied fracked gas transport. Luckily, the Broward County Commission can do something about it. We’re calling on the Broward County Commission to halt the transport of liquefied fracked gas and investigate the risky operation.

Port Everglades’ project was the first liquefied fracked gas export project in Florida. Not only has it endangered South Florida residents, but it sparked a push from the fossil fuel industry for more. Jacksonville is now also home to fracked gas exports. Alarmingly, there have been proposals for even more, including in the Panhandle and Tampa Bay. Furthermore, last fall New Fortress Energy doubled its operation in South Florida, sending more liquefied fracked gas into Broward communities. What’s to stop them from continuing to expand?

The Broward County Commission must halt the transport of liquefied fracked gas and conduct an investigation into the operation.

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Does Israel Permit Freedom of Worship?

May 3rd, 2022 by Philip Giraldi

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A week ago I wrote a piece describing how Israel’s power over the US government is such that no American official will confirm that the Israelis have, and have had for years, a secret nuclear arsenal consisting of as many as 200 nukes. The situation is particularly odd in that the United States is on record as being strongly opposed to nuclear proliferation, except for Israel, and the enriched uranium that was used to create Israel’s bombs as well as the nuclear triggers were stolen and exported illegally from the US. Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself was reportedly involved in the thefts. One lawyer friend has suggested that the reason for the reticence is that under US law by way of the Symington Amendment, no assistance or aid can be given to any country that has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Israel has not signed and also has a widely acknowledged nuclear arsenal. To preserve Israel’s billions of dollars in annual largesse from the US taxpayer, silence over what goes on when the government breaks its own laws must be maintained. Some might consider that a case of pandering to Israel rather than taking steps to enhance United States security, but when it comes to the Jewish state that argument is a non-starter in Washington as Israel always comes first.

This week I am going to describe another aspect of the Zionist state’s policy that has been invisible if one relies on the mainstream media or the chattering magpies that occupy Capitol Hill and the White House. That is the ongoing elimination of Christianity in the region where it was born being carried out by Israel and its friends. The United States has been the enabler of much of the change in spite of the prevalence of self-described devout Christians in Congress, many of whom ironically are vocal and even enthusiastic supporters of Israeli “security” policies. Killing Palestinians is all too often justified in Congress and the White House with the meaningless expression “Israel has a right to defend itself.”

American power wielded on behalf of Israel has already destroyed a thriving Christian community in Iraq while still laboring to do the same in Syria and possibly even Lebanon. At Christianity’s very birthplace, in what was once Palestine, Israel has been engaged in making the lives of Palestinian so miserable that they frequently choose to emigrate. Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion famously declared in a letter to his son that “We must expel the Arabs and take their places…” and he exploited massacres of unarmed civilians carried out by the Haganah to create terror to accomplish that end. Since that time, Israel has refused to allow Palestinians driven from their homes by the 1948 fighting to return, has destroyed more than 400 Arab villages and confiscated other Palestinian properties, has appropriated additional land and water resources for its illegal settlements, has allowed armed settlers to destroy Palestinians crops and other forms of livelihood, and controlled Palestinian movements through a network of Jews only roads and numerous checkpoints. Even Palestinians who happen to be Israeli citizens are legally and in practice treated like second-class citizens with limited rights. There are more than 60 laws in Israel that discriminate against non-Jews while Israel now legally defines itself as a Jewish state. Israel has also imprisoned without any trial thousands of West Bank and Jerusalem Palestinians, including children, and shot dead hundreds more.

I could go on, but the point is that Israel wants Palestinians gone, a process that has particularly impacted on the Christian community. It has not been done by ethnic cleansing in the classic sense after the initial Nakba massacres and appropriations in 1948, but rather accomplished by creating incentives to leave. And it has been successful. At the end of the Second World War, an estimated one third of the Palestinian population identified as Christian, but the percentage is currently closer to 9% and continuing to decline. The numbers suggest that Christians in the former Palestine are verging on extinction. In fact, Christians have been able to become disproportionately emigrants from their homeland because they more frequently than Muslims have family already established in Europe and the US and have also been able to rely on networking through their churches for resettlement assistance in a new country.

Even by the wretched standards of the past 70 years, Israel’s seeking a “final solution” with the Palestinians recently has become particularly outrageous, focusing as it does on loosening their ties to their religious and cultural institutions while also destroying their livelihoods and appropriating their properties.

Hardly reported in the US media was the use of new Israeli imposed security restrictions to disrupt this year’s Palestinian Christian Orthodox Easter celebrations of Christ’s Resurrection at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. This comes on top of similar police action to support the usual crowd of rampaging settlers and other Jewish extremists at the most recent Ramadan services held by Palestinian Muslims at the al-Aqsa Mosque, which included using a drone to fire tear gas at worshipers.

What took place during Holy Week and more particularly on Easter Sunday has been described by Rod Dreher, who writes for The American Conservative. I will confess that I do not much like Dreher as he is fond of celebrating himself in everything he writes, full of navel gazing and smug sanctimonious twaddle, but as he was a participant and eye witness to what occurred his account is of necessity extremely valuable. To be sure, he makes it clear that readers understand that he is not criticizing Israelis in general, nor is he engaging in anything objectionable to Jewish sensitivities when he includes himself in how “we American Christians, especially those who support Israel,” also as “an American who cares about Israel,” and who refers to “my Israeli Jewish friends” and then goes on to assert “I condemn anti-Semitism unreservedly. Criticizing the Jewish settlers and official Israeli policy does not constitute anti-Semitism” before concluding that “most Israeli Jews wouldn’t support these hate-filled radical settlers.”

Actually, the US and other governments as well as many states do believe that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism as defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. And, depending on how the question is phrased many, possibly most Jews worldwide, support firm action against Muslims in particular, who are routinely described in the media and by the Israeli government as “terrorists.” Rod clearly understands that it is a bad idea to veer into areas that Jews are uncomfortable with as they can be surprisingly sensitive and unreasonably reactive to perceived slights. No need to bite the hand that feeds you, as one might put it, particularly if one wants to stay employed.

Dreher reports how he was “staying at a hotel inside the Old City, where I was advised to book a room out of fear that the Jerusalem police would not let Christians into the Old City on Holy Saturday. This turns out to have been very good advice.” Holy Saturday for Orthodox Christians features a “miracle” of the Holy Fire, which is believed to be the first sign of the Resurrection of Jesus. Normally, at 11 am, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher opens and is quickly packed with believers. After noon, the Greek Patriarch the “little house” built directly over the tomb of Christ, prays, and what is referred to as “divine energy” descends from heaven to light the Patriarch’s candles, the flames from which are shared with everyone present. He then emerges and passes the flame to everyone there.

Dreher and a friend reportedly left their hotel early to pray but when they arrived at the end of the street at the Jaffa Gate, two Jewish police officers refused to allow them to pass out of the Old City, warning that if they left they might not be able to come back in. They then walked over to an access point to the Jaffa Gate, and witnessed a large group of Christians behind a barrier on the other side, blocked from entering into the Old City where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is situated. Dreher observed that at the same time Orthodox Jews wearing white prayer shawls, entered freely into the Old City on their way to the Western Wall to pray on the Jewish Sabbath. Later that morning, Dreher was only allowed to pass into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher because he had obtained a ticket to the “fire” service. The tickets, to control and limit attendance at the church was an innovation by the Israeli police. The Patriarch objected, observing that tickets had never before been required. The tickets allowed entry of only 1,800 worshipers in the church, which normally accommodates 10,000, a reduction of 82% of the faithful permitted to be in attendance on the highest of all holy days.

An Anglican priest from Virginia who spoke to Dreher at the service described that morning’s experience this way: “Police checkpoints were at every corner. Even when we reached the private property of the Greek Patriarchate, police had taken over there as well. They actually turned back nearly a dozen Consuls General and other diplomatic representatives, including ones from the United States. We had to take an alternative route to get inside. If that was the way it worked for VIPs, imagine you’re a local Palestinian Christian simply trying to worship on the holiest of Christian holidays inside the church built over the very Tomb of Christ.”

At issue are demands by radical Jewish groups, most notably the extremist Jewish settlers’ organization Ateret Cohanim, a type of Jewish Taliban, to “cleanse” Jerusalem of all non-Jews. They have been aggressively buying or otherwise occupying properties in and around the traditional Christian and Muslim quarters of the city and often use violence when they are resisted by local residents. Christians, unlike the Muslim community, notably do not tend to resort to violence in support of their property or civic rights even though recourse to the Israeli courts is useless as the judges have consistently sided with the settlers and police.

In Jerusalem there have been regular instances of verbal abuse, vandalism and spitting on Christian clergy, as well as sporadic violent assaults. In the Armenian Christian quarter a monk reports how “[The settlers] destroy the tires of our cars, graffiti ‘death to Christians’, break windows, they desecrate our cemetery, you know… ugly things, and it’s really invasive.” Some Christians have pointed to what happened to the former St John’s Hospice near the Jaffa Gate as a prime example of what the Christian churches fear could happen across the quarter. The building’s lintel still shows the tau-phi monogram of the Greek Patriarchate but in 1990, this pilgrims’ hostel was illegally occupied by Ateret Cohanim, and now the vast building is covered with multiple Israeli flags and houses violent armed Israeli settlers. The local Christians Dreher talked to “believe that this is part of a settler plot to choke off access to Christian holy sites within the city, and force Christians out.”

The Israeli authorities tend to ignore the settler activity as they have powerful supporters, including from the diaspora community in the US and some Evangelicals who help to fund them. Ateret Cohanim’s 2010 annual gathering featured as guest speaker no less than John Bolton and the Kushner Family Foundation has reportedly helped finance its activities. In addition, Israel’s religious conservative parties are a necessary component in the coalition government and their extreme behavior is tolerated and even aided and abetted on the sly. Nor will secular Jews stand up for their Christian brothers in Israel in enough numbers to matter. Also, many Israelis believe that increasingly hardline radical Jewish groups are actually the future of Israel based on demographic trends. All excuses aside, clearly enough of the ruling elite in America, and in Israel, support the radical settlers, or none of this would be happening.

And the situation is little better for Christians in Palestine outside Jerusalem. A Franciscan monk visitor to a monastery outside of the city reported how the Israeli authorities had cut off water to the building while the missionaries themselves were verbally abused and had rocks and other debris hurled at them by settlers. In Bethlehem, a Christian gift shop was deliberately put out of business after nearby Jewish settlements were allowed to erect walls blocking access to it. Other attacks on Christians have included a June 2015 arson incident at the Church of the Multiplication and a nearby Benedictine monastery in Tabgha, located 120 miles north of Jerusalem. The church is built on the site where Christ fed the 5,000 through the multiplication of loaves and fishes. The attackers left Hebrew graffiti on the walls, reading “all idols will be smashed.” In 2014 occurred vandalization of a Romanian Orthodox church, the Benedictine Abbey of the Dormition, and Catholic offices in Jerusalem, as well as a monastery in Beit Shemesh. The year before, more than 20 Christian sites of the Latin Patriarchate were attacked by vandals. And in 2012, a Trappist monastery in Latroun was subject to arson and graffiti, while the Convent of St. Francis on Mt. Zion was vandalized. Non-Jews in Bethlehem and on the West Bank meanwhile live under a system of Israeli military laws and check points established by government order number 101. In Hebron, non-Jews living on Jewish-only streets cannot even walk out their front doors and they are regularly bombarded by feces and other waste hurled down upon them by the settlers.

Israel’s anti-Christian policies are international and includes support of groups the US has called terrorists. Israel has given money and weapons to the jihadists fighting against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, which includes al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Wounded jihadists even have crossed into Israel to received hospital treatment. Once, ISIS accidentally fired into Israel and then publicly apologized. Israel is intent on removing al-Assad, which will lead to an exodus of Christians from Syria, similar to what took place in neighboring Iraq after US forces deposed Saddam Hussein.

There is a certain irony in how the United States doggedly pursues China over its alleged maltreatment of the Uighurs while at the same time rewarding and protecting Israel even though it spies relentlessly on the US and very clearly persecutes Palestinians. Dreher asks the question why the US government, which gives Israel multiple billions of dollars a year, cannot stop Israel’s de facto official punishment of its Christians. The answer is at least in part simple, that most American Christians do not care about the plight of their co-religionists in the Middle East. Millions of true-blue Christians not unlike Dreher, many weaned on the Scofield Bible and its dispensationalism, and many of whom wind up in government or other positions of power, choose to disengage from the problem, accepting that Jews are the “chosen people” of God and, for some, part of End Time prophecy. They are therefore to be given a pass by both the media and government on all their exclusivism and bad behavior even as they meddle in US politics and work to hobble freedom of speech by criminalizing anyone who criticizes Israel or supports Palestinians by urging a boycott against it. Until all that changes, if it even can happen, Christians in the so-called Holy Land will be on the chopping block and when the churches and monasteries no longer have a community to sustain them, it will be the end of Christianity in the place where it was born. And more’s the pity, the United States will have played a major role in enabling that to happen.

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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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“Press Freedom Day”. But Whose Freedom?

May 3rd, 2022 by Steve Sweeney

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In celebration of World Press Freedom Day, we repost this article from 2020.

Global human rights organisations and press freedom groups will today hold events across the world to mark International Press Freedom day, held annually on May 3.

It was established by the United Nations in 1993 on the second anniversary of the signing of the Windhoek Declaration, a statement of free press principles put together by African newspaper journalists.

Its stated aim is to “raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined under Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

But in reality the event is a jamboree of hypocrisy, with the multimillion press freedom and human rights business operating as the human face of US imperialism, bankrolled by a rogues’ gallery of organisations linked to the CIA and touting for regime change across the world.

The obvious campaign to highlight this year should be that of Julian Assange who faces 175 years in a US prison under the draconian Espionage Act for exposing war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yet he remains locked up in Britain’s high-security Belmarsh prison where he has been subjected to what has been described as torture – to an almost blanket silence from the press freedom business.

Those who are hypocritically talking about press freedom today were also noticeably silent last week on the 21st anniversary of one of a litany of war crimes committed by Nato during the body’s 70-year existence which was celebrated with hubris in London last year.

April 23 marked the anniversary of Nato’s bombing of the Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) building in Belgrade which killed 16 journalists in a targeted attack.

It justified the operation saying it was necessary “to disrupt and degrade the command, control and communications network” of the Yugoslav Armed Forces.

But the deliberate targeting of a non-military building is against the so-called rules of war and was too much even for pro-imperialist shills Amnesty International who branded the attack a war crime.

There has been no justice for the victims of the attack or their families and nobody has been held accountable for the bombing. In fact, the only individual prosecuted was Dragoljub Milanovic, general manager of RTS who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for failing to evacuate the building.

In 2011, the Associated Press released a particularly shameful statement, dutifully published in the Guardian, which appeared to justify the bombing saying: “The station blatantly spread Milosevic’s nationalist propaganda, portraying Serbs as the victims of ethnic attacks in the former Yugoslavia, thus whipping up nationalism that led to wars.

“At the same time, the television accused the Serbian opposition of being foreign mercenaries and traitors who were working against the country’s interests. The propaganda was so intense that it led to anti-government protests in March 1991 in the capital, during which two people were killed in what was the first popular uprising against Milosevic’s rule.

“It also prompted Nato in 1999 to declare the state TV a legitimate target. The RTS building was bombed during the air war that the alliance launched to stop Milosevic’s onslaught against Kosovo Albanian separatists. Sixteen RTS employees died in the attack.”

Its response displayed a staggering disregard not only for press freedom, but for human life.

It was also a statement of staggering hypocrisy given the role of imperialism in destroying most of the media organisations that supported the government in Serbia while funnelling millions of dollars in cash and equipment to opposition radio and newspapers.

One of the main beneficiaries of Western support was the “independent” media outlet B92 Radio which still functions as a news organisation in Serbia today.

It was used to amplify pro-Nato propaganda with the assistance of the BBC which re-transmitted its programmes.

The German media organisation Deutsche Welle paid for news print and printing presses for opposition newspapers.

They, along with a compliant Western liberal media, conducted a propaganda exercise to demonise the Serbian people and soften up public opinion to justify the bombardment and break-up of the rest of Yugoslavia.

Much of the substandard reporting became mainstream narrative including the BBC peddling the fabricated claim that Serbian snipers were paid 2,700 French francs for every child they killed.

But a particular low point was the report carried in the Daily Mirror and subsequently Germany’s Bild am Sonntag and the Italian daily La Repubblica which claimed a Bosnian woman died “after being forced to give birth to a dog” by Serbians.

Propaganda plays an important role in any war and has always been paid close attention to by intelligence services.

Last year I reported on the collusion between the BBC and British intelligence services to manipulate international media in both the Middle East and Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s.

In an elaborate scheme the British government paid newswire service Reuters to set up reporting services, which were funded covertly via the BBC.

The “news” was then rehashed by local media allowing the British to exercise “political influence” in the regions.

It is a tried and tested pattern. During the cold war the CIA funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as an explicitly anti-communist news organisation pumping propaganda into the Soviet states.

At one stage it even employed several former nazi agents who had been involved in anti-Soviet activities under the direction of Adolf Hitler.

Following the end of the second world war, the CIA and its predecessor organisations realised the importance of waging a cultural war to win the battle for post-war Europe with its former ally, the Soviet Union now perceived as a threat.

It established a number of anti-communist fronts, including the influential Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF). It was led by major figures from the art and literary world including former communists Arthur Koestler and Ignazio Silone with CIA officer Michael Josselson as its secretary.

At its peak it published art and literary magazines in at least 20 countries and led a bitter campaign against Chilean poet and communist Pablo Neruda as he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Its CIA support ensured it benefited from an almost endless supply of cash with literary works of dubious merit published and promoted as long as they promoted an anti-communist agenda.

But, despite being one of the literary world’s worst kept secrets, its links to the US intelligence services were made public in 1966.

In 1967 the CCF was rebranded the International Association for Cultural Freedom (IACF) and continued to receive funding from the nefarious CIA-funded Ford Foundation.

One of the CCF London publications was the magazine Censorship, which ran at a substantial loss before folding in late 1967.

But the magazine was the model for Index on Censorship which was set up by Stephen Spender in 1972 with cash from the Ford Foundation.

Index on Censorship continues to function today, posing as an organisation that promotes freedom of expression across the world. But a cursory glance at its major donors sets alarm bells ringing.

As well as the aforementioned Ford Foundation, it is funded by Open Society Foundations, Open Democracy and the shady soft power organisation the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

The NED was formed in 1983 to “do today what was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA” according to its co-founder Allen Weinstein.

It operates as a vehicle for US-backed regime change in a range of countries including Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ukraine and China amongst others pouring billions of dollars into opposition groups and media organisations.

Its funding of press freedom groups should be a major source of concern. But its support is not limited to Index on Censorship.

The NED is also one of a host of dodgy donors for another press freedom group – Article 19, named after the section of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on press freedom.

This so-called press freedom group also lists Open Society Foundations, the US Department of State and USAid and Freedom House among its backers.

Freedom House has been condemned by US dissident academic Noam Chomsky as “a virtual propaganda arm of the [US] government and international right-wing” with alleged links to the CIA.

The NGO has been accused of conducting “clandestine operations” in Iran and formenting opposition in China, Cuba and Ukraine as well as Russia.

As would be expected, Article 19 obediently follows the line of its financial backers in a classic case of “he who pays the piper” echoing US propaganda on countries where it seeks regime change, including Nicaragua.

Its allegations of violence by an oppressive regime there were matched by English PEN with which it shares London’s Free Word Centre.

The founding centre of PEN International was established in 1921 as a worldwide writers’ centre and champion of free expression.

During last year’s World Press Freedom Day, English PEN saw fit to raise the case of Nicaraguan “journalist” Miguel Mora, portraying him as a plucky dissident bravely opposing a brutal dictatorship.

The truth however is very different. Mora has been blamed for hundreds of deaths in Nicaragua and has called for President Daniel Ortega to be killed. In April 2018, during an attempted coup, he incited his supporters to burn down the building of Radio Ya, a pro-Sandinista media organisation.

Twenty journalists were locked inside as Mora’s supporters fired at police and firefighters. He was jailed for his actions but released as part of an amnesty in a government bid to restore peace after the unrest.

Following his release he announced his intention to stand against Daniel Ortega in presidential elections – all of which seems strange in an apparent dictatorship. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists – which also backs regime change in Venezuela – was one of those to honour him with a press freedom award at a lavish dinner ceremony.

Like other press freedom groups, PEN International also has history with the CCF and the CIA which successfully infiltrated the organisation in the 1960s with its operatives and associated writers and activists penetrating its upper echelons.

Substantial sums of CIA cash were pumped into PEN International to turn it into a vehicle for US government interests culminating in the organisation holding its 1966 conference in New York, seen as a major success for the CCF.

In 1976 CIA agent Frank Platt was appointed as liaison for PEN’S Writers in Prison Work colluding with Index on Censorship’s Michael Scammel. He used his position to feed information to former CCF secretary and CIA official Michael Josseslon.

More latterly PEN I has attracted criticism for its appointment of Suzanne Nossel as executive director of its American Centre.

She is a classic example of the revolving door between government and NGOs having served as executive director at Amnesty International and as chief operating officer for Human Rights Watch – an organisation which recently backed the fascist coup in Bolivia.

But it is her support for wars in Afghanistan and policy of liberal internationalism which advocates the use of US military and soft power for regime change that is of major concern.

Her appointment at PEN caused journalist Chris Hedges to resign citing “Nossel’s relentless championing of preemptive war — which under international law is illegal — as a State Department official along with her callous disregard for Israeli mistreatment of the Palestinians and her refusal as a government official to denounce the use of torture and use of extrajudicial killings, makes her utterly unfit to lead any human rights organisation, especially one that has global concerns.”

The continued covert CIA funding of these multimillion pound organisations raise some serious questions. Should we trust these groups as purveyors of human rights and press freedom? Clearly not.

The appointment of people such as Nossel and the behaviour of the organisations are deeply ideological and reflect the interests they serve.

The infiltration and manipulation of press freedom and human rights groups by the intelligence services is merely an extension of the cold war efforts to ensure that they remain largely ineffective and steer any campaign into safe, apolitical liberalism.

As Frances Stonor Saunders points out in her excellent “Who Paid the Piper?” this is a deliberate tactic deployed by both British and US intelligence services from the 1940s – “they soon realised the usefulness of accommodating those people and institutions, who, in the tradition of left-wing politics, broadly perceived themselves to be in opposition to the centre of power.

“The purpose of such accommodation was twofold: first, to acquire a proximity to ‘progressive’ groups in order to monitor their activities; secondly, to dilute the impact of these groups by achieving influence from within, or by drawing [their] members into a parallel – and subtly less radical forum.”

It would be foolish to suggest this is not happening today, and evidence suggests that it is, particularly when it comes to journalists in Turkey where attention is diverted away from serious political campaigning involving broad organisations into safe letter-writing and middle-class moralism.

Once the panel discussions with high-profile guest speakers and writers are over the audience is left to go home feeling good about themselves while in reality nothing changes and hundreds remain behind bars.

Perhaps more worrying is the potential monitoring of activists that attend their events, particularly those at risk and have been forced to flee persecution – concerns that were raised and subsequently brushed aside last year.

This is why last May saw the launch of Journalists for Democracy in Turkey and Kurdistan as an independent alternative to the multimillion-pound press freedom business.

On May 3 it is important to remember those incarcerated around the world for raising their voices, but it is equally important to ask the key question of the press freedom groups – whose freedom are they really fighting for?

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Steve Sweeney is the Morning Star’s international editor.

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In celebration of World Press Freedom Day, we repost this article from 2020.

One of the most repugnant political faults is hypocrisy. Politicians say one thing, then do the opposite. This leaves a bad taste in the mouth, and brings public life into disrepute. 

The British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is a case in point. Sunday saw a grim example of Raab’s double dealing. He said that he supported free speech. “A strong and independent media,” declared the foreign secretary, “is more important than ever.”

Splendid words on World Press Freedom Day.

If only the British foreign secretary had meant a word he said. As Raab spoke up for free speech, his cabinet colleague Oliver Dowden led the latest government assault on the BBC.

Threatening the media

In a move pregnant with menace, Dowden dispatched a letter to BBC director general Tony Hall complaining about last week’s Panorama documentary which exposed shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and expressed concern that health workers will die from the Covid-19 virus.

With his government threatening the media over coronavirus in the UK, it’s no surprise that the foreign secretary has had nothing to say about Egypt’s throwing out of the country of a Guardian journalist in March after she reported on a scientific study that said the country was likely to have many more coronavirus cases than have been officially confirmed.

A foreign office spokesman came up with this:

“The UK supports media freedom around the world. We have urged Egypt to guarantee freedom of expression. UK ministers have raised this case with the Egyptian authorities.”

The foreign secretary has had nothing to say either about Amnesty’s bleak report yesterday revealing that Egyptian journalists are being flung into jail and accused of terrorism for reporting stories that annoy the regime of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Saudi Arabia, a British ally, jailed 26 journalists last year alone. Did the foreign office have anything to say? If so I can’t find it. No wonder that Britain has dropped to 35th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2020 World Freedom Index.

Last week, the foreign secretary claimed that the United Kingdom “remains committed to media freedom” during the coronavirus crisis. This, unfortunately, is not true. Nothing shows the emptiness of these claims more than the British government’s handling of the Julian Assange case.

The gory truth

The Wikileaks founder continues to rot in Belmarsh jail as the US demands his extradition on espionage charges. If there was an ounce of sincerity in the foreign secretary’s claim that he is a supporter of media freedom, he would be resisting the US attempt to get its hands on Assange with every bone in his body.

There’s not the slightest suggestion that he’s doing that. As Human Rights Watch has pointed out, the British authorities have the power to prevent any US prosecution from eroding media freedom. Britain has so far – at least – shown no appetite to exercise that power. Unfortunately for Raab, Assange’s real crime is doing journalism.

I’ve never met Assange. Some people that I know and respect say that he is vain and difficult. I believe them. There’s no denying, however, that Assange has done more than every other journalist in Britain put together to shed light on the way the world truly works.

For example, thanks to Assange that we now know about many violations including: British vote-trading with Saudi Arabia to ensure that both states were elected onto the United Nations human rights council in 2013; the linksbetween the fascist British National Party and members of the police and army; the horrifying details of civilians killed by the US army in Afghanistan.

And the US helicopter gunmen laughing as they shot and killed unarmed civilians in Iraq, including two Reuters journalists. An incident that the US military lied about, claiming at first that the dead were all insurgents.

I could go on and on. Vanity Fair called the release of Assange’s stories “one of the greatest journalistic scoops of last thirty years”. And so it was. This wasn’t espionage, as the US claims. It was journalism.

Journalism not a crime

The US authorities aren’t out to get Assange because he’s a spy. They want him behind bars for his journalism.

That’s why the consequences are so chilling if Britain gives into the US extradition request and allows Assange to face trial in the United States. Not just for Assange, who faces a long prison sentence (up to 175 years) from which he will almost certainly never emerge.

We should be under no illusions. If successful, the US indictment against Assange will have terrible consequences for the free press.

The charges, in the words of former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, look like an attempt to “criminalise things journalists regularly do as they receive and publish true information given to them by sources or whistleblowers. Assange is accused of trying to persuade a source to disclose yet more secret information. Most reporters would do the same. Then he is charged with behaviour that, on the face of it, looks like a reporter seeking to help a source protect her identity. If that’s indeed what Assange was doing, good for him.”

Yet, British newspapers will not fight for Assange. Whether left or right, broadsheet or tabloid, British papers are agreed on one thing; they’ll fall over each other to grab the latest official hand-out about British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his fiance Carrie Symonds’ baby. Or the new Downing Street dog.

They will, however, look the other way when it comes to standing up for press freedom and Julian Assange.

Client journalism

How pathetic. What a betrayal of their trade. Client journalism. An inversion of what newspapers stand for. If the British foreign secretary is two-faced about a free press, so are British newspaper editors who say they care about press freedom. With even less excuse.

To be fair, it’s not so much that they fail to oppose Assange’s extradition. It’s more that they ignore almost completely one of the most powerful threats to press freedom of modern times.

If they did care, they’d be campaigning to keep Assange out of the clutches of the US. Meanwhile, doctors warn that Assange’s health is so bad that he may die in Belmarsh prison.

Nils Melzer, the UN special rapporteur on torture, voiced strong concerns over the conditions of his detention, saying that “the blatant and sustained arbitrariness shown by both the judiciary and the government in this case suggests an alarming departure from the UK’s commitment to human rights and the rule of law. This is setting a worrying example, which is further reinforced by the government’s recent refusal to conduct the long-awaited judicial inquiry into British involvement in the CIA torture and rendition programme.”

Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch has soberly noted in connection with the Assange case that “many of the acts detailed in the indictment are standard journalistic practices in the digital age. How authorities in the UK respond to the US extradition request will determine how serious a threat this prosecution poses to global media freedom.”

As Assange rots in Belmarsh, how dare the British foreign secretary abuse his office by pretending to care about the liberty of the press!

I applaud a device like World Press Day. It’s a way of thinking about all the journalists around the world who suffer personally for their profession, through repression, prison, torture and death. Simply because they did their job by revealing uncomfortable facts.

When we think of the repression of journalists, we automatically evoke foreign lands – Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Egypt. We rarely, however evoke or remember our own dissidents.

Julian Assange is one of them.

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Peter Oborne won best commentary/blogging in 2017 and was named freelancer of the year in 2016 at the Online Media Awards for articles he wrote for Middle East Eye. He also was British Press Awards Columnist of the Year 2013. He resigned as chief political columnist of the Daily Telegraph in 2015. His books include The Triumph of the Political Class, The Rise of Political Lying, and Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran.

Featured image is from Massoud Nayeri

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***

First published in 2021 for World Press Freedom Day

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press released its fourth annual report about conditions that members of the U.S. media faced while on the job last year—and revealed “the startling extent of police violence against journalists during a year of protest.”

The new report (pdf), published on World Press Freedom Day, analyzes data from the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. Launched in 2017, the tracker is led by the Freedom of the Press Foundation and Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) along with other organizations including Reporters Without Borders and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

“The importance of the tracker and its role documenting press freedoms in the U.S. came into sharp focus in 2020—only the fourth year of its existence—when the country faced a wave of protests, and journalists covering those protests were arrested and attacked in record numbers,” the report says.

While noting that “protests have long been one of the most dangerous places for journalists to report the news,” the report highlights some startling figures:

Ignited by the May 25 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, protests for racial justice and against police brutality erupted across the country, marking a tumultuous moment for press freedom in the U.S. As journalists reported on these historic demonstrations (collectively referred to as Black Lives Matter protests by the tracker), they faced a record number of attacks (400) and arrests (129)—more than 11 and 15 times the number reported for 2019, respectively. The press freedom incidents that occurred during these protests, which included damaged equipment, represented the vast majority—at least 82% (517)—of the total number of incidents documented by the Tracker in 2020 (625).

While private individuals assaulted many journalists, law enforcement was responsible for 80% of these attacks. In cities across the country—from Portland to Miami, Minneapolis to Los Angeles—police officers shot journalists with various forms of projectiles, like rubber-coated bullets, which can be lethal at close range. They caused serious injuries to reporters, permanently blinding one of them. Police also sprayed tear gas, fired pepper balls, and used their batons and fists. Officers often ignored journalists’ press credentials and flouted news media exemptions to local curfew ordinances. Police also detained reporters during mass arrests—and, in at least one case, even handcuffed a TV news journalist as he reported live, on-air.

In another case, the report says, a Buffalo officer reportedly told a freelance photojournalist, “F*ck your First Amendment,” as police pointed guns at his head.

“2020 marked the third consecutive year that the number of subpoenas reported to the tracker increased, renewing concerns that journalists may be facing these legal threats more frequently,” according to the report. It also notes that “although 2020 saw a drop in prior restraint cases, three lawsuits over the summer involved unsuccessful efforts to block the publication of books about former President Donald Trump.”

Other key findings include:

  • Despite Covid-19, many courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, live-streamed proceedings, but federal, state, and local officials excluded journalists from press briefings in apparent retaliation for their coverage;
  • Trump set a new record for anti-press tweets, while state legislators repeated his attacks, and the Department of Homeland Security compiled “intelligence reports” about journalists; and
  • In 2020, federal officials again excluded specific news outlets or reporters from press events in apparent retaliation for their coverage, in violation of the First Amendment.

Although the report concludes that “there are reasons for optimism in 2021,” it also points out that President Joe Biden’s administration “has continued to pursue a historic criminal prosecution against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, which includes charges based solely on the act of publicly disclosing government secrets—the first time such a legal theory has advanced beyond the grand jury stage.”

In a lengthy statement acknowledging World Press Freedom Day, Biden said that “we celebrate the courage of truth-tellers who refuse to be intimidated, often at great personal risk, and we reaffirm the timeless and essential role journalism and a free media play in societies everywhere.”

Journalists “are indispensable to the functioning of democracy,” Biden continued. “Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, journalists and media workers have been on the frontlines to keep the public informed, at significant risk to their own health. And, at a time when the truth is increasingly under attack, our need for accurate, fact-based reporting, open public conversation, and accountability has never been greater.”

“It is incumbent on all of us to counter these threats to a free and independent media, including physical risk and arbitrary detention,” the president added, citing the CPJ’s imprisonment findings for 2020. “Online abuse and harassment of journalists, particularly women and journalists of color, continues to increase. Authoritarians are striving to undermine the free press, manipulate the truth, or spread disinformation even as a shrinking news industry is creating more and more ‘news deserts,’ areas without local media, around the world. These attacks are nothing less than a threat to democracies everywhere.”

Though Biden’s administration has faced some criticism from reporters and press freedom advocates—particularly for his refusal to hold Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman accountable for the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi as well as for delaying media access to U.S. government facilities used to temporarily detain unaccompanied migrant children—his statement still stood in start contrast to those of his predecessor.

CPJ program director Carlos Martinez de la Serna told Newsweek that “Biden’s statement is an important reminder of the essential value of press freedom and the role of the U.S. in defending it.”

“It is critical for the safety of journalists around the world that his administration restores U.S. press freedom leadership after the attacks on journalists and their work became a defining feature of the Trump years,” Martinez de la Serna said, “and is vocal about its support of a free press as a matter of principle and a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy, one of the six steps we laid out in our white paper released in November.”

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Selected Articles: Nazi Atrocities at Odessa – 8 Years On

May 3rd, 2022 by Global Research News

Nazi Atrocities at Odessa – 8 Years On

By John Goss, May 02, 2022

The fascists were chanting “Slava Ukraini”, that is “Glory to Ukraine”, as people burnt to death. The perpetrators walked free. These are the same Nazis fighting for Kiev.

Parents Sue After School Allegedly Bullied Son to Suicide by Shaming Him for Being Unvaxxed

By Matt Agorist, May 02, 2022

A tragic case has surfaced out of Chicago this week, highlighting the worst possible scenario of the corporate government’s divisive propaganda that stoked hatred and fear toward vaccine skeptics. According to a lawsuit filed by Robert and Rosellene Bronstein this week, their 15-year-old son was bullied to suicide by teachers and fellow students for not having taken the covid vaccination.

Human Rights Violations by Multinational Corporations: Corruption, Lawlessness and The “Global Value Chain”

By Prof. Joseph H. Chung, May 02, 2022

We seldom discuss human rights violations committed by large corporations, especially multinational corporations (MNCs). Moreover, in many cases, the violation of human rights by host country governments is motivated as a means to cover up MNCs’ human rights abuse.

The COVID-19 Crisis, Justin Trudeau, The Freedom Convoy and “The Emergency Act” Fiasco

By Prof. Anthony J. Hall, May 02, 2022

Like other peoples throughout the world, the Canadian people are in desperate need of independent investigations to look into many facets of government corruption, malfeasance and outright lies perpetrated under the pretext of fighting COVID-19.

Ukraine Hunts Down “Traitors Helping Russia”

By Jeremy Kuzmarov, May 02, 2022

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s saintly image in the media is contradicted by state terror operations being conducted under his orders against political dissidents and Ukrainian civilians accused of collaboration with Russia.

Clash of Christianities: Why Europe Cannot Understand Russia

By Pepe Escobar, May 02, 2022

Under an ubiquitous, toxic atmosphere of cognitive dissonance drenched in Russophobia, it’s absolutely impossible to have a meaningful discussion on finer points of Russian history and culture across the NATO space – a phenomenon I’m experiencing back in Paris right now, fresh from a long stint in Istanbul.

Big Pharma Set to Control Entire Food Supply. Monsanto-Bayer and Bill Gates Join Hands

By Greg Reese, May 02, 2022

The indoor vertical farming industry, which is a highly-innovative and efficient method is being funded by Bill Gates and pushed by the World Economic Forum as a replacement to conventional outdoor farming.

Afghanistan Braces for New War

By M. K. Bhadrakumar, May 02, 2022

There is media buzz lately about an anti-Taliban insurgency struggling to be born in Afghanistan. A former Afghan army general, Sami Sadat, is returning home as the West’s favourite to don the mantle of leadership of a pan-Afghan “resistance” movement against repressive Taliban rule. 

COVID Crisis Triggers Economic Devastation. A Quarter of a Billion More People Will Be Precipitated Into Extreme Poverty in 2022

By Colin Todhunter, May 02, 2022

There is a terrifying prospect that in excess of a quarter of a billion more people will fall into extreme levels of poverty in 2022 alone. Without immediate radical action, we could be witnessing the most profound collapse of humanity into extreme poverty and suffering in memory.

Ukraine War, Military and Economic Dimensions: UN Secretary General Holds Talks in Moscow and Kyiv

By Abayomi Azikiwe, May 02, 2022

Obviously, the U.S. and NATO actions indicate that the Biden administration and its European allies are not interested in a speedy conclusion to the war in Ukraine. The sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the EU have created a crisis in Western Europe where several leading states such as Germany are continuing, out of necessity, to purchase oil and natural gas from the Russian Federation.

Australia’s Pacific Neglect: Distractions from Climate Change Security

By , May 02, 2022

The hysteria in Canberra and Washington over the Sino-Solomon Islands security pact has shown, again, how irrelevant the individual affairs of Pacific Island states are in the chess game of geopolitics. The one thing conspicuously missing has been the issue of climate change, near and dear to those whose lands are gradually being inundated by rising sea levels.

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Despite children facing a near zero chance of dying from COVID-19, the FDA jumped on board and quickly approved Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine for children ages 5-11 last year. Governments across the country then began requiring children to get the jab to go to school as researchers began to see an increase in myocarditis.

Since the vaccine was approved in December 2020, there has been a record number of adverse reactions reported to the CDC and many of them include children. After seeing the increase in adverse reactions, parents of healthy children began to become skeptical of giving their children the jab. But the multi-billion dollar propaganda campaign had already been waged — turning many Americans into rabid pro-vaxxers who wished death and harm on anyone who would dare question their prophets from the book of Big Pharma.

Social media influencers were brought to the White House to convince people to get jabbed. The president himself chastised “anti-vaxxers” wishing them a “winter of severe illness and death,” and Big Pharma propaganda had convinced kids they were “super heroes” for getting the shot.

Those locked into the mass formation psychosis had been put under the spell and companies — with criminally sinister track records — became their new god. Those who didn’t embrace this dogma with all their faith became the enemy — including children.

A tragic case has surfaced out of Chicago this week, highlighting the worst possible scenario of the corporate government’s divisive propaganda that stoked hatred and fear toward vaccine skeptics. According to a lawsuit filed by Robert and Rosellene Bronstein this week, their 15-year-old son was bullied to suicide by teachers and fellow students for not having taken the covid vaccination.

The Bronsteins are not “antivax” and their son Nate was fully vaccinated against covid but once the vicious rumor took hold that Nate was part of the dirty unvaccinated class, a cruel war was waged by the indoctrinated masses.

According to the lawsuit, Nate was “tormented on a regular basis” by other children at the $40,000 per year Latin School of Chicago who claimed that the boy hadn’t been vaccinated against COVID.

Despite more than 30 complaints from Nate’s parents, according to the lawsuit, the school did nothing to stop bullying.

The Chicago Tribune reports:

A student at the school, whose parents are named in the suit, spread a false rumor that the boy was unvaccinated, the suit alleges. Though he was vaccinated, the boy was harassed about his perceived vaccination status, the suit says. The Bronsteins reached out to the student’s family about the alleged harassment, according to the suit.

The bullying escalated from there, according to the lawsuit. He was told by a teacher in front of a class that he was going “nowhere in life,” the suit alleges, and was cyberbullied in a group text message thread by members of the junior varsity basketball team and on the social media app Snapchat. A Snapchat message circulated around the school said of the boy: “Ur a terrible person.”

On Dec. 13, a student sent a Snapchat message to the boy encouraging him to kill himself, the suit alleges.

Likely due to the fact that they believed the rumor too, when Nate reported the students to school staff, they did nothing to stop it. After all, even the teachers were bullying him for it. Despite having anti-bullying policies and a stated “zero tolerance” policy for hate speech, school administrators turned a “blind eye” to the “increasingly desperate” pleas for help from the Bronstein family, according to the complaint.

Upon news of the lawsuit and in spite of the paper trail of complaints, the school refused to acknowledge their role in the child’s death and promised to “vigorously defend itself” from the Bronsteins lawsuit.

“The allegations of wrongdoing by the school officials are inaccurate and misplaced,” a statement from the school read. “The school’s faculty and staff are compassionate people who put students’ interests first, as they did in this instance.”

“My son was so alone,” Rosellene Bronstein, Nate’s mother said in a news release. “Not only were the administrators who were supposed to protect him ignoring his cries for help, but they had the self-serving gall to try to protect their own reputations after his death rather than just having the decency of being honest with his grieving family. This is a legal and moral failure that has caused us indescribable pain and agony.”

*

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Ukraine Hunts Down “Traitors Helping Russia”

May 2nd, 2022 by Jeremy Kuzmarov

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***

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s saintly image in the media is contradicted by state terror operations being conducted under his orders against political dissidents and Ukrainian civilians accused of collaboration with Russia.

The Associated Press reported last week that nearly 400 people in the northeastern city of Kharkiv alone have been detained under anti-collaboration laws enacted by Ukraine’s parliament and signed by Zelensky after Russia’s February 24 invasion.

Kharkiv | History, Map, & Population | Britannica

Source: britannica.com

A YouTube video accompanying the short article juxtaposed a speech by Zelensky saying that “collaborators will be brought to justice” with the arrest of a middle-aged Kharkiv man named Viktor by the Ukrainian Security Services (SBU) because of a social media post praising Vladimir Putin, calling for secession and insulting the Ukrainian flag—which Viktor called a “symbol of death.”

The SBU agent showed Viktor his social media post and asked: “You supported Putin? Are you supporting the Russian army. You are not speaking very nicely about the Ukrainian flag, are you?”

Viktor responded, before being taken away: “I am sorry. Yes I commented a lot. I told you. I changed my mind.”

The video shows another raid by the SBU on an apartment in Kharkiv where the SBU arrested a former Ukrainian army officer who had contacts with the Russians on his phone in the days after the city had been shelled.

An SBU agent says that the man had “put us in danger and civilians [in danger].”

FILE - A man suspected to be a Russian collaborator is detained during an operation by Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 18, 2022. Ukrainian authorities are cracking down on anyone suspected of aiding Russian troops

Man detained for Russian collaboration in SBU raid in Kharkiv. [Source: abcnews.go.com]

The man’s father, Volodymyr Radnenko, asked the SBU agent: “Who is shelling us? It’s not our (people). It’s your fascists. And he [the son] just gets angry at that. So you understand. That’s all.”

Mr. Radnenko’s comments sum up the injustice of the SBU sweeps. Ukrainian citizens are being criminalized for expressing anger at Ukrainian army practices.

“Registry of Collaborators”

Roman Dudin, head of the Kharkiv branch of the SBU, in an interview with the Associated Press, said that the purpose of the SBU raids was to “have no one stab our armed forces in the back.”

Dudin ominously spoke in a dark basement where the SBU moved its operations after its building in central Kharkiv was shelled.

According to Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s Security Council, a “registry of collaborators” by Ukraine is currently being compiled and will be released to the public as part of martial law programs that have resulted in the banning of 11 political parties.

Under the current regulations, offenders face up to 15 years in prison for collaborating with Russian forces, making public denials about Russian aggression or supporting Moscow. Anyone whose actions result in deaths could face life in prison.

The governor of the Nikolaev region, Vitaly Kim, a member of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, openly called for the assassination of any Ukrainian citizen who supports Russia.

Phoenix Redux

A previous CAM exposé pointed to the ominous parallels between the SBU operations in Ukraine and the Phoenix program in Vietnam, which resulted in the killing, imprisonment and torture of thousands of South Vietnamese, including civilian officials accused of being loyal to the left-wing, anti-imperialist National Liberation Front (NLF).’

Phoenix Program | CIA at Work in Vietnam (Marine Reacts) - YouTube

Phung Hoang or Phoenix program image. [Source: youtube.com]

In both cases, the CIA is a key coordinator behind the scenes and helps in the compiling of blacklists that result in the detainment, and often torture and murder of civilians. .

Vasily Prozorov, a former officer with the SBU, stated soon after his defection to Russia in 2018 that the SBU had been advised by the CIA since 2014.

“CIA employees [who have been present in Kyiv since 2014] are residing in clandestine apartments and suburban houses,” he said. “However, they frequently come to the SBU’s central office for holding specific meetings or plotting secret operations.”

Douglas Valentine, author of the seminal book The Phoenix Program (1990), in a recent interview told me that Phoenix went public in 1968 under the justification that it was “protecting the people from terrorism”—like with the SBU programs today. The detentions were largely designed to encourage defections while striking fear in the public.

According to Valentine, on January 6, 1969, New York Times reporter Drummond Ayres offered a favorable commentary on Operation Phoenix, saying that “more than 15,000 of the 80,000 VC [Vietcong] political agents thought to be in South Vietnam are said to have been captured or killed.”

Ayres further expressed the belief that “the general course of the war…now appears to favor the Government” and predicted that Phoenix would “achieve much greater success as the center’s files grow.”

A picture containing text, person, group, indoor Description automatically generated

William Colby (in bow tie) with South Vietnamese officials reviewing dossier as part of Phoenix program operations. [Source: thevietnamwar.info]

Despite the good reviews, Valentine said that the surfacing of Phoenix in the press sent the publicity-shy CIA running for cover, and led to new legislation designed to legitimate its activities.

Similarly today, as more information comes to light, we may see renewed CIA efforts to try to legitimate its undercover operations and to burnish the image of its proxy forces in Ukraine whose modus operandi—like that of its predecessors in Vietnam—is morally abhorrent.

*

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Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He is the author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019) and The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018). He can be reached at: [email protected].

Featured image: SBU raid in Kharkiv. [Source: mercurynews.com]

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***

For decades many in the West may look back in horrified wonder at the killings of men, women and children, the war crimes and the attacks on hospitals and schools in Ukraine.

Was it avoidable? It should have been.

Declassified has highlighted Vladimir Putin’s long standing threats over Ukraine and Russia’s special links to the country, which have been emphasised not least by former British defence chiefs.

Through an unstable mixture of complacency and greed, successive British governments have encouraged Vladimir Putin to believe he would get away with his designs on Ukraine.

But now, as if to make up for past misjudgments, the foreign secretary, Liz Truss says the West must “keep going further and faster to push Russia out of the whole of Ukraine.”

Her speech, at London’s Mansion House on Wednesday, implies that Russia must leave Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Putin annexed in 2014. After expressions of disapproval over the illegal act, then and since, Britain and its allies in the West continued dealing with Russia similarly to before.

If Truss was not indulging in mere rhetoric – very dangerous though that would be – her speech has far-reaching implications with the prospect of a war of attrition with no end in sight. What other European countries think of an increasingly risky strategy remains to be seen.

The British government’s response to the war so far has been infused with a particularly heavy dose of hypocrisy.

Revelling in the distraction from his problems at home, including Partygate, Johnson has repeatedly insisted that Britain is in the forefront of helping Ukraine – supplying a vast arsenal of weapons while also erecting a wall of obstacles preventing a few refugees from the country coming to Britain.

Although the UK military trained 22,000 of Ukrainian troops after 2014, successive prime ministers for years dismissed Ukraine’s pleas for weapons. At the same time, they continued to grant Russian oligarchs golden visas with the freedom to invest in British property and the City of London’s stock market.

After resisting Ukraine’s pleas for help for so long – while sending entirely wrong messages to Putin – the government now seems to do whatever Volodymyr Zelensky wants both in supplying weapons and in war aims.

In a muddle

The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has told the House of Commons:

“In its simplest form, Britain wants to help Ukraine be free to choose. What it chooses is slightly secondary to the fact that it has the freedom to choose in the first place as a sovereign state.”

Wallace added:

“There can be no return to normality for President Putin and his inner circle… What they have done, despite international warnings from presidents and prime ministers who endlessly asked them not to do it, is build their own cage—and they are living in it. From my point of view, they need to remain in it.”

He also told the Commons:

“I want Putin not only beyond the pre-February boundaries. He invaded Crimea illegally, he invaded Donetsk illegally, and he should comply with international law and in the long run leave Ukraine”.

What does keeping Putin “in a cage” mean? If Ukraine is a sovereign nation will Britain accept anything Zelensky says about war aims or a negotiated peace with Russia?

Zelensky has said he is prepared to hold separate talks on Crimea. Would the British government accept Ukraine conceding Crimea to the Kremlin if that was the price of peace?

And what would “success” look like? The top civil servant at the Ministry of Defence, David Williams, called this “a fluid question” at a recent session of the House of Commons defence committee.

Also, what do British ministers mean by saying Putin must “fail”? Or is the goal really that Putin must fall?

Historian Niall Fergusson says senior British figures believe that “the UK’s No.1 option is for the conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin.”

‘Proxy war’

Tobias Ellwood, the defence committee’s Conservative chairman and former defence minister, said:

“I do encourage the MoD, through Nato, the Defence Secretary, to establish and confirm what mission success looks like, because that then determines what equipment you pile in”.

He added:

“This is ever-increasingly a proxy war which will spill beyond Ukraine if any part of Ukraine remains in Russian hands”.

Truss appears to want to go further than her Cabinet colleagues by suggesting Britain should send warplanes to Ukraine.

“Heavy weapons, tanks, aeroplanes – digging deep into our inventories, ramping up production. We need to do all of this”, she said in her speech.

The prime minister’s office told the BBC, however, that “there are no plans to send things like planes from the UK”.

Among the difficult questions that need answering is whether Britain and other European members of Nato are equipped to withstand an escalating conflict with Russia. There were disagreements about that in the defence committee.

The government’s policy is a muddle, ministers seem to be making policy on the hoof, with rhetoric masquerading as clarity.

One thing is absolutely clear – the conflict is a boost to those demanding higher defence spending and to arms companies.

Defence of selling arms

In a telling though perhaps inadvertent defence of selling arms to any government, Defence minister James Heappey said in response questions about arming Ukraine:

“There are lots of countries around the world that operate kit that they have imported from other countries; when those bits of kit are used we tend not to blame the country that manufactured it, you blame the country that fired it.”

That is also the defence of the UK arming Saudi Arabia in its war in Yemen, and other Gulf states with appalling human rights records.

Britain continues to cuddle up to Saudi Arabia’s rulers, whose de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, now appears to be banking on Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – another of Britain’s close allies in the Gulf – have declined to oppose Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. These are two of Britain’s biggest markets for arms and the British government says its links with them are important for Britain’s security. Yet they abstained on the UN vote condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

So too did India, though this did not prevent Johnson from visiting the increasingly autocratic Indian prime minister in search of trade and arms deals.

Acting against Russia

The government did not act against Russian oligarchs with assets in Britain until after the second Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

In August 2016, two years after Putin’s annexation of Crimea and occupation of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine, Johnson, then foreign secretary, told Sergei Lavrov, his Russian opposite number, that he wanted a new “constructive” relationship with Moscow.

The following year, at Christmas 2017, Johnson was the first British minister to visit Moscow for five years. Despite continuing Russian attacks by pro-Russian forces in the Donbas and cyber attacks against British targets, he described Russia as a large untapped market for British goods that should be exploited by post-Brexit Britain.

In 2018, despite the poisoning in Salisbury of the former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, with the powerful nerve agent, novichok, the government pursued its “golden visa” scheme allowing rich Russians to buy the right to live in Britain.

The government took no action against Putin’s associate, Oleg Deripaska, founder of the large aluminium company, Rusal, who has a large property portfolio in Britain and alleged ties to Putin.

The Conservative Party was at the time receiving a record £700,000 in Russian-linked donations, a figure that increased to £1.5 million in the election year of 2019. Russian oligarchs with links to Putin carried on benefiting from secretive British tax havens.

London libel lawyers continued to try and help stop investigations into Conservative Party donors with links to Putin through SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) operations.

Moscow’s gold

In 2018, the Commons foreign affairs committee published a report, Moscow’s Gold: Russian Corruption in the UK. It said that despite all the rhetoric,

“President Putin and his allies have been able to continue ‘business as usual’ by hiding and laundering their corrupt assets in London.”

It added,

“These assets on which the Kremlin can call at any time, both directly and indirectly support President Putin’s campaign to subvert the international rules-based system, undermine our allies, and erode the mutually-reinforcing international networks that support UK foreign policy.”

The report was ignored.

The parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), meanwhile, was drawing up a report, simply entitled “Russia”, whose publication was blocked by Johnson until after the December 2019 general election.

This was partly because of suggestions the Kremlin had tried to interfere in the Brexit referendum in June 2016. The ISC did not mince its words.

“Russian influence in the UK is the new normal”, it said.

It continued:

“Successive Governments have welcomed the oligarchs and their money with open arms, providing them with a means of recycling illicit finance through the London ‘laundromat’, and connections at the highest levels with access to UK companies and political figures. This has led to a growth industry of ‘enablers’ including lawyers, accountants, and estate agents who are – wittingly or unwittingly – de facto agents of the Russian state.”

The West is on the defensive after the failure in Afghanistan and the illegal war in Iraq, events that unsurprisingly Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, repeatedly cites.

Officials in Whitehall – the permanent government – who have been revelling in post-imperial complacency, should start to worry when even their long standing allies, the Gulf regimes, are reluctant to upset the Kremlin even when it is engaged in brutal warfare.

As we enter a new world disorder, sustained and rigorous scrutiny of British foreign and security policies is more vital than it has been for a very long time, perhaps since before the outbreak of the second world war.

*

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Richard is a British editor, journalist and playwright, and the doyen of British national security reporting. He wrote for the Guardian on defence and security matters and was the newspaper’s security editor for three decades.

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***

Under an ubiquitous, toxic atmosphere of cognitive dissonance drenched in Russophobia, it’s absolutely impossible to have a meaningful discussion on finer points of Russian history and culture across the NATO space – a phenomenon I’m experiencing back in Paris right now, fresh from a long stint in Istanbul.

At best, in a semblance of civilized dialogue, Russia is pigeonholed in the reductionist view of a threatening, irrational, ever-expanding empire – a way more wicked version of Ancient Rome, Achaemenid Persia, Ottoman Turkey or Mughal India.

The fall of the USSR a little over three decades ago did hurl Russia back three centuries – to its borders in the 17th century. Russia, historically, had been interpreted as a secular empire – immense, multiple and multinational. This is all informed by history, very much alive even today in the Russian collective unconscious.

When Operation Z started I was in Istanbul – the Second Rome. I spent a considerable time of my late night walks around Hagia Sophia reflecting on the historical correlations of the Second Rome with the Third Rome – which happens to be Moscow, since the concept was first enounced at the start of the 16th century.

Later, back in Paris, banishment to soliloquy territory seemed inevitable until an academic pointed me to some substance, although heavily distorted by political correctness, available in the French magazine Historia.

There’s at least an attempt to discuss the Third Rome. The significance of the concept was initially religious before becoming political – encapsulating the Russian drive to become the leader of the Orthodox world in contrast with Catholicism. This has to be understood also in the context of pan-Slavic theories springing up under the first Romanov and then reaching their apogee in the 19th century.

Eurasianism – and its several declinations – treats the complex Russian identity as double-faced, between east and west. Western liberal democracies simply can’t understand that these ideas – infusing varied brands of Russian nationalism – do not imply hostility to “enlightened” Europe, but an affirmation of Difference (they could learn a bit from reading more Gilles Deleuze for that matter). Eurasianism also weighs on closer relations with Central Asia and necessary alliances, in various degrees, with China and Turkey.

A perplexed liberal west remains hostage to a vortex of Russian images which it can’t properly decode – from the two-headed eagle, which is the symbol of the Russian state since Peter the Great, to the Kremlin cathedrals, the St. Petersburg citadel, the Red Army entering Berlin in 1945, the May 9 parades (the next one will be particularly meaningful), and historical figures from Ivan the Terrible to Peter the Great. At best – and we’re talking academic level ‘experts’ – they identify all of the above as “flamboyant and confused” imagery.

The Christian/Orthodox divide

The apparently monolithic liberal west itself also cannot be understood if we forget how, historically, Europe is also a two-headed beast: one head may be tracked from Charlemagne all the way to the awful Brussels Eurocrat machine; and the other one comes from Athens and Rome, and via Byzantium/Constantinople (the Second Rome) reaches all the way to Moscow (the Third Rome).

Latin Europe, for the Orthodox, is seen as a hybrid usurper, preaching a distorted Christianity which only refers to St. Augustine, practicing absurd rites and neglecting the very important Holy Ghost. The Europe of Christian Popes invented what is considered a historical hydra – Byzantium – where Byzantines were actually Greeks living under the Roman Empire.

Western Europeans for their part see the Orthodox and the Christians from the East (see how they were abandoned by the west in Syria under ISIS and Al Qaeda) as satraps and a bunch of smugglers – while the Orthodox regard the Crusaders, the Teutonic chevaliers and the Jesuits – correctly, we must say – as barbarian usurpers bent on world conquest.

In the Orthodox canon, a major trauma is the fourth Crusade in 1204 which utterly destroyed Constantinople. The Frankish chevaliers happened to eviscerate the most dazzling metropolis in the world, which congregated at the time all the riches from Asia.

That was the definition of cultural genocide. The Frankish also happened to be aligned with some notorious serial plunderers: the Venetians. No wonder, from that historical juncture onwards, a slogan was born: “Better the Sultan’s turban than the Pope’s tiara.”

So since the 8th century, Carolingian and Byzantine Europe were de facto at war across an Iron Curtain from the Baltics to the Mediterranean (compare it with the emerging New Iron Curtain of Cold War 2.0). After the barbarian invasions, they neither spoke the same language nor practiced the same writing, rites or theology.

This fracture, significantly, also trespassed Kiev. The west was Catholic – 15% of Greek catholics and 3% of Latins – and in the center and the east, 70% Orthodox, who became hegemonic in the 20th century after the elimination of Jewish minorities by mainly the Waffen-SS of the Galicia division, the precursors of Ukraine’s Azov batallion.

Constantinople, even in decline, managed to pull off a sophisticated geo-strategic game to seduce the Slavs, betting on Muscovy against the Catholic Polish-Lithuanian combo. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 allowed Muscovy to denounce the treason of Greeks and Byzantine Armenians who rallied around the Roman Pope, who badly wanted a reunified Christianity.

Afterward, Russia ends up constituting itself as the only Orthodox nation that did not fall under Ottoman domination. Moscow regards itself – as Byzantium – as a unique symphony between spiritual and temporal powers.

Third Rome becomes a political concept only in the 19th century – after Peter the Great and Catherine the Great had vastly expanded Russian power. The key concepts of Russia, Empire and Orthodoxy are fused. That always implies Russia needs a ‘near abroad’ – and that bears similarities with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s vision (which, significantly, is not imperial, but cultural).

As the vast Russian space has been in constant flow for centuries, that also implies the central role of the concept of encirclement. Every Russian is very much aware of territorial vulnerability (remember, for starters, Napoleon and Hitler). Once the western borderland is trespassed, it’s an easy ride all the way to Moscow. Thus, this very unstable line must be protected; the current correlation is the real threat of Ukraine made to host NATO bases.

Onward to Odessa

With the fall of the USSR, Russia found itself in a geopolitical situation last encountered in the 17th century. The slow and painful reconstruction was spearheaded from two fronts: the KGB – later FSB – and the Orthodox church. The highest-level interaction between the Orthodox clergy and the Kremlin was conducted by Patriarch Kirill – who later became Putin’s minister of religious affairs.

Odesa | Facts, History, Map, & Points of Interest | Britannica

Odessa (Source: Encyclopedia Britannica)

Ukraine for its part had become a de facto Moscow protectorate way back in 1654 under the Treaty of Pereyaslav: much more than a strategic alliance, it was a natural fusion, in progress for ages by two Orthodox Slav nations.

Ukraine then falls under the Russian orbit. Russian domination expands until 1764, when the last Ukrainian hetman (commander-in-chief) is officially deposed by Catherine the Great: that’s when Ukraine becomes a province of the Russian empire.

As Putin made it quite clear this week: “Russia cannot allow the creation of anti-Russian territories around the country.” Operation Z will inevitably encompass Odessa, founded in 1794 by Catherine the Great.

The Russians at the time had just expelled the Ottomans from the northwest of the Black Sea, which had been successively run by Goths, Bulgars, Hungarians and then Turkish peoples – all the way to the Tatars. Odessa at the start was peopled, believe it or not, by Romanians who were encouraged to settle there after the 16th century by the Ottoman sultans.

Catherine chose a Greek name for the city – which at the start was not Slav at all. And very much like St. Petersburg, founded a century earlier by Peter the Great, Odessa never stopped flirting with the west.

Tsar Alexander I, in the early 19th century, decides to turn Odessa into a great trading port – developed by a Frenchman, the Duke of Richelieu. It was from the port of Odessa that Ukrainian wheat started to reach Europe. By the turn of the 20th century, Odessa is truly multinational – after having attracted, among others, the genius of Pushkin.

Odessa is not Ukrainian: it’s an intrinsic part of the Russian soul. And soon the trials and tribulations of history will make it so again: as an independent republic; as part of a Novorossiya confederation; or attached to the Russian Federation. The people of Odessa will decide.

*

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This article was originally published on The Cradle.

Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture in Moscow. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. Pepe is the author of Globalistan – How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War; Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor to The Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and 2030. Pepe is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Christianity, once again, at the heart of a civilizational battle – this time among Christians themselves. Photo Credit: The Cradle

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***

 

 

Washington continued at full tilt into an all-out war with Russia over the weekend, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Kiev, Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger proposed to send US troops to Ukraine, and Republican Congressman Michael McCaul raised the prospect of the United States using nuclear weapons against Russia.

Over the weekend, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled in secret to Kiev, an active war zone, to pledge the US’s support to Ukraine “until victory is won.”

Pelosi, second in the presidential order of succession, was the highest-ranking US official to visit Kiev, in a sign of how deeply committed the United States is to a conflict that is rapidly escalating into a third world war.

Pelosi met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, pledging the United States will “be there for you until the fight is done.” Given that it is the official doctrine of Ukraine’s government to retake Crimea by military means, Pelosi’s statement had vast and sweeping implications.

She added,

“Our delegation traveled to Kyiv to send an unmistakable and resounding message to the entire world: America stands firmly with Ukraine… We stand with Ukraine until victory is won. And we stand with NATO.”

She concluded,

“Do not be bullied by bullies. If they’re making threats, you cannot back down. We’re there for the fight, and you cannot fold to a bully.”

Pelosi traveled with six other Democratic members of the House of Representatives: Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks, Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, as well as Barbara Lee, Bill Keating and Jason Crow.

The seven Democrats declared in a statement,

“Our Members were proud to deliver the message that additional American support is on the way, as we work to transform President Biden’s strong funding request into a legislative package.”

Democratic representative Jason Crow, a former paratrooper and Army Ranger, one of the “CIA Democrats” elected in 2018, declared,

“We have to make sure the Ukrainians have what they need to win… The United States of America is in this to win, and we will stand with Ukraine until victory is won.”

The visit by the congressional delegation followed the visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last Sunday, where Austin declared the United States is in a “fight” with Russia, and aimed to “weaken” it.

All of the members of the congressional delegation were Democrats. The prosecution of Ukraine’s “hot war” against Russia has been central to the program of the Democratic party. In 2019, the Democrats impeached former president Donald Trump over claims that he withheld military aid to Ukraine.

In the present crisis, however, significant sections of the Republican Party have been just as bellicose as the Democrats.

On Sunday, Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger announced that he has introduced an Authorization for Use of Military Force that would allow president Biden to deploy US troops in a full-scale war with Russia.

Appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Kinzinger announced,

“I just introduced an AUMF, an Authorization for the Use of Military Force, giving the president basically congressional leverage or permission to use it if WMDs, nuclear, biological or chemical are used in Ukraine.”

Kinzinger continued,

“It gives him, you know, a better flexibility, but also it is a deterrent to Vladimir Putin.”

He continued,

“there may be a point that we have to recognize, you know, look, this is—world war—prior to World War II, there were moments nobody ever wanted to get involved and eventually came to realize they had to.”

Kinzinger’s Authorization for Use of Military force states:

the President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as the President determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to—protect the national security interests of the United States with respect to Ukraine; and assist in defending and restoring the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said on ABC’s “This Week” that Congress would swiftly pass Biden’s $33 billion spending package for the war with Russia, declaring,

“Time is of the essence. The next two to three weeks are going to be very pivotal and very decisive in this war. And I don’t think we have a lot of time to waste.”

In perhaps the most striking moment in all the Sunday talk shows, McCaul raised the prospect of a US nuclear attack on Russian troops.

Asked by host George Stephanopoulous,

“What would happen if a chemical weapon was dropped on Ukraine and/or a short-range tactical nuke?… What would we—what should we do?”

To this, McCaul replied,

“That crosses a red line. And I think, if that happens, we would have to respond in kind.”

In an exchange on “Face the Nation” on CBS, Senator Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016, refused to rule out sending US troops to Ukraine.

Kaine was asked by moderator Margaret Brennan,

“Your Democratic colleague Senator Coons was on this program a few weeks ago, and he said there at least needs to be a conversation about when the United States would use force potentially in Ukraine.”

To this, Kaine replied,

“So, right now, the status quo is, we are providing massive amounts of aid to Ukraine, both the US and NATO allies and others. If there were to be an invasion of a NATO country, a kinetic or even a cyberattack, or if there were to be use of chemical or nuclear weapons in Ukraine, that would change the equation.”

The US press, meanwhile, is braying for escalation. In an editorial headlined, “Defeating Putin will require larger U.S. commitments—and risks,” the Washington Post declares, “Mr. Putin’s war aim is not merely to conquer Ukraine but to overthrow the international order itself. It’s worth accepting costs and taking risks to make sure that Russia fails—and emerges from the conflict unable to wage such aggression again.”

The statements made by dominant sections of the US political establishment over the weekend must be taken as a major warning that Washington is preparing to massively escalate US involvement in the war, including directly sending troops or even using nuclear weapons against Russia.

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Featured image: U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Oil-on-Canvas by Rebecca Lazinger, 2020)


Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute  

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Combining findings from more than 2,000 scientific and government studies, a report published Thursday details how hydraulic fracturing has “dire impacts on public health and the climate.”

Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York (CHPNY) released the eighth edition of their Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking, a comprehensive examination of the state of the hydraulic fracturing industry and its impacts.

“The scientific evidence reveals conclusively that fracking causes widespread and severe harm to people and the climate,” Sandra Steingraber, CHPNY co-founder and compendium co-author, said in a statement.

“For over 10 years, individual studies have demonstrated impacts in multiple areas, including toxic air pollution, water contamination, radioactive releases, earthquakes, methane emissions, and much more,” she added. “The compendium takes stock of all the science together, which shows that continuing and expanding fracking brings with it a grave cost.”

The report reveals that:

  • Global expansion of fracking and liquefied natural gas (LNG) is fueling the climate crisis, driving the current surge in global levels of methane, a greenhouse gas that is up to 87 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period and which has contributed 40% of all global warming to date;
  • LNG is even worse for the climate, as the process of liquefying the gas requires tremendous amounts of energy;
  • Carbon capture and storage (CCS) fails to mitigate the dangers of fracking, as it does not actually capture methane emissions but instead makes local air pollution from fracking infrastructure worse;
  • Drilling, fracking, storing, transporting, and disposing of oil and gas cause serious harm to human health, including respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular disease, and impairments to infant and maternal health; and
  • Fracking is an injustice, as toxic air pollution, water contamination, and other impacts disproportionately affect communities of color and low-income communities.

According to the publication:

In sum, the vast body of scientific studies now published on hydraulic fracturing in the peer-reviewed scientific literature confirms that the climate and public health risks from fracking are real and the range of environmental harms wide. Our examination uncovered no evidence that fracking can be practiced in a manner that does not threaten human health directly or without imperiling climate stability upon which human health depends.

“People, nurses, and doctors across the United States have been pointing to harms from drilling and fracking for well over a decade,” said Barbara Gottlieb, environment and health program director at Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Now there is clear and overwhelming scientific evidence showing that fracking makes people sick, degrades the environment, and imperils the climate.”

“From a public health perspective and a climate perspective, stopping fracking is imperative,” she stressed.

Dr. Kathleen Nolan of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York, said, “States and countries that have banned fracking are leading the way to a stable and healthy climate future, preventing poisonous fracking chemicals from causing birth defects, cancer, heart disease, asthma and pneumonia, diseases of other organs and tissues, and early death.”

“Banning fracking also prevents induced earthquakes and greatly reduces emissions of methane, carbon dioxide, toxic gases, and particulate matter into our atmosphere,” she added. “We know what must be done: Now we must do it—and do it quickly.”

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Afghanistan Braces for New War

May 2nd, 2022 by M. K. Bhadrakumar

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There is media buzz lately about an anti-Taliban insurgency struggling to be born in Afghanistan. A former Afghan army general, Sami Sadat, is returning home as the West’s favourite to don the mantle of leadership of a pan-Afghan “resistance” movement against repressive Taliban rule. 

There is a lot of infighting amongst marginalised Afghan elites, civilian and military. Apparently, the western powers are trying to rally them behind Sadat. An axis between Sadat and Panjshir leader Ahmad Massoud seems to be the preferred option for MI6 and the US intelligence. Sadat and Massoud are both products of King’s College, London, known to be the recruitment centre of MI6, and British military academies.

Image on the right: Sami Sadat (Source: @SayedSamiSadat/Twitter)

Sami Sadat (@SayedSamiSadat) / Twitter

The western powers, with the UN and EU support, made a determined effort in recent months to co-opt the Taliban leaders with seductive offers of financial help, easing of UN sanctions, etc. Indeed, the US holds the trump card as it is in a position to inject cash into the Afghan economy. Afghanistan has no money left after Americans took away their reserves. 

But the Taliban didn’t take the bait, given their deep suspicions about American intentions and the West’s intrusive approach to prescribe norms of governance alien to Islamist ideology. After winning a 20-year war against the US, Taliban sees no reason why it should settle for a subaltern role. 

Taliban has found it far more agreeable to work with the regional states, especially China and Russia, which steer clear of Washington’s exceptionalism and coercive diplomacy. The regional states accept Afghan ethos and traditions for what they are and understand the futility of forcing the Taliban to rule by western values. The regional states’ priority lies in the security sphere where they expect the Taliban to curb extremist groups and eliminate drug trafficking. 

Indeed, such an approach can be productive. On April 3, Taliban announced the banning of cultivation of opium poppy, which is a big issue for regional states. 

This humane thinking gets reflected in a statement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday where he commended that the military-political situation in Afghanistan under the Taliban “has relatively stabilised.” Lavrov took note of “the efforts of the new leadership to return to peaceful life after a long armed conflict, to resume the normal operation of the national economy, as well as to ensure law and order and security.” 

Lavrov said Moscow is satisfied that the level of cooperation is rising and Taliban’s attitude is “exemplary”. Beijing is in empathy with Moscow’s approach. Suffice to say, Russia and China are steadily advancing their diplomatic engagement of the Taliban regime. The Western powers are sensing that their space and capacity to bully the Taliban is rapidly shrinking.

After all, what is “international recognition”? There are no universal guidelines. If a regime is recognised by the country’s population, if there are no rival claimants to authority, and if it is capable of handling governance independently, it qualifies as the legitimate government of the state. Period. There is no question that the Taliban regime makes the grade. While Taliban does not require a determination by the international community to function as the government, formal recognition is useful and necessary to conduct diplomatic relations with other countries. 

Clearly, the immediate purpose of a hurried Western insurgency in Afghanistan at this point is to create a rival counterpoint to power with a view to portray that the Taliban is not the only force in Afghanistan which is capable of running the affairs of the state. The proposed insurgency in May is in effect a trial balloon to see how far it will fly. Sadat told the BBC that he hopes to attract “moderate Taliban” as well — that is, MI6 and the CIA will split the Taliban. 

Against the backdrop of the West’s confrontation with Russia and China, Afghanistan’s crucial importance as a regional hub of geo-strategy is self-evident. A recent report in Nour News, which is affiliated to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, disclosed that “volunteers” drawn from erstwhile Afghan military and security forces, trained by US and British experts, have been deployed to Ukraine to fight the Russian forces. Conceivably, these “volunteers” are Sadat’s comrades-in-arms. 

Sadat told the BBC that he has admiration for Ukraine’s resistance to Russia! And he hinted that he is in touch with the Ukrainian forces. “I think they (Ukrainian forces) are holding their ground pretty well. But I also tell them to, you know, believe in themselves more… I hope they will get continued (western) support as long as they need it.” It’s a small world, after all!  

To be sure, Russia and China (and Iran) will counter the Western project to return to Afghanistan. On Friday, President Putin held a videoconference with the permanent members of Russia’s Security Council to discuss “issues that are of great interest from the point of view of national security … in respect to the events in Afghanistan and generally in that region, in that sector.” 

The targeted attacks on Shi’ites in Afghanistan and the recent attempts to create misunderstandings between Iran and Afghanistan at the people-to-people level are perceived in Tehran as a conspiracy by external powers to sour Iran’s relations with the Taliban government. 

Without doubt, Chinese Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe’s regional tour of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran last week also factored in the direct and indirect fallouts of the developments in Ukraine on security relations in Central Asia. In his meeting with Kazakh president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the Chinese general “called for vigilance about certain major powers interfering in Central Asia to disrupt and undermine regional security” (Chinese MOD readout).

The general told Turkmen President Serdar Berdimuhamedov that China “firmly opposes external interference in Turkmenistan’s internal affairs.” During his meeting with President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran, the general underscored China’s readiness “to work with Iran to cope with various risks and challenges, safeguard the common interests of both sides and jointly safeguard regional and world peace and stability.” 

However, at the end of the day, it is Pakistan’s role that is going to be vital. Pakistan’s equations with the Taliban have radically changed after the sudden replacement of the ISI chief Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed in September by COAS Gen. Bajwa. Prime Minister Imran Khan’s overthrow further complicated the Pakistan-Taliban equations. 

Taliban’s traditional position on the Durand Line; its reluctance to clamp down on Pakistani Taliban; the spike in terrorist violence in Pakistan; the distaste toward Taliban ideology among westernised Pakistani elites — all these have eroded the mutual trust between Pakistan and the Taliban. 

Besides, Western powers and the Taliban do not need Pakistan anymore as go-between. Yet, apathy is not an option, either, for Islamabad. No doubt, Pakistan is going to be hit hard if an anti-Taliban resistance movement gathers momentum. There is bound to be spillover if western intelligence succeeds in splitting the Taliban. Anarchical conditions in Afghanistan can only play into the hands of external forces to destabilise Pakistan’s internal security. 

Meanwhile, the US-backed regime change in Pakistan is not helping matters. The sooner elections are held in a fair and free manner and a new government with fresh mandate is elected, the better it will be for Pakistan. But the good part is that nobody is going to blame Pakistan for the resurrection of warlordism in Afghanistan. 

Sadat has the reputation of being a very violent man whose assignment in Helmand was particularly bestial. In real life, Sadat held his military position while also making a fortune as the C.E.O. of Blue Sea Logistics, a Kabul-based corporation that supplied Afghan security forces with everything from helicopter parts to armoured tactical vehicles.

In a heart-rending essay in the New Yorker magazine last year titled The Other Afghan Women, well-known author and war correspondent Anand Gopal had a few things to recount about Gen. Sadat. Some excerpts here: 

“During my visit to Helmand, Blackhawks under his (Sadat’s) command were committing massacres almost daily: twelve Afghans were killed while scavenging scrap metal at a former base outside Sangin; forty were killed in an almost identical incident at the Army’s abandoned Camp Walid; twenty people, most of them women and children, were killed by air strikes on the Gereshk bazaar … (Sadat declined repeated requests for comment.)”  

When Sadat reached Kabul from Helmand on August 15, 2021 to take up his new assignment as commander of the so-called “special forces,” he saw that the Taliban was already at the city gates. And he was one of the first “evacuees” to escape to the UK from Afghanistan.

When Sadat returns now, the Afghan people will only regard him as an imposter. They deserve better. The West owes it to them after all the unspeakable sufferings they have been put through during the past 20 years of NATO occupation. 

The plain truth is, the Taliban have been in the driving seat for only eight months. It is far too premature to condemn them. As Kathy Gannon, the veteran Afghan hand at the AP, said the other day,

“I think there certainly is an effort on their (Taliban’s) part to try to get to a position where they’re actually governing the country. How they will get there and what it will look like is still unknown. And that’s really difficult for Afghans because they’re struggling with that uncertainty.”

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Ukrainian academic Olga Baysha details Volodymyr Zelensky’s embrace of widely loathed neoliberal policies, his repression of rivals, and how his actions fueled the current war with Russia.

A comedic actor who rose to the country’s highest office in 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky was virtually unknown to the average American, except perhaps as a bit player in the Trump impeachment theater. But when Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Zelensky was suddenly transformed to an A-list celebrity in US media. American news consumers were bombarded with images of a man who appeared overcome by the tragic events, possibly in over his head, but ultimately sympathetic.  It didn’t take long for that image to evolve into the khaki-clad, tireless hero governing over a scrappy little democracy and single-handedly staving off the barbarians of autocracy from the east.

But beyond that carefully crafted Western media image is something much more complicated and less flattering. Zelensky was elected by 73 percent of the vote on a promise to pursue peace while the rest of his platform was vague. On the eve of the invasion, however, his approval rating had sunk to 31 percent due to the pursuit of deeply unpopular policies.

Democracy, Populism, and Neoliberalism in Ukraine: On the Fringes of the Virtual and the Real (Routledge Focus on Communication Studies) by [Olga Baysha]

Ukrainian academic, Olga Baysha, author of Democracy, Populism, and Neoliberalism in Ukraine: On the Fringes of the Virtual and the Real, has studied Zelensky’s rise to power and how he has wielded that power since becoming president.

In the interview below, Baysha discusses Zelensky’s embrace of neoliberalism and increasing authoritarianism, how his actions contributed to the current war; his counterproductive and self-absorbed leadership throughout the war, the complex cultural and political views and identities of Ukrainians, the partnership between neoliberals and the radical right during and after Maidan, and whether a Russian takeover of the entire Donbass region might be less popular among the local population than it would have been in 2014.

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Natylie Baldwin: Tell us a bit about your background.  Where are you from and how did you become interested in your current area of study?

Olga Baysha: I am an ethnic Ukrainian born in Kharkov, a Ukrainian city on the borderline with Russia, where my dad and other relatives are still living. Before the current war, Kharkov was one of Ukraine’s leading educational and scientific centers.  The city’s residents pride themselves on living in the “intellectual capital” of Ukraine. In 1990, the first television company free from party control was established there; soon, its first news program went on air. By that time, I had already graduated from Kharkov University, and one day, I was invited to work as a journalist in this program by a university friend. Next day, without prior experience, I started reporting.  In a couple of months, I was a news presenter. My meteoric career was not an exception.

New uncontrolled media, the number of which was increasing at a huge rate daily, demanded more and more media workers. In the overwhelming majority of cases, they were young ambitious people without any journalistic education or life experience. What united us was the desire to westernize, a lack of understanding of societal contradictions characterizing the post-Soviet transition, and deafness to the concerns of working people who opposed reforms. In our eyes, the latter were “retrograde”: they did not understand what civilization was about. We saw [our]selves as a revolutionary vanguard and chosen progressive reformers. It is we—media workers—who created a favorable environment for Ukraine’s neoliberalization, presented as westernization and civilization, with all disastrous consequences for society they brought. Only years after, I realized this.

Later, while supervising the production of historical documentaries in a Kiev television company, I recognized that the mythology of unidirectional historical progress and inevitability of westernization for “barbarians” provided an ideological ground for neoliberal experiments not only in the former Soviet states but around the globe. It is this interest in the global hegemony of the ideology of westernization that led me first to the doctoral program in critical media studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and then to the research I am doing now.

NB: According to the academic work of some Ukrainian sociologists, polling showed in the recent past that most Ukrainians were not very interested in the issue of identity but were more concerned with issues like jobs, wages, and prices. Your work focuses a lot on the Neoliberal reforms that were enacted in Ukraine since 2019 – against the popular sentiment. Can you talk about what the view is on economic issues for most Ukrainians and why?

OB: In the social milieus [in which] I lived — the east of Ukraine, Crimea, and Kiev — there were very few people concerned with the issue of ethnic identity. I do not in vain emphasize “my social milieus.” Ukraine is a complex and divided country with its far east and far west holding diametrically different views on all socially significant issues. Since the declaration of Ukraine’s independence in 1991, two ideas of national identity have been competing in Ukraine: “ethnic Ukrainian” versus “eastern Slavic.” The ethnic Ukrainian national idea, based on the notion that Ukrainian culture, language, and ethnicity-centered history should be the dominant integrating forces in the Ukrainian nation-state, has been much more popular in the west of Ukraine. The eastern Slavic idea, which envisages the Ukrainian nation as founded on two primary ethnic groups, languages, and cultures — Ukrainian and Russian — has been accepted as normal in the Ukrainian southeast. However, in general, I can agree that most Ukrainians are much more concerned with economic issues, which has always been the case.

As a matter of fact, Ukraine’s independence of 1991 was to a big extent also a matter of economic concerns. Many Ukrainians supported the idea of political divorce from Russia because of an expectation that Ukraine would be better off economically — this is what propagandistic leaflets promised us. This economic hope was not realized. In many ways, the collapse of the Soviet Union radically changed people’s lives for the worse because of Ukraine’s neoliberalization — the marketization of the social sphere and ruination of the Soviet welfare state.

What about neoliberal reforms initiated by Zelensky?  You can judge on their popularity by opinion polls – up to 72% of Ukrainians did not support his land reform, the flagship of Zelensky’s neoliberal program. After his party approved it despite people’s indignation, Zelensky’s rating fell from 73 percent in Spring 2019 to 23 percent in January 2022. The reason is simple: a deep sense of betrayal. In his unofficial election platform — the show “Servant of the People” — Zelesnky-Holoborodko [Holoborodko was Zelensky’s character in the television show – NB] promised that if he could rule the country for just one week, he would “make the teacher live as the president, and the president live as the teacher.” To put it mildly, this promise was not fulfilled. People realized that they were duped once again—the reforms have been carried out in the interests of not Ukrainians but global capital.

NB: To what extent do you think that prioritizing of economic security versus identity issues has changed with the Russian invasion?  How do you think that will work out for the political fortunes of the nationalists/ultranationalists versus moderates or leftists?

OB: That is an interesting question. On the one hand, people’s priority now is to survive, which makes security their primary concern. To save their lives, millions of Ukrainians, including my mom and my sister with children, have left Ukraine for Europe. Many of them are ready to stay there forever, to learn foreign languages, and to adopt to a foreign way of life—all these developments can hardly prioritize identity concerns. On the other hand, however, the intensification of ethnic sentiments and the consolidation of the nation in the face of the invasion is also evident. I can judge on this from public discussions in social media—some Kharkovites whom I know personally even started making posts in Ukrainian [language], which they had never used before, to highlight their national identity and signal that they are against any foreign invasion.

This is another tragic aspect of this war. The Maidan revolution of 2014, which many people in the southeast did not support, transformed these people into “slaves,” “sovki” and “vatniki”—derogatory terms to denote their backwardness and barbarism. This is how Maidan revolutionaries, who considered themselves the progressive force of history, saw anti-Maidan “others” because of their adherence to Russian language and culture. Never ever could this pro-Russian population imagine Russia to shell their cities and ruin their lives. The tragedy of these people is twofold: first, their world was ruined symbolically by the Maidan, now, it is being destroyed physically by Russia.

The outcomes of these developments are unclear so far as it is unclear how the war will end. If the southeastern regions remain in Ukraine, the ruination of everything resisting aggressive nationalism will most likely be completed. This will be probably the end of this unique borderline culture that has never wanted to be either completely Ukrainized or Russified. If Russia establishes control over these regions, as it boasts now, I can hardly predict how it will be dealing with mass resentment—at least, in the cities that are damaged significantly, as in Kharkov.

NB: Moving to Zelensky specifically – one thing you point out in your book is how Zelensky served as this sort of Pied Piper figure in that he used his celebrity and acting skills to get people to support him on behalf of this vague, feel-good agenda (peace, democracy, progress, anticorruption) but that really obscured another agenda that would not have been popular, specifically a Neoliberal economic agenda.  Can you talk about how he did that – how did he run his campaign and what were his priorities after he got into office?

OB: The basic argument presented in my recent book is that the astonishing victory of Zelensky and his party, later transformed into a parliamentary machine to churn out and rubber-stamp neoliberal reforms (in a “turbo regime,” as they called it), cannot be explained apart from the success of his television series, which, as many observers believe, served as Zelensky’s informal election platform. Unlike his official platform, which ran only 1,601 words in length and contained few policy specifics, the 51 half-hour episodes of his show provided Ukrainians with a detailed vision of what should be done so that Ukraine could progress.

The message delivered by Zelensky to Ukrainians through his show is clearly populist. The people of Ukraine are portrayed in it as an unproblematic totality devoid of internal splits, from which only oligarchs and corrupted politicians/officials are excluded. The country becomes healthy only after getting rid of both oligarchs and their puppets. Some of them are imprisoned or flee the country; their property is confiscated without any regard to legality. Later, Zelensky-the-president will do the same towards his political rivals.

Interestingly, the show ignores the theme of the Donbass war, which erupted in 2014, a year before the series started being broadcast. As the Maidan and Russia-Ukraine relations are very divisive issues in Ukrainian society, Zelensky ignored them so as not to jeopardize the unity of his virtual nation, his viewers, and ultimately his voters.

Zelensky’s election promises, made on the fringes of the virtual and the real, were predominantly about Ukraine’s “progress,” understood as “modernization,” “Westernization,” “civilization,” and “normalization.” It is this progressive modernizing discourse that allowed Zelensky to camouflage his plans for neoliberal reforms, launched just three days after the new government came to power. Throughout the campaign, the idea of “progress” highlighted by Zelensky was never linked to privatization, land sales, budget cuts, etc. Only after Zelensky had consolidated his presidential power by establishing full control over the legislative and executive branches of power did he make it clear that the “normalization” and “civilization” of Ukraine meant the privatization of land and state/public property, the deregulation of labor relations, a reduction of power for trade unions, an increase in utility tariffs, and so on.

NB: You’ve pointed out that many foreigners were appointed to important economic and social posts after the 2014 coup and before Zelensky’s term. Similarly, many of Zelensky’s officials have close ties to global neoliberal institutions and you’ve suggested there is evidence that they manipulate Zelensky who has an unsophisticated understanding of economics/finance. Can you discuss that aspect of the ramifications of the pro-Western change of government in 2014?  What are the larger interests at play here and do they have the interests of the general Ukrainian population in mind at all?

OB: Yes, the Maidan change of power in 2014 marked the beginning of a completely new era in the history of Ukraine in terms of Western influence on its sovereign decisions. To be sure, since Ukraine declared its independence in 1991, this influence has always existed. American Chamber of Commerce, Center for US-Ukraine relations, US-Ukraine Business Council, European Business Association, IMF, EBDR, WTO, the EU—all these lobbying and regulating institutions have been significantly affect[ing] Ukrainian political decisions.

However, never in the pre-Maidan history of Ukraine had the country appointed foreign citizens to top ministerial posts—this became possible only after the Maidan. In 2014, Natalie Jaresko—a citizen of the US—was appointed Ukraine’s Minister of Finance, Aivaras Abromavičius—a citizen of Lithuania—became Ukraine’s Minister of Economy and Trade, Alexander Kvitashvili—a citizen of Georgia—the Minister of Healthcare. In 2016, Ulana Suprun—a citizen of the US—was appointed the acting Minister of Healthcare. Other foreigners assumed offices of lower ranks. Needless to say, all these appointments resulted not from the will of Ukrainians but from the recommendations of the global neoliberal institutions, which is not surprising given that the Maidan itself was not supported by half of Ukraine’s population.

As already mentioned, the majority of these anti-Maidan “others” reside in the southeastern regions. The farther east one looked, the stronger and more unified a rejection of the Maidan with its European agenda one would find. More than 75 percent of those living in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (two eastern regions of Ukraine predominantly populated by Russian-speakers) did not support the Maidan, while only 20 percent of people living in Crimea supported it.

These statistical figures, provided by Kiev Institute of Sociology in April 2014, did not prevent Western institutions of power from arguing that the Maidan was the uprising of “Ukrainian people” presented as an unproblematic totality—a very powerful ideological trick. When visiting the Maidan Square and encouraging its revolutionaries to protest, members of the “international community” disrespected millions of Ukrainians who held anti-Maidan views, thus contributing to the escalation of the civil conflict, which at the end of the day led to the disaster that we are helplessly observing today.

What about foreign interests invested in Ukraine’s neoliberalization, carried out in the name of the Ukrainian people?  [T]hey are diverse, but behind the land reform, which I have been analyzing carefully, there were financial lobbies in the West. Western pension funds and investment funds wanted to invest money that was depreciating. Looking for assets to invest in, they enlisted support of the IMF, the World Bank, EBRD, and various lobbying groups to promote their interests and lay out all necessary groundwork. This has nothing to do with the interests of Ukrainians, of course.

NB: How has Zelensky’s record been on democracy – freedom of speech and press, political pluralism and treatment of different political parties? How does it compare to past presidents of post-Soviet Ukraine?

OB: I agree with Jodi Dean who argues that democracy is a neoliberal fantasy in a sense that it cannot exist in neoliberal systems of government controlled not by people but by supranational institutions. As mentioned earlier, this became especially evident after the Maidan when foreign ministers were appointed by these institutions to present their interests in Ukraine. However, in his reforming zeal, Zelensky went further. In early February 2021, first three oppositional television channels—NewsOne, Zik, and 112 Ukraine—were shut down. Another oppositional channel Nash was banned in the beginning of 2022, before the beginning of the war. After the war broke out, in March, dozens of independent journalists, bloggers, and analysts were arrested; most of them are of leftist views. In April, television channels of right-wing leaning—Channel 5 and Pryamiy—were shut down as well. Moreover, Zelensky signed a decree obliging all Ukrainian channels to broadcast a single telethon, presenting only one pro-governmental view on the war.

All these developments are unprecedented for the history of independent Ukraine. Zelensky’s proponents argue that all the arrests and media bans should be written off for military expediency, ignoring the fact that the first media closures happened one year before the Russian invasion. As for me, Zelensky only uses this war to strengthen dictatorial tendencies within his regime of government, which started being formed right after Zelensky came to power—when he created a party machine to control the parliament and rubber-stamp neoliberal reforms without regard to public mood.

NB: The National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) was used by Zelensky in 2021 to sanction certain people – mostly political rivals.  Can you explain what the NSDC is and why Zelensky was doing it and whether it was legal or not.

OB: After his popular support plummeted in 2021, Zelensky launched the unconstitutional process of extrajudicial sanctions against his political opponents, imposed by National Security and Defense Council (NSDC). These sanctions involved the extrajudicial seizure of property without any evidence of illegal activities of the relevant individuals and legal entities. Among the first to be sanctioned by the NSDC were two parliamentary deputies from the Opposition Platform “For Life” (OPZZh)—Victor Medvedchuk (later arrested and shown on TV with his face beaten up after interrogation) and Taras Kozak (managed to escape from Ukraine), as well as members of their families. This happened in February 2021; in March 2022, 11 oppositional parties were banned. The decisions to ban oppositional parties and sanction oppositional leaders were taken by NSDC; they were put into effect by presidential decrees.

The Constitution of Ukraine states that The Council of National Security and Defense is a coordinating body: it “co-ordinates and controls the activity of bodies of executive power in the sphere of national security and defense.” This has nothing to do with prosecuting political opponents and confiscating their property—something NSDC has been doing since 2021. It goes without saying that this know-how of Zelensky’s regime is unconstitutional—only courts may decide on who is guilty or not and confiscate property. But the problem is that Ukrainian courts turned out to be unprepared to serve as Zelensky’s puppets. After the head of Ukraine’s Constitutional Court Oleksandr Tupytskyi called Zelensky’s unconstitutional reforms a “coup,” Zelensky had nothing to do but to rely on NSDC to push forward his unpopular policies. What about the “dissident” Tupytskyi?  On March 27, 2021—also in violation of the Ukrainian Constitution—Zelensky signed a decree canceling his appointment as a judge of the court.

Under Stalin’s rule, the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) created “troikas” to issue sentences to people after simplified, speedy investigations and without a public and fair trial. What we observe in the case of NSDC is a very similar development, only NSDC unconstitutional trials have a bigger number of participants—all the key figures of the state, including the president, the prime minister, the head of Ukrainian security service, prosecutor general of Ukraine, etc. One NSDC meeting can decide destinies of hundreds of people. In June 2021 alone, Zelensky put into effect a NSDC decision to impose sanctions against 538 individuals and 540 companies.

NB: I’d like to ask you about the “Peacemaker” (Myrotvorets) list that is reportedly affiliated with the Ukrainian government and SBU intelligence service.  My understanding is that this is a list of “enemies of the state” and publishes said enemies’ personal information.  Several of those who appeared on it have been subsequently murdered.  Can you talk about this list, how do people end up on it, and how does it fit into a government that we’ve been told is democratic?

OB: The nationalistic Myrotvorets website was launched in 2015 “by a people’s deputy holding a position of adviser to the Ministry of Interior of Ukraine”—this is how the UN report describes this. The name of this people’s deputy is Anton Gerashchenko, a former advisor to the former Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov. It is under Avakov’s patronage in 2014 [that] nationalistic punitive battalions were created to be sent to Donbass for suppressing people’s resistance against the Maidan. Myrotvorets has been part of the general strategy of intimidating the opponents of the coup. Any “enemy of the people”—anybody who dares to express publicly anti-Maidan views or challenge Ukraine’s nationalistic agenda—may occur on this website. The addresses of Oles Buzina, a famous publicist [journalist], shot dead by nationalists near his apartment building in Kyiv, and Oleg Kalashnikov, an oppositional deputy killed by nationalists in his house, were also on Myrotvorets, which helped the killers to find their victims. The names of the murderers are well known; however, they are not imprisoned because in contemporary Ukraine, whose political life is controlled by radicals, they are considered heroes.

The site was not shut down even after an international scandal when Myrotvorets published the personal data of well-known foreign politicians, including the former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. But, in contrast to Mr. Schröder residing in Germany, thousands of Ukrainians whose data are on Myrotvorets, cannot feel safe. All those arrested in March 2022 had been on Myrotvorets as well. Some of them I know personally – Yuri Tkachev, the editor of Odessa newspaper Timer and Dmitry Dzhangirov, the editor of Capital, a YouTube channel.

Many of those whose names are on Myrotvorets, managed to flee Ukraine after the Maidan; some were able to do it after mass arrests this March. One of them is Tarik Nezalezhko, Dzhangirov’s colleague. On April 12, 2022, already being safe outside of Ukraine, he made a post on YouTube, calling Ukraine’s Security Service “Gestapo” and giving advice to his viewers on how to avoid being captured by its agents.

That said, Ukraine is not a democratic country. The more I observe what is going on there, the more I think about the modernization path of Augusto Pinochet, who, as a matter of fact, is admired by our neoliberals. For a long period of time, the crimes of Pinochet’s regime had not been investigated. But in the end, humanity discovered the truth. I only hope that in Ukraine this will happen earlier.

NB: Ukrainian academic Volodymyr Ishchenko said in a recent interview with NLR that, unlike in Western Europe, there is more of a partnership between nationalism and Neoliberalism in post-Soviet Eastern Europe.  This was even observed in the Donbass among the more affluent. Do you agree with that?  If so, can you explain how that combination evolved?

OB: I agree with Volodymyr. What we observe in Ukraine is an alliance of nationalists and liberals based on their common intolerance to Russia and, respectively, to all who advocate for cooperation with it. It the light of the current war, this unity of liberals and nationalists may appear as justified. However, the alliance was created long before this war—in 2013, during the formation of the Maidan movement. By liberals, the Association Agreement with the European Union, advocated by the Maidan, was seen predominantly in terms of democratization, modernization, and civilization—it was imagined as a means of bringing Ukraine up to European standards of government. In contrast, the Eurasian Economic Union, led by Russia, was associated with civilizational regression to Soviet statism and Asian despotism. It is here that the positions of liberals and nationalists converged: The latter actively supported the Maidan not because of democratization, but due to its clear anti-Russia stance.

From the first days of the protests, radical nationalists were the most active Maidan fighters. The unity between liberals associating the Euromaidan with progress, modernization, human rights, etc., and radicals co-opting the movement for their nationalistic agenda was an important prerequisite for the transformation of the civic protest into an armed struggle resulting in an unconstitutional overturning of power. The decisive role of radicals in the revolution also became a crucial factor in the formation of a mass anti-Maidan movement in the east of Ukraine against the “coup d’etat,” as the hegemonic anti-Maidan discourse dubbed the change of power in Kyiv. At least partly, what we observe today, is a tragic outcome of this shortsighted and unfortunate alliance, formed during the Maidan.

NB: Can you explain what Zelensky’s relationship has been with the far-right in Ukraine?

OB: Zelensky himself has never expressed far-right views. In his series “Servant of the People,” which was used as an unofficial election platform, Ukrainian nationalists are portrayed negatively: they appear as nothing else but stupid oligarchs’ marionettes. As a presidential candidate, Zelensky criticized the language law signed by his predecessor Poroshenko, which made the knowledge of Ukrainian language a mandatory requirement for civil servants, soldiers, doctors, and teachers. “We must initiate and adopt laws and decisions that consolidate society, and not vice versa,” Zelensky-the-candidate claimed in 2019.

However, after assuming the presidential office, Zelensky turned to the nationalistic agenda of his predecessor. On May 19, 2021, his government approved an action plan for the promotion of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of public life strictly in line with Poroshenko’s language law, to the delight of nationalists and dismay of Russophones. Zelensky has done nothing to prosecute radicals for all their crimes against political opponents and the people of Donbass. The symbol of Zelensky’s right-wing transformation was his endorsement by nationalist Medvedko—one of those accused of murdering Buzina—who publicly approved Zelensky’s ban of Russian-language oppositional channels in 2021.

The question is why? Why did Zelensky make a U-turn to nationalism despite people’s hopes that he would pursue the politics of reconciliation? As many analysists believe, this is because radicals, although representing the minority of the Ukrainian population, do not hesitate to use force against politicians, courts, law enforcement agencies, media workers, and so forth—in other words, they are simply good at intimidating society, including all the branches of power. Propagandists may repeat the mantra “Zelensky is a Jew, so he cannot be a Nazi” as often as they want, but the truth is that radicals control the political process in Ukraine through violence against those who dare confront their nationalistic and supremacist agendas. The case of Anatoliy Shariy — one of the most popular bloggers in Ukraine living in exile—is a good example to illustrate this point. Not only does he, along with his family members, permanently receive death threats, radicals constantly intimidate the activists of his party (banned by Zelensky in March 2022), beating and humiliating them. This is what Ukrainian radicals call “political safari.”

NB: Right now, Zelensky is the most influential figure on the world stage with respect to a conflict that has grave implications if it escalates. I’m concerned that he’s using those same manipulative show biz skills to rally support behind this image of some personal incarnation of democracy and righteousness against the forces of evil and autocracy. It’s like a movie based on a Marvel comic book world. It’s precisely the kind of framing that seems antithetical to diplomacy. Do you think Zelensky is playing a constructive role as the wartime leader of Ukraine or not?

OB: I follow Zelensky’ war speeches on a regular basis, and I can confidently say that the way he frames the conflict can hardly lead to any diplomatic resolution as he permanently repeats that the forces of good are attacked by the forces of evil. Clearly, there can be no political solution for such an Armageddon. What falls out of this mythical frame of reference for the war is the broader context of the situation: the fact that for years Ukraine has been refusing to implement the Minsk peace agreements, which were signed in 2015 after the defeat of the Ukrainian army in the Donbass war. According to these agreements, Donbass had to receive a political autonomy within Ukraine—a point inconceivable and unacceptable for radicals. Instead of implementing the document, which was ratified by the UN, Kiev has been fighting with Donbass along the line of demarcation for eight long years. The life of Ukrainians living in these territories has been transformed into a nightmare. For radicals, whose battalions have been fighting there, Donbass people—imagined as sovki and vatniki—do not deserve mercy and indulgence.

The current war is a prolongation of the war of 2014, which started when Kiev sent troops to Donbass to suppress anti-Maidan rebellion under the premise of the so-called “anti-terrorist operation.” The acknowledgement of this broader context does not presuppose the approval of Russia’s “military operation,” but it implies the acknowledgement that Ukraine is also responsible for what is going on. Framing the issue of the current war in terms of a fight of civilization against barbarism or democracy against autocracy is nothing else but manipulation, and this is essential for understanding the situation. Bush’s formula “you are either with us or with terrorists,” propagated by Zelensky in his appeals to the “civilized world,” has turned out to be very convenient in terms of avoiding personal responsibility for the ongoing disaster.

In terms of selling this one-dimensional story to the world, Zelensky’s artistic skills appear invaluable. He is finally on the global stage, and the world is applauding. The former comedian does not even try to hide his satisfaction. Answering the question of a French reporter on March 5, 2022 — the tenth day of the Russian invasion — on how his life had changed with the beginning of the war, Zelensky replied with a smile of delight: “Today, my life is beautiful. I believe that I am needed. I feel it is the most important meaning in life – to be needed. To feel that you are not just an emptiness that is just breathing, walking, and eating something. You live.”

For me, this construction is alarming: it implies that Zelensky enjoys the unique opportunity to perform on a global stage provided by the war. It made his life beautiful; he lives. In contrast to millions of Ukrainians whose life is not nice at all and thousands of those who are not alive any longer.

NB: Alexander Gabuev has suggested that the Russian leadership has a lack of expertise about the country that was a contributing factor to this conflict.  I have also heard Russian commentators suggest that Ukraine has a superior attitude with regard to being pro-Western versus pro-Russian. Do you think this is a significant contributing factor for either side?

OB: I am inclined to agree with the claim regarding the lack of an adequate understanding on the part of Russian leadership of social processes that have been going on in Ukraine since the Maidan. Indeed, half of Ukraine’s population did not welcome it, and millions living in the southeast wanted Russia to intervene. I know this for sure as all my relatives and old friends reside in these territories. However, what was true in 2014 may not be necessarily the case now. Eight years have passed; a new generation of young people, raised within a new social environment, has grown; and many people simply accustomed themselves to new realities. Finally, even if most of them despise radicals and the politics of Ukrainization, they hate the war even more. The reality on the ground has turned out to be more complex than decision-makers expected.

NB: What about the sense of superiority among those Ukrainians who identify themselves with Westerners rather than with Russians?

OB: This is true, and, as for me, this is the most tragic part of the whole post-Maidan story, because it is exactly this sense of superiority that prevented the “progressive” pro-Maidan forces from finding common language with their “backward” pro-Russian compatriots. This led to the Donbass uprising, the “anti-terrorist operation” of the Ukrainian army against Donbass, Russia’s intervention, Minsk peace agreements, their non-fulfillment, and, finally, the current war.

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Natylie Baldwin is a writer on Russian and US foreign policy and the author of The View from Moscow: Understanding Russia & US-Russia Relations.

Featured image is from The Grayzone

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***

There is a terrifying prospect that in excess of a quarter of a billion more people will fall into extreme levels of poverty in 2022 alone. Without immediate radical action, we could be witnessing the most profound collapse of humanity into extreme poverty and suffering in memory.     

That is according to Oxfam International Executive Director Gabriela Bucher.

She adds this scenario is made more sickening given that trillions of dollars have been captured by a tiny group of powerful men who have no interest in interrupting this trajectory.

In its January 2021 report ‘The Inequality Virus’, Oxfam stated that the wealth of the world’s billionaires increased by $3.9tn between 18 March and 31 December 2020. Their total wealth then stood at $11.95tn, a 50 per cent increase in just 9.5 months.

In 2021, an Oxfam review of IMF COVID-19 loans showed that 33 African countries were encouraged to pursue austerity policies. This despite the IMF’s own research showing austerity worsens poverty and inequality.

Barely days into the shutdown of the global economy in April 2020, the Wall Street Journal ran the headline ‘IMF, World Bank Face Deluge of Aid Requests From Developing World‘. Scores of countries were asking for bailouts and loans from financial institutions with $1.2 trillion to lend.

Prior to that, in late March, World Bank Group President David Malpass said that poorer countries would be ‘helped’ to get back on their feet after the various COVID-related lockdowns. However, any assistance would be on condition that further neoliberal reforms became embedded.

Malpass said:

“For those countries that have excessive regulations, subsidies, licensing regimes, trade protection or litigiousness as obstacles, we will work with them to foster markets, choice and faster growth prospects during the recovery.”

Two years on and it is clear what ‘reforms’ really mean. In a press release issued on 19 April 2022, Oxfam International insists the IMF must abandon demands for austerity as a cost-of-living crisis continues to drive up hunger and poverty worldwide.

According to Oxfam’s analysis, 13 out of the 15 IMF loan programmes negotiated during the second year of COVID require new austerity measures such as taxes on food and fuel or spending cuts that could put vital public services at risk. The IMF is also encouraging six additional countries to adopt similar measures.

Kenya and the IMF agreed a $2.3 billion loan programme in 2021, which includes a three-year public sector pay freeze and increased taxes on cooking gas and food. More than three million Kenyans are facing acute hunger as the driest conditions in decades spread a devastating drought across the country. Oxfam says nearly half of all households in Kenya are having to borrow food or buy it on credit.

At the same time, nine countries, including Cameroon, Senegal and Surinam, are required to introduce or increase the collection of VAT, a tax that disproportionately impacts people living in poverty.

In Sudan, nearly half of the population live in poverty. However, it has been told to scrap fuel subsidies which will hit the poorest hardest. A country already reeling from international aid cuts, economic turmoil and rising prices for everyday basics such as food and medicine. More than 14 million people need humanitarian assistance (almost one in every three people) and 9.8 million are food insecure in Sudan.

In addition, 10 countries are likely to freeze or cut public sector wages and jobs, which could mean lower quality of education and fewer nurses and doctors in countries already short of healthcare staff. Consider that Namibia had fewer than six doctors per 10,000 people in early 2020.

Prior to Covid, the situation was bad enough. The IMF had consistently pushed a policy agenda based on cuts to public services, increases in taxes paid by the poorest and moves to undermine labour rights and protections. As a result, 52 per cent of Africans lack access to healthcare and 83 per cent have no safety nets to fall back on if they lose their job or become sick.

Nabil Abdo, Oxfam International’s senior policy advisor, says:

“The IMF must suspend austerity conditions on existing loans and increase access to emergency financing. It should encourage countries to increase taxes on the wealthiest and corporations to replenish depleted coffers and shrink widening inequality.”

It is interesting to note what could be achieved. For instance, Argentina has collected about $2.4 billion from its one-off pandemic wealth tax. Oxfam estimates that a ‘Pandemic Profits Tax’ on 32 super-profitable global companies could have generated $104 billion in revenue in 2020 alone.

Many governments are nearing debt default and being forced to slash public spending to pay creditors and import food and fuel. The world’s poorest countries are due to pay $43 billion in debt repayments in 2022, which could otherwise cover the costs of their food imports. Oil and gas giants are reporting record-breaking profits, with similar trends expected to play out in the food and beverage sector.

Oxfam and Development Finance International (DFI) have also revealed that 43 out of 55 African Union member states face public expenditure cuts totalling $183 billion over the next five years.

Oxfam says that, despite COVID costs piling up and billionaire wealth rising more since COVID than in the previous 14 years combined, governments — with few exceptions — have failed to increase taxes on the richest.

Gabriela Bucher rejects any notion that governments do not have the money or means to lift all people out of poverty and hunger and ensure their health and welfare. She says the G20, World Bank and IMF must immediately cancel debts and increase aid to poorer countries and act to protect ordinary people from an avoidable catastrophe.

Nabil Abdo says:

“The pandemic is not over for most of the world. Rising energy bills and food prices are hurting poor countries most. They need help boosting access to basic services and social protection, not harsh conditions that kick people when they are down.”

The ‘pandemic’ is not over for most of the world – for sure. People too often conflate the effects of COVID-related policies with the impact of COVID itself. It is these policies that have caused the ongoing devastation to lives and livelihoods.

What it has amounted to is a multi-trillion-dollar bailout for a capitalist economy that was in meltdown prior to COVID. This came in the form of trillions of dollars pumped into financial markets by the US Fed (in the months prior to March 2020) and ‘COVID relief’.

As the world’s richest people lined their pockets even more in the past two years, COVID IMF loans are now piling more misery on some of the world’s poorest people. For them, ‘long COVID’ is biting austerity – their ‘new normal’.

All this resulting from policies supposedly brought in to protect public health – a claim that rings hollower by the day.

*

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Renowned author Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) in Montreal.

The author receives no payment from any media outlet or organization for his work. If you appreciated this article, consider sending a few coins his way: [email protected] 

Featured image is from Wall Street International Magazine


Read Colin Todhunter’s e-Book entitled

Food, Dispossession and Dependency. Resisting the New World Order

We are currently seeing an acceleration of the corporate consolidation of the entire global agri-food chain. The high-tech/big data conglomerates, including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google, have joined traditional agribusiness giants, such as Corteva, Bayer, Cargill and Syngenta, in a quest to impose their model of food and agriculture on the world.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is also involved (documented in ‘Gates to a Global Empire‘ by Navdanya International), whether through buying up huge tracts of farmland, promoting a much-heralded (but failed) ‘green revolution’ for Africa, pushing biosynthetic food and genetic engineering technologies or more generally facilitating the aims of the mega agri-food corporations.

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***

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres traveled on April 28 to the Russian Federation holding high-level talks with President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The topic of the discussions centered on the two-months long Russian military intervention in Ukraine which has been fueled by the imposition of unprecedented sanctions by the United States and the European Union (EU) alongside the massive transferal of weapons to the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky by key member-states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Two distinct positions were articulated during one-on-one talks between Putin and Guterres which were broadcast internationally. Later there was a press conference held featuring Foreign Minister Lavrov and Secretary General Guterres where differences over the Ukraine situation were aired publicly.

After leaving Moscow, Guterres travelled to the capital of Ukraine where he reviewed damage from the war which has killed untold numbers of people and dislocated millions. The U.S. has already announced the transfer of over $3 Billion to Ukraine in military and other assistance. A recent proposal by President Joe Biden has called for the Congress to approve another $33 Billion in direct aid. House of Representative Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, said immediately after the Biden gesture was reported that the money should be agreed upon by the legislative branch as soon as possible.

NATO Countries Still Rely on Russia for Energy Resources

Obviously, the U.S. and NATO actions indicate that the Biden administration and its European allies are not interested in a speedy conclusion to the war in Ukraine. The sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the EU have created a crisis in Western Europe where several leading states such as Germany are continuing, out of necessity, to purchase oil and natural gas from the Russian Federation.

With Germany being the largest economy in Western Europe it cannot immediately place an embargo on Russian energy shipments because doing so would prompt a recession that would have a negative impact on other neighboring states. The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project has already been halted between Germany and Russia in the aftermath of the military operation in Ukraine. This deal had been long in the making and was supported by successive German governments.

Germany is reliant upon Russia for approximately 50% of its natural gas supply while France receives 25% of this energy resource from Moscow as well. Some other smaller countries are totally dependent upon Russia for natural gas including North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Moldova. Finland, Latvia and Serbia imports 90% of their natural gas supplies from Russia. (See this)

Infographic: Which European Countries Depend on Russian Gas? | Statista

President Putin in the face of intensified sanctions and direct military aid to Ukraine, has demanded the payment in rubles (Russian currency) for energy exports. The Russian government during late April announced the suspension of natural gas exports to Poland and Bulgaria due to their refusal to purchase energy in rubles.

The BBC wrote recently on the European energy crisis sparked by the Ukraine war and the sanctions implemented against Moscow, noting that:

“Germany’s finance minister was keen to sound tough on Russia and appears acutely aware of the criticism levelled at his country for dragging its feet over a full energy embargo on the Kremlin. His basic message was – it is coming, but not quite yet, because it is impossible to enact immediately and would probably lead to shutdowns of large swathes of the German economy. President Zelensky used a BBC interview last week to demand an immediate embargo on Russia’s lucrative oil trade, accusing those sending euros and dollars to Kremlin-controlled oil giants of ‘trading in blood’. He singled out Germany alongside Hungary for blocking EU action. Mr. [Finance Minister Christian] Lindner said Germany would move as fast as possible but did not confirm that would be within a year.”

In regard to oil, Germany imports 34% of this vital resource from Russia while Poland receives 63% of its supply via Moscow. The Druzhba pipeline is an important conduit for Russian oil across Europe. The network was created during the time of the Soviet Union and its socialist allies in Eastern Europe in what was known as the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON).

Druzhba is the world’s longest oil pipeline and one of the largest of such networks internationally. The network carries oil some 4,000 kilometers (2,500 mi) from the eastern part of European Russia to destinations in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany. This network extends out into various other pipelines to supply its product across Eastern Europe and beyond. (See this)

Consequently, the failure by the UN chief to bring about a ceasefire in the Ukraine war portends much for the future of Europe and indeed the world. The potential for a long-term energy crisis in Western Europe combined with a worsening military situation, has illustrated the potential for catastrophic social and economic consequences throughout the region.

Russia Conducts Successful Test of New Nuclear Weapons System

Although the White House is continuously transporting offensive weapons to Ukraine to launch attacks against Russian military forces and the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in the east of the country, Moscow spokespersons have repeatedly claimed that its strategic objectives are being met on the battlefield. Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov claimed in a press briefing on April 30 that Aerospace Forces had bombed five Ukrainian ammunition depots which destroyed 200 enemy soldiers.

In addition, Konashenkov said that 2,700 Ukrainian tanks and armored vehicles along with 2,503 military motor vehicles have been destroyed since February 24. He went further to say that 143 Ukrainian aircraft, 112 helicopters, 660 unmanned aerial vehicles, 279 surface-to-air missiles systems, 308 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,196 field artillery guns and mortars have been eliminated. (See this)

Nonetheless, the most significant development has been the testing of perhaps the most advanced nuclear weapons system in existence anywhere in the world. Since the Russian special military operation began on February 24, Putin has warned of the need to upgrade its nuclear weapons capability. The Russian president later placed the country on nuclear alert.

The Caspian News said of the current situation:

“On April 20, Russia test-launched Sarmat from Plesetsk cosmodrome on the edge of the Russian Arctic, which Russian President Vladimir Putin said would make Russia’s enemies ‘think twice.’ Moscow’s test launch of the next-generation Sarmat ICBM came amid an extreme geopolitical tension between Russia and the West over the ongoing war in Ukraine….  Earlier last week, [Russian space agency Director General Dmitry] Rogozin claimed that Sarmat would be much more powerful than other strategic weapons, including the U.S.-made Minuteman-III, an ICBM with a maximum range of 13,000 km, and the capability of carrying a payload of three reentry vehicles. ‘This is a missile that is much more powerful than other strategic weapons, including the Minuteman-III missile, which is in service with the United States. Both in terms of global reach and the power of warheads that can be delivered to the territory of an aggressor,’ Rogozin said in an interview with Rossiya 24 TV channel. Russia owns the world’s largest nuclear weapons stockpile, with an estimated 6,257 warheads. Moscow reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in two cases: in response to a nuclear attack or the use of weapons of mass destruction against Russia or its allies or if the existence of the Russian state is threatened.”

Therefore, there are strong indications that the Russian Federation is preparing for a protracted struggle over the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe. The Biden administration is risking the economic and military stability of the capitalist states in this attempt to secure Washington’s hegemony over the European continent both East and West.

In fact, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stated during a surprise visit to Poland on April 25 that the U.S. objective in the war was to weaken Russia’s military capability by incapacitating its ability to engage in operations outside of its borders. Such utterances can only enhance the degree of tensions and hostility in Ukraine.

People inside the U.S. and Western Europe must objectively assess the impact of the White House’s war policy towards the Russian Federation. Both the Democratic and Republican parties appear to be in favor of the current strategy which has led to the destruction of Ukraine and the threat of large-scale conventional and nuclear warfare. Only a mass-based and well- organized antiwar movement in North America and Western Europe can pose the much- needed domestic challenges to the dangerous course taken by the imperialist states.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov holds press conference with UN Secretary General Guterres (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)

Selected Articles: COVID-19 Boosters — Where from Here?

May 2nd, 2022 by Global Research News

COVID-19 Boosters — Where from Here?

By Dr. Paul A. Offit, May 02, 2022

People are now confused about what it means to be fully vaccinated. It is easy to understand how this could happen. Arguably, the most disappointing error surrounding the use of Covid-19 vaccines was the labeling of mild illnesses or asymptomatic infections after vaccination as “breakthroughs.”

By Restricting Moscow’s Moves, Erdogan Is Playing Russian Roulette

By Abdel Bari Atwan, May 02, 2022

Turkey’s decision to close its airspace to Russian military and civilian aircraft bound for northern Syria surprised many observers. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s announcement of this decision to Turkish journalists during his Latin America tour raised many questions about its future implications for Russian-Turkish relations.

Energy Geopolitics

By Konrad Rękas, May 01, 2022

Scholars disagree whenever there are 45 or even 83 definitions of energy security. Its understanding varies depending on the country in which is defined, its geographical, cultural and consciousness conditions.

The COVID Pandemic and the mRNA Vaccine: What Is the Truth? Dr. Russell L. Blaylock

By Russell L. Blaylock, May 01, 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most manipulated infectious disease events in history, characterized by official lies in an unending stream lead by government bureaucracies, medical associations, medical boards, the media, and international agencies.

Enormous U.S. Military Spending, EU Dragged into Abyss of War against Russia. Italy Out of the War!

By Manlio Dinucci, May 01, 2022

President Biden has asked Congress for another 33 billion dollars to arm and train the Ukrainian forces, in addition to the 20 billion dollars already allocated and provided to Kiev: a total of over 50 billion dollars from 2014 for the war against Russia.

Video: “These are Massive Crimes”. Congenital Malformations, Covid Vaccine Impacts on Pregnant Women. Naomi Wolf

By Naomi Wolf, May 01, 2022

“In this [DOD] database… the rise in congenital malformations increased dramatically, from a baseline rate of 10,906 cases per year in 2021… to 18,951 congenital malformations for [just] part of the year of 2021. For part of the year of 2021, [congenital malformations] nearly doubled in the fetuses of our brave women… who submitted to what our President said they had to do. As the Commander-in-Chief [forced] this experimental vaccine, their babies suffered! Their babies suffered!”

Elon Musk Buys Twitter

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, May 01, 2022

By now you’ve probably heard the big news: Twitter accepted Elon Musk’s buyout offer. Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist” with an “obsession with the truth,” has been open about his opinion that Twitter needs to be taken private in order to become a true free-speech platform.

‘Enough is enough’: California Subpoenas ExxonMobil Over Plastic Pollution

By Elizabeth Claire Alberts, May 01, 2022

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has announced that his department will be undertaking a first-of-its-kind investigation to determine the role that the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries have played in the escalating global plastics crisis.

Children’s Risk of Death Increases by 5100% Following COVID-19 Vaccination Compared to Unvaccinated Children According to Official ONS Data

By The Daily Expose, May 01, 2022

The Office for National Statistics has revealed without realising it that children are up to 52 times more likely to die following Covid-19 vaccination than children who have not had the Covid-19 vaccine.

1.2 Million Reports of Injuries After COVID Vaccines, VAERS Data Show

By Megan Redshaw, May 01, 2022

VAERS data released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention included a total of 1,247,131 reports of adverse events from all age groups following COVID-19 vaccines, including 27,532 deaths and 224,766 serious injuries between Dec. 14, 2020, and April 22, 2022.

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Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in an hour-long interview with Al Arabiya amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

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In an April 13 2022 editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) “Covid-19 Boosters — Where from Here?” Dr. Paul Offit MD starts with the obligatory praise for mRNA Covid-19 vaccines, but then abruptly switches to a very serious note of alarm about the continued use of boosters. 

NEJM has been at the nexus of positive Covid-19 publishing. Its editorial board has the advantage of reviewing a broad sweep of Covid studies. The fact that they decided to publish a blunt warning is highly significant. The message for governments, medical professionals, and medical media commentators and explainers cannot be ignored or underestimated.

Screenshot from NEJM

The editorial raises a number of questions:

“Unfortunately, studies did not stratify patients according to whether they had coexisting conditions. Therefore, it was unclear who among the younger age groups most benefited from an additional dose.”

In summary, boosters are not very useful for younger people who are healthy. This doesn’t sound very serious, but the NEJM went on to discuss the implications.

The continued universal use of boosters, in a misguided attempt to eliminate Covid, ‘will limit the ability of booster dosing to lessen transmission.’

The consequence, NEJM warned, are problems whose full extent and eventual outcomes are unknown:

“Boosters are not risk-free, we need to clarify which groups most benefit. For example, boys and men between 16 and 29 years of age are at increased risk for myocarditis caused by mRNA vaccines.”

“And all age groups are at risk for the theoretical problem of an “original antigenic sin” — a decreased ability to respond to a new immunogen because the immune system has locked onto the original immunogen….This potential problem could limit our ability to respond to a new variant.”

Original antigenic sin refers to the known possibility of ADE—antibody dependent enhancement of an illness. In essence, the immune system antibodies produced as a result of vaccination can in combination with new variants enhance the capacity of Covid to cause serious illness. This possibility arises because of the innate capacity of the Covid virus to adapt when faced with a highly vaccinated population—a known viral evolutionary pathway.

The editorial concluded with a message for governments:

“…educate the public about the limits of mucosal [mRNA Covid] vaccines. Otherwise, a zero-tolerance strategy for mild or asymptomatic infection, which can be implemented only with frequent booster doses, will continue to mislead the public about what Covid-19 vaccines can and cannot do.”

Facing reality is proving hard for our government

Is an editorial in a foreign medical journal cause for alarm? Yes, when it is the NEJM, the most conservative of medical journals, known for its unflinching support of modern medical orthodoxy.

Our worst enemy is complaisance and inaction. This was exemplified for me by a reply from an MP this week who says:

“I do get some comfort from the fact that smallpox and polio vaccines, do appear long term to benefit humans, and from my general reading there is hope and belief that the COVID vaccine will do the same….the vast majority of scientists involved provide me reassurance that the vaccine is safe and that the alternative of not vaccinating is simply not an option.”

In other words, he says there is no alternative except to carry on boosting, precisely the problem that the NEJM was warning against, which is leading down a road to a very uncertain and possibly very dangerous future.

As I travelled south towards Wellington yesterday, I passed kilometres of stationary cars going north stalled by a couple of traffic lights in Otaki. The $3.5 billion spent on the transmission gully motorway has delivered no improved travel time because the planners were perhaps not thinking far enough ahead and carried on regardless (and btw for the motorway enthusiasts after Otaki comes Levin, so should bypasses be the first priority?).

Do we carry on vaccinating against polio and smallpox every few months?—NO we do not. This one fact should have been sufficient to alert our MP that something is different about mRNA technology. Who are the medical experts advising our MPs, watering down the published Covid medical research results to the point of banality? Is our $64 billion spent on Covid so far well spent?

Calling a medical emergency in New Zealand

We know that both mRNA vaccination and Covid infection carry as yet unquantified long term risks of heart disease. Are we ramping up our capacity to treat heart disease? Apparently not. A correspondent in Palmerston North writes that she has been referred to a heart specialist by her GP, but the specialist replies he is too overwhelmed with cases to see her and refers her back to her GP. When is this Covid buck passing going to stop?

Heart disease is the number one killer in New Zealand. The apologia being trotted out by the media that myopericarditis following vaccination will turn out to be mild in the longer term without actual supporting research, does not amount to a credible medical policy.

We keep hearing anecdotal reports of our hospitals overwhelmed with cardiac cases. Are the reports real? The government is not publishing data, so we are left in the dark. Is the government failing to look or are they deliberately concealing information?

The situation is similar in the UK, information about alarming rises in cardiac cases is too hot to handle, so is it being covered up? Some data is coming out from individual hospitals. The NHS trust in the small UK seaside resort of Blackpool responded to a freedom of information request last week. Their cases of heart failure are up 400% on historical averages. Yes, 400%.

Who can turn the ship around?

We all have relatives or friends still insisting that our hospitals are full of the unvaccinated, that no one who is vaccinated has ever died, that the unvaccinated are endangering everyone, that international studies prove the vaccine works perfectly, and so on… All of which are remote from reality, yet without honest government and media messaging, polite rebuttals with references to actual data are met with outright denial and condemnation.

Only the government and mainstream media are in a position to convey the sober NEJM assessment of boosters to the public. Otherwise the public will remain stuck with boosters or bust misinformation. Continuing to publish misleading information about hospital statistics or myths that only mRNA vaccination of 100% of the population will stop the pandemic (as Stuff did this week) will only make it harder to institute reliable policies.

Mark Steyn of GB news called out the UK government Thursday this week with official UK statistics showing that boosted individuals are twice as likely to suffer infection, hospitalisation, and death compared to the unvaccinated, partially vaccinated and doubly vaccinated lumped together. This raises the possibility that Antibody Dependent Enhancement is already taking hold.

We are heading in that direction too, possibly just a few weeks behind, New Zealand statistics highlight increasing vulnerability of the boosted as each week goes by. This point is reinforced by increasing reports of multiple reinfections among vaccinated populations.

Time to call a medical emergency

This is a call for an energetic, robust and focused response to an evolving medical situation. A preparedness to consider and entertain views that were dismissed as unthinkable a few weeks ago.

Don’t trust my word, trust the New England Journal of Medicine which has sounded the alarm because our situation may be about to get much worse if the government continues to do and say as it has been so far.

Please forward this message to those in need of this officially sanctioned warning.

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COVID-19 Boosters — Where from Here?

May 2nd, 2022 by Dr. Paul A. Offit

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On December 10, 2020, Pfizer presented results from a 36,000-person, two-dose, prospective, placebo-controlled trial of its Covid-19 messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine, BNT162b2, to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).1 The vaccine was 95% effective at preventing severe illness in all age groups, independent of coexisting conditions or racial or ethnic background. A remarkable result. Six months later, studies showed that protection against severe disease was holding up.2 The results of these epidemiologic studies were consistent with those of immunologic studies showing long-lived, high frequencies of Covid-19–specific memory B and T cells, which mediate protection against severe disease.3

In September 2021, 10 months after the BNT162b2 vaccine had become available, Israeli researchers found that protection against severe illness in people 60 years of age or older was enhanced by a third dose.4 In response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that people 65 years of age or older should receive three doses of an mRNA vaccine.

In a study now reported in the Journal,5 Israeli researchers found that in a study population with a median age of 72 years, protection against severe disease was further enhanced by a fourth dose of mRNA vaccine during the wave of infections caused by the B.1.1.529 (omicron) variant of SARS-CoV-2. These findings were considered by the FDA and CDC in their decision-making process regarding the use of an additional booster dose of mRNA vaccine for people 50 years of age or older.

What about booster dosing for persons who are younger? One year after the BNT162b2 vaccine became available, studies in the United States showed that a third dose of vaccine also enhanced protection against severe disease for people as young as 18 years of age.6,7 Unfortunately, these studies did not stratify patients according to whether they had coexisting conditions. Therefore, it was unclear who among these younger age groups most benefited from an additional dose. Nonetheless, the CDC later recommended that everyone 12 years of age or older should receive three doses of BNT162b2, regardless of whether risk factors were present. This universal booster recommendation led some summer camps, high schools, universities, hospitals, and businesses to require three doses of mRNA vaccine. In February 2022, in a study that did not support the booster recommendation for children, CDC researchers found that two doses of BNT162b2 induced long-lived protection against serious illness in children 12 to 18 years of age.8

In addition to protection against severe disease, the initial phase 3 trial of BNT162b2 — which was performed over a period of several months — also showed 95% protection against mild illness.1Unlike protection against severe illness, however, protection against mild illness, which is mediated by high titers of virus-specific neutralizing antibodies at the time of exposure, declined after 6 months, as would have been expected.2 In response, studies by Pfizer were published in which a booster dose was shown to restore protection against mild illness9; unfortunately, this protection did not persist for more than a few months.6 Short-lived protection against mild illness will limit the ability of booster dosing to lessen transmission.

People are now confused about what it means to be fully vaccinated. It is easy to understand how this could happen. Arguably, the most disappointing error surrounding the use of Covid-19 vaccines was the labeling of mild illnesses or asymptomatic infections after vaccination as “breakthroughs.” As is true for all mucosal vaccines, the goal is to protect against serious illness — to keep people out of the hospital, intensive care unit, and morgue. The term “breakthrough,” which implies failure, created unrealistic expectations and led to the adoption of a zero-tolerance strategy for this virus. If we are to move from pandemic to endemic, at some point we are going to have to accept that vaccination or natural infection or a combination of the two will not offer long-term protection against mild illness.

In addition, because boosters are not risk-free, we need to clarify which groups most benefit. For example, boys and men between 16 and 29 years of age are at increased risk for myocarditis caused by mRNA vaccines.10 And all age groups are at risk for the theoretical problem of an “original antigenic sin” — a decreased ability to respond to a new immunogen because the immune system has locked onto the original immunogen. An example of this phenomenon can be found in a study of nonhuman primates showing that boosting with an omicron-specific variant did not result in higher titers of omicron-specific neutralizing antibodies than did boosting with the ancestral strain.11 This potential problem could limit our ability to respond to a new variant.

It is now incumbent on the CDC to determine who most benefits from booster dosing and to educate the public about the limits of mucosal vaccines. Otherwise, a zero-tolerance strategy for mild or asymptomatic infection, which can be implemented only with frequent booster doses, will continue to mislead the public about what Covid-19 vaccines can and cannot do.

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Dr. Paul A. Offit, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia.

Notes

1. Food and Drug Administration. Vaccines and related biological products advisory committee meeting. December 10, 2020 (https://www.fda.gov/media/144245/download. opens in new tab). Google Scholar

2. Tartof SY, Slezak JM, Fischer H, et al. Effectiveness of mRNA BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccine up to 6 months in a large integrated health system in the USA: a retrospective cohort study. Lancet 2021;398:14071416.

Crossref. opens in new tabWeb of Science. opens in new tabMedline. opens in new tabGoogle Scholar

3. Goel RR, Painter MM, Apostolidis SA, et al. mRNA vaccines induce durable immune memory to SARS-CoV-2 and variants of concern. Science 2021;374:abm0829abm0829.

Crossref. opens in new tabWeb of Science. opens in new tabMedline. opens in new tabGoogle Scholar

4. Bar-On YM, Goldberg Y, Mandel M, et al. Protection of BNT162b2 vaccine booster against Covid-19 in Israel. N Engl J Med 2021;385:13931400.

Free Full TextWeb of Science. opens in new tabMedline. opens in new tabGoogle Scholar

5. Magen O, Waxman JG, Makov-Assif M, et al. Fourth dose of BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 vaccine in a nationwide setting. N Engl J Med 2022;386:16031614.

Full TextGoogle Scholar

6. Ferdinands JM, Rao S, Dixon BE, et al. Waning of 2-dose and 3-dose effectiveness of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19-associated emergency department and urgent care encounters and hospitalizations among adults during periods of delta and omicron variant predominance — VISION Network, 10 states, August 2021–January 2022. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2022;71:255263.

Web of Science. opens in new tabMedline. opens in new tabGoogle Scholar

7. Johnson AG, Amin AB, Ali AR, et al. COVID-19 incidence and death rates among unvaccinated and fully vaccinated adults with and without booster doses during periods of Delta and Omicron variant emergence — 25 U.S. jurisdictions, April 4–December 25, 2021. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2022;71:132138.

Crossref. opens in new tabMedline. opens in new tabGoogle Scholar

8. Olson SM, Newhams MM, Halasa NB, et al. Effectiveness of BNT162b2 vaccine against critical Covid-19 in adolescents. N Engl J Med 2022;386:713723.

Free Full TextWeb of Science. opens in new tabMedline. opens in new tabGoogle Scholar

9. Accorsi EK, Britton A, Fleming-Dutra KE, et al. Association between 3 doses of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine and symptomatic infection caused by the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron and Delta variants. JAMA 2022;327:639651.

Crossref. opens in new tabWeb of Science. opens in new tabMedline. opens in new tabGoogle Scholar

10. Witberg G, Barda N, Hoss S, et al. Myocarditis after Covid-19 vaccination in a large health care organization. N Engl J Med 2021;385:21322139.

Free Full TextWeb of Science. opens in new tabMedline. opens in new tabGoogle Scholar

11. Gagne M, Moliva JI, Foulds KE, et al. mRNA-1273 or mRNA-Omicron boost in vaccinated macaques elicits comparable B cell expansion, neutralizing antibodies, and protection against Omicron. February 42022 (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.03.479037v1. opens in new tab). preprint. Google Scholar

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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Turkey’s decision to close its airspace to Russian military and civilian aircraft bound for northern Syria surprised many observers. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s announcement of this decision to Turkish journalists during his Latin America tour raised many questions about its future implications for Russian-Turkish relations.

It is unlikely that this decision may have been one of the outcomes of a Turkish-American deal following discreet contacts between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his US counterpart Joe Biden to clamp down on Russia. Unlike his predecessor Donald Trump, Biden believes that it is difficult to achieve regional security without Turkey, which is an original member of NATO. And so the deal between the two countries included expanding economic cooperation and meeting Turkey’s defense needs, particularly in the advanced F-35s, Patriot and THAAD missile systems.

There are several explanations for Ankara’s decision. The first is that the US exerted pressure on Turkey after it became evident that the Russians commanded the battle of Mariupol and other southeastern Ukrainian areas from the Russian airbase of Hemeimim in northern Syria – from which strategic strikes were carried out against Ukrainian forces.

A second possible explanation is that Erdogan succeeded in improving his country’s relations with Washington, taking full advantage of the desperate US need for regional allies in NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine.

But where one loses, another gains. On the back of the surprise Turkish decision, Tehran cleverly offered to allow Russian aircraft to use Iranian airspace to reach naval and air bases in northern Syria. While these flight times may be longer, there are instant benefits for the two countries, especially Iran, which has now further enhanced its strategic relations with the Russia-China axis. Iran has not been ambiguous: since the outbreak of the Ukrainian military crisis, it has failed to condemn Moscow’s actions and has stood quietly in the Russian trench.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been generous with his Turkish counterpart. He forgave Erdogan for his 2015 mistake when Turkish air defenses shot down a Russian Sukhoi plane that allegedly penetrated Turkey’s airspace near the Syrian-Turkish border for a few seconds. It took a series of expansive Russian punishments for the Turkish president to apologize in all languages, including Russian, for the mishap.

Putin has showed understanding, and even patience, over the Turkish occupation of areas in northern Syria, contrary to the wishes of his staunch allies in Damascus. However, Ankara’s latest decision to establish a ‘Russian no-fly zone’ will not be so easy to forgive, especially if followed by further measures such as banning the passage of Russian military vessels through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits to the Mediterranean, in accordance with the Montreux Agreement.

This remains an option in light of the rapid – if stealthy – improvement in Turkish-US relations. But choosing to align with Washington on Ukraine also risks racking up Russian-engineered military, political, and economic costs for Turkey, one year out from the country’s pivotal elections.

Further aligning with the US also means Erdogan will not be able to continue playing his carefully crafted role as a “neutral” mediator in this crisis, and host the upcoming summit meeting between the Turkish and Ukrainian presidents.

Turkish aspirations to expand trade cooperation with Russia to $100 billion dollars per annum will also be impacted, and the sale of further Russian S-400 missile defense systems to Turkey will be unlikely. More seriously, Russia may respond by developing or expanding relations with the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and supporting its operations in Turkey.

Politically speaking, the Russian military operation in Ukraine is a matter of life and death for Putin. Therefore his response to Ankara’s belligerent moves are likely to be decisive and could possibly play out on several fronts:

  • The Syrian front: To keep the balance in Russian relations with Turkey, Putin strongly opposed the Syrian leadership’s desire to invade Idlib to eliminate the jihadist terror groups based there and restore territorial control back to Damascus. While Moscow’s position may not yet change, renewed, intensive Russian military operations in Idlib will lead to an increase in Syrians fleeing to Turkish territory, which already hosts over 3 million Syrian refugees.
  • Strengthening Russian-Iranian relations: This will have a negative impact on Erdogan’s regional ambitions – especially in West and Central Asia – taking into account that China, which forms the third and strongest arm of this budding alliance is a full-fledged member of this troika.
  • The Arab Front: Turkey’s desire to improve its relations with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Persian Gulf and Arab states may be hindered in light of the rapprochement of these countries with Russia and China, which coincides with the breakdown of their relations with their traditional American ally. There is much the Russia-Iran-China (RIC) alliance can do in West Asia to unsettle Ankara’s relations within the region. It is worth noting that Riyadh has not yet responded to Turkish diplomatic outreach, significantly on the closure of the file of the state-sanctioned murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Erdogan’s leadership in recent months has been characterized by confusion and volatility. Recent political developments include Ankara’s unpopular improvement in ties with Israel, its gradual involvement in the Ukraine crisis, and its warming relations with Washington. These come at a critical time, not only amid a nation-wide economic crisis but also a year before presidential and legislative elections that pose a serious threat to Erdogan’s reign.

President Putin may have decided initially to overlook Turkey’s sale of the Bayraktar drones that have arguably contributed in the deaths of some 2,000 Russian soldiers in Ukraine, and reluctantly accepted its role as an intermediary in the crisis. At the strategic level, though, it will be difficult for him to tolerate Turkey’s accelerated bias toward the west.

It is true that Turkey is a regional power, and militarily strong, but it is also true that the US-led camp toward which it is tilting is in decline, torn apart by divisions, and failing dramatically in its economic sanctions regime against Russia. Furthermore, this camp is facing an alliance of two super-powers, a nuclear third (India), and a fourth on the way (Iran), together comprising more than half of the world’s population.

President Erdogan’s gamble with Russia is risky and may backfire, at just the wrong time.

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Abdel Bari Atwan was born in Gaza, Palestine and has lived in London since 1979. The founder and editor in chief of Raialyoum since 2013, Abdel Bari was previously the editor of London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi, an independent, pan-Arab daily newspaper since 1989. He is the author of several books, including the bestselling ‘The Secret History of al-Qa’ida,’ a prolific contributor to international media outlets – TV and print – and lectures worldwide.

Featured image is from The Cradle

Energy Geopolitics

May 1st, 2022 by Konrad Rękas

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Scholars disagree whenever there are 45 or even 83 definitions of energy security. Its understanding varies depending on the country in which is defined, its geographical, cultural and consciousness conditions.  

There are also different priorities within societies, depending on the position in the supply chain.  The widest accepted Yegrin’s definition focuses on “adequacy, reliability of and reasonability of prices”.

But this may confusingly indicate the priority of consumer interests (which even the naivest people probably stopped believing in by Autumn 2021 at the latest), and the “rationality of the markets” what is the oxymoron. 

No, completely different factors are decisive and it is clearly visible in the clash of seemingly separate strategies, such as the shift towards renewable energy (RE), currently presented as a response to climate change and the Western actions related to the war in Ukraine.

(Un)natural shift

The introduction of the geopolitical dimension to the analysis of energy security in the context of RE only seemingly looks like a paradox, as this aspect is often ignored in discussions on the energy transition.  But is obvious that the shift to RE would not arouse such interest from some governments, especially European ones, without geopolitical advantages for the continent having only 1% of global oil and 2% of natural gas reserves.  27 present EU member states and the UK rely on external energy supply.

Even if they possess fossils’ reserves themselves (like gas or oil), then rarely all at once, and never in the quantities used to cover all demand (Dutch gas, Scottish oil, Swedish uranium).  That is why we should distinguish these issues as a separate ‘energy geopolitics’.

Such a discipline may be considered young, but some researchers dare to draw parallels between hegemonic cycles and the dominant fossil fuel: coal for British hegemony in the 19th Century and oil for American domination.  In this context, it is crucial for further considerations on energy security to determine whether the assumed shift to RE may also have a geopolitical dimension, eliminating or at least weakening the possibility of the emergence of another hegemon of the unipolar World.

Who pays the bills?

Instead, the immanent features of RE would favour a multipolar network, with particular participation of non-state actors, especially NGOs and global civil society.  It would also be a significant paradigm change within IR theories, shifting the burden from a realistic geopolitical approach, seeing energy security as a strictly competitive game – towards the ‘global energy governance‘ assumption, based on cooperation and interdependence, and therefore naturally peaceful.  Such understood energy transition would also mean social change, with RE modifying the shape of social hierarchy, increasing the importance of the prosumers (i.e. producers and consumers at the same time), thus leading to a renewed type of society.

However, it is the social factor that often rejects changes, the most famous examples are known from the French Isle of Sein and Greek Crete.  The common acronym for such an attitude is NIMBY: ‘Not In My Back Yard’, that means ‘Even if I do not question the rightness of the change itself – I refuse to bear any costs related’.  And this resistance is fully justified, since the current costs are always on the side of the consumers and workers, and the profits on of the bank accounts of the Global Capital.  The very vision of a happy global society of minimal needs, generating energy on the side to satisfy small independent communities seems to be attractive for anti-system movements from left and right – but is clearly utopian and anachronistic considering involvement of both state global corporate actors.  This is no longer the initiative of a nice, only a bit grown up hippies, and at the real decision-making level, it probably never was.

The New Hegemony

Concept of the unequivocally positive influence of RE on the reduction of geopolitical risk is also questioned.  It is obvious that the increasing share of RE in the energy mix reduces the geopolitical influence of gas and oil exporters.  Critics argue that this may only mean changes in the leading positions within energy competition, without violating the rules of that challenge.  Just instead of fossils, the exporters of rare earth elements (REE) used in the production of RE infrastructure would gain importance.  Examples are the embargo imposed by China on REE export to Japan in 2010, the Sino-American conflicts caused by subsidising solar panels production in 2012/2013, dispute about subsidies for the wind turbines producers, and controversy about customs tariffs for REE within China-USA and China-EU trade relations.  So far, these controversies have been resolved at the WHO forum, but they prove that the tensions in IR will not disappear as a result of the technological change in energy production only.

Scholars emphasise the threat of supply shocks of REE used in the production of hybrid electric vehicles and some types of wind turbines, caused by assumed increase in demand on neodymium (forecasted 7% increase) and dysprosium (even 2600% increase!) in the next 25 years.  Demand for lithium used in battery cells is expected to grow at 674% by 2030.  Although critics admit that not all components of advanced RE technologies are actually that rare and can be explored in much more countries than hydrocarbons.  However, REE exploitation is associated with high environmental costs, difficult to be accepted in developed part of the World and production in peripheral countries is frequently disrupted, as in the case of cobalt used for battery cells, extracted in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Therefore, there is a potential risk of both a lock-in on REE-based technologies and the threat of new hegemonic conflicts over resources, which could occur e.g. in the Atacama Desert rich in lithium reserves.

Totalitarian Global Energy Market

The scarcity of space may also be conflicting, when onshore and PV-farms could require area up to 100-fold more than non-RE electric generation infrastructures.  It also opens up scope for potential conflicts over new divisions of the sea shelf for offshore installations.

Even basing international energy cooperation on the cross-border transfer of electricity seems to be controversial.  Supporters of such a transition argue that it promotes peaceful interdependence related to mutually beneficial exchange.  According to critics, there will be just new opportunities for ‘geopolitical leverage’between electricity exporters and importers.  The technological development of transmission networks, such as the popularization of UHV, may create new challenges as the need for a unified management of the global grid, which in turn is in contradiction with the assumption of more local nature of the new system.  And opposite, the dispersion of energy generation can be seen as an incentive for separatisms and centrifugal movements.  Especially in extreme conditions, such as war or escalating terrorism and cyberterrorism, this may not only prevent the planned global integration, but even disintegrate the current structures into unrelated geopolitical ‘energy islands’ what we can observe in Libya as effect of Western aggression.  The rest has to be managed and governed, in a standardised and uniform manner.  The question is by whom, since the energy transformation continues in the name of strengthening the neoliberal paradigm, deregulation and marketisation.  The logical consequence is the World Government, of course as a tool steered by the Totalitarian Global Market.

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Konrad Rękas is a renowned geopolitical analyst and a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: The White Mesa uranium mill, the only conventional uranium mill in the United States that is still operating, is owned by Energy Fuels, a Toronto-based company. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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***

On April 6, 2022, Burkina Faso’s ex-President Blaise Compaoré was tried, convicted and sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for murder.

It took 35 years for justice to catch up with him for murdering his revolutionary socialist predecessor, Thomas Sankara (the “Che Guevara of Africa”), in a 1987 right-wing military coup.

How long will justice take to catch up with the CIA and its French intelligence counterpart, the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (DGSE), for what appears to have been their part in masterminding or enabling the plot that overthrew and killed Sankara?

*

As young military officers in Burkina Faso during the 1970s and 1980s, Thomas Sankara and Blaise Compaoré were the best of friends. The two traveled the country playing in a musical band together and Sankara’s parents adopted Compaoré as his parents had died when he was young.

In 1983, Sankara and Compaoré launched a coup against Burkina Faso’s military regime by Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo. Sankara became president, and Compaoré his deputy, their bond remaining unshakeable.

But four years later, in an act of treachery fit for a Shakespearian tragedy, Compaoré and a group of commandos stormed a government building where Sankara was in a meeting and shot him at point-blank range.

According to a witness who claimed to be in the room at the time, Compaoré—possibly at the urging of his wife Chantal, the daughter of Ivory Coast leader Houphouët Boigny—was the one to pull the trigger.

The witness, Momo Jiba, an aide to Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, stated,

“I was right there when Thomas Sankara said ‘because you are my best friend, I call you my brother, and yet you assassinate me.’”

Upon hearing these words, Compaoré allegedly made an irritated gesture, said something to Sankara in French and then fired the first shot. If he had not done so, a man named Guengère, who later became Defense Minister, would have shot Sankara and become Burkina Faso’s next president.

Amis inséparables, Sankara et Compaoré verront leur amitié finir de manière tragique

Blaise Compaoré, right, and Thomas Sankara, left. [Source: bbc.com]

Belated Conviction

On April 6, 2022, time and the law finally caught up with Compaoré, who was convicted in absentia in Ouagadougou for killing Sankara and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Hyacinthe Kafundo, Compaoré’s former head of security, and General Gilbert Diendéré, a former senior army commander with close ties to the U.S., were also convicted and given life sentences.

Five other people were found guilty of a range of offenses, including giving false evidence, bribing potential witnesses and complicity in undermining state security. Three were found not guilty, including the doctor accused of saying on Sankara’s death certificate that he died of natural causes.

The verdict was greeted with jubilation by Sankara’s supporters in the courtroom. Seated near the front, Sankara’s widow Mariam Sankara, who now lives in the south of France, said justice had finally been delivered.

“The judges have done their jobs and I am satisfied. Of course, I wished the main suspects would be here before the judges,” she told the Associated Press. “It is not good that people kill other people and stop the process of development of a country without being punished.”

Throughout his 27-year rule from 1987 to 2014, Compaoré thwarted attempts to investigate the circumstances of Sankara’s death, including repeated calls for his remains to be exhumed (Sankara had been buried in a commoner’s grave), adding to speculation about Compaoré’s part in the murder.

Africa’s Che Guevara

Considered the “African Che Guevara,” Sankara was the rare revolutionary who was able to implement his ideals in power and to affect positive change.

Burkina Faso |  Prozess Thomas Sankara | 

Statue of Sankara in Ouagadougou. [Source: dw.com]

He oversaw huge increases in health and education spending during his presidency, promoting reforestation, land redistribution, vaccinations and women’s rights.

Only 37 at the time of his death, he broke the power of Mossi chiefs who embodied the feudal and colonial past, and attempted to create a Burkina-Ghana economic union with a new currency that would end dependence on the French franc.[1]

Sankara additionally a) forged close relations with Cuba and other revolutionary states, b) repudiated an IMF structural adjustment program that would have forced cutbacks to social services, c) called for African debt refusal, and d) sought to resurrect the UN’s New International Economic Order (NIEO), a transnational governance initiative that sought to reform the global economy in order to redirect more benefits to the developing world.[2]

Burkina Faso was valued by outside powers because of its possession of rare earth minerals, including copper, zinc, limestone, manganese and phosphate and gold mining, which Sankara sought to keep under national control.

Compaoré, by contrast, privatized large sections of the Burkinabé mining industry, continuing the cycle of foreign economic domination and underdevelopment from which Sankara sought to free his country.

Burkina Faso | Coup, Map, Capital, Flag, Government, & History | Britannica

Source: Britannica.com

A December 1988 World Bank report tellingly praised the remarkably high standards of financial management in Burkina Faso during Sankara’s leadership but noted the growing prevalence of corruption since Compaoré had taken over.[3]

Described as “cold and calculating” with a “taste for luxury” that he shared with his wife, Compaoré was so close to the French that, when he was ousted from power in 2014, French troops evacuated him by helicopter to Ivory Coast, where he still lives.

Image

Source: twitter.com

Headquarters of U.S. Military and Surveillance Empire

A generation after Sankara’s death, Burkina Faso has been transformed into a U.S. military outpost and headquarters of the U.S. surveillance empire in Western Africa.

In September 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle posed with Compaoré and his wife Chantal at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. At the time, several dozen U.S. military personnel and contractors were working in Burkina Faso.

A group of people posing for a photo Description automatically generated

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama pose for a photo during a reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré and his wife, First Lady Chantal Compaoré, in September 2009. [Source: commons.wikimedia.org]

The Obama administration provided more than $35 million in security assistance to Compaoré—even though Burkina Faso’s security forces had an atrocious human rights record.

AFRICOM during Compaoré’s rule was permitted to open a new surveillance base at Ouagadougou International Airport in a classified program known as Operation Creek Sand and a classified regional intelligence fusion center known as Aztec Archer was also established.

A group of people posing for a photo Description automatically generated

The Obamas with the Compaorés in the White House’s Blue Room in August 2014. Blaise was participating in an African leaders’ summit. [Source: commons.wikimedia.org]

American Special Forces worked with the chief of Compaoré’s presidential guard, Gilbert Diendéré, his accomplice in Sankara’s assassination, and went into the field on patrols against Islamic insurgents embedded with local troops.[4]

In 2018 and 2019, the Trump administration pumped in $100 million in “security cooperation” funding—equal to about two-thirds of Burkina Faso’s 2016 defense budget—making it one of the largest recipients of U.S. security aid in West Africa.

A person standing next to a group of people in clothing Description automatically generated with medium confidence

AFRICOM Commander Stephen J. Townsend, who covered up war crimes in Syria, reviews Burkinabé troops during a visit to Burkina Faso in September 2019. [Source: Africom.mil]

This aid fueled greater instability with Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who took part in at least half a dozen U.S. training exercises, seizing power in a coup in January 2022.

Burkina Faso today ranks only 144th out of 157 nations in quality of life indicators established by the World Bank, with 40% of the population living in poverty. Only about one-third of adults in Burkina Faso are literate, and fewer than 20% of residents have access to electricity.

“It’s Me They Are Looking For”

On the day of the killing, Sankara had just begun a meeting with members of his Cabinet when soldiers stormed in. According to the lone survivor, Halouna Traoré, Sankara declared, “It’s me they are looking for” and went outside to face his assassins, who killed him along with twelve of his associates.[5]

The findings of the autopsy—only made public in October 2015—corroborated that Sankara had been assassinated while holding up his arms—contrary to Compaoré’s claim that Sankara had shot first.

The subsequent radio broadcast announcing Sankara’s execution referred to him as a “traitor to the revolution” and “autocratic mystic” whose “high treason” was epitomized by his “personalization of power” and “use of mysticism to try to solve the problems of the masses.”[6]

The commandos that executed Sankara included Gilbert Diendéré, who would later be promoted to the rank of Knight of the Legion of Honor during a visit to France in May 2008 and briefly became head of state after mounting a coup in 2015.

Françafrique and the Removal of a “Troublesome Man”

During the 1960s, French President Charles de Gaulle (1959-1969) entrusted Jacques Foccart with the mission of holding West Africa under French influence even in an era of decolonization.

Nicknamed “Monsieur Afrique,” Foccart set up a network of contacts under de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou (1969-1974), which organized surveillance across the francophone African region and adopted covert actions and other “dirty tricks.”

This shadow network was termed “la Françafrique,” and was still operational when Sankara was killed. Though its records remain classified, we know that French agents were present at the time of Sankara’s assassination and had spoken about “destabilization efforts” with U.S. diplomats.[7]

France had withdrawn its financial aid prior to the coup in an effort to bankrupt Burkina Faso’s economy and provoke fissures in the revolutionary leadership,[8] and then destroyed wiretaps targeting Compaoré the day after the assassination.

On the day of the coup, Chantal Compaoré was in Paris under the company of Ambassador Barry Djibrina, her husband’s link to Foccart who obviously knew something was afoot.[9]

A picture containing text Description automatically generated

Chantal Compaoré on the day of her marriage to Blaise. She apparently had a taste for luxury and drove a wedge between Thomas and Blaise. [Source: facebook.com]

The French had wanted Sankara removed from the earliest days of his rule because he opposed the neo-colonial model that favored French interests in West Africa. At a reception during President François Mitterrand’s visit to Ouagadougou in 1986, Sankara lashed out at French policy in Africa, stating:

We cannot understand why bandits like Jonas Savimbi [Angolan warlord backed by the CIA], killers like Pieter Botha [Apartheid South Africa leader], have been authorized to travel to France, so beautiful and decent a country. They stained her with their hands and feet covered with blood. Those who allowed them to commit such actions will bear responsibility here and elsewhere in the world, now and forever!

These comments made Sankara a marked man. Mitterrand afterwards said,

“I admire [Sankara’s] great qualities, but he is too forthright; in my opinion he goes too far,” adding “this is a somewhat troublesome man, President Sankara.”

This was exactly the view the Belgians had of another Pan-Africanist leader, Patrice Lumumba of Congo, who was assassinated soon after he publicly criticized the colonial system and suggested that the Belgians had not been benign overlords.

revolutionary socialism in the 21st century - Patrice Lumumba's legacy

Patrice Lumumba, center, before he was killed by Belgian proxies. [Source: revolutionarysocialism.tumblr.com]

U.S. Seeks Regime Change Too

U.S. diplomats had a view of Sankara similar to Mitterand’s. One diplomat, John C. Baxter, was expelled from Burkina Faso for “subversive activities” that included “consorting with anti-government conspirators,” possibly while working under official cover for the CIA.[10]

Prior to the assassination, the military attaché at the U.S. embassy worked closely with his French counterpart in Ouagadougou. U.S. military training programs had provided access to “the very center of power,” with the U.S. embassy holding a seminar for senior military officers, including Compaoré. International Military Education and Training (IMET) program graduates were mostly pro-Compaoré, including Gilbert Diendéré’s brother Dominique.[11]

U.S. Ambassador Leonardo Neher (1984-1987), who had worked in Congo after Lumumba’s assassination, characterized Burkina Faso under Sankara as a “very radical, very troublesome country in West Africa,” whose leaders [led by Sankara] “had a Marxist vocabulary and were good friends with Qhaddafi’s [Libyan leader] and they were up on the stage everyplace in the world denouncing the U.S. and imperialism, and siding with Cuba, the Soviets, and with Nicaragua.”

Herman Cohen, the former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, recounted in a 1995 book that,

“as a member of the American Executive, I accused Sankara of trying to destabilize the entire region of West Africa. Houphouët [Boigny] dismissed my concerns with the flippant remark, ‘Don’t worry, Sankara is just a boy. He will mature quickly.’ Since we were alone, I insisted that Sankara was hurting the image of the entire French community in West Africa and would eventually hurt Houphouët himself.”[12]

The latter was unacceptable as Boigny was long regarded as a bulwark against the spread of pan-African and socialist movements in Western Africa, a loyal friend to foreign capital and an ally in the Cold War.

After Compaoré seized power, the Reagan administration trained and funded the Burkinabé army in an attempt to stabilize his rule. This in spite of a reign of terror carried out by Compaoré, which included the arrest, imprisonment, torture and execution of Sankara family members and supporters.[13]

“Sankara Was a Socialist, So He Had to Go”

In 2009, Italian filmmaker Silvestro Montanaro produced a documentary, African Shadows, which implicated U.S. and French intelligence agencies in Sankara’s killing along with Compaoré.

The film includes interviews with two close aides to Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, who had been recruited by the CIA to overthrow Liberian dictator Samuel K. Doe in the late 1980s.[14]

One of these aides, Momo Jiba, stated that his boss [Taylor] had told him to approach Sankara for help in taking power in Liberia in exchange for lucrative business opportunities.

When Sankara rejected the idea, Taylor met in Mauritania with a general named Guengère, later Burkina Faso’s Defense Minister, Blaise Compaoré, and Chad President Idriss Déby along with a white Frenchman who was probably part of Foccart’s network.

At the meeting it was decided that, for Taylor to be able to use Burkina Faso as a launching pad to wage war in Liberia, Sankara had to be eliminated and Compaoré would become president. All of this was part of America’s interest in controlling Burkina Faso, according to Jibo.

According to Cyril Allen, another of Taylor’s top aides, “the Americans and French sanctioned the plan to remove Sankara.”

Allen stated that

“there was a CIA operative and the U.S. embassy in Burkina Faso worked closely with the Secret Service at the French embassy and they made the crucial decisions. The French secret service decided to eliminate Sankara. Those are the facts.”

Prince Yormie Johnson, another one-time Taylor associate, stated that the CIA had infiltrated the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) and convinced the NPFL leadership and Compaoré that Sankara had to be assassinated.

The United States wanted this, Allen affirmed, because “they were not happy with Sankara. He was talking of nationalizing his country’s resources to benefit his people. He was a socialist so he had to go.”[15]

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Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He is the author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019) and The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018). He can be reached at: [email protected].

Notes

  1. Brian J. Peterson Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2021), 257. Sankara also promoted close ties between Burkino Faso and China, accepting a $20 million interest free loan from China for agricultural development. 

  2. See Ernest Harsch, Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary (Miami, OH: Ohio University Press, 2014.); Peterson, Thomas Sankara, 219. Sankara suggested that Africans did not have the means to pay back their debt, and that the loans had been issued with steep interest rates on the advice of Western financial experts who ultimately bore responsibility for the mushrooming of the debt. 
  3. Unlike many African leaders of the time, Sankara himself lived austerely. At his death Sankara is reported to have left his $450 salary, a modest sedan car, four bikes, 3 guitars, a fridge and a broken freezer. 
  4. Jeremy Kuzmarov, Obama’s Unending Wars: Fronting the Foreign Policy of the Permanent Warfare State (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2019), 104; Craig Whitlock, “U.S. Expands Secret Intelligence Operations in Africa,” The Washington Post, June 13, 2012, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-expands-secret-intelligence-operations-in-africa/2012/06/13/gJQAHyvAbV_story.html. 
  5. Only Halouna Traoré survived to tell the story of the killing. Peterson, Thomas Sankara, 291. 
  6. Elliott Skinner, “Sankara and the Burkinabe Revolution: Charisma and Power, Local and External Dimensions,” The Journal of Modern African Studies, 26, 3 (1988), 437. 
  7. Though intent on minimizing foreign involvement in the assassination, Peterson points to the presence in Burkina Faso of a French military officer tied to the Foccart network—thought to be General Jeannou Lacaze (aka “The Sphinx”), Francois Mitterand’s Chef d’Etat-Major for the armed forces—in the months before the assassination. Peterson, Thomas Sankara, 230. 
  8. Peterson, Thomas Sankara, 271. 
  9. Peterson, Thomas Sankara, 285. 
  10. Peterson, Thomas Sankara, 153. The CIA at the time was also involved in regime-change efforts in Ghana directed against Jerry Rawlings who was close to Sankara. President Ronald Reagan refused to meet with Sankara at the White House because a speech he gave before the UN General Assembly was considered to be too radical. Instead, Sankara visited Harlem where he was revered. Harsch, Thomas Sankara, 113, 114. 
  11. Peterson, Thomas Sankara, 276. Some of the pro-Compaoré officers “expressed longing for the old days of corruption because they utilized this as a means of supplementing their low salaries.” 
  12. See Herman J. Cohen, The Mind of the African Strongman: Conversations with Dictators, Statesmen, and Father Figures (Washington, DC: New Academia Publishing, 2015); Peterson, Thomas Sankara, 273. 
  13. See Peterson, Thomas Sankara, 294, 296. A resident of Ougadougou recounted in 2013 that, under the new post-Sankara order, “anyone who opposed Blaise was killed. Blaise’s men massacred people and traumatized the people, and we were afraid to speak out.” 
  14. See Jeremy Kuzmarov, “How the CIA Helped Ruin Liberia,” CovertAction Magazine, July 30, 2021, https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/07/30/how-the-cia-helped-ruin-liberia/. The CIA had helped Taylor—who had been accused of embezzlement by Doe when he was a finance minister—escape from a county jail in Massachusetts in 1985. 
  15. Niels Hahn, Two Centuries of US Military Operations in Liberia: Challenges of Resistance and Compliance (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 2020), 121. 

Featured image: Blaise Compaoré [Source: independent.co.ug]

History: What You Need to Know About May Day

May 1st, 2022 by Leo Panitch

First published in 2010.

The legacy of the late Leo Panitch lives.

For more than 100 years, May Day has symbolized the common struggles of workers around the globe. Why is it largely ignored in North America? The answer lies in part in American labour’s long repression of its own radical past, out of which international May Day was actually born a century ago.

The seeds were sown in the campaign for the eight-hour work day. On May 1, 1886, hundreds of thousands of North American workers mobilized to strike. In Chicago, the demonstration spilled over into support for workers at a major farm-implements factory who’d been locked out for union activities. On May 3, during a pitched battle between picketers and scabs, police shot two workers. At a protest rally in Haymarket Square the next day, a bomb was tossed into the police ranks and police directed their fire indiscriminately at the crowd. Eight anarchist leaders were arrested, tried and sentenced to death (three were later pardoned).

These events triggered international protests, and in 1889, the first congress of the new socialist parties associated with the Second International (the successor to the First International organized by Karl Marx in the 1860s) called on workers everywhere to join in an annual one-day strike on May 1 – not so much to demand specific reforms as an annual demonstration of labour solidarity and working-class power. May Day was both a product of, and an element in, the rapid growth of new mass working-class parties of Europe – which soon forced official recognition by employers and governments of this “workers’ holiday.”

But the American Federation of Labor (AFL), chastened by the “red scare” that followed the Haymarket events, went along with those who opposed May Day observances. Instead, in 1894, the AFL embraced president Grover Cleveland’s decree that the first Monday of September would be the annual Labor Day. The Canadian government of Sir Robert Thompson enacted identical Labour Day legislation a month later.

Ever since, May Day and Labour Day have represented in North America the two faces of working-class political tradition, one symbolizing its revolutionary potential, the other its long search for reform and respectability. With the support of the state and business, the latter has predominated – but the more radical tradition has never been entirely suppressed.

This radical May Day tradition is nowhere better captured than in Bryan Palmer’s monumental book, Cultures of Darkness: Night Travels in the Histories of Transgression [From Medieval to Modern] (Monthly Review Press, 2000). Palmer, one of Canada’s foremost Marxist labour historians, has done more than anyone to recover and analyze the cultures of resistancethat working people developed in practising class struggle from below. He’s strongly critical of labour-movement leaders who’ve appealed to those elements of working-class culture that crave ersatz bourgeois respectability.

Set amid chapters on peasants and witches in late feudalism, on pirates and slaves during the rise of mercantile imperialism, on fraternal lodge members and anarchists in the new cities of industrial capitalism, on lesbians, homosexuals and communists under fascism, and on the mafia, youth gangs and race riots, jazz, beats and bohemians in modern U.S. capitalism, are two chapters that brilliantly tell the story of May Day. One locates Haymarket in the context of the Victorian bourgeoisie’s fears of what they called the “dangerous classes.” This account confirms the central role of the “anarcho-communist movement in Chicago [which] was blessed with talented leaders, dedicated ranks and the most active left-wing press in the country. The dangerous classes were becoming truly dangerous.”

The other chapter, a survey of “Festivals of Revolution,” locates “the celebratory May Day, a festive seizure of working-class initiative that encompassed demands for shorter hours, improvement in conditions, and socialist agitation and organization” against the backdrop of the traditional spring calendar of class confrontation.

Over the past century communist revolutions were made in the name of the working class, and social democratic parties were often elected into government. In their different ways, both turned May Day to the purposes of the state. Before the 20th century was out the communist regimes imploded in internal contradictions between authoritarianism and the democratic purpose of socialism, while most social democratic ones, trapped in the internal contradictions between the welfare state and increasingly powerful capital markets, accommodated to neoliberalism and become openly disdainful of “old labour.”

As for the United States, the tragic legacy of the repression of its radical labour past is an increasingly de-unionized working class mobilized by fundamentalist Christian churches. Canada, with its NDP and 30-per-cent unionized labour force, looks good by comparison.

Working classes have suffered defeat after defeat in this era of capitalist globalization. But they’re also in the process of being transformed: The decimated industrial proletariat of the global North is being replaced by a bigger industrial proletariat in the global South. In both regions, a new working class is still being formed in the new service and communication sectors spawned by global capitalism (where the eight-hour day is often unknown). Union movements and workers’ parties from Poland to Korea to South Africa to Brazil have been spawned in the past 20 years. Two more books out of Monthly Review Press – Ursula Huws’ The Making of a Cybertariat (2003) and the late Daniel Singer’s Whose Millennium? Theirs or Ours?(1999) – don’t deal with May Day per se, but capture particularly well this global economic and political transformation. They tell much that is sober yet inspiring about why May Day still symbolizes the struggle for a future beyond capitalism rather than just a homage to the struggles of the past.

The late Leo Panitch taught political economy at York University, He was co-editor of The Socialist Register and author of Renewing Socialist Democracy, Strategy and Imagination. 

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First published on Labor Day, 2021.

War, repression, and imperialism characterize the objective plight of billions of humans still gripped by the vicious colonial-capitalist world system. May 1 is the day laboring classes claim for themselves as International Workers’ Day to reaffirm the struggle against the dehumanization and degradation of the global capitalist order kept in place by state violence and war. May 1 also is the deadline the United States agreed to last year to pull out of Afghanistan to end the suffering of that nation of workers and peasants. It also is the day the workers and poor of Haiti have chosen to revolt against the puppet government imposed on them by the Biden-Harris administration, a duo that has proven in its first 100 days its commitment to Black life does not extend beyond domestic public-relations stunts.

Over a million Black working-class and poor people rot in the gulags of the United States as a surplus population, unneeded by capital except as an income generator for prison custodians and slave labor. And for the rest of the Black and Brown working class and poor, the domestic army referred to as the police are tasked with the responsibility to protect and serve the capitalist extraction of surplus value from labor through coercion and, when needed, terror.

This is the domestic expression of a global system that produces billions of people living in abject poverty in nations ruled by a contemptible neocolonial ruling class, usually supported by the United States or one of the other European colonial powers. These neocolonial puppets have no hesitation in using unimaginable violence to keep the people in line.

But the people are in resistance.

In Haiti, the people have fought for their collective dignity against a U.S. stooge for over a year. Having taken to the streets in the thousands, they have sustained the resistance to the point that the state has turned to increasingly desperate, escalating violence in its goal to contain the people.

In the United States, hundreds of wildcat strikes have occurred, demonstrating that even in the midst of a pandemic, the spirit of working-class resistance finds expression.

And in Venezuela, the Bolivarian process is still holding firm against all measures of U.S. provocations and cruel sanctions meant to punish the people, who refuse the indignity of surrender to Yankee imperialism.

The inability of capitalist states to protect the fundamental human rights of its citizens, revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic, has resulted in a new consciousness among workers and laboring classes globally. It now is clear the interests of the global capitalists are different from the interests of the rest of collective humanity. And because of that understanding, the warmongers are finding it a little more difficult to mobilize the public to protect imperialist interests.

On May 1, the Black Alliance for Peace stands in solidarity with the workers of the world and pledges our commitment to do our part to confront the capitalist dictatorship.

We say without hesitation or concern for retaliation on this International Workers’ Day that we will intensify the opposition to imperialism. From the streets of Atlanta, Detroit and Baltimore, to Cuba, Haiti, Libya, and Venezuela, we will “turn imperialist wars into wars against imperialism.”

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Featured image is from The Intentional Workplace 

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President Biden has asked Congress for another 33 billion dollars to arm and train the Ukrainian forces, in addition to the 20 billion dollars already allocated and provided to Kiev: a total of over 50 billion dollars from 2014 for the war against Russia. At the same time, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met in Germany with representatives of more than 40 countries, including Italy, to plan additional arms shipments.

This results in enormous military spending of public money diverted from social spending. For example, the M777 howitzer supplied to Ukrainian forces can fire 7 Excalibur bullets per minute at 40 km. Each bullet costs $112,000. Therefore in one minute the howitzer shoots bullets costing the equivalent of 25 gross annual salaries (according to the Italian average).

The US and NATO are thus conducting a proxy war against Russia in Europe, which began with the 2014 coup d’état and the attack on the Russian populations of Ukraine. Dramatic evidence of this is the massacre in Odessa on May 2, 2014, carried out by the neo-Nazi forces – Pravi Sektor, Azov Battalion and others – that have since assumed power in Kiev.

The regime established in Ukraine, represented publicly by President Zelensky, has imposed a single party and a single television channel, shutting down 11 political parties and all other television channels; it has drawn up a proscription list of thousands of independent journalists and implemented a systematic campaign of torture and assassinations to eliminate all opposition.

Europe, through the European Union itself, is thus dragged into the abyss of the war against Russia, which the US and NATO want to make permanent. The price paid by European citizens is enormous: the boycott of Russian gas imports is causing a disastrous economic crisis. Hence the vital need to bring Italy and Europe out of the war.

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This article was originally published in Italian on byoblu.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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***

“In this [DOD] database… the rise in congenital malformations increased dramatically, from a baseline rate of 10,906 cases per year in 2021… to 18,951 congenital malformations for [just] part of the year of 2021. For part of the year of 2021, [congenital malformations] nearly doubled in the fetuses of our brave women… who submitted to what our President said they had to do.

As the Commander-in-Chief [forced] this experimental vaccine, their babies suffered! Their babies suffered!”

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Elon Musk Buys Twitter

May 1st, 2022 by Dr. Joseph Mercola

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April 25, 2022, Twitter accepted Elon Musk’s buyout offer of $44 billion. At the completion of the transaction, Twitter will become a privately held company under Musk’s leadership

Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist” with an “obsession with the truth,” has been open about his opinion that Twitter needs to be taken private in order to become a true free-speech platform

In a best-case scenario, Musk will use his newfound power to expose (and hopefully help end) government and legacy media-directed censorship

In 2020, Twitter falsely labeled Mercola links as unsafe and malicious. Shortly thereafter, they banned Mercola links from being posted altogether. Eventually, our account was removed for breach of “Twitter rules”

Social media platforms of all kinds, including Twitter, have been seemingly working together, censoring the same information — a fact that suggests some sort of centralized decision maker

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By now you’ve probably heard the big news: Twitter accepted Elon Musk’s buyout offer.1 Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist” with an “obsession with the truth,”2 has been open about his opinion that Twitter needs to be taken private in order to become a true free-speech platform.

With this buyout, Musk could potentially make that happen. His plans for the platform reportedly include “an edit feature, an open-source algorithm, less moderation, and a higher bar for removing offending tweets,” The Verge reports.3

$44 Billion Buyout Approved

As reported by Reuters,4 the deal was made after Musk met with a number of shareholders, outlining the specifics of his $54.20 share bid. This outreach to the shareholders appears to have force the board of directors’ hand.

Not only do they have a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interest of shareholders, but they also realized that declining the offer would mean Musk could dump his stock (he already owned 9.1%5), causing the stock price to plummet. According to Reuters:6

“Many Twitter shareholders reached out to the company after Musk outlined a detailed financing plan for his bid … and urged it not to let the opportunity for a deal slip away …”

April 25, 2022, Musk and Twitter struck a deal for roughly $44 billion. It was unanimously approved by the 11-member board. At the completion of the transaction, Twitter will become a privately held company under Musk’s leadership.7 It’s reportedly the largest deal to make a company private in the last two decades.8 In a statement announcing the buyout, Musk said:9

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.

I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”

Will Musk Reinstate Previously Banned Accounts?

Of course, everyone is now wondering how Twitter might change under Musk’s leadership.

“The billionaire, who has more than 83 million followers on Twitter and has romped across the service hurling gibes and memes, has repeatedly said he wants to ‘transform’ the platform by promoting more free speech and giving users more control over what they see on it. By taking the company private, Mr. Musk could work on the service out of sight of the prying eyes of investors, regulators and others,” The New York Times noted.10

On the other hand, Musk may in fact use his newfound power to reveal rather than hide. He will have the ability to investigate and expose government and legacy media-directed censorship, for example.

Over the past two years, we’ve seen social media companies working in lockstep to censor certain views, and we’ve already seen evidence that government officials have backdoor channels through which they’ve been instructing companies to censor information on their behalf. It’s not legal, but they’ve been doing it anyway — and getting away with it.

Many are now hoping Musk will unban those who were previously kicked off the platform, although the most famously banned individual, former President Donald Trump, has stated he will not be going back on Twitter, as he has since launched his own social media platform.

But of interest to everyone on this site is that in the summer of 2020, Twitter started falsely labeling Mercola.com links as unsafe and malicious, telling potential readers that my site might steal passwords and other personal data, or install malware on your computer — a tactic that decreased views by about 95%.

This was and is completely false. On the contrary, my site was by then set up to protect all readers from Google’s intrusive data mining. Shortly after that, Twitter banned Mercola links altogether. If you included a link to one of my articles, your post would simply be rejected and not posted.

Time will tell whether Musk will allow all previously banned accounts to be reinstated. Of course, among those accounts are also many other doctors and scientists who have been trying to share information about SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID shots.

If Musk acts with integrity, his takeover of Twitter could end up being a true watershed moment in the fight for personal freedom and the freedom of speech. Big Tech reporter Dan Patterson, interviewed by CBS News in the video above, doesn’t believe Musk is being completely honest about his intentions for Twitter.

Patterson suspects the free-speech talking point is “a red herring,” and that Musk is more interested in gaining influence than protecting free speech. The Washington Post11 appears to second that motion, pointing out that even though Twitter isn’t the most influential platform out there, “politicians, companies and activists often rely on the platform to set the news agenda.”

Twitter Has Censored Science

Perhaps more egregious than censoring and banning any particular individual is the fact that Twitter (and other social media platforms) have censored science itself, which is an incredibly dangerous move.

For example, at the end of April 2021, Twitter censored a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Medical Hypotheses,12 which concluded that masks are ineffective for blocking the viral transmission and can cause substantial adverse physiological and psychological effects.

Prashant Bhushan, an advocate-on-record for the Supreme Court of India, a respected human rights attorney with 2.1 million Twitter followers, posted a tweet that recommended reading the study. Twitter promptly removed the post, citing violation of Twitter rules.

As noted by The COVID Blog13 at the time, “Twenty-something Twitter employees with Starbucks lattes are now the authorities in law and science versus respected, long-time attorneys who have fought corruption their entire lives.”

Lockstep Censorship Has Become Norm

As crazy as that is, mainstream media have been all-onboard with the censorship of science, and as noted by investigative journalist Paul Thacker,14 one of the main reasons why media have been so unwilling to call out Big Tech censorship is because the media rely on fake fact checks to support their own lies.

Social media platforms of all kinds have also been seemingly working together, censoring the same information — a fact that suggests some sort of centralized decision-maker. As reported by Thacker:15

“In other examples, Facebook has censored an investigation I wrote for The BMJ that found troubling data integrity problems with Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial.

Editors with The BMJ sent Mark Zuckerberg an Open Letter calling his company’s fact check ‘inaccurate, incompetent and irresponsible.’ Two weeks ago, Johns Hopkins professor Marty Makary tweeted that LinkedIn censored a post he wrote about a study published in JAMA.

That JAMA study found that natural immunity, caused by getting sick with the COVID-19 virus, seems just as effective as a vaccine. In this light, social media companies act as propaganda arms of pharma and denigrate any complex thinking that questions the value of the vaccines that they sell.

Reporters should be opposed to censoring scientific information, but most media — especially that odd species called the science writer — has aligned with the interests of scientists and the fact-checking industry …

Disinformation doesn’t have to be sophisticated when people believe what they read. Once this belief is established, censors ensure that disinformation remains strong, followed by denial that there is censoring. That way inconvenient facts do not mar the chosen story.”

An Evolving Story

It’s still too early to say whether Musk’s takeover of Twitter will mark a U-turn toward freedom of speech. I for one hope that’s the case. In the featured CBS News clip, Patterson muddies the waters by claiming that free speech is a nebulous thing that can be interpreted in any number of ways.

This isn’t the case, but we can’t be too surprised. By and large, we’ve seen Republicans and free speech supporters support Musk’s takeover of Twitter, while Democrats have been crying that taking Twitter private poses a “threat to democracy;” that it will open the doors to all manner of “hate speech” and will need close scrutiny.16

However, Musk is absolutely correct in his view that without freedom of speech — the right to speak your mind, even if others think you’re wrong — democracy is nothing but a fantasy. What censorship mavens are calling hate speech is usually nothing but an opposing opinion.

I still remember the days when social media involved being exposed to opinions of all kinds. While there’s the possibility of being “offended,” if you want to live in a free society, you have no choice but to allow opposing views to exist.

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Notes

1, 2, 3, 5 The Verge April 25, 2022

4, 6 Reuters April 25, 2022

7, 9 Cision PR April 25, 2022

8, 10 New York Times April 25, 2022 (Archived)

11 Washington Post April 26, 2022 (Archived)

12 Med Hypotheses. 2021 Jan; 146: 110411

13 The Covid Blog April 12, 2021

14, 15 JoSPI February 22, 2022

16 Wall Street Journal April 26, 2022

Featured image is from YugaTech

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California Attorney General Rob Bonta has announced that his department will be undertaking a first-of-its-kind investigation to determine the role that the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries have played in the escalating global plastics crisis. The California Department of Justice is narrowing down on one company in particular: ExxonMobil, a corporation that’s previously been pegged as being the greatest polluter of single-use plastics in the world.

“In California and across the globe, we are seeing the catastrophic results of the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long campaign of deception,” Bonta said in a statement on April 28. “Plastic pollution is seeping into our waterways, poisoning our environment, and blighting our landscapes. Enough is enough.”

Bonta said the plastics industry has engaged in an “aggressive campaign to deceive the public” that has sustained “a myth that recycling can solve the plastics crisis.” Data compiled by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows that recycling in the U.S. has never surpassed 9%.

The California DOJ issued a subpoena to ExxonMobil to seek information about whether the corporation has deceived the public about the harmful effects of plastic and the difficulties of recycling plastic products, and if it has violated any laws in doing so.

ExxonMobil denied these allegations in a statement.

“We share society’s concerns and are collaborating with governments, including the State of California, communities and other industries to support projects around the world to improve waste management and circularity,” Julie L. King, a spokesperson for the company, said in the statement. “We are the first company to deploy commercial-scale advanced recycling technology at a major petrochemical facility. This technology converts a broad range of used plastic to raw materials that can be utilized to make new plastic.”

ExxonMobil has previously been pegged as being the greatest polluter of single-use plastics in the world.

ExxonMobil has previously been pegged as being the greatest polluter of single-use plastics in the world. Image by Tom Fisk via Pexels.

Internal documents have revealed that leading oil and gas corporations in the U.S. have known about the unfeasibility of recycling plastics since the 1970s, according to a recent report. Yet these same companies have heralded the recycling capacities of plastics for decades, experts say.

An analysis by the Minderoo Foundation in Australia revealed that ExxonMobil contributed 5.9 million metric tons to global plastic waste, making the company the largest producer of single-use plastics. The report also found that about 100 companies, including ExxonMobil, were responsible for 90% of global production of single-use plastics.

Environmental experts have welcomed the California DOJ’s investigation, saying it’s time for the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries to be held accountable for their contributions to the plastics crisis.

“I view this as a very significant investigation which has the potential to finally hold plastic producers accountable for the immense environmental damage caused by plastics,” said Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics who previously served as a regional administrator for the EPA. “It will also address the ongoing deception of claiming that plastics are recyclable when, in fact, less than 10% are actually recycled. I applaud California Attorney General Rob Bonta for taking this bold action.”

In October 2021, Beyond Plastics released a report that said the plastics industry was set to overtake coal by 2030 in terms of carbon emissions in the U.S., and that plastic was not only a waste issue, but that plastic production was exacerbating the climate crisis. The report found that plastics production in the U.S. currently generates about 232 million metric tons of greenhouse gases every year, equivalent to about 116.5 gigawatts of coal plants. As production continues to increase, so will the amount of carbon emissions, the study says.

Now that the world is shifting toward renewable energy sources, fossil fuel and petrochemical companies appear to be refocusing their efforts to plastics production, recently investing $208 billion to expand the global production of plastics.

Carroll Muffett, president of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), said it was “reasonable and appropriate” to investigate whether ExxonMobil misled the public when considering the “mountains of evidence” that such corporations have long deceived the public about the role their products have played in the climate crisis.

“The harms and costs confronting the State and people of California are significant, but they’re not unique,” Mufett said. “From frontline and fenceline communities harmed by plastic production and incineration, to people facing plastics on their shorelines and croplands, in their food and water supplies, and in their bodies, the impacts of plastic are diverse, widespread, and accelerating. So, while California’s action is the first of its kind, it is unlikely to be the last.”

Research suggests that about 450 million metric tons of plastic are produced every year, and that this is set to double by 2045. Much of this plastic ends up in the environment, polluting both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Plastic has been found in the deepest parts of the ocean to some of the highest mountains. It’s found in drinking water, food, and even the air we breathe. In short, plastic is everywhere.

A report published by WWF suggests that each of us consumes about a credit card’s worth of plastic every single week

A growing number of studies show that plastic can be detrimental to human health, although its impacts are still being fully investigated. One study found microplastic — particles smaller than 5 millimeters, or three-sixteenths of an inch — present in human fetuses. Another piece of research found that microplastics were present in human blood.

Microplastics in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, U.S.

Microplastics in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, U.S. One study found microplastic — particles smaller than 5 millimeters, or three-sixteenths of an inch — present in human fetuses. Another piece of research found that microplastics were present in human blood. Image by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0).

Plastic has become ubiquitous in our world — but it’s only one of about 350,000 different kinds of artificial chemicals, or “novel entities,” circulating in our world. This has led researchers to say in a recent study that we have breached a “planetary boundary” for chemical pollution, pushing humanity down a dangerous, irrevocable path.

In March this year, 175 countries agreed to adopt a global plastics treaty to curb plastic production and disposal, but the details of this agreement have yet to be determined. A group of scientists recently published a letter in Science, arguing that the treaty must place a cap on the production of new plastics in order to properly address the issue.

“For too long, ExxonMobil and other corporate polluters have been allowed to mislead the public and harm people and the planet,” said Graham Forbes, plastics global campaign lead at Greenpeace USA. “The science has become crystal clear that we must move away from fossil fuels and throwaway plastic. It is encouraging to see the state of California stand up to the fossil fuel industry. Hopefully, this is a sign that policymakers are ready to start holding corporations accountable.”

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Elizabeth Claire Alberts is a staff writer for Mongabay. Follow her on Twitter @ECAlberts.

Sources

Allen, S., Allen, D., Baladima, F., Phoenix, V. R., Thomas, J. L., Le Roux, G., & Sonke, J. E. (2021). Evidence of free tropospheric and long-range transport of microplastic at Pic du Midi Observatory. Nature Communications, 12. doi:10.1038/s41467-021-27454-7

Bergmann, M., Carney Almroth, B., Brander, S. M., Dey, T., Green, D. S., Gundogdu, S., … Walker, T. R. (2022). A global plastic treaty must cap production. Science.doi:10.1126/science.abq0082

Charles, D., Kimman, L., & Saran, N. (2021). Plastic Waste Makers Index: Revealing the source of the single-use plastics crisis. Retrieved from Minderoo Foundation website: https://cdn.minderoo.org/content/uploads/2021/05/27094234/20211105-Plastic-Waste-Makers-Index.pdf

Leslie, H. A., Van Velzen, M. J., Brandsma, S. H., Vethaak, A. D., Garcia-Vallejo, J. J., & Lamoree, M. H. (2022). Discovery and quantification of plastic particle pollution in human blood. Environment International, 163. doi:10.1016/j.envint.2022.107199

Persson, L., Carney Almroth, B. M., Collins, C. D., Cornell, S., De Wit, C. A., Diamond, M. L., … Hauschild, M. Z. (2022). Outside the safe operating space of the planetary boundary for novel entities. Environmental Science & Technology, 56(3), 1510-1521. doi:10.1021/acs.est.1c04158

Ragusa, A., Svelato, A., Santacroce, C., Catalano, P., Notarstefano, V., Carnevali, O., … Giorgini, E. (2021). Plasticenta: First evidence of microplastics in human placenta. Environment International, 146, 106274. doi:10.1016/j.envint.2020.106274

Vallette, J. (2021). The New Coal: Plastics and Climate Change. Retrieved from Beyond Plastic website: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5eda91260bbb7e7a4bf528d8/t/616ef29221985319611a64e0/1634661022294/REPORT_The_New-Coal_Plastics_and_Climate-Change_10-21-2021.pdf

Featured image: People protest against ExxonMobil in Melbourne, Australia. Image by Matt Hrkac via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

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VAERS data released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention included a total of 1,247,131 reports of adverse events from all age groups following COVID-19 vaccines, including 27,532 deaths and 224,766 serious injuries between Dec. 14, 2020, and April 22, 2022.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today released new data showing a total of 1,247,131 reports of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccines were submitted between Dec. 14, 2020, and April 22, 2022, to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). VAERS is the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S.

The data included a total of 27,532 reports of deaths — an increase of 183 over the previous week — and 224,766 serious injuries, including deaths, during the same time period — up 1,930 compared with the previous week.

Excluding “foreign reports” to VAERS, 810,171 adverse events, including 12,672 deaths and 80,743 serious injuries, were reported in the U.S. between Dec. 14, 2020, and April 22, 2022.

Foreign reports are reports foreign subsidiaries send to U.S. vaccine manufacturers. Under U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, if a manufacturer is notified of a foreign case report that describes an event that is both serious and does not appear on the product’s labeling, the manufacturer is required to submit the report to VAERS.

Of the 12,672 U.S. deaths reported as of April 22, 16% occurred within 24 hours of vaccination, 20% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination and 59% occurred in people who experienced an onset of symptoms within 48 hours of being vaccinated.

In the U.S., 572 million COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered as of April 23, including 338 million doses of Pfizer, 215 million doses of Moderna and 19 million doses of Johnson & Johnson (J&J).

Every Friday, VAERS publishes vaccine injury reports received as of a specified date. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed.

Historically, VAERS has been shown to report only 1% of actual vaccine adverse events.

U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to April 22, 2022, for 5- to 11-year-olds show:

U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to April 22, 2022, for 12- to 17-year-olds show:

  • 31,455 adverse events, including 1,803 rated as serious and 44 reported deaths.The most recent reported death involves a 14-year-old girl from Tennessee (VAERS I.D. 2238618) who died after receiving her second dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. According to the VAERS report, the girl had a previous history of cancer but was hospitalized 29 days after receiving her second dose of Pfizer with severe COVID-19 and COVID pneumonia. She became “critically ill,” developed respiratory failure and bradycardia and later died.
  • 65 reports of anaphylaxis among 12- to 17-year-olds where the reaction was life-threatening, required treatment or resulted in death — with 96% of cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
  • 649 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis — two fewer than last week — with 637 casesattributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
  • 165 reports of blood clotting disorders — 1 fewer than last week — with all cases attributed to Pfizer.

U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to April 22, 2022, for all age groups combined, show:

FDA to meet in June on COVID-19 vaccines for babies, toddlers

The FDA will meet in June — either June 8, 21 or 22 — to discuss COVID-19 vaccines for children under age 6. The agency’s vaccine advisory committee during its June meeting will also discuss Novavax’s request for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of its COVID-19 vaccine for adults.

Moderna on Thursday asked the FDA to authorize its COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use for children ages 6 months to 6 years.

The company conducted separate trials for two versions of the vaccine, one for infants and toddlers 6 months to 2 years, and one for children 2 to 6 years old.

The company claimed data showed “a robust neutralizing antibody response” and “a favorable safety profile.” But experts say Moderna is not providing the data needed to calculate the risk-benefit of its COVID vaccine.

Moderna’s KidCOVE study cited in Thursday’s press release shows the Moderna shot failed to meet the FDA’s minimum efficacy requirements for EUA in the 2- to under-6 age group, and barely surpassed the agency’s 50% efficacy requirement in the 6-month to 2-year age group after the vaccine maker changed its analysis of the study to meet the threshold.

In the younger age group, Moderna said the effectiveness of its vaccine was 51%. In the older age group, vaccine efficacy was only 37% — substantially lower than the FDA’s requirement. These are different efficacy numbers than those the company reported last month.

Pfizer is expected to file its application in May for a three-shot vaccination using smaller individual doses for children under 5.

Lawmakers push FDA on COVID-19 shots for youngest age groups

Moderna’s announcement followed just days after the House Select Subcommittee on Coronavirus Crisis asked the FDA for a status update on COVID-19 vaccines for children under 5 over concerns “millions of young children still remain unprotected because no vaccine has yet been authorized” for this age group.

A top FDA official ​​on Tuesday told The New York Times the agency has not cleared a COVID-19 vaccine for the youngest age group because Pfizer and Moderna have not finished their applications for authorization.

The agency said last week it is considering holding off on reviewing Moderna’s request to authorize its COVID-19 vaccine for children under 5 until it has data from Pfizer and BioNTech on their vaccine for children, pushing the earliest possible authorization of a vaccine from May to June.

The FDA said it would be simpler and less confusing to simultaneously authorize and promote two vaccines to the public, rather than green-lighting one on a faster timetable and the other down the road.

Agency officials were worried about authorizing Moderna’s vaccine only to find out just a few weeks later that Pfizer’s offered better protection.

Pfizer requests EUA for booster dose for 5- to 11-year-olds

Pfizer and BioNTech on Tuesday announced they applied for EUA of a COVID-19 booster dose for children ages 5 to 11. In a press release, Pfizer cited data from its Phase 2/3 trial that claimed a third dose produced a “strong immune response” in the younger age group when administered six months after the second dose.

The data was based on a small study involving only 140 children 5 through 11 years old who received a booster dose six months after the second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID vaccine as part of the primary series.

Pfizer said 30 children who participated in the study revealed a 36-fold increase in virus-fighting antibodies — levels high enough to fight the Omicron variant, which is currently not the dominant variant in the U.S.

Experts told The Defender the “clinical trial used to support the notion of a COVID-19 booster for 5- to 11-year-olds is entirely inadequate to make any such recommendation.”

Denmark suspends COVID-19 vaccine campaign

Denmark on Tuesday became the first country to suspend its national COVID-19 vaccine campaign after health officials said the pandemic is under control there.

Bolette Soborg, director of the Danish Health Authority’s department of infectious diseases, said Denmark is “winding down” the mass vaccination program, and invitations for vaccinations would no longer be issued after May 15.

Public health authorities cited several factors contributing to the decision to end the national vaccination campaign. These include a decline in the number of newly reported infections, stabilized hospitalization rates and an overall high level of vaccination.

Denmark plans to reopen the vaccination program in the fall, which will be preceded by a thorough professional assessment of who and when to vaccinate, and with which vaccines.

The decision comes just a few months after Denmark eliminated all COVID-19-related restrictions, becoming the first European Union member state to do so.

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Megan Redshaw is a staff attorney for Children’s Health Defense and a reporter for The Defender.

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Dogma is a belief, or set of beliefs, that is accepted by members of a specific group that is not questioned or doubted. Dogma does not imply that something is “bad,” “wrong” or untrue. Religion is an excellent example. It’s ok to believe whatever you believe in, and one should be free to do so.

Science, on the other hand, is all about doubting, questioning, examining and testing, but this suddenly changed during the pandemic.

During COVID, doctors, epidemiologists, professors and various other academics in the field were reprimanded in a number of ways for questioning any and all COVID policies that were put in place by several governments. Public and political discourse normalized stigma against not only academics, but people who were vaccine hesitant.

Demeaning language like “anti-vaxxers” was used, while language like “trust the science” and “back to normal” further singled out the unvaccinated, blaming them for the continuation of the pandemic, lockdowns, and the stress on hospital capacity.

On the other hand, science calling into question the efficacy and safety of COVID vaccines was buried. The wealth of data showing that lockdowns were, as Dr. Jay Bhattacharya from the Stanford School of Medicine put it “the worst public health catastrophe in human history,” was completely ignored.

Science calling into question the safety and effectiveness of masks was also ignored, and those who have suffered serious vaccine injury have been unacknowledged.

The “powers that be” seemed to have made this type of language and perspective acceptable. The result of this further polarized society, physically and psychologically with almost zero discussion as to to why people refused to comply/disagreed with public health measures. A proper discourse was not had, only ridicule and finger pointing.

Today, we live in an era where a specific view of science has become akin to taking on a kind of religious authority; those who question it are deemed dangerous heretics and punished accordingly.

Even the British Medical Journal was “fact checked” and censored by Facebook third party fact checkers. The BMJ obtained dozens of internal company documents, photos, audio recordings, and emails detailing concerning fraud that took place during clinical trials for the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID vaccines. The FDA has still not investigated the case.

Facebook has already removed at least 16 million pieces of content from its platform, and added warnings to approximately 167 million others. YouTube has removed nearly 1 million videos related to, according to them, “dangerous or misleading covid-19 medical information.”

This type of “muzzling” is unprecedented, and infringes upon our right to share and view information. It’s something that continues to gain traction as the years pass, and it started well before COVID.

In many cases, telling the truth has become a crime.

For example, the case of Julian Assange, who exposed various US war crimes, among other things, is an excellent example. The government brought criminal charges against a publisher for the publication of truthful information. This establishes a dangerous precedent that can be used to target all news organizations that hold the government accountable. The US Department of Homeland Security has stated that sharing “misinformation” online may be considered domestic terrorism.

Barack Obama recently made more noise about the fact that disinformation is a big threat to American Democracy. Is it really disinformation that’s a threat, or simply information? Are governments fearful of being exposed?

But who decides what “misinformation” is? The government? Pharmaceutical companies? Funded third party fact checkers? We are constantly told that governments and government affiliated agencies are the gold standard of truth.

I am reminded of a quote from Dr. Julie Ponesse, a philosophy professor from Ontario, Canada who was let go due to her refusal to get vaccinated.

“Don’t underestimate yourself as a reliable source of information. Take notice of the evidence around you. Heed your instincts and experiences. You don’t need to outsource all of your thinking to the government, to the media, to anyone who tells you to do so.”

Scientific dogma is not a new phenomenon, and it comes in many forms. For example, a 2006 report by GlaxoSmithKline in the NEJM concluded that Avandia was a great drug for treating diabetes. At the time, the senior vice president of the company Lawson Macartney stated the following in a news release;

“We now have clear evidence from a large international study that the initial use of (Avandia) is more effective than standard therapies.”

The trial used to approve the drug had been funded by GlaxoSmithKline, and each of the eleven authors had received money from the company. Four were employees and held company stock. The other seven were academics who had received grants or consultant fees from the firm. The drug had been estimated to cause approximately 80,000 heart attacks and deaths, a safety signal that at the time of approval should have been quite clear.

There are countless examples of this, and pharmaceutical companies have knowingly put out “science” that’s been manipulated. This is why Pfizer, for example, has been assessed billions in criminal convictions, civil penalties and jury awards. This is the heart of where scientific dogma originates, from fraud.

The type of censorship seen during COVID are signs of tyranny. COVID created an environment where doctors and scientists were at risk of losing their jobs for simply questioning the official narrative.

Tyrannical dictatorships operate in a different form in today’s day in age. Massive amounts of propaganda are used to sway the perception of the collective public mind, and any other opinion or piece of evidence is quickly done away with in various forms, usually by using censorship and ridicule. Any thought or piece of information that does not support the government seems to be a threat to them.

The question then becomes, what can we do about it?

The answer to that is quite simple. Keep talking, keep sharing information, and continue to use whatever means we have to share information. The number of people who became aware of the issues discussed in this article during COVID is quite large, and that’s very encouraging.

It’s become quite clear that crisis’ like COVID are used, and in some cases created by those who wish to profit off of them politically and financially. The world is being pushed in a direction of compliance and self censorship.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Edward Snowden, as I have done before.

“As authoritarianism spreads, as emergency laws proliferate, as we sacrifice our rights, we also sacrifice our capability to arrest the slide into a less liberal and less free world. Do you truly believe that when the first wave, the second wave, the 16th wave of the coronavirus is a long forgotten memory, that these capabilities will not be kept?”

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Remdesivir/Veklury & mRNA vaccines are harmful to your children, no one, no Fauci, Bourla of Pfizer, Bancel of Moderna, or O’Day Gilead prosecuted case of why this is needed in kids; poor methods/data

They are coming and tag-teaming off each other…be warned!

These three pieces of news shows they have our kids in their cross-hairs, these three pharmaceutical companies, have our healthy children in sight and coming in hard, and I challenge these people, these three CEOs to show us the evidence, show us the data, any data to show that we must be vaccinating healthy children, 6 month year olds etc. or giving them this liver and kidney toxic drug at 28 days, using these ineffective vaccines that are based on the initial Wuhan legacy strain and they know this will not work on the OMICRON or future variants (vaccinal induced mRNA antibodies do not hit the spike protein on omicron, does not neutralize), and are proven harmful now with accumulated deaths in healthy young persons, or why is Remdesivir needed when it is a failed Ebola and Marburg virus drug and is shown to kill people, liver and kidney toxic…are we all insane now? we will give a drug that was waiting for a virus, to our kids? are we as parents and people just going to sit back?

These three pieces of reporting should frighten you and wake you up!

  1. Moderna seeks to vaccinate 6 month olds to 5 years
  2. The US Food and Drug Administration announced Monday that it has expanded approval of the Covid-19 drug remdesivir to treat patients as young as 28 days and weighing about 7 pounds.
  3. Covid-19 vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds is safe and shows ‘robust’ antibody response, Pfizer says

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“Can you imagine that in 10 years, when we are sitting here, we have an implant in our brains, and I can immediately feel [what you are feeling] because you all will have implants. I can remeasure your brainwaves, and I can immediately tell you how some people react [emotionally] to your answers. Is it imaginable?”

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As much as the end of corona restrictions in many countries is to be welcomed, one should not be deceived by the fact that in the background, construction continues on a global rebuild along the lines of the “Great Reset.“ And it’s going full speed ahead.

Threatening agreement for “pandemic prevention”

For the now obvious failure of the Covid measures, together with the backpedaling and the backing down of politics and the media, was obviously part of the plan. WHO is now using this general distraction to get member states to sign a new “global pandemic preparedness“ agreement that basically gives WHO power in all medical and climatic emergencies!

“[…] a convention, agreement or other international instrument under the Constitution of the World Health Organization to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. […]“

The new treaty, pledged in December 2021, expands on an original 2005 treaty and, if adopted by member states, means that the WHO Constitution (under Article 9) will take precedence over individual countries‘ constitutions in the event of natural disasters or pandemics. For this, in Europe, the main aim is to get the EU to implement it in the member states.

WHO will in future dictate, not recommend

In other words, the WHO will dictate in the future, not just recommend.

On the WHO side, an intergovernmental negotiating body has now already been constituted, which will hold its first meeting on March 1, 2022 (“to agree on working methods and timelines“) and its second on August 1, 2022 (to discuss “progress on a working draft“). It will then present a progress report to the 76th World Health Assembly in 2023, with the goal of adopting the instrument“ by 2024.

The instrument is intended to:

  • ensure stronger, sustained and long-term political commitment at the level of global leaders
  • define clear processes and tasks
  • improve long-term public and private sector support at all levels
  • ensure promotion of the integration of health issues into all relevant policies

Dr. Astrid Stuckelberger, a Swiss scientist who has worked for WHO for 20 years, warns that this is precisely the case. She believes that every country should send a public letter of protest to WHO, stating that it is unacceptable for the signature of a country’s health minister to decide the fate of millions of people without a referendum.

Dr. Stuckelberger informed that so far only Russia has sent such a letter of objection.

Finally, the joint statement on the Covi 19 pandemic by leaders from around the world, together with the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, and the Director General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom, was quoted:

“There will be other pandemics and other major public health emergencies. The question is not if, but when. Collectively, we must be better prepared to predict, prevent, detect, assess, and respond effectively to pandemics in a highly coordinated manner. To that end, we believe nations should work together toward a new international treaty on pandemic preparedness and response.“

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Die Bombardierung der wunderschönen deutschen Kunst- und Lazarettstadt Dresden im Februar 1945 ist eines der zahlreichen Traumata in der Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts.

Der deutsche Dramatiker und Literatur-Nobelpreisträger Gerhart Hauptmann (1862-1946) hat das „Höllenfeuer“ des Flammeninfernos in Dresden, verursacht durch drei Bombenangriffe britischer und amerikanischer Luftstreitkräfte, persönlich erlebt. Zehntausende oder gar hunderttausende Menschen wurden erschlagen, erstickten in Kellern, verglühten in den Flammen. Deshalb beginnen seine „Abschiedsworte zum Untergang Dresdens“ mit dem Satz:

„Wer das Weinen verlernt hat, der lernt es wieder beim Untergang Dresdens.“ (1)

Erneut erleben die Menschen eines Landes, der Ukraine, ein unbeschreibliches Trauma und Höllenfeuer: die fortlaufende Bombardierung von immer mehr Gebieten ihres Heimatlandes durch eine Großmacht. Deshalb soll Hauptmanns bewegender Satz zum Untergang Dresdens auf die Zerstörung der Ukraine übertragen werden. Zutreffendere Worte für das, was wir tagtäglich in zunehmendem Maße an menschlichem Leid, an Verzweiflung, Tod und Verderben sowie materieller Zerstörung sehen, hören, lesen und miterleben können, lassen sich nicht finden.

Wenn wir die Untaten des anderen sehen, sodass es uns zum Weinen ist, sehen wir uns richtig

Für den deutschen Philosophen Max Stirner (1806-1856)) ist das Mitgefühl für den Mitmenschen keine moralische Pflicht, sondern sein tief empfundenes Bedürfnis, sein Eigentum, sein Wille (2). Bereits auf der ersten Seite seines 1844 erschienenen Hauptwerks „Der Einzige und sein Eigentum“ schreibt er: „Pfui über den Egoisten, der nur an sich denkt!“ (3)

Im heutigen Kommentar geht es nicht um die Frage, ob das Coronaregime und die Ukrainekrise Instrumente sind, um die Mobilität der Bevölkerung einzuschränken und die Agenda des „Great Reset“ voranzutreiben (4) oder ob Putin nun für oder gegen den „Great Reset“ kämpft, weil der Ukrainekrieg so oder so der „Neuen Weltordnung“ zuspielt (5).

Es geht um die Frage, ob wir Menschen sehen, dass es auch wir Bürger auf dieser Welt sind, die diesen gotteslästerlichen Krieg gegen das ukrainische Volk mit zu verantworten haben. Erst dann, wenn wir das sehen, wenn wir die Untaten des anderen – des gnadenlosen Herrschers oder Kriegsherren – sehen, sodass es uns zum Weinen ist, sehen wir uns richtig. Das ist der Spiegel.

Erst mit dieser Selbsterkenntnis, mit dieser Gesinnung, fängt der Mensch an, wahrer Mensch zu sein: indem er sich identifiziert und Bescheid weiß über die Haltung des anderen Menschen. Solange er noch im Zorn ist auf den Anderen, hat er kein richtiges Bild.

Doch soziale Gefühle sind nicht angeboren oder genetisch gegeben – und deshalb auch nicht automatisch abrufbar –, sondern das menschliche Wesen muss soziale Gefühle im Laufe seiner familiären und schulischen Erziehung erlernen (6).

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Lehrer (Rektor a. D.), Doktor der Pädagogik (Dr. paed.) und Diplom-Psychologe (Schwerpunkte: Klinische-, Pädagogische- und Medien-Psychologie). Als Pensionär arbeitete er viele Jahre als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. In seinen Büchern und pädagogisch-psychologischen Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung und eine Erziehung zum Gemeinsinn und Frieden.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Noten 

1. https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/tranen-fur-dresden; schutz-brett.org/3/de/…de-de/…/689-abschiedsworte-zum-untergang-dresdens.html

2. Stirner, Max (1981). Der Einzige und sein Eigentum. Stuttgart

3. a. O., S. 3

4. https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/die-bewegungslose-gesellschaft

5. https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/katalysator-der-globalen-umgestaltung

6. Plack, Arno (Hrsg.). (1973). Der Mythos vom Aggressionstrieb. München

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On the eve of May Day 2020, in full coronavirus pandemic, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) released some hair raising statistics.

About 1.6 billion workers from the informal sector are in dire straits because of the lockdowns governments have imposed to stop the spread of the virus.

According to the ILO, some 60% of the world’s workers are in the informal economy, working without contracts, safety nets or savings.1 Depending on the country, women represent a higher or lower share of the informal workforce, but either way they are paid less than men.2

Now, because of quarantines and confinement, stoppages and curfews, there is no work.

No work means no income. No income, no food. Without alternative income sources, the ILO warned, “these workers and their families will have no means to survive”.3


That was Two Years Ago: Flash Forward to May 2022:

Today, the social situation is beyond description. People’s live are destroyed. Entire population groups in developing countries are driven into famine.

The covid lockdowns derogate workers’ rights by confining the labor force.

The data is manipulated. The statistics on Covid related poverty and unemployment are not being released.


If workers in the informal sector are not able to feed themselves, they are also unable to continue feeding millions, if not billions more. Informal labour is what keeps food systems functioning in most of the world: it accounts for 94% of on-farm labour globally, and a big part of the workforce in food trade, retail, preparation and delivery in many parts of the world.4

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare our dependence not only on well functioning health and food systems, but the gross injustices inflicted on those working in these essential sectors in the “best” of times: low wages, no access to health care, no child care, no safety protection at work, often no legal status and no representation in negotiating work conditions. This is true in both the informal and the formal sectors of the global food system. Indeed, the contrast between the wealth at the top of the largest food companies and the plight of their frontline workers is extreme. Nestlé, for instance, the world’s number one food company, awarded its shareholders US$8 billion in dividends at the end of April 2020, an amount that surpasses the annual budget of the UN World Food Programme (WFP).5

The only question that matters now is how to ensure everyone has access to food while keeping people safe and healthy at every step from farm to consumer. Unfortunately, this has not been the priority that has shaped food systems over the past decades. But getting there is not as complicated as it may appear.

Shutdown leading to hunger

The shutdown of much of the world economy since March 2020 has meant that many people are confined to their homes or their communities and cannot work. Factories have stopped, construction projects halted, eateries and transportation closed, offices shut. In many countries, migrant workers and students immediately tried to go home, where they have family to lean on, but many got blocked for lack of transport or border closures.

These measures seem to have been implemented without much thought about the actual workings of food systems. Farmers have been mostly able (not always) to continue working on their farms, but they lack labour – precisely when it’s harvest or birthing time in many parts of the world – and the means to move produce and livestock off the farm to cooperatives, collection points, slaughterhouses, traders or markets. Closures of schools, offices and restaurants have choked the system, leading to enormous waste. As a consequence, milk is being dumped, animals are being euthanised and crops are being ploughed into the soil. Similarly, fisherfolk who fish at night in place likes Uganda have been grounded because of curfews.6

In the cities, violence, abuse and corruption have accompanied these shutdowns in incomprehensible ways. In East Africa, as in parts of Asia, street vendors caught out in the streets have been met with whips and rubber bullets.7 Riots have arisen in urban and peri-urban communities when scarce food aid arrived.8 In Lebanon, one person was even killed in such riots.9 And in eSwatini, formerly Swaziland, the government has simply decided that it will not feed the cities, only focus on the rural areas.10

Meanwhile food companies have been granted lockdown exemptions that have greatly exacerbated the health crisis, without necessarily keeping people fed. Some of the world’s worst outbreaks of Covid-19 have been at meat processing plants owned by multinational corporations in Brazil, Canada, Spain, Germany and the US. Although these plants mostly produce meat for export, they were deemed an “essential service” and allowed to operate at full capacity, knowingly putting their workers and the surrounding communities at grave risk of infection.11 In the US, as of 6 May 2020, 12,000 meat plant workers have fallen ill and 48 have died.12 Seafood processing plants are hotspots too, such as in Ghana, where an outbreak at a tuna canning plant owned by Thai Union is responsible for 11% of the Covid-19 cases in the entire country.13 Supermarket workers and ecommerce platform employees have also been facing the huge difficulty of staying safe while keeping open for the purpose of rendering so-called “essential services”, exempt from the lockdowns. Oil palm plantations have mostly kept operational — to serve the production of much-needed soaps to fight the pandemic, their owners claim – but some have defied local ordinances or not provided the necessary protections for workers.14

The cure is at risk of becoming worse than the disease. People who have no work or wages since the pandemic broke – most of the informal sector, but also workers from the formal sector – are now facing the growing reality of hunger. The WFP says that the risk is highest right now in about ten countries, most of them engulfed in armed conflict, such as Somalia or South Sudan. But the lack of access to food due to Covid-19 work closures, and the resulting global recession that we are told will last for months, is now threatening many other countries. In India, 50% of rural people are eating less due to the lockdown.15 Worldwide, the number of people suffering acute hunger could double from 135 million today to 265 million by the end of the year, WFP says.16

Already, those hardest hit have been feeling the pain. The saying “I would rather die of coronavirus than hunger” is commonly heard in Haiti, Angola, Lebanon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mayotte, India and Latin America, according to news reports.17 In Belgium, it’s “Either we die of hunger or of coronavirus. We have to choose.”18 In West Africa, the saying is “Hunger will kill us before corona does”.

What’s clear is that if this spreading hunger does reach the scale of a global crisis, it will not be for lack of production or even because of hoarding. There is plenty of supply. It’s the distribution system that has shown its incapacity to feed us safely – especially the highly concentrated and globalised part that cannot respond to the crisis.

Creative community responses

One of the first measures many authorities took to halt the spread of coronavirus was to shut down restaurants, cafés, food stalls and fresh markets. As a response, communities have devised many other ways to get food to where it is needed, often using social media. On Facebook and Whatsapp, groups have been formed to collectively identify where food stocks are located or to collectively procure produce from farmers. Shuttered restaurants and cantines are using their resources to access and repackage bulk food supplies like flour or grains, repackage them and sell them in small quantities. “Repurposing” has become the word of the day, as communities come together, or take form, to find and move food through creative means.

Farmers have also devised innovative ways to sell and move their produce. In Europe, they have started home sales, deliveries to hospitals and online sales, in addition to connecting with consumers directly through community-supported agriculture schemes and farmers’ markets.19 In Asia, farmers have been going online through social media or ecommerce tools to organise alternative markets.20 For example in Karnataka, India, farmers have started using Twitter to post videos of their produce and connect with buyers. Others are resuscitating traditional systems of bartering, to overcome their lack of cash and match supply with demand.21 In Indonesia, a union of fisherfolk in Indramayu, West Java, has started an initiative to barter with local farmers’ groups through a collective action called “fisherfolks’ food barn”. As restaurants and markets have shut down, the fisherfolk have no buyers. So they exchange fish for rice and vegetables with farmers. This is providing food and livelihood security to the different communities.22

In Latin America, rural communities are the ones least affected by the virus. Many of them are organising to give away food to the poor in the cities. In Cauca, Colombia, the Nasa people – who consider themselves longterm survivors of viruses, wars and the incursion of agribusiness – have collectively organised a “food march” and brought supplies from their harvest to impoverished neighbourhoods in the cities, defying the lockdown.23 In Brazil, without any state support, the Landless Workers Movement has donated 600 tonnes of healthy food to hospitals, homeless people and other vulnerable communities in 24 states across the country.24 Members are also converting urban cafés into soup kitchens and educational facilities into makeshift hospitals, where allied healthcare workers are rendering their services.25

Solidarity food distribution by MST in Brazil

In Zimbabwe, the lockdown has crippled the movement of agriculture produce off of large farms across the country. Small farmers, will limited support, are hustling to fill the gap, finding new ways to get vegetables and other supplies to markets. Peasant movement organisers say this shift in the food matrix shows that the country’s 1.5 million small holders are capable of feeding the nation.26

Local governments, private citizens and companies have also been doing their share. In Vietnam, public dispensers called “rice ATMs” have been invented to allow families to access a free daily ration of rice without physical contact or hoarding.27 In India, the state of Kerala has launched a campaign called “Subhiksha Keralam” aimed at achieving self sufficiency in food production through subsidies, infrastructure and other support mechanisms.28 In Thailand, mobile vegetable shops have been revived under the quarantine with support from Bangkok’s local authorities. The city wholesale market is providing small producers and traders hundreds of trucks to allow them to shift to door-to-door deliveries.29 And in many parts of Africa, motorbike delivery services are adjusting their practices to help get food supplies to people who need them.30

Whether it’s through solidarity, mutual aid, volunteer work or cooperatives, and whether it’s formal or informal, this surge in community-oriented efforts to get food to where it’s needed is crucial and needs resourcing, urgently. While grassroots initiatives are not “the” solution, they certainly point in the right direction.

Shift to community-based food systems

To prevent the disaster that both ILO and WFP are warning us about, we would call for three kinds of measures.

Immediate:

1) Resource community initiatives: As a matter of urgency, we need massive recognition of and support to community efforts to feed those in need. Funds, tools and other resources should be allocated to these efforts. This can mean funding or materials for neighbourhood groups or indigenous communities who need personal protective equipment, rooms or spaces in which to organise and transport food pantries. It can mean resources for regional and local governments to do the work together with community-based organisations, cooperatives and farmers. And it should mean support from local governments themselves, whether through policy measures or infrastructure. Many are already doing this, but it needs scaling up, massively and quickly. While the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other donors help governments face health crisis funding needs, most of it is going to big business. It would be better to allocate more to local governments so they can support community efforts.

Longer term:

2) Improve conditions for farmers and workers: We need to uplift the position of food system workers, from production or procurement all the way to retail, delivery and food service. This means things like: higher wages or a universal basic income that will pay low-income workers much better or reach people outside the wage economy; a seat at the table to redefine work and renegotiate work processes, as many unions are clamouring for; full rights to health care, hazard pay, safe working conditions and child care; and, perhaps most importantly, a better status in society. Farmers must also be supported with safe systems to get produce to markets and fair prices that provide for their livelihoods. At the same time, farm labourers must receive decent wages and healthy work conditions. The Covid-19 crisis has made it clear how important farm work, transportation, food distribution and delivery are to our well being. People working in the system are frontliners as much as the health care workers. They deserve a better place, better pay and a fairer distribution of benefits – and now is the time to make that structural change.

3) Rebuild public food systems: We need to reinvent and reinforce public, community-controlled markets in the food sphere, from the local level up. And we need to connect these markets to the produce of small scale farmers and fishers. The coronavirus lockdown has shown us, quite starkly, how we cannot rely on global trade as a strategy and how corporate sector control over key segments of our food supply makes survival precarious. We need to put an end to public funds going to large food or agribusiness corporations, except as support for workers. We also need to address concentration in the food industry through measures like anti-trust or anti-factory farm legislation, and direct support towards small scale fisheries, abattoirs, dairies and wholesale markets. We know that more pandemics will come. Now is the chance to move forward and consolidate a public orientation to our food systems, somewhat like in the health sector where we have public medical research, public hospitals and generic medicines outside the grip of patent laws that serve corporate greed. Food is not merely a public good; it’s a social good and needs to be guaranteed, protected and provided to all like healthcare.

If one thing positive comes from this crisis, it could be that we regain and reassert public systems in our countries, after decades of privatisation and encroaching corporate control. These systems should support and build on solutions that local communities are already providing. Food, like health, is a crucial place to start.

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Notes

1 Domestic workers who are contracted and farmers or vendors who have registered businesses are not part of the informal economy definition.

2 ILO, “Women and men in the informal economy: A statistical picture”, 2018, https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—dgreports/—dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_626831.pdf, page 21.

3 ILO, “As job losses escalate, nearly half of global workforce at risk of losing livelihoods”, 29 April 2020, https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_743036/lang–en/index.htm

4 ILO, “Women and men in the informal economy: A statistical picture”, 2018, https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—dgreports/—dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_626831.pdf, page 21.

5 Nestlé, “Results of the 153rd Annual General Meeting of Nestlé S.A. held on April 23, 2020”, https://www.nestle.com/sites/default/files/2020-04/annual-general-meeting-2020-summary-minutes-en.pdf. In 2018, the WFP raised US$7.2 billion, see: https://www.wfp.org/overview

6 International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, “COVID-19 and the crisis in food systems”, April 2020, http://www.ipes-food.org/pages/covid19

7 Alex Esagala et al, “Canes, tears in Kampala over coronavirus”, Daily Monitor, 26 March 2020, https://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Photos-that-will-compel-you-cancel-your-journey-Kampala/688334-5505362-g3u0ib/index.html and Boitumelo Metsing, “Food parcel protest turns ugly as cops fire rubber bullets at hungry residents”, The Star, 29 Apr 2020, https://www.iol.co.za/the-star/sport/food-parcel-protest-turns-ugly-as-cops-fire-rubber-bullets-at-hungry-residents-47325962

8 Tom Odula and Idi Ali Juma, “Stampede in Kenya as slum residents surge for food aid”, Associated Press, 10 April 2020 https://komonews.com/news/nation-world/stampede-in-kenya-as-slum-residents-surge-for-food-aid

9 Jean Shaoul, “Protester killed in Lebanon during riots against soaring food prices”, World Socialist Website, 29 April 2020, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/29/leba-a29.html

10 ”Swaziland govt. confirms it will not feed the starving in towns and cities during coronavirus lockdown”, Swazi Media Commentary, 29 April 2020, https://allafrica.com/stories/202004290702.html

11 United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, “UFCW calls on USDA and White House to protect meatpacking workers and America’s food supply”, 30 April 2020, http://www.ufcw.org/2020/04/30/covidpacking/. While European meat packers are also experiencing outbreaks, they have not been as deep and widespread as in the US where corporate concentration is higher, says IPES (op cit).

12 Leah Douglas, “Mapping Covid-19 in meat and food processing plants”, Food and Environment Reporting Network, 22 April 2020, https://thefern.org/2020/04/mapping-covid-19-in-meat-and-food-processing-plants/

13 Rachel Sapin and Drew Cherry, “Thai Union plant is source of coronavirus outbreak that sickened over 500, officials say”, IntraFish, 12 May 2020, https://www.intrafish.com/processing/thai-union-plant-is-source-of-coronavirus-outbreak-that-sickened-over-500-officials-say/2-1-807547

14 ARD, Green Advocates, JUSTICITIZ, MALOA, NMJD, RADD, Synaparcam and YVE, “We demand justice and safety for workers on Socfin’s rubber/oil palm plantations during the Covid-19 pandemic”, Open letter to Socfin, 29 April 2020, https://farmlandgrab.org/29602

15 “Coronavirus impact | Half of rural India is eating less due to COVID-19 lockdown: Survey”, Monetcontrol, 13 May 2020, https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/india/covid-19-impact-half-of-rural-population-eating-less-amid-coronavirus-crisis-5259491.html

16 Paul Anthem, “Risk of hunger pandemic as COVID-19 set to almost double acute hunger by end of 2020”, WFP, 16 April 2020, https://insight.wfp.org/covid-19-will-almost-double-people-in-acute-hunger-by-end-of-2020-59df0c4a8072

17 Bello, “Choosing between livelihoods and lives in Latin America”, The Economist, 2 May 2020, https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2020/05/02/choosing-between-livelihoods-and-lives-in-latin-america; “Lebanon: A New Surge in the Popular Struggle”, International Socialist League, May 4, 2020, http://lis-isl.org/en/2020/05/04/libano-un-nuevo-salto-en-la-rebelion-popular/; La Rédaction, « Ici, on a plus peur de mourir de faim que du coronavirus ! », Charlie Hebdo, 6 avril 2020, https://charliehebdo.fr/2020/04/courrier/courrier-des-lecteurs-mayotte-on-a-plus-peur-de-mourir-de-faim-que-du-coronavirus/; AFP, “Dans l’Inde confinée, les pauvres luttent pour survivre”, 9 avril 2020, https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2020/04/09/dans-linde-confinee-les-pauvres-luttent-pour-survivre; AFP, “Haïti: mourir de faim aujourd’hui ou du coronavirus demain”, 3 May 2020, https://www.la-croix.com/Monde/Haiti-mourir-faim-aujourd-hui-coronavirus-demain-2020-05-03-1301092306; AFP, “«Mieux vaut mourir de cette maladie que mourir de faim»: les Angolais bravent le verrouillage du virus”, 6 Avril 2020, https://www.fr24news.com/fr/a/2020/04/mieux-vaut-mourir-de-cette-maladie-que-mourir-de-faim-les-angolais-bravent-le-verrouillage-du-virus.html.

18 Annick Ovine, “’Nous, on doit choisir: mourir de faim ou crever du coronavirus’”, La Libre, 16 March 2020, https://www.lalibre.be/belgique/societe/nous-on-doit-choisir-mourir-de-faim-ou-crever-du-coronavirus-5e6f91fc9978e201d8bcf20c

19 European Coordination Via Campesina, “ECVC survey on the impact of Covid-19 on peasant farming”, April 2020, https://www.eurovia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/ECVC-SURVEY-ON-THE-IMPACT-OF-COVID-19-ON-PEASANT-FARMING.pdf

20 Zhenzhong Si, “Commentary: How China ensured no one went hungry during coronavirus lockdown”, Channel News Asia, 19 April 2020, https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/coronavirus-covid-19-china-grocery-food-security-price-delivery-12640426

21 Shahroz Afridi, “Madhya Pradesh: Left without cash, lockdown forces villagers to adopt barter system”, Free Press Journal, 22 April 2020, https://www.freepressjournal.in/bhopal/madhya-pradesh-left-without-cash-lockdown-forces-villagers-to-adopt-barter-system

22 Pandangan Jogja, “Barter Ikan Nelayan dengan Beras Petani, Cara Nelayan Bertahan di Tengah Pandemi”, Kumparan, 11 Mei 2020, https://kumparan.com/pandangan-jogja/barter-ikan-nelayan-dengan-beras-petani-cara-nelayan-bertahan-di-tengah-pandemi-1tOVhGXPMQr

23 Rita Valencia, “Los nasa de Colombia dicen: Porque no seremos los mismos, hay que liberar”, Ojarasca, 9 May 2020, https://ojarasca.jornada.com.mx/2020/05/09/nasa-de-colombia-porque-no-seremos-los-mismos-hay-que-liberar-1000.html

24 MST, “Produzir alimentos saudáveis e plantar árvores: a Reforma Agrária Popular no combate ao Coronavírus”, 29 de março de 2020, https://mst.org.br/2020/03/29/produzir-alimentos-saudaveis-e-plantar-arvores-a-reforma-agraria-popular-no-combate-ao-coronavirus/

25 Rebecca Tarlau, “Activist farmers in Brazil feed the hungry and aid the sick as president downplays coronavirus crisis”, The Conversation, 5 May 2020, https://theconversation.com/activist-farmers-in-brazil-feed-the-hungry-and-aid-the-sick-as-president-downplays-coronavirus-crisis-136914

26 Ignatius Banda, “COVID-19: Zimbabwe’s smallholder farmers step into the food supply gap”, IPS, 12 May 2020, http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/05/covid-19-zimbabwes-smallholder-farmers-step-food-supply-gap/

27 ”Vietnam entrepreneur sets up free ‘rice ATM’ to feed the poor amid coronavirus lockdown”, 16 April 2020, https://youtu.be/lWLuIO1DGAA

28 Samuel Philip Matthew, “COVID-19 in Kerala: Staying ahead of the curve”, Newsclick, 9 May 2020, https://www.newsclick.in/COVID-19-Kerala-Highest-Recovery-Rate-Pandemic

29 Juarawee Kittisilpa, “Thai grocery trucks get new life from coronavirus shutdown”, Reuters, 14 April 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-thailand-grocery-t/thai-grocery-trucks-get-new-life-from-coronavirus-shutdown-idUSKCN21W0O4?il=0

30 AFP, “African e-commerce firms get coronavirus boost”, 15 May 2020, https://news.yahoo.com/african-e-commerce-firms-coronavirus-boost-033743948.html

Featured image: Solidarity food distribution by MST in Brazil; all images in this article are from GRAIN

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Updated on April 27, 2022 now includes the transcript of the interview.

***

This special episode of Grandangolo (Wide Angle) includes an interview with Bruce Gagnon, a member of the No War Movement in the United States.

The news preceding our interview and Gagnon’s analysis confirm the gravity of the situation. 

“And Russians have said they’ve identified English, French, Swedish, German and probably Italian as well. So, I think there’s no doubt about it that the US and NATO are in this war. It’s not just a Ukraine versus Russia war, this is a US NATO war using Ukraine as tool in order to fight against Russia”. (Bruce Gagnon, Interview below)

After starting the sequence of events that led to the Russian military operation in Ukraine with the 2014 coup in Kyiv, the United States and NATO are doing everything to fuel this war in Europe making it permanent. 

The political-media campaign has intensified to make Russia appear a ferocious enemy killing civilians in Ukraine and threatening the whole of Europe.

At the same time, the Azov regiment and the other neo-Nazi formations, spearhead of the 2014 coup and the attack on the Russians of Ukraine, are presented as brave partisan brigades that resist the invader to defend their people.

In this situation, the news, that neo-Nazi armed groups are preparing a new massacre of civilians to attribute the responsibility to Russian forces, such as that of Kramatorsk caused by a Ukrainian missile, is particularly worrying. There are serious indications that attacks on churches are being prepared during Orthodox Easter on April 24.

In this incandescent situation, the United States and its European allies continue to send increasing quantities of weapons to Ukraine. The US has supplied Kyiv with weapons worth over 3 billion dollars: among these weapons, there are over 50 million bullets, 20,000 missiles, 700 kamikaze drones, and thousands of anti-personnel mines. 30 US-allied and partner countries, including Italy, also supply arms to Ukraine. At the same time, Kyiv’s forces, especially neo-Nazis, are being trained by the United States, which effectively commands them.  According to his direct experience, former Paris Match deputy director Régis Le Sommier confirms it.


Pangaea GRANDANGOLO, INTERNATIONAL PRESS REVIEW, on BYOBLU

channel 262 digital terrestrial

channel 462 Tivùsat, channel 816 Sky

Every Friday at 20:30

After the first transmission, the episode of Grandangolo is visible, together with the previous ones, on the site.


Interview with Bruce Gagnon

JTMV: Welcome. Bruce Gagnon to Pangea. It’s very nice of you to be here with us.

Bruce GAGNON : I appreciate it. Thank you.

JTMV: In your opinion, for what reason Russia decided like to carry out the military intervention in Ukraine. In what broader context does the war in Ukraine fit?

Bruce GAGNON: Well, I think we have to go back to at least 2014 when the United States orchestrated a coup d’etat in Kyiv, installing a new government that was really backed by the muscle of Nazis who predominate in Western Ukraine. And immediately, the people in Eastern Ukraine along the Russian border in what’s called the Donbas region, they became very fearful because one of the first things this new government did was to say that the speaking of Russian in Ukraine would be illegal. So, people began holding peaceful protest marches in Eastern Ukraine.

And they also were gathering signatures for a referendum saying, let’s have a Federated Ukraine, where we have local autonomy. We can speak what language we wish to speak, and we can also elect our own local officials rather than have them appointed by the new government. And so immediately, under the direction of the US and NATO, Nazis were sent eastward into the Donbas. One of the first videos I saw, in fact, was in Mariupol in 2014. I was watching all of this on YouTube, basically in real time, right before my eyes. And the people of Mariupol were protesting and Nazis were sent in, and I saw them gunning people down, shooting them in the streets.

JTMV: The Pentagon published on April 14 a fact sheet on US assistance to Ukraine’s security, with an impressive list of armaments provided to Kyiv’s forces. The official rationale is that in this way the U.S. is helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression.  Is this the case or is the reason different?

Bruce GAGNON: So very quickly, the people tried to defend their families. It was literally at that point, most of the people that came into this, what I called self-defense forces to protect themselves against these Nazis came out of the coal mines, and they were school teachers and electricians and musicians, a real people’s militia. And so, this is really how the civil war began. Russia did not invade, as is often said in mainstream media, they did, over time, begin to supply weapons to these self-defense forces so they could protect themselves and their families.

At the same time, the United States and NATO set up a military training base. This was during the Obama administration. They set up a military training base in the Western side of the country in the region where the Nazis predominate. And it was there that they were training these Nazis, brought them into a new special force’s unit that was created by the United States. And I even watched a video in 2016 of Obama’s ambassador to Ukraine going to this base, meeting with soldiers that were coming from the United States to train these Nazis.

So, this is really the mess that was created intentionally, I believe, because the United States fears the growing power of Russia and China, this unity of those two economies, signing up other countries to be part of a multipolar world where this idea of the US being the unipolar power, the single power of the world as it has been so much since the end of World War II.

The US fears that dramatically and knows that it only has a small window left, a small amount of time to try to break this multipolar movement apart. And so,  this is what I believe is behind this whole thing. The US is trying to create a festering sore along the border of Russia. And in the Rand Corporation, one of the Pentagon think-tanks that is based in California, they did a study in 2019 that says we’ve got to overextend and unbalance Russia and we must use Ukraine as a tool in order to do that.

So,  they knew that if they could create an Afghanistan or a Syria type situation along the Russian border, it would force Russia to militarily intervene. It would force Russia to spend a lot of money on the military. It would not be going for human needs. And it would also allow the West to further demonize Moscow, calling for regime change in Russia and ultimately to break Russia up into smaller countries like the US and NATO did in 1999 with the Balkanization of Yugoslavia.

The reason I believe that they want to break Russia into smaller countries is because of climate change, in part with the melting excuse me, with the melting of the Arctic ice, there’s the ability to drill, baby drill in that Arctic region.

And in fact, just as this war started in February, the US and NATO were holding war games up in Northern Norway, along the Russian Arctic Coast. It’s called Cold Response. And increasingly, we see the developments of US war games, military exercises up in the Arctic region. So clearly, the West wants the resources that Russia has, vast resource base. They  want to break Russia into smaller pieces. And I think that’s what is really driving all of this.

So, Russia knew they had to intervene at some point. 14,000 people have died in the Donbas since 2014, since the constant shelling of the Russian ethnic citizens along the Russian border. And so, Russia knew they had to intervene to save lives because the Ukraine government had positioned 150,000 troops right along the contact line with the Donbas and were poised to invade in a full scale of salt.

JTMV: Thank you. Now, the Pentagon published on April 14 a fact sheet on US assistance to Ukraine security with an impressive list of armaments provided to Kyiv’s forces. The official rationale is that in this way, the US is helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia aggression. Is +this the case, or is there a reason different?

Bruce GAGNON: Well, I think there’s several things that work here. Number one is this war is going to benefit the weapons industry, the military-industrial complex, in a dramatic way. Not only is the United States supplying Ukraine with military hardware must be eventually replaced, obviously, but then also the NATO countries, particularly Eastern European NATO members, are supplying Ukraine with this military hardware.

It’s outdated technology. A lot of its Soviet era military technology and as a result, being NATO members, they’re going to have to purchase new stocks of weapons. And as it turns out any time a new NATO country comes into NATO, they are forced to buy weapons that are interoperable meaning that they fit inside of the US space directed warfare system. They have to be interoperable with US technology. So that means that they largely have to buy their weapons from American corporations. So, this is the other thing that’s happening.

By forcing Eastern European NATO members to deplete their weapons stocks, they’re going to have to replace them with interoperable technology. The US, of course will be in charge of the tip of the spear as they create this expanded NATO military mechanism and NATO is now going international as they’re signing up NATO partners throughout the Asia Pacific region including Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and other countries as well.

So really, NATO is saying that we’re not just protecting Europe anymore. We’re now going global. And I think one of the reasons for this is because at the United Nations, when NATO goes to the UN Security Council and ask for a resolution in support of another war, Russia and China are able to block that. But when NATO can create an international alliance, it believes it will be able to go to the world and say, look, we have an international, global support for these military actions, as they’re trying to do now with this operation in Ukraine. So, all of this then benefits the military industrial.

But then beyond that, going back to my earlier comment, you create this festering sore, this endless war situation. And we’ve heard from, I think his name is Mr. Burrell with the EU saying that the only way to solve this problem in Ukraine is through a war. Negotiations will not work. So, it’s quite clear that the US and NATO and I’m sure they’re instructing Zelensky, but we shouldn’t call him Zelensky because we’re not allowed to use the word, the letter Z anymore.

So really, NATO is saying that we’re not just protecting Europe anymore. We’re now going global. And I think one of the reasons for this is because at the United Nations, when NATO goes to the UN Security Council and ask for a resolution in support of another war, Russia and China are able to block that.

But when NATO can create an international alliance, it believes it will be able to go to the world and say, look, we have an international we have global support for these military actions, as they’re trying to do now with this operation in Ukraine. So, all of this then benefits the military industrial

So, we have to call him Elensky.  But anyway, I believe Elensky is taking his marching orders from the CIA. They’re handing him a script written by Madison Avenue public relations firms in New York City and Hollywood. And him being an actor, I’m sure he’s quite adept at being able to read that script. So, no negotiations. Zelensky or Elensky is saying we’re going to fight for the next ten years. And so, they’re trying to put in the public’s mind that this war is going to be a long one another Afghanistan all over again.

JTMV: There are reports about the presence of U.S. Military personnel in Ukraine. Have you any information about this? What is the role of such personnel?

Bruce GAGNON: Well, I said earlier that soon after the coup d’etat in 2014, orchestrated by the United States, the US and NATO set up a training base, military training base in Western Ukraine. And to this base were brought US Special Forces units from Fort Carson, Colorado. And their job was to train these Nazis and then take off their uniforms that had Nazi insignias and everything else and put on uniforms issued by the United States to make it look like they were real army.

So, I knew about this because one of my dear friends, his son is in US Army Special Forces and was stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado. And on two occasions, my friend’s son was sent to this training base in Ukraine.  So, I knew about it directly. And then I noted earlier that I watched a video where Obama’s ambassador in 2016, a guy named Jeffrey Piat.

He was part of that famous phone call with Victoria Newland in 2014, just after the coup happened in Maidan, where they were on the phone talking about the UN, the EU. We’re going to pick who we want to pick as the new lead of Ukraine. So anyway, since that time we know that Ukraine has been flooded with American and other NATO. And at this very moment that we’re speaking together in the city of Mariupol in Eastern Ukraine, the Nazis have mostly been routed. Several thousand have now surrendered to the Russians. But inside that huge steel works factory, they say underneath it there’s a Soviet era underground system of six to eight floors deep. And inside of this place, they say there are several thousand Nazis and most importantly, I think US and NATO military advisors.

So, it’s clear to me, having repeatedly heard about these US NATO military advisors throughout Ukraine at this current time, it’s clear that the US and NATO are still directing this operation. They’re leading it. And it’s obvious to me that the Ukrainian military made up of number one Nazis but also conscripts people that were forced into the military. Young people come off the farms, come out of the cities looking for jobs or actually forced into being there.

They were probably not highly motivated to fight the Russians knowing that they were up against one of the world’s most powerful militaries. And so we hear repeatedly that the Nazis are saying anybody that surrenders will be shot. And I’m certain that the US and NATO advisors are forcing this kind of dynamic into this battle that’s going on today.

But just in the last two or three weeks there have been several attempts by the Ukrainian government to send in helicopters into this area of this steelworks in Mariupol to try to take someone out. And on every occasion the Russians shot down the helicopters, but on one of the occasions they shot down a helicopter, but two people lived. They were not killed when the helicopters crashed.

And it is rumored, I don’t know this for a fact, but it’s been rumored repeatedly that one of the people caught apprehended was a us Major General. So, it’s obvious to me that the US and NATO were so desperate to risk the lives of these helicopter pilots, risk lives of anybody that they could put on the helicopters to help them escape. There were some important people in there and Russia is also incidentally saying that they’re picking up communications, phone communications from the bottom of that steelworks in six different languages.

And Russians have said they’ve identified English, French, Swedish, German and probably Italian as well. So, I think there’s no doubt about it that the US and NATO are in this war. It’s not just a Ukraine versus Russia war, this is a US NATO war using Ukraine as tool in order to fight againstRussia.

JTMV: Thank you, Bruce Gagnon. Now, a last quick question for a quick answer. According to your knowledge of US politics, when and how do you foresee the end of the war in Ukraine?

Bruce GAGNON: Well, just in the last two days, a message came out from CBS Television News where they interviewed a Senator, a US Senator by the name of Chris Coons from the State of Delaware. He’s from the same state that Joe Biden is, Chris Coons is said to be the leading Senator who is most close to Joe Biden.

He declared on CBS News that the United States should now send troops to Ukraine to help the Ukrainian government. Obviously, they see that Ukraine is losing this thing badly. And so, I think there is going to be a move to send US troops and NATO troops, particularly maybe to a country like Poland, for example, right on the border, send their troops in as well. So, we’re in a very dangerous moment. And again, I think that this desire to send US NATO troops in there immediately underscores this desire to keep this war going.

So, I don’t see an immediate end to it. Even if Russia was to completely finish things up in the next weeks, couple of weeks, I think the US and NATO will continue every effort they can to destabilize, to continue to arm right now in the United States. The US is training Ukrainian artillery people, going to give them new artillery equipment and send them back to Ukraine, and they’ll be able to fire into the Donbass region from far away. So that means that Russia will continually have to try to take those artillery positions out. So, this thing is going to drag on for some time.

JTMV: That’s not good news, actually. Well, thank you so much, Bruce Gagnon, for your participation. It was extremely interesting. Well, it doesn’t leave us much hope in the future, but let’s hope for the best.

Bruce GAGNON: Well, I think in all of our countries, we all have to work harder and harder to mobilize to try to stop this because it could lead to World War II, which could go nuclear in a red hot flash.

JTMV: Thank you so much. You’ve been very kind to participate in our program, and I hope to meet you again soon.

Bruce GAGNON: Thank you. Bye.

*

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This article was originally published in Italian on byoblu.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

The Western narrative of the two-month old war in Ukraine imbued with the rhetoric of “democracy versus autocracy,” has dramatically changed with the assertion by the US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin at a news conference in Poland Monday following his and Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Kiev, that Washington  wants to “to see Russia weakened.” 

David Sanger at the New York Times noted that Austin was “acknowledging a transformation of the conflict, from a battle over control of Ukraine to one that pits Washington more directly against Moscow.” But this is not really a transformation. Sanger’s colleague at the Washington Post, David Ignatius, had written over three months ago that the Biden Administration was working on a road map to get Russia blogged down in Ukraine and attrition it in a way that it becomes a much diminished power on the world stage. 

US Def. Secy. Lloyd Austin (3rd from right) chairing Ukraine Security Consultative Group meeting, Germany, April 26, 2022

For the Kremlin, most certainly, Austin’s remark would not have come as surprise. As recently as on Monday, President Vladimir Putin repeated at a meeting in the Kremlin that the US and its allies have sought to “split Russian society and destroy Russia from within.” Putin revisited the topic again on Wednesday pointing out that “the forces that have been historically pursuing a policy aimed at containing Russia just don’t need such an independent and large country, even enormously large, in their view. They believe that its very existence poses a threat to them.”

In fact, several perceptive Western observers had estimated that the Kremlin has effectively fallen into a trap laid by the US that is intended to bring down Putin’s regime. Come to think of it, that famous gaffe on 26 March wasn’t a gaffe after all, when President Biden, speaking in Warsaw, had blurted out the impromptu, unscripted remark: “For God’s sake, this man (Putin) cannot remain in power.”

All the same, Austin’s remark signifies that a dramatic change is taking place in the geopolitical situation, which could have positive or negative results. On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned the West that staying involved in the Russia-Ukraine war posed “serious” and “real” risks of a World War III and “we must not underestimate it.” 

To be sure, the conflict is slowly but steadily turning into a new phase. Foreign fighters and soldiers from NATO regular units are increasingly beefing up the depleted Ukrainian army’s front lines.

That said, the optics also need to be understood. Austin’s war cry comes soon after Mariupol fell to the Russian forces. A couple of thousands Ukrainian nationalists and a few hundred military personnel from NATO countries are trapped in an underground labyrinth at the Azovstal complex in the city, which Russian forces have sealed off. It has been a severe blow to the US’ prestige. 

The Russian special operation is on track — “grinding” the Ukrainian forces to the ground, to borrow the graphic expression from UK prime minister Boris Johnson. On Monday, Russian high-precision missiles hit at least six railway substations in Western Ukraine destroying railway facilities in Krasnoe, Zdolbunov, Zhmerinka, Berdichev, Kovel, Korosten, which were meant to be key transshipment points for the supply of Western weaponry to the Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region. Rail communication in several western regions of Ukraine is effectively blocked. 

Reports from the east show that Ukrainian forces are suffering heavy losses. Russian forces have taken the city of Kremennaya and are approaching the town of Lyman, which would give them control of a direct road to Slavyansk from the east. 

Austin’s hyped up rhetoric notwithstanding, Ukraine is not only not showing any signs of winning but keeps bleeding, and the territory under the actual control of the Ukrainian government is steadily shrinking. The US officials admit that Pentagon lacks the ability to track the weapons that are going in. Yet, the Biden administration has so far spent around $4 billion on Ukraine. Therein hangs a tale. Who are the real beneficiaries of the US supplies? The level of corruption in Ukraine is a legion.  

The plain truth is that it will be many weeks or months before meaningful volumes of heavy weapons could be delivered to Ukrainian combat units but in the meanwhile, the Battle of Donbass will be fought almost entirely on the basis of the current strength on the ground. In a detailed analysis this week, a former colonel in the US Army and prolific media commentator Daniel Davis concluded: “It will take too long for Western governments to come up with a coherent equipping plan and then prepare, ship, and deliver the kit to its destination in a timeframe that could provide Kyiv’s troops the ability to tip the balance against Russia.”  

The bottom line is this: The Biden Administration’s geopolitical agenda is to prolong the military conflict, which apart from weakening Russia militarily and diplomatically, turns Europe into a battlefield and makes the continent heavily dependent on the US leadership for a very long time to come. For Biden, the war provides a useful distraction in US politics in an election year. 

Austin hosted a conference of the US’ allies on Monday at the American base in Germany to form a monthly contact group on Ukraine’s self defence to coordinate the “efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s military for the long haul.” It has the ominous look of a “coalition of the willing.” Even Israel was recruited. But the US is underestimating the steely Russian resolve to fully realise the objectives behind the special operation in Ukraine. Moscow will not brook any roadblocks, no matter what it takes. 

Putin issued a stern warning today:

“If someone from outside moves to interfere in the current developments, they should know that they will indeed create strategic threats to Russia, which are unacceptable to us, and they should know that our response to encounter assaults will be instant, it will be quick.”

He was explicit that Russia has military capabilities that the US cannot match.

“We have all the tools to do it, the tools that others can’t boast of at the moment, but as for us, we won’t be boasting. We will use them if the need arises and I would like everyone to be aware of it. We have made all the necessary decisions in this regard,” Putin warned. 

The Shanghai Covid Lockdown. Who Was Behind It?

April 30th, 2022 by Emanuel Pastreich

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First published on April 19, 2022

GR Editor’s Note

It is worth noting that the Director of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),  Dr. George Fu Gao was among the participants of Scenario 201 in October 2019. (Table Top Simulation of a Corona Virus Pandemic)

China’s CDC under Dr. George Fu Gao played a central and key role in overseeing the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan in December 2019, acting in close liaison with the US CDC, the Gates Foundation, the WHO, John Hopkins et al.

George Fu Gao is an Oxford graduate with links to Big Pharma. He was also for several years a fellow of the Wellcome Trust.

China’s CDC is a lead agency of the Chinese government in disease control and prevention.

The Public Health Emergency Center (PHEC) of the China CDC takes charge of national public health emergency preparedness and response activities.”

Under its mandate, one would expect that China’s CDC Director George Gao Fu played a key role in the Shanghai March-April Lockdown emergency.

China’s Health authorities have confirmed that “Nucleic acid [namely PCR] tests are central to its strategy”. That test is totally unreliable. The figures quoted below do not under any circumstances justify the drastic measures put forth by the CDC and China’s National Health Commission.

Incisive analysis by Emmanuel Pastreich below

 

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research,  April 19, 2022

 

***

Corporate newspapers and social media have been flooded with horrific images of the Shanghai lockdown for the last week, a massive enterprise that has confined millions of Chinese to their homes for weeks and has resulted in the implementation of severe restrictions on access to basic supplies.

Images of citizens yelling from their apartments in frustration, or screaming heartfelt protests in moving soliloquies, videos of drones and robots patrolling the empty streets of Shanghai, present us with a terrifying vision of the totalitarian rule by technology that so many have predicted.

The underlying message is that China is the source of this nightmare.

 

 


The official story put out by the city of Shanghai, and not denied by the Chinese Communist Party, is so extreme as to invite ridicule.

A new “zero tolerance” policy for COVID-19, which is a bogus non-existent disease in the first place, was imposed on all Shanghai citizens, first on the East side of the Huangpu River from March 28, and then for the entire city from April 1st.

Supposedly all citizens will be tested for COVID-19. According to media reports, only 26,087 new cases of COVID-19 have been found, and of those, only 914 were symptomatic (and there were no pictures of bodies on the ground, as was in the case in Wuhan at the end of 2019).

That is to say that the justifications for the lockdown are so absurd as to make the entire process farcical, perhaps an action intended to show citizens that they must do exactly what they are told to do, no matter how ridiculous and groundless the premises are.

The Western corporate media had a ready answer for what was going on: The Chinese Communist Party, following its “undemocratic socialist ideas”, is violating the fundamental rights of citizens that we Westerners respect.

The American Jack Posobiec, who refers to himself as a “veteran Navy intel officer,” posted extensively on Twitter about the lockdown, blaming Communism and making statements like “This is what the CCP is doing to the 26 million people of Shanghai.”

Human Rights Watch was quick to condemn China for its human rights violations in Shanghai, stating on April 6 that “The Chinese government should respect the right to health and other basic rights in its response to the Covid-19 surge in the country,” but did so without any reference to similar, or worse, policies being carried out around the world.

The problem is that although this lockdown is blamed on Communism, there is no precedent for the shutdown of a major city to be found in the Chinese communist tradition; no part of the imposition of technofascism can be traced back to the calls of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai for class struggle and for resistance to imperialism.

The model for the Shanghai lockdown, it turns out, is the lockdown of Boston after the Boston Marathon bombing of April 15, 2013, exactly nine years ago. On that occasion, the United States Federal government, specifically the FBI, used a murky charge of a terrorist attack (about which serious doubts remain) as an excuse to lock down vast sections of the city of Boston and to confine citizens to their homes while armed police patrolled the streets.

The question we should ask is whether what is taking place in Shanghai is being organized by the same people who organized the Boston lockdown, and similar lockdowns around the world over the last two year, and not by the Chinese Communist Party—or not primarily by the Chinese Communist Party.

Horrific videos of Chinese committing suicide by jumping from their windows were also widely circulated, and they may have been real, but there is no reason to assume anything is true just because it was broadly circulated.

Another popular video featured a dog-shaped robot (that resembles a Boston Dynamics SpotMini) patrolling the streets with a microphone on its back telling the people of Shanghai to stay inside. Anyone who looked at the video with critical eyes had to be doubtful. The speaker was carelessly strapped to the back of the robot with barricade tape in what appears to be a careless stunt, and it was most certainly not representative of government policy.

But the giveaway that this lockdown has silent partners who had nothing to do with the CCP bureaucracy was the constant harping in the Western media on the suffering of animals in Shanghai. Images of live cats rounded up and put in bags for disposal were pasted all over the internet, along with a video of a Chinese man cruelly holding a dog in pain with a device and then dropping it into a container with other injured dogs. Although the video certainly was disturbing, I dare horrified Americans to watch a video of a factory-scale slaughterhouse in the United States for even few minutes.

The focus on cruelty to animals is a standard in the operation to demonize Russia in the Ukraine. For example, a call by “Soi Dog co-founder John Dalley” for help to rescue the dogs and cats of Ukraine has been broadly circulated in the United States.

There are numerous indications that the Shanghai lockdown is being marketed for the Western audience as the equivalent of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The narrative presented is of a cruel totalitarian Communist government in China that oppresses the poor citizens of Shanghai who yearn to be free from these unreasonable “zero covid” restrictions (but no suggestion is offered that covid restrictions themselves are wrong).

MSN reported,

“There are videos of locked-up residents chanting ‘we want food’ and ‘we want freedom.’ In a video, citizens are seen going to their balconies and protesting against the lack of supplies.”

But the videos, the reports, are just too perfect, too carefully staged.

Shanghai Shutdown as war by other means

The details of the actions by American operatives in collaboration with corrupt Chinese officials to plan, and to carry out, this Shanghai lockdown are not available to me. Granted the completely speculative, and often blatantly wrong, reporting that passes for journalism these days, however, I hope that I can be forgiven if I infer, based on the ample evidence I have read in English and Chinese, as to what may be going on behind the scenes.

The Shanghai lockdown must be seen first in proper geopolitical perspective.

China has been subject to high level pressure from Washington D.C. over the last two months in an effort to thwart any possible cooperation with the Russian Federation since Russian troops entered the Ukraine.

Let us consider the critical events leading up to the lockdown.

US President Joe Biden warned the People’s Republic of China on March 18, in a conversation with President Xi Jinping, that there would serious consequences for China if it offered any support for Russia, economic, or, especially, military. White House press secretary Jen Psaki explained,

“He made clear what the implications and consequences would be if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians.”

We do not know what Biden said, but just three days later, on March 21, China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 was heading for a smooth landing at the Guangzhou International Airport when it suddenly plunged inexplicably into a nosedive. The cause of the crash has yet to be explained—even three weeks later.

Many Chinese believe the arguments made in videos posted on Weibo (and elsewhere) soon after that incident that the crash was the result of a remote hijacking (similar to the 9/11 crashes) probably conducted by United States. The story was confirmed by the American intelligence investigative blog State of the Nation. Moreover, the egregious decision to include a seven-member team from the United States in the formal investigation of this domestic crash suggests something a bit unusual.

Then, on March 28, the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, not the central government in Beijing that had been easing restrictions, suddenly launched a radical COVID-19 “zero tolerance” policy.

If intelligence operatives for the United States were looking to give China its own “Ukraine,” and to find a new field for the trouble making that they funded in Hong Kong previously, Shanghai was the logical choice.

Shanghai is riddled with global financial interests, with the head offices (or certainly the major branch) for all major multinational investment banks and multinational corporations located there. Their impact on the Chinese economy remains immense.

Shanghai has a history of over a hundred years as a center for global capital with a parasitic relationship to the rest of the nation. It was Shanghai, after all, that offered extraterritoriality to citizens from imperial powers until the 1940s.

Following that tradition, Shanghai today has the most extreme special economic zone policies of any city in China, policies that allow foreign corporations to engage in a broad range of activities without the authorization of the government.

As part of its drive to meet the demands of multinational corporations, the Shanghai government has privatized services and promoted technological solutions to just about everything. Shanghai has been so enthusiastic in adopting smart grids, 5G, online governance, and automation that it won the top rank globally as smart city from Juniper Research this year.

Shanghai has rolled out the red carpet for global finance, giving special privileges to select institutional investors, opening up to just about any investment from offshore, expanding the derivatives markets, and permitting investment banks to create their own “wealth management joint ventures.”

Who might be involved on the Chinese side in this Shanghai shutdown?

There are plenty of billionaires active in Shanghai with close ties to global finance who might be tempted to play the role of an Igor Kolomoisky, the billionaire who created current president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky in response to American encouragement.

For example, we know that the billionaire Ma Yun (Jack Ma), who took enormous amounts of funding from Goldman Sachs and other American investment banks when he created Alibaba as a global marketing and distribution giant that rivaled Amazon, was very unhappy with Chinese policies.

Ma is popular figure among the globalists, and he is a member of the board of trustees of the World Economic Forum.

Although the details are obscure, Ma’s push for the globalist agenda in China ran afoul of state planners in Beijing, Xi Jinping included, two years ago.

Ma established the Ant Group, a financial institution intended to revolutionize finance by creating an unregulated banking system.

The story is that he delivered a speech on October 24, 2020 in which he called for sweeping changes in the banking system. As a result, the central government cracked down on his activities and he has rarely been seen in public since.

Alibaba is headquartered in Hangzhou, near Shanghai, and has its largest presence in Shanghai.

There are also American billionaires interested in using Shanghai as a way to muscle in and open up China to foreign capital. For example, Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of the private equity firm Blackstone, has bought off many intellectuals and government officials in the Chinese Communist Party with his money, especially the more than 100 million USD he gave to establish, among other things, the prestigious “Schwarzman Scholars” Program at Tsinghua University.

Another American billionaire heavily invested in China is John Thornton, founder of the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings Institution. Thornton is a member of the International Advisory Council of the China Investment Corporation (China’s sovereign wealth fund) and he is constantly pushing to increase foreign influence over China’s financial policy.

Shanghai Lockdown and Global Economic Disruption

The economic disruption caused by the Shanghai lockdown is already being promoted in the corporate media as the reason for delays in the production and delivery of electronics, automobiles, and other household goods that are produced in, shipped through, or dependent on parts manufactured in Shanghai. Although this disruption is true, there is every reason to believe that this situation will be exploited and exaggerated to justify efforts by the super-rich to destroy the global economy further and to impoverish the Earth’s citizens.

Combining a Ukraine crisis that justifies a sudden scarcity of agricultural goods, raw materials, natural gas, and manufactured goods with a Shanghai crisis that shuts down global trade offers globalists an opportunity to explain just about any disruption.

Already plans are in place to adopt a similar zero tolerance policies in the city of Guangzhou, another major manufacturing and finance center. The resulting economic slowdowns, disruptions in supply chains, increasing inflation and shortages will be just what the doctor ordered.

The economic crisis of the Shanghai lockdown has also been employed as an argument for increasing vaccinations in China, predictably, and for introducing the first Chinese-made mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, according to China’s National Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Differences between Russia and China

There are clear differences in the nature of the attack on Russia through Ukraine and on China through Shanghai. The United States and China, although talk of war has become a constant theme over the last decade, are also highly integrated economies that involve deep cooperation even in the midst of radical political theatre. Moreover, China has refused to respond to the efforts to goad it into military action in Taiwan, Hong Kong or the South China Sea. The attack, therefore, had to be launched in a covert and obscure manner so as to make it appear as if the Chinese Communist Party that the source of the problem because it is abusing the people of Shanghai. As of this moment, there is not a trace of the American hand anywhere in the public discourse.

Russia, by contrast never had the rapprochement with the United States that China had after President Richard Nixon’s meeting with Chairman Mao Zedong in 1972, nor are the economies of the United States and Russia that integrated. There were Russians who studied in the United States, but study in America did not have the same appeal for Russians that it had for Chinese over the last thirty years.

Thus, although there is American investment in Russia, and American interference in Russia, Russia is not so deeply integrated into the American logistics and supply chain, and American investment banks have fewer ties and fewer financial interests.

What needs to be done

The Chinese have been subject to their part of the Great Reset, serving as guinea pigs for social credit systems that allow for constant surveillance and for the evaluation of citizens via AI, and for the required use of digital payment systems. The globalists most likely targeted China for these experiments, before broader application in the world, because the emphasis on technological development in Chinese society, and Chinese naivety about the negative impact of technological innovation on human society, made the Chinese ready victims.

These technofascist policies are promoted by many bureaucrats in the Chinese Communist Party, but they did not originate in China. They are but a part of a global strategy for control of the world’s economy by the financial elites, cunning men who flatter the Chinese about the effectiveness of their response to COVID-19, and their potential to be innovation leaders through AI.

What is desperately needed in response to the current effort of globalists to induce needless conflicts between nation states, and within nations, through operations like the Shanghai lockdown, is an alliance of citizens in China, Russia, the United States, and other countries against the predations of multinational investment banks and corporations, an alliance that resembles the internationalist anti-fascist movements of the 1930s.

The Shanghai lockdown was designed to increase the isolation of the individual in a technological prison while also creating greater distance between Americans (Westerners) and Chinese who ought to be cooperating to respond to the threat of techno-fascism. It is time for us all to come together in response.

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This article was originally published on Circles and Squares.

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.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Boston Lockdown of 2013 (Source: C and S)

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Latest on the Ukraine Russian war with Phil Giraldi, former CIA Case Officer and Army Intelligence Officer

 

 

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Today, the dangers of military escalation are beyond description.

What is now happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications. It could lead us into a World War III scenario.

It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

An understanding of history is important.

It is absolutely essential that Freedom of Speech prevail as a means to resolving this crisis which potentially threatens the future of humanity.

Global Research,  March 4, 2022


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a
In Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s speech introducing the new Federal Budget, she employed strong and cutting language of Vladimir Putin and the Russian government as she introduced an increase of $8 billion in spending on defence spending, including $500 million set aside to arm Ukrainians defending against Russian aggression over the past two months.

“Putin and his henchmen are war criminals. The world’s democracies — including our own — can be safe only once the Russian tyrant and his armies are entirely vanquished,” she said. [1]

On April 27, every single member of the House of Commons voted in favor of the resolution that the Russian attacks on Ukraine constitute a “genocide.”[2]

In the lead up to the war, Canada together with the United Kingdom had taken a more hawkish stance toward Russia than any nation within the European Union. [3]

As the Toronto Star columnist Thomas Walkom commented back in a January article, Canada has the reputation of being moderate when it comes to international crises. When it comes to Ukraine, they are out and out cowboys, even making President Biden look like a classic peacenik! [4]

The mainstream media has likewise been totally unfair and biased when it comes to Ukraine. The outspoken peace activist Tamara Lorincz spelled out all the concerns she had in a letter to the CBC Ombudsman about the station’s coverage:

“The CBC has hosted many more Ukrainian, pro-NATO and anti-Russian guests who have advocated for more weapons to Ukraine and have portrayed Russia as the aggressor. The CBC has not given equal air time to Russian officials or to alternative peace perspectives who are critical of NATO expansion and the Canadian military in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. The poor, biased reporting is misinforming Canadians. Worse, it is fanning the flames of war and increasing insecurity in the region and risking the lives of Ukrainians.” [5]

Canadians are naturally guided to stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine. But this instinct to help is cluttered with propaganda distorting the actual picture on the ground, and the actual long term plans of the U.S. toward Russia.

So, for Canadians, what is the alternative for Ukraine beyond this endless drumbeat for more and more war? This is a question that the Global Research News Hour intends to answer this week.

In our first half hour, we hear from two panelists from the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute’s video presentation Cutting Through the Spin: Russia’s invasion, NATO’s provocation and Canada’s complicity .

The first, Yuri Sheliazhenko is based in Kiev, Ukraine and is demanding conscientious resistance to his fellow Ukrainians participating in the war-fighting. Then peace activist Glenn Michalchuk explains the opportunity to de-escalate tensions through peaceful and diplomatic initiatives, not accelerate by more warfare.

Our final guest, anti-war activist Ken Stone talks about a current campaign to stop someone from recruiting Canadians as volunteer fighters against the Russians in Ukraine, and how the Canadian government appears to turn a “blind eye” to the illegality of the affair.

Yuri Sheliazhenko is a member of the board of directors of World Beyond War. He is Ukrainian, and based in Kiev. He is the executive secretary for the Ukrainian Pacifist movement, and a board member for the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection. He is also a journalist, blogger, human rights defender, legal scholar, as well as an author and academic.

Glenn Michalchuk is chair of Peace Alliance Winnipeg and the president of the Winnipeg branch of the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians.

Ken Stone is a veteran antiwar activist, a former Steering Committee Member of the Canadian Peace Alliance, an executive member of the Syria Support Network International, and treasurer of the Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War [hcsw.ca]. 

(Global Research News Hour Episode 353)

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Notes:

  1. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/federal-budget-defence-freeland-ukraine-russia-1.6412424?msclkid=021dab86c7cb11ec9b73f81e059bcd78
  2. Kanishka Singh (April 27, 2022) “Canada lawmakers vote unanimously to label Russia’s acts in Ukraine as ‘genocide’ “, Reuters; https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/federal-budget-defence-freeland-ukraine-russia-1.6412424?msclkid=021dab86c7cb11ec9b73f81e059bcd78
  3. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/25/britain-canada-ukraine-russia-military/?msclkid=955edbecc7c011ec9aba8cc35e62a7a1
  4. Thomas Walkom (Jan. 20, 2022) “Canada, usually the voice of moderation, is playing the cowboy on Ukraine crisis”, The Toronto Star; https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2022/01/20/canada-usually-the-voice-of-moderation-is-playing-the-cowboy-on-ukraine-crisis.html?msclkid=955d5f30c7c011ecaae1a1b9bdaef6ff
  5. https://www.peacequest.ca/reader-faults-cbcs-pro-war-coverage-of-ukraine-crisis/?msclkid=59fe4cefc7ed11eca2d5c77c5c3db947

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The US Constitution with the Bill of Rights dates from 1789.  All of the safeguards against central government growth and ability to indebt the country have been eroded.  Today the Federal national debt is $30 trillion, about two times the gross domestic product of the 28 countries that  comprise the European Union, whose combined populations of 447,007,596 is approximately 120,000,000 larger than the US population.

Except for the 2nd Amendment, all of the civil liberty protections against tyrannical central government in the US Constitution have been eroded. 

Always, the excuse for setting aside the civil liberties protected by the US Constitution is some perceived threat.  During the 1930s, the “depression threat” gave executive branch agencies control over law by giving newly created regulatory authorities the authority to devise the rules that implemented the law. 

In the 1930s Congress, both House and Senate, became essentially authorizers for executive branch agencies to write the law as it applied. With the New Deal, the power of Congress was compromised. Congress lost its constraint on the Executive Branch.

Skipping over other times and instances of constitutional rights erosion, the fabricated “war on terror” during the 21st century permitted the US government during the George W. Bush and Obama regimes to override both habeas corpus and the prohibition on execution of US citizens without trial and conviction of a capital crime. The US Federal Government claimed and exercised the rights to detain suspects indefinitely and to execute them on suspicion alone. Widespread spying on the population violates the privacy provision and became routine. In almost every respect the George W. Bush and Obama regimes destroyed the US Constitution.

During 2019-2021 the orchestrated “Covid Threat” was used by Western governments to impose coercive vaccination with an untested substance put into use by “emergency use authorization” based on the false claim that there were no known treatments or cures. Coerced vaccination is a direct violation of the Nuremberg Laws established by the United States that were used to hang members of the German government for coercive medical experimentation.

The system of law and accountable government set up by the 18th century’s best and brightest was destroyed by the passage of 232 years.  Today nothing is left of the United States of the creation.  A false history, sponsored by the New York Times and its “1619 Project,” and decades of the demonization of our country’s Founding Fathers in universities and public schools have left the United States portrayed as a criminal and racist enterprise from its founding.

One would think that a country this denounced by its own intellectuals would quietly fade away.  Instead, we have the  neoconservatives who control American foreign policy and the American foreign policy narrative who declare our totally discredited country to be history’s choice of the exceptional and indispensable country with the right to rule the world.

Our founding fathers were opposed to foreign interventions. But Washington used WW II to become an Empire. Empires have their own rules. The European, Canadian, Japanese, Taiwanese, Australian puppet states follow Washington’s rules.  An empire conducts interventions everywhere, even in the affairs of its puppet states and among its own population.

The American Empire finds its hegemony constrained by two powers, Russia and China.  Neither is willing to accept US hegemony.   Both have declared adherence to a multi-polar world. The two countries are, in effect, new countries born anew from abandoned ideological dictatorships. Being new they have not acquired the dysfunctional elements that characterize the United States and make the claim of hegemony unrealistic.

At what point does it occur to the foreign policy community that a country rife with critical race theory, identity politics, cancel culture, and wokeism that cultivates self-hate and endless apologies is destined for the trash bin of history, not for hegemony?

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Updated on April 29, 2020.

See video interview with Robert J. Burrowes

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In a televised address on 24 February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his decision to order Russian military forces to invade Ukraine in what he labeled a ‘special military operation’ to defend the recently declared self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk and ‘to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine’. Watch President Putin’s speech here or read a transcript here.

Since the invasion started, there has been a huge amount of commentary on it from a vast range of authors with a remarkably diverse range of perspectives. Beyond this, the cascading impacts of the war along with the changes that have been precipitated at various levels, have already been far-reaching and will be increasingly devastating for humanity as a whole.

In this article I will focus on some of the more obscure aspects of the deeper agenda that is driving this conflict to manifest in the way that it is occurring. This reflects my own long-standing interest in understanding how elite power manifests in the world.

As I have explained previously, since the dawn of human civilization 5,000 years ago, ‘ordinary’ people have been engaged in an ongoing struggle against elites, whether local, imperial, religious, economic, national or, now, global. See Why Activists Fail’. But whatever the context, the elite intention is always the same: to kill undesired populations and/or control the lives of everyone else by depriving them of their fair share of political, economic, social and ecological resources.

Since about 1500CE, the intensity of this conflict has deepened considerably with elites intent on killing off a substantial proportion of the human population and enslaving those left alive. This has been done through imperial conquest precipitating genocidal campaigns against indigenous peoples, wars, control of food supplies and other resources to generate mass starvation, medical technologies, the deployment of lethal technologies notably now including 5G and, most recently, an injectables program, ostensibly to protect against a ‘virus’.

See ‘Killing Off Humanity: How the Global Elite Is Using Eugenics and Transhumanism to Shape Our Future’.

In essence, elite intention has never really wavered. To reiterate: Whatever ideology supposedly guided any elite in a particular context, the elite has usually wanted a substantial proportion of any local human population killed off and the bulk of those left alive reduced to slavery, in one form or another, while endlessly commandeering planetary resources for elite use.

The only differences between earlier eras and the present is that the assault on humanity is now genuinely global and it is in its final stage.

Unfortunately, too, this assault is happening in plain sight with the bulk of the population completely unaware of what is taking place and those who are at least concerned and resisting in some way focused on the ‘smoke and mirrors’ distraction presented by the ‘virus’/‘vaccine’ narrative and the antics of politicians.

Which means that the Elite’s kill and control agenda, being implemented through the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’, proceeds with minimal resistance. And those not killed by the various measures being used to depopulate humanity will be enslaved in a technological prison from which there will be no escape. After all, the absolutely minimum requirements for effective resistance are life, a mind with free will and food to eat, none of which can be taken for granted any longer.

So where does the war in Ukraine fit into all this?

Well, at immediate and great personal cost to those soldiers and civilians killed or otherwise adversely impacted by the fighting, the war is being used as a smokescreen to obscure a highly orchestrated sequence of events that accelerate the Global Elite’s kill and control agenda, in just the same way that the Covid-19 narrative has done.

Using two wealthy members of the World Economic Forum – President Vladimir Putin of Russia (see ‘All Putin’s Men: Secret Records Reveal Money Network Tied to Russian Leader’) and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine (see ‘What Pandora Papers revealed about Zelensky offshore accounts and funding from Ukranian kleptocracy’) – backed by a supporting cast of key elite agents and unwitting accomplices throughout institutions such as NATO, the European Union, the US and other governments, the corporate media and elsewhere, the military conflict rages on in clear public view, with much debate about various measures being implemented as part of this conflict – such as sanctions by many countries on Russia – while several vitally important outcomes are obscured from general view or accepted as ‘unfortunate’ consequences of the war rather than planned measures of the elite to kill or control us all.

‘What outcomes are these?’ you might ask.

Well, while this war rages on, generating enormous emotion among those siding with either Russia or Ukraine – and thus, in extremely simplified terms, outraged by either NATO’s precipitating encroachment and military buildup over recent decades or Putin’s ‘unjustified’ aggression – here is a short, partial list of rapidly accelerated key outcomes, all compliments of this war, that bring you closer to death or technological slavery in the near term, wherever in the world that you live.

  1. The war, by accident (given that other key elite agents are well aware of what is happening and probably won’t precipitate it deliberately), could ‘go nuclear’, and kill off a huge proportion of humanity and, depending on its severity, starve most or even all of those left alive. But, assuming this outcome is avoided, there are plenty of other unpalatable options to contemplate.
  2. Russia and Ukraine supply 30% of the world’s wheat and significant percentages of other grains, sunflower oil, fertilizers, oil and gas, and strategic minerals (such as palladium and platinum), among other products. The war, as well as the sanctions imposed on Russia by many countries, has exacerbated the already seriously interrupted supply chains of these products, which either cannot be alternatively sourced or not as cheaply. And the previously generated supply chain collapses in all sectors, causing food (and other) shortages, price hikes and energy crises around the world, cannot be restored in any timeframe that is short. Millions will starve to death because of these supply chain collapses.

According to one recent report: ‘We believe we are at the onset of a global famine of historic proportions.’ See ‘Farmers on the Brink’.

To repeat: ‘we are at the onset of a global famine of historic proportions.’

And the thoughtful account by Riley Waggaman includes this comment from Anatoly Nesmiyan: ‘That is why the “special [military] operation” is a minor episode of little importance against the background of impending cataclysms…. The fact that Ukraine and Russia have been used as a tool speaks not so much about the mind of the West, but about the impenetrable stupidity of the direct participants in the current competition.’ See ‘Up next: Global food crisis?’

If you want to keep close track of the destruction of your food supply, now being dramatically accelerated by the war in Ukraine, check out the daily updates shared by the Ice Age Farmer (Christian Westbrook) on various channels.

  1. Intended deaths from the injectable continue to climb rapidly, despite concerted efforts by elite agents such as the World Health Organization, politicians, official medical systems, the pharmaceutical industry and the corporate and government media to conceal these deaths from public view. For just two recent attempts to compile a list of reports, see UPDATED: How Many People Are the Vaccines Killing?’ and COVID-19 Vaccine Massacre: 68,000% Increase in Strokes, 44,000% Increase in Heart Disease, 6,800% Increase in Deaths Over Non-COVID Vaccines.

Of course, many eminent experts, heavily suppressed by the corporate media, have long ago warned that these ‘death shots’ will ‘decimate humanity’. For a small sample, see ‘The Truth about the Covid-19 Vaccine’, A Final Warning to Humanity, ‘J’Accuse! The Gene-based “Vaccines” Are Killing People. Governments Worldwide Are Lying to You the People, to the Populations They Purportedly Serve’, COVID Shots to “Decimate World Population,” Warns Dr. Bhakdiand BREAKING – Over 150,000 people including 600 children have died due to the Covid-19 Vaccines in the USA’.

But a quick check reveals that the Russian and Ukrainian governments have both enthusiastically participated in the entire Covid-19 ‘virus’/‘vaccine’ scam imposing the familiar range of measures – mandatory vaccinations, QR codes… – implemented elsewhere to fulfil the elite’s kill and control agenda.

This includes elite Russian participation in the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB) which, as noted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his recent book The Real Anthony Fauci is

‘the real-life authoritative collective for imposing rules during the… pandemic. This so-called “independent” monitoring and accountability body’s purpose was to validate the imposition of police state controls by global and local political leaders and technocrats…: subduing resistance, ruthlessly censoring dissent, isolating the healthy, collapsing economies, and compelling vaccination during a projected worldwide health crisis.’

See ‘I Believe We Are Facing an Evil That Has No Equal in Human History’ and Sputnik V is a scam: “A socioeconomic experiment on the Russian population”’.

The government of Ukraine is no different, using coercive measures to force vaccination on its citizens despite an unusually high level awareness of the dangers of vaccines – leading to substantial resistance – among the general population. See ‘As COVID Surges, Protesters Hit Streets of Ukraine to Decry Vaccine Mandates’.

Are you keeping track of the ever-lengthening list of those who are injured or killed by the injection, which is taking place in the background of this war?

  1. The rollout of 5G, essential to elite creation of their surveillance and control grid, gathers pace under cover of the ‘virus’/‘vaccine’ narrative and now the Russia/Ukraine war. Of course, the electromagnetic radiation will also kill vast numbers of people, both outright and via decimation of the insect population (thus further reducing global food supplies), and the surveillance and control grid it will make possible will trap you in your home and immediate neighborhood, with any semblance of human freedom and human rights consigned to memory. See ‘Sleepwalking into Hell: The Global Elite’s Technological Coup d’état Against Humanity’ and ‘Deadly Rainbow: Will 5G Precipitate The Extinction Of All Life On Earth?’
  2. And, unless you have been ignoring the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’, you are well aware that the Global Elite plans to transform 200 areas of human life using technologies associated with the fourth industrial revolution and transhumanism (including 5G and 6G, military weapons, artificial intelligence [AI], big data, nanotechnology and biotechnology, robotics, the Internet of Things [IoT], and quantum computing). These technologies will subvert human identity, human freedom, human dignity, human volition and human privacy reducing those left alive to transhuman slavery in which you will have a digitized personal identity. This digitized identity will be connected to your banking, health, legal and other records to establish your personal ‘social credit score’, like that used in China, to determine what you can, and cannot, do while living in your ‘smart city’ eating food-like substances synthesized from trash and insects. See ‘The Great Reset’.

In Ukraine, the government is simply using the war to rapidly expand what was already ‘one of the most expansive government-run digital ID systems in the world’, making the country the ‘world leader’ in some aspects of digitization via their Diia app, with all that this portends for the human future.

See ‘How Ukraine Government Is Converting Digital ID System Into Wartime Tool’.

Of course, there will be no backtracking from this at war’s end.

Russia is equally committed to its digitization program, although it is also playing a key role in developing the elite-controlled banking system, complete with digitized currencies, that will supersede the current model. It is hosting the annual Cyber Polygon simulations.

See ‘Taking Control by Destroying Cash: Beware Cyber Polygon as Part of the Elite Coup’.

If all of this sounds preposterous, here are two other geopolitical analysts who offer a similar conclusion based on their own analyses: The Ukraine Crisis: What You Need to Know’ and ‘Ukraine-Russia: A Proxy-War, Advancing the Agenda of the Great Reset?’

What About the War in Ukraine?

Like many people, I am concerned about the war too. In drawing attention to the deeper elite program that is rapidly trapping humanity in a nightmarish future, I am not suggesting that the war does not matter.

But I also know from long experience that the anti-war movement remains devoid of the capacity to act to prevent or halt wars because it lacks the analysis, strategic orientation, tenacity and courage to do so. I wish it was otherwise.

Still, if you want to participate in a strategy to end this war, particularly given the possibility of it morphing into a longer term insurgency – see ‘Ukraine And The New Al Qaeda’ – you can read how to do so here: Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy.

And if you want to participate in a strategy to end all war, you can read how to do so here: Nonviolent Campaign Strategy.

Having noted this, let me highlight that key aspects of these strategies are the need to recognize that violence is built deeply into human society by a parenting model that, in essence, is based on demanding obedience from a child, rather than nurturing the child’s Self-will. See Why Violence? and Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice.

And this generates a society in which many people are so adversely impacted that they are rendered effectively insane. Unfortunately, some of these people end up in situations where they exercise extraordinarily levels of control. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.

Hence, if you want to reduce violence and war in the future, consider making ‘My Promise to Children’.

Video Interview with Robert J. Burrowes

So what does all of this mean?

Whatever your concerns about the war in Ukraine however, I encourage you to not let it distract you from acting powerfully to defeat the deeper elite agenda. If you get caught up in the war hysteria and fail to defend yourself and those you love, you will soon find that everything about the life you have known has been taken away, irrespective of the outcome of this war.

So what can you do?

Ideally, if you wish to strategically resist the elite agenda, your most powerful option is to participate in the ‘We Are Human, We Are Free’ campaign.

The simplest version of this strategy is explained on the one-page flyer that identifies a short series of crucial nonviolent actions that anyone can take. This flyer, now available in 15 languages (Czech, Danish, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish & Slovak) with more in the pipeline, can be downloaded from here: ‘The 7 Days Campaign to Resist the Great Reset’.

Conclusion

The war in Ukraine is a tragedy for those immediately impacted but for all of us as well. Particularly if we do not recognise the threat it conceals and act powerfully in response to this deeper threat.

For 5,000 years elites have been pitting us against each other – at work, on the battlefield, in life generally – by drawing attention to, and magnifying, superficial differences (based on gender, race, religion, class, nationality….), exacerbating conflicts and convincing us that they are acting in our own best interests when we do what they tell us via their agents in government, the corporate media and elsewhere, and that human solidarity is worth nothing.

Well, one day very soon now, we would do well to realize that in the end only three things matter: Human solidarity is essential if we are to survive this existential crisis, our true enemy is not each other but the insane Global Elite, and we must act powerfully and nonviolently if we are to defeat it.

A human future worth living will be short otherwise.

*

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Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of Why Violence? His email address is [email protected] and his website is here. He is a frequent contributor to ‘Global Research’.

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While the Western world continues to claim that Russia is interested in “annexing” or “fragmenting” Ukraine, current reality shows that the geopolitical players interested in attacking Kiev’s sovereign territory are others. Recent investigations reported by Russian intelligence point out that the Polish government, supported by the US and other Western powers, plans to invade and seize territorial portions in eastern Ukraine. As expected, Polish officials deny involvement in this type of maneuver and the Western media remains absolutely silent.

In a new episode of the military conflict in Ukraine, the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service stated that the US and Poland are currently planning to take “military-political control” over western Ukraine through a future armed intervention. In a press release, Sergey Naryshkin, head of the SVR (Russian acronym for Foreign Intelligence Service), said that, according to information received by his agency, Washington and Warsaw are planning to gain control over Polish historic possessions in western Ukraine.

“According to the intelligence acquired by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Washington and Warsaw are engaged on plans to establish Poland’s tight military and political control over its historic possessions in Ukraine”, he said during a public statement on April 28.

Naryshkin also pointed out some strategic details about how the occupation of the western Ukrainian region would take place. The process is related to the already admitted Polish intention to start a “peace operation” in Ukraine, which is already supported by the West to some extent. The Poles would use as an argument that their operation would aim to protect the Polish population and heritage against “Russian aggression” and then initiate an absolute political and military control in that region.

Obviously, the only stance taken by the Polish government has been absolute denial. Stanislaw Zaryn, spokesman for Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski, denied on the same day all information alleged by the Russians. Unlike the Moscow’s official, however, the spokesman did not offer more in-depth information about what the real Polish strategic objectives with a possible “peace operation” would be, only continuing the already known Western speech about the “information warfare and the spread of fake news” supposedly practiced by Russia.

These were some of his words about the case:

“Sergey Naryshkin continues Russian information operation against Poland and the US. Russia’s intelligence chief is spreading insinuations against Poland and the US, convincing falsely that both countries are preparing a Polish annexation of western Ukraine”.

In fact, the claim does not seem unsubstantiated. Warsaw has historic territorial claims in western Ukraine. Many Polish cities after the Second World War became part of the then Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, including Lviv, which is today a major point of military and geostrategic importance. In these regions, it is possible to speak Polish or Ukrainian with “Polishisms”, the Roman Catholic faith is practiced and there is a strong ethnic presence of Poles.

In recent years, due to the stability of relations between NATO (of which Poland is a member) and Kiev, the matter concerning historically Polish territories has practically been “forgotten” by geopolitical experts. But, in the same sense, it is absolutely reasonable to think that, in the midst of conflicts and tensions, Poland with the support of NATO wants to retake these territories, which would have great geostrategic value for the western alliance.

It is also necessary to mention that, interestingly, the western media has avoided commenting on the case, even though it is a serious issue and with a strong possibility of escalation in the Ukrainian conflict. Apparently, for the mainstream media, it is forbidden to talk about “attempts to balkanize Ukraine” when the player involved is a NATO member.

On one side of the war of narratives, there is an intelligence agency claiming to have reliable sources and providing details on how its predictions will come to completion, while on the other there is only a formal denial and baseless accusation about alleged “Russian lies”. In fact, there is no way to predict what will happen, but it is reasonable that there should be at least concern on the part of international society and an effort to prevent Warsaw from starting another escalation of the conflict by annexing Ukrainian territories.

*

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Lucas Leiroz is a  researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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***

Read Part I, II and III:

Destination Ukraine: The Ignorance of War

By Brett Redmayne-Titley, April 07, 2022

Destination Ukraine: Will Poland Go Rogue? Warsaw’s Ulterior Motive? The Lviv Connection

By Brett Redmayne-Titley, April 21, 2022

The Lies…and the Eyes…of Ukraine. Reporting from Lviv

By Brett Redmayne-Titley, April 19, 2022


Palanca: (The Moldova/Ukraine Border)   

The tiny and peaceful nation of Moldova will soon be dragged into the Ukraine/ Russia war. Historical and current geopolitical reasons are in play and being applied against Russia’s widening eastern front moving westwards. However, it is the southern Ukrainian region from Odessa to the Moldovan Transnistria that may trigger an escalation towards World War.

The Ukrainian Army (AFU) currently fighting the combined militaries of the Russian Armed Forces (RAF), the Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples Republic armies (DPR and LPR) and the Donbas militias are for the moment quite busy in the northern east. However, with Mariupol now firmly under Russian control and the southern front at Mykolayiv and Kherson certainly in contention, the eyes of this war will soon migrate south a mere one hundred miles towards Moldova.

Other than peace, Russia and Ukraine/NATO have no choice about this unfolding strategic tragedy.

But, there are more than these three obvious players in this war. Also important is the additional triumvirate of Moldova, its disputed region of Transnistria and also Romania that will soon combine within this regional cauldron.

Driving randomly north from Moldova’s capital, Chisinau, along the narrow farm roads, it is finally springtime. The roaming fields have just been tilled and planted and slope down very gradually and continually towards Transnistria.

This is a long thin strip of land that follows the Dniestria River along the Ukrainian border before petering out into a shallow and miles wide river valley that runs all the way into the huge 40 KM long bay that has its entrance at the Zatoka railway bridge on the Black Sea coast. This Transnistria region is peculiar since Moldova claims title to it, but the 400,000 people there are culturally and ethnically more aligned with Russia and fought a war against Moldova in 1992 to prove their point.

Russia has carried out military drills in this region as recently as February 2 this year. The pretence is that a Russian presence is essential to protect their citizens in the area and keep the peace between Moldovans and Transnistrians.

As of this week, that pretence is over.

Transnistria: The Romanian Connection

Image on the right: Map of Transnistria (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

File:Transnistria-map.svg

To understand the new breadth of this war it is important to review the history of the territorial claims and seizures regarding tiny Moldova and its surrounds. Moldova is a territory historically claimed by Romania until Russian Imperial and Soviet control began from 1812 to 1991. Transnistria means “beyond the Dniester,” the natural river border dividing Moldova and part of north-eastern Romania from Ukraine.

Transnistria remained under Soviet control in between both World Wars. Just before Gorbachev divested the Soviet Union Transnistria as a region tried to secede from Moldova due to Romanian nationalists suddenly coming to power in the capital of Chisinau.

This rightly concerned the region’s many Slavic people who feared for their ongoing rights, identity, and safety. The animosity of the Moldovan south against the Russian ethnicity north is similar here to the east-west halves of Ukraine currently. The brief war of 1992 that resulted has never officially concluded. Instead, a Russian inspired truce resulted combined with the introduction of 500 Russian peacekeepers.

The term “Transnistria” was first coined in 1989 by Leonida Lari as part of an election slogan for the political party Popular Front of Moldova. Transnistria’s origin, however, can be traced further back to the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic which was formed in 1924 as part of the Ukrainian SSR. However, during World War II, the Soviet Union took parts of the Moldavian ASSR and also a piece of the Kingdom of Romania‘s Bessarabia. Beginning in 1940 this combination became known as the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Moldavian ASSR (orange) and Romania, 1924–1940 (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

Romania was not pleased.

In 1941, after Axis forces that included Romania invaded the Soviet Union and the German army defeated the Soviet troops there and occupied it. Suddenly, Romania controlled the entire area between the Dniester and Southern Bug rivers, including the coastal city of Odessa which was declared the capital. This enlarged version of Transnistria became home to nearly 200,000 Romanian-speaking residents as the Romanian administration of Transnistria attempted to stabilise the situation in the area under a process of Romanianization.

During this Romanian occupation of 1941–44, an estimated 150,000 to 250,000 Ukrainian and Romanian Jews were deported to Transnistria. Reportedly, the majority were either executed or died from other causes in the ghettos and concentration camps of this Romanian nation-state.

As WW II wound down the Red Army advanced into the area again in 1944. Soviet authorities executed, exiled or imprisoned hundreds of the Romanian inhabitants of the Moldavian SSR for their crimes against the ethnic Russians or their collaboration with the Romanian occupiers.

As a precursor to formally establishing Transnistria, the Yedinstvo (Unity) Movement, was established by the Slavic population of Moldova to attempt equal status for both Russians and Moldovans. Transnistria’s ethnic and linguistic composition differs significantly from most of the rest of Moldova. The share of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians is especially high and a majority of the population. Many Moldovans beyond Transnistria still speak Russian as a mother tongue.

Violence suddenly escalated in October 1990 when the Moldovan Popular Front called for volunteers to form armed militias to stop an autonomy referendum in Gagauzia. This other sub-region of Moldova had and has an even higher share of ethnic Russian and Ukrainian minorities.

In response to Moldova, volunteer militias were formed in Transnistria. Already, in April 1990, Moldovan nationalist mobs had attacked ethnic Russian members of parliament, while the Moldovan police refused to intervene or restore order.

Isolated skirmishes escalated to war beginning on 2 March 1992 as a concerted military action began between Moldova and Transnistria. The fighting intensified throughout that spring until the former Soviet 14th Guards Army entered the conflict. Reportedly these troops opened fire against Moldovan forces killing more than 700.

Since then, the resulting pervasive truce with Moldova has prevailed. Chisinau exercises little effective control or influence on the Transnistrian authorities. The ceasefire agreement, signed on 21 July 1992, has been held to the present day.

The ceasefire agreement called for a three-party (Russia, Moldova, Transnistria) Joint Control Commission to oversee the security arrangements in the Transnistrian demilitarised zone.

As a result, Transnistria is an unrecognised independent presidential republic with its own government, parliament, military, police, postal system, currency, and vehicle registration. It has created its constitution, flag, national anthem, and coat of arms. Most Transnistrians have Moldovan citizenship, but many also have Russian, Romanian, or Ukrainian citizenship.

This status quo, although beneficial to peace left out the Romanians who had other opinions of the Commission after being sent backwards in history once again.

A New War Priority Begins

Moldova, with a standing army of barely 5000 has so far acquiesced to this Transnistrian reality over the past thirty years; a reality which is re-enforced by the 500 Russian peacekeepers stationed here in the village of Cobasna.

Also helping keep the peace are an additional 1000 Russian troops guarding the largest weapons dump in eastern Europe and its 22,000 tons of munitions.

Russian peace-keeping soldiers at the border between Transnistria and Moldova at Dubăsari (Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

The Russian military has the men and materiel to fend off the opening stages of any coming conflict here. However, when war does begin near Odessa the base located in Cobansa, Transnistria will certainly need additional support quickly. Here lies the first important conflict.

Moldova is landlocked. For Russia to provide support to Cobansa it would have to either fly across restricted and likely defended air space or provide a ground attack that can open a military corridor from a beachhead of the black sea to Transnistria. This is some thirty miles inland.

Russia will have no other choices, however, since the base is far too important and, further, allowing those munitions into western hands would be a game-changer within this region.

So far, to the north, Russia has, since abandoning Kyiv, stayed true to its declared goals of freeing the Donbas, Luhansk and Donetsk from the indiscriminate AFU terror and Nazi influence of the past seven years.

By creating a buffer zone which Russia continues to expand due west each day more territorial freedom is growing for eastern Ukraine citizens.

Many small and relatively unaffected towns are opening and shops and businesses are preparing to return to normal within this buffer zone. It seems likely that once this buffer zone is adequate to prevent artillery shelling of the major cities and towns Russia will no longer continue to advance into additional territory. The eventual north/south line of demarcation across Ukraine remains open to speculation but must consider the Dniester, Dnieper and Bug rivers boundaries.

It is vitally important to understand that Russia’s expanding eastern buffer zone is only part of Russia’s military obligation for a complete coastal Ukrainian blockade. This cannot be completed without two other goals being achieved first. One, Russia’s bringing the remaining southern coastal of the Odessa region under its control at least up to the Zatoka bridge. Two: maintaining military control of the southern east-west front lines along the border of Transnistria all the way to Romania.

Chisinau, which is 120 KM further south must stay neutral since it will be of little consequence, nor opposition. But, so far it has not. This bodes horribly for this wonderful and little known country.

If successful, these final Russian bricks in the wall here will effectively and strategically land lock Ukraine completely from access to all of the Black Sea and any point eastwards. With Odessa under control and Transnistria as the new southern Russian front, Ukraine will be without a seaport and utterly beholden to Russia for all pre or post-war eastbound exports or westbound imports via road, air or sea. Particularly those of the military kind.

Reciprocally, for the same reasons, Ukraine will have no choice but to fight tooth and nail for its control of the same territory. This, of course, assumes that the AFU still has by then sufficient forces remaining to fight or enough spare uniforms to clothe the many incoming NATO forces.

Reports of NATO mercenaries already working within Ukraine show that US/NATO is already in Transnistria and preparing for this certain advent. Canada has reportedly sent mercenaries via Moldova who enter Ukraine via the two border crossings. The border crossing at Palanca is on the same road to Odessa, just 30 miles away, but first crossing Transnistria is essential. It is likely I have met four of these mercenaries. I have seen and talked to them. They are very bad liars.

In the lobby of my hotel in Chisinau, I meet “aid worker,” David. He has attracted my attention due to wearing his large unmarked all-black day pack indoors, no other luggage, military issue boots, cargo pants, hair high and razor tight and a rental car at his disposal.

This is far from the image of any of the aid workers I have been around lately. And rental cars, as I would find out, cannot normally cross the border into Ukraine.

David, a Canadian, tells me his story about working for a UNHRC group “Relief Canada,” based out of the Canadian embassy here in Chisinau. I make a call to the Canadian Embassy. I am Canadian. Feigning that I am also with this aid group and in need of assistance to get to the Embassy, a phone operator puts me on hold only to come back on several minutes later, confused and asking me to qualify what Aid agency I am referring to. Several more minutes later, she informs me that despite asking her colleagues Relief Canada is not represented by the Canadian Embassy.

I make a habit of doing some work each day as near to the hotel lobby as possible in each hotel I am stuck in. It has often bared much fruit as was shown in Part Two and Part Three of this series. The following day I speak with two more suspects while they check-in together and then once more before I leave for Transnistria. Interestingly, all three are sporting the same kit and offered MO as David. I asked them. Just one day at the hotel and then off to Odessa to help, they all said.

So, it was time to take a look at the border at Palanca by way of Transnistria.

Moldova: Westward to Destruction

Moldova is mostly rich farmland and I have quickly learned to love this country, its friendly rural people and the lovely architecture of Chisinau. Travel guides provide warnings of poverty and crime, yet this seems nothing more than propaganda intended to restrict tourism reveue and to help drive Moldova into the arms of the west. Unlike Warsaw, Budapest and Bucharest, I see no signs of abject poverty, drug addicts lounging in their own filth, trash on the streets or an ageing infrastructure of trains, roads, or bridges. Quite the opposite. The people of Chisinau and their children all dress nicely, and with style. There is a neatness to Moldova that I do not see normally in EU capitals. When engaged the people I meet speak knowledgeably about their recently elected President and why she has increased the possibility of war.

In the Transnistria farmlands, the small centuries-old hamlets are modest, but spotlessly clean and life moves at a slow farmer’s pace. The people dress traditionally and are amiable about my lack of Russian as they go about their day.

There is no defined border for Transnistria.  As I follow the roads more or less north through the unofficial capital of Tiraspol I notice a strange blood-red flag with a single Kelly green horizontal stripe flying in the wind up ahead. Interestingly, it incorporates a Hammer and Sickle in the upper corner. This symbol was previously relegated to the Soviet Union of long ago and today Transnistria is the only remaining country in the world to fly the Hammer and Sickle. I have arrived.

Along the way, at virtually every vista it is easy to look far out to the north over the green miles wide Dniestria River valley and into the light haze on the far bank that equally rises slowly towards Ukraine and Odessa; the river now a trickle of its former self and seemingly inconsequential in the foreground.

The Moldovans I speak with do not want war. Unlike Viktor Orban of Hungary who defeated his collective western-backed presidential opposition three weeks ago while benefiting in part from his announcement not to allow NATO movement via Hungary, when examining the first fifteen months of the newly elected Moldovan president Maia Sandu it seems that NATO terror will soon cross north over the Dniestria from Moldova.

The 2020 election saw Moldova shift politically to the west. Sandu, a trendy young female candidate provided all the usual EU talking points of increased exports, economic growth, and promised rapid prosperity.

Igor Dodon launched his campaign on 2 October 2020 but ran a lacklustre campaign for president as the incumbent. Although he visited over two hundred townships and spoke to some 45,000 Moldovans, he strangely announced that he was not going to make use of billboards and that he would not take part in any debates. Dodon was regarded as the most pro-Russian candidate on the ballot and advocated for legislation to maintain the Russian language, make studying Russian compulsory in schools, strengthen the strategic partnership with Russia, preserve Moldova’s territorial sovereignty, strengthen the social security system and promote Christian and family values.

On the same day, Sandu officially launched her campaign but during that time made only two speeches; one in Romanian and one in Russian. She promised to fight corruption and poverty, reform the criminal justice system, reduce unemployment, raise the minimum pension and build closer ties with the European Union. Sandu’s campaign accused Dodon, of deliberately hindering criminal justice system reform and poor management of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Much like the French election, with Dodon and Sandu the finalists on November 1,  on Nov. 15 Maia Sandu won the second round of the presidential elections in Moldova with 57% of the vote. The 55% election participation was the highest election turnout since 2010. However, voting patterns illustrated internal political fractures. Sandu enjoyed the support of young people and inhabitants of big cities, as well as the diaspora abroad (of which 93% voted for her), tipping the scales in her favour. Dodon, as expected, obtained votes from the rural areas and the pro-Russian regions Transnistria and Gagauzia.

Regardless, Sandu recently launched an opening western political salvo in the exact direction of Transnistria.

On April 7, Moldova adopted the Code on Audiovisual Media Services that provides for a ban on the broadcast of programs and films that are produced in countries that have not ratified the European Convention on Transfrontier Television,

That means Russia.

Next, on April 14, additions were approved to the Code of Offences, which introduced fines or forced labour for the use of attributes or symbols of “military aggression.” These include “coloured flags and ribbons, symbols, badges and other similar signs.” This is a sly reference to the “black and orange two-colour ribbon”, called theGeorgievskaya, or St. George Ribbon.

That means Transnistria.

These prohibitions as expected caused a wide division between both Moldova, Transnistria and Russia. This would amount to revisionist history regarding Soviet films about the Great Patriotic War and the award and display of the much-prized St. George ribbon. Both are historical and important symbols for all who honour that memory every Victory Day, May 9 and the Great Victory over those other Nazis of a supposedly bygone era.

Moldova and Russia have good reason to remember well the pre-election lie of Sandu promising to preserve the right to celebrate May 9.  During the Great Patriotic War, 650 thousand inhabitants of Moldova died. 400,000 fought in the red army. 250,000 Moldovan soldiers, officers and partisans were awarded for their courage Soviet medals like the black and orange, St. George.

Under Dodon officially promoting the Russian language in Moldovan schools was gaining ground in parliament, but to date, Sandu has closed many Russian speaking schools citing a lack of students. This is a self-serving rationale since in the rural widespread farmlands of Transnistria the very small villages have very small populations and few school children and have for so many generations.

All this, of course, affects the parliamentary atmosphere of Russian-Moldovan relations.

In economic relations, Sandu has also moved quickly in a scripted EU fashion. Moldova’s GDP is the equivalent of just USD11.91 Billion with an annual budget of just north of USD 3 billion. Last week, the EC announced that the EU would provide a macro-financial assistance operation of €150 million in the form of loans and grants. Said the EC in a statement,

“The assistance shall contribute to strengthening Moldova’s resilience in the current geopolitical context, and covering Moldova’s balance of payments needs as identified in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme.”

Of course, this statement is a declaration of war on Moldova by a different means. It is also an acknowledgement that the EC is satisfied with Sandu’s progress to date.

I fear for Moldova. This is a country that could easily divorce itself from the madness of NATO’s continuation of war and help bring it to a stop. But as is routine for the faux-nationalist leaders of western nations, Moldova in Sandu’s hands is now, like Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania, available to NATO and the EU for the plundering.  Moldova’s president will be singularly to blame if this passive region and quiet way of agrarian life sees war once again. A war it cannot defend nor prosecute and for which neutrality is the only peaceful option.

With Moldova politics equally split within the parliament, Russia v. the West, it may be a new Moldovan civil war that Sandu will first have to contend with while the realities of a much greater war to the north ever creep daily towards Moldova.

What a Difference a Week Makes

As I stand on the Moldova / Ukraine border in Palanca I am surprised to learn that I can still cross over the border. So I drive through the first border check. Due to my lack of Russian, I next discover that rental cars lack Ukrainian insurance and I am turned back without too much of an incident. Being portable, I park the car, grab my backpack and walk toward the same security guards who now know me well. I’m determined to get to Odessa. It’s that close.

Three checkpoints of ID and passport and additional questions instead of being frisked and I am in, walking again into Ukraine. As I sit with my gear on the road just beyond the checkpoint hoping for a ride at this point in the afternoon, I consider carefully my days in Chisinau. The wines, magnificent, the inexpensive restaurants equal to the task. The clean streets encircling huge buildings of subtlety in architecture that all pay homage to the Christian, the Russian, the Slavic and the Ottoman in their many obvious influences. The beautiful women. The panoramic springtime colours and the view from the hills of Chisinau looking out to the Black Sea and the north.

I came here to Moldova due to my darkest fears, those realized over forty years roaming the countries of the world and always witnessing the incremental horrors of, as Chalmers Johnson coined it perfectly, “The Sorrows of Empire.” My indictment of these many sorrows is long and attested to by much of my work. But, to envisage Chisinau going the way of Kyiv into ruin is an image that brings shivers and anger to my soul and my fists.

No. No. Not this time!

As I began this update from Chisinau I had hoped not to hear the banging of the war drums to the north. But, my fears are coming true as I write.

Russia recognizes the military realities examined here in the South. This is evidenced by its direct action in taking down a NATO munitions plane on, April 16 near Odessa, then on April 23 targeting AFU supply and support depots in Odessa, and next destroying a portion of the very important Zatoka bridge just south of Odessa that goes directly at Romania. These proactive moves strongly indicate that Russia understands the difficult task just days ahead and is already preparing. The AFU’s biggest problem is that of re-supply and, if Russia continues at the current pace the AFU may literally run out of gas before hand.

Regarding the Ukrainian railway system that was just days ago available to NATO: Russia has taken out virtually all the Ukrainian track switching stations rendering them useless, and, with 1200/1500 locomotives being electric, the power lines as well. As reported by South Front, only 300 diesel locomotives are left but that fuel is under constant attack and the tracks as well. The same article noted that, should NATO try to supply new diesels, they would be of the wrong width for Ukrainian gauge tracks.

If it were only that simple Moldova would be safe. It is not that simple.

Similar to Poland’s ulterior motives shown in Part Two, as South Front reports in an excellent analysis Romania’s historic desire to regain Transnistria is now being shown as it prepares to enter the war at NATO’s behest after housing and training some 8,000 Polish troops.

Attempting to draw Transnistria into the conflict, two explosions rocked a broadcasting centre in the village of Mayak on April 26, the region’s Interior Ministry claimed. It was reported that no one was hurt, but the two largest antennas, which were transmitting Russian radio stations, were disabled to the ground.

On April 25, the building of the State Security Ministry in the region’s capital, Tiraspol, was shelled with rocket-propelled grenades. No casualties were reported.

The third attack hit a military unit near the village of Parkany. No details on the incident were revealed. Regardless, all these attacks are uncomfortably close to that 22,000 tons of Russian munitions.

As a result, on April 26 President Sandu called an emergency meeting of the Security Council. The decision was been made to introduce the “red” level of terrorist danger in the country for 15 days, which provides the adoption of additional security measures. Although this was all likely an inside job designed to provide Sandu reasons for shifting further west, the immediate decision has called for speculation.

As analysis by South Front evaluated:

“On the one hand, the Russian assault operation in Odessa has not begun yet. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are also yet to gain any significant successes in the Nikolaev region. On the other hand, the Sandu government in Moldova, with the active influence of Romania and Poland, demonstrates that it is ready to consider a military scenario for resolving the Transnistrian issue.”

Many sources have reported the redeployment of large units of the Polish army to Romania for subsequent joint activities and possible military exercises on the territory of Moldova. Russian claims that the Polish Armed Forces started to establish a strike group on the territory of Romania to cross the Ukraine border. The total troops in this manouver is estimated at up to 8,000 servicemen. The article asserts that a combined Polish, Romanian force is planing to enter Moldovan territory under a plausible pretext, such as a humanitarian operation or an official government request.

This week’s attacks have too conveniently given western puppet Sandu reasons for this request to her NATO backers.

If Romanian or Polish troops access Ukraine via Romania, or worse Moldova this will be the first undeniable entry of NATO member into this war made worse by crossing the territory of a non-NATO nation, or as detailed herein, a pro- Russia soviet holdout with a massive 22,000 ton cache of weapons.

More importantly, when considering the destruction of railway supply lines in the past seventy-two hours, NATO will have to bring new deployments by using Romania’s borders. This has the advantage of bringing these troops hundreds of miles closer to the eastern front and keeping them on NATO soil until they cross into Ukraine.

Or Transnistria.

If Polish and Romanian troops cross into Transnistria these NATO factions will suffer certain and massive casualties and their national points of origin will be undeniable. At that juncture two NATO member will have been attacked..by Russia… and…and…

The media will do the rest.

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At the side of the road, Patrice from MSF sits with me and chats while waiting for a ride coming up from Odessa. As expected she tells me that the AFU already owns the streets of Odessa. She confirms checkpoints across the city centre. I don’t fear the Russians. I do fear certain factions of the AFU and I am the bad luck of a google search away from very close scrutiny.

For other good reasons that amount to no more than excuses, I very reluctantly turn my ship around, heading back to Chisinau.

As I wrap up Part Four away from the Transnistria of just days ago I regret this decision to my core. It could not be helped. I must go back, but the door is ever closing at the border, for me, for Russia, for Ukraine and oh, so tragically for Moldova. And peace.

If this war crosses Transnistria, the gorgeous city of Chisinau will be razed like Mariupol. If there exists a hell on this earth it is that image of horror coming too often to my mind as a plausible reality… a nightmare.

Pray for Moldova. Pray for Transnistria. Pray hardest with all you might for Chisinau.

But praying against the disciples of war is a futile exercise. It is time to write…or…?

That image of Chisinau engulfed in the flames of western war again burns in the horrors of my mind as, my heart pulls me by my soul back towards Transnistria.

The choice is simple.

*

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Dedication:  To Dr Patricia A. Mahaffey. “Behind every good man….” 

Author’s Note: This concludes Part Four of my series, “Destination Ukraine.” For further insight, please see Part One, “The Ignorance of War,” and Part Two, “Will Poland Go Rogue?” or Part Three, “The lies….and the eyes… of Ukraine.”

Brett Redmayne-Titley has spent the last decade travelling and documenting the “Sorrows of Empire.” He has authored over 200 articles all of which have been published and often republished and translated by news agencies worldwide. An archive of his many articles can be found at watchingromeburn.uk. He can be contacted at live-on-scene ((@))gmx.com.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Soviet symbols are still used in Transnistria. (Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)


Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute  

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***

Mike Billington of the Schiller Institute interviewed  (former) Senator and Col. (ret) Richard Black, who served 31 years in the US Marines and Army.

Sen. Black talked about his military service in Syria, how and why Russia got involved in the war militarily, and how such involvement contrasts with the US’ and NATO’s justification for military intervention in the said war. 

Sen. Black also addresses the recent Russian military invasion of Ukraine and the failure to dissolve NATO.

40.12: Colonel Black focusses on the risk of World War III. 

“The decision of Peace or War is made in Washington DC,

As long as we [US government] want the war to continue, we will fight using the Ukrainians as proxies, and we will fight it to last Urainian death”

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Russia’s invasion had damaged or destroyed up to 30% of Ukraine’s infrastructure at a cost of $100 billion, a Ukrainian minister alleged on April 18, adding reconstruction could be achieved in two years using “frozen Russian assets to help finance it.”

Oblivious to the concerns of Ukraine’s politicians regarding rebuilding damaged infrastructure of the embattled country during the war, the New York Times reported Wednesday the infrastructure sustained damage due to the myopic policy of scorched-earth tactics deployed by Ukrainians in order to hamper Russia’s blitz north of the capital in the early days of the war.

“The scorched-earth policy played an important role in Ukraine’s success in holding off Russian forces in the north and preventing them from capturing Kyiv, the capital,” military experts confided to NY Times. During the war, “over 300 bridges had been destroyed across Ukraine” by Ukrainians themselves, the country’s minister of infrastructure, Oleksandr Kubrakov, bragged. Elsewhere in Ukraine, the military had, without hesitation, blown up bridges, bombed roads and disabled railway lines and airports.

Demydiv, a town on the outskirts of Kyiv, was flooded when troops blew up a nearby dam and sent water surging into the countryside. Ukrainian forces flooded the area on Feb. 25, the second day of the war. The move was particularly effective, Ukrainian officials and soldiers say, creating a sprawling, shallow lake in front of the Russian armored columns.

Source: Access TV Pro

The flooding that blocked the northern rim of Kyiv on the west bank of the Dnipro River played a pivotal role in the fighting in early March, as Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attempts to surround Kyiv. The waters created an effective barrier to tanks and funneled the assault force into ambushes and cramped, urban settings in a string of outlying towns — Hostomel, Bucha and Irpin.

Even two months later, despite the withdrawal of Russian forces north of the capital in late March, residents of Demydiv still paddled about in a rubber boat. Despite unequivocally acknowledging the dam was blown up by Ukrainians themselves but attempting in vain to implicate Russians, too, in the wanton act of vandalism, the NY Times report risibly claims “later, Russian shelling further damaged the dam, complicating efforts now to drain the area.”

Dubious Ukrainian claims of having repelled Russia’s assault on the capital by mounting guerrilla warfare and deploying scorched-earth tactics to the contrary, it’s an incontestable fact that the “40-mile-long” military convoy of battle tanks, armored vehicles and heavy artillery that descended from Belarus in the north and reached the outskirts of Kyiv in the early days of the war without encountering much resistance en route the capital was simply a decoy astutely designed as a diversionary tactic by Russia’s military strategists in order to deter Ukraine from sending reinforcements to Donbas in east Ukraine where real battles for territory were actually fought and scramble to defend the embattled country’s capital instead.

In the early days of Russia’s military campaign in north Ukraine, the Washington Post reported on March 5 the main threat to Kyiv appeared to be a massive Russian convoy, about 40 miles long, approaching Kyiv from the northwest and believed to be about 20 miles from the capital and stuck near a cargo airport.

Despite the wanton destruction of “over 300 bridges, blowing up dams to flood the countryside and disabling roads, railway lines and airports” in the state of panic by Ukraine’s security forces as contended by NY Times, the virtually nonexistent “resistance” and subversive scorched-earth tactics had no effect, whatsoever, on the lightning quick blitz of Russian forces north of the capital.

All the towns from the Belarus border to the northern approaches of the capital fell in quick succession. Russian forces continued advancing from the northwest of Kyiv, capturing Bucha, Hostomel and Vorzel on the outskirts of the capital by March 5, and Irpin by March 9.

Quite astonishingly, however, instead of mounting a long-awaited assault on the capital, it was reported on March 11 that the convoy had largely dispersed, taking up positions in forests around the capital, before withdrawing back to Belarus after the announcement of scaling back Russia’s military campaign in north Ukraine at Istanbul peace initiative on March 29.

Clearly, commanders of the military convoy had explicit instructions to spare the city of four million people. The indiscriminate bombardment of the densely populated Ukrainian capital and the ensuing urban warfare against heavily armed Ukrainian militant groups nurtured by NATO patrons would inevitably have caused thousands of needless civilian casualties. Therefore, the Russian military’s top brass decided to spare the rest of the embattled country and restricted Russian military offensive on liberating Russian-majority Donbas region in east Ukraine.

While the Russian military convoy was knocking on Kyiv’s doors, Ukrainian politicians were so alarmed that a senior Ukrainian government official announced in the state of panic that Ukraine must hold off Russia’s attack for the next seven to ten days to deny Moscow claiming any sort of victory.

Vadym Denysenko, adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on March 9:

“They need at least some victory before they are forced into the final negotiations,” Denysenko wrote on Facebook. “Therefore our task is to stand for the next 7-10 days.”

Forget about repelling the assault on the capital, it was considered a “stellar victory” by Ukraine’s “valiant political and military leadership” to delay Russia’s inevitable takeover of Kyiv by a week.

Publicly acknowledging the impending fall of Kyiv in the face of Russian blitz and contending that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky would soon form a government-in-exile, which would lead a guerrilla warfare campaign from safe havens in Poland, the Washington Post reported on March 5:

“The possible Russian takeover of Kyiv has prompted a flurry of planning at the State Department, Pentagon and other U.S. agencies in the event that the Zelensky government has to flee the capital or the country itself. ‘We’re doing contingency planning now for every possibility,’ including a scenario in which Zelensky establishes a government-in-exile in Poland, said a U.S. administration official.

“Zelensky, who has called himself Russia’s target No. 1, remains in Kyiv and has assured his citizens he’s not leaving. He has had discussions with U.S. officials about whether he should move west to a safer position in the city of Lviv, closer to the Polish border. Zelensky’s security detail has plans ready to swiftly relocate him and members of his cabinet, a senior Ukrainian official said. ‘So far, he has refused to go.’”

“This is a special military operation. If Russia were fighting a full-scale war, it would have been over long ago. This would have happened if we used the United States customary carpet bombings and scorched land tactics, repeatedly employed by ‘the world’s most democratic Air Force’ in Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq and Syria,” Russia’s State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel Monday.

On his first foreign visit to Belarus since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin explained during a joint press conference with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko on April 12 that the time frame of the military offensive in Ukraine was determined by the intensity of hostilities and Russia would act according to its plan.

“I often get these questions, can’t we hurry it up?’ We can. But it depends on the intensity of hostilities and, any way you put it, the intensity of hostilities is directly related to casualties,” said the Russian president. “Our task is to achieve the set goals while minimizing these losses. We will act rhythmically, calmly, and according to the plan that was initially proposed by the General Staff.”

Putin reiterated that Russia’s actions in several regions of Ukraine, implying diversionary tactics deployed by Russian forces in Kyiv and Chernihiv in the north, were intended only “to tie down enemy forces” and carry out missile strikes with the purpose of “destroying the Ukrainian military’s infrastructure,” so as to “create conditions for more active operations on the territory of Donbas.”

In a bombshell NBC scoop published April 7, the authors of the report alleged that US spy agencies used deliberate and selective intelligence leaks to mainstream news outlets to mount a disinformation campaign against Russia during the latter’s month-long military offensive in Ukraine lasting from late February to late March, despite being aware the intelligence wasn’t credible, and sometimes even publicizing downright fabrications.

The US intelligence assessment that Russia was preparing to use chemical weapons in the Ukraine War, that was widely reported in the corporate media and confirmed by President Biden himself, was an unsubstantiated claim leaked to the press as a tit-for-tat response to the damning Russian allegation that Ukraine was pursuing an active biological weapons program, in collaboration with Washington, in scores of bio-labs discovered by Russian forces in Ukraine in early days of the military campaign.

The NBC report noted:

“It was an attention-grabbing assertion that made headlines around the world: US officials said they had indications suggesting Russia might be preparing to use chemical agents in Ukraine. President Joe Biden later said it publicly. But three US officials told NBC News this week there was no evidence Russia had brought any chemical weapons near Ukraine. They said the US released the information to deter Russia from using the banned munitions.

“Multiple US officials acknowledged that the US had used information as a weapon even when confidence in the accuracy of the information wasn’t high. Sometimes it had used low-confidence intelligence for deterrent effect, as with chemical agents, and other times, as an official put it, the US was just ‘trying to get inside Putin’s head.’”

The crux of the NBC report, however, isn’t what’s being disclosed but rather what’s still being withheld by the US intelligence community that the mainstream news outlets are not at liberty to report on, as is obvious from the misleading NY Times report that mounting fierce guerrilla warfare campaign and deploying scorched-earth tactics by Ukraine’s largely conscript military and allied neo-Nazi militant groups repelled Russia’s assault on the capital and the Russian withdrawal wasn’t a consequence of a calculated military strategy.

Despite being aware of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s major unilateral concession to Kyiv, halting Russian offensive north of the capital and focusing on liberating Russian-majority Donbas in east Ukraine, practically spelling an end to Russia’s month-long offensive in Ukraine, US security officials, as quoted by the corporate media, are still deceptively asserting that Russia’s pullout from areas around Kyiv “wasn’t a retreat but a strategic redeployment” that signals a “significant assault on eastern and southern Ukraine,” one that US officials believe could be a “protracted and bloody fight.”

Regarding the nefarious disinformation campaign mounted by the mainstream media on behalf of NATO powers, the report notes:

“The idea is to pre-empt and disrupt the Kremlin’s tactics, complicate its military campaign, undermine Moscow’s propaganda and prevent Russia from defining how the war is perceived in the world, said a Western government official familiar with the strategy.”

By mid-March, after the “40-mile-long” military convoy of armored vehicles that created panic in the rank and file of Ukraine’s security forces and their international backers and that didn’t move an inch further after reaching the outskirts of Kyiv in the early days of the war, it became obvious even to lay observers of the Ukraine War that it was evidently a diversionary tactic. But US security agencies insidiously kept feeding false information of impending fall of the Ukrainian capital to the mainstream media throughout Russia’s month-long military campaign in Ukraine.

Only two conclusions could be drawn from this scaremongering tactic: either it was a massive intelligence failure and Western security agencies weren’t aware the “40-mile-long” convoy approaching the capital was a ruse; or the NATO’s spy agencies had credible intelligence since the beginning of Russia’s military campaign that real battles for territory would be fought in Donbas in east Ukraine and the feigned assault on the capital was simply a diversionary tactic but they exaggerated the threat in order to vilify Russia’s calculated military offensive in Ukraine, and win the war of narratives that “how the war is perceived across the world.”

Even in the weeks after the unilateral Russian peace initiative announced on March 29, offering scaling back its blitz north of the capital and focusing instead on liberating Russian-majority Donbas region in east Ukraine, a task that has already been accomplished in large measure, Western intelligence community and the mainstream media kept warning the gullible audience Russia’s pullout from areas around Kyiv “wasn’t a retreat but a strategic redeployment” and that Russian forces had withdrawn back into Belarus and Russia simply to “regroup, refit and resupply.”

Compared to 150-190,000 Russian troops deployed in Ukraine before the withdrawal process began in late March, the total number of battalion tactical groups in the country currently stands at 78, all of them in the south and the east in the Donbas region. That would translate to about 55,000 to 62,000 troops, based on what the Pentagon said at the start of the war was the typical unit strength of 700 to 800 soldiers. In other words, two-third of Russian troops deployed in Ukraine have withdrawn back to Russia and Belarus while only one-third remain in east Ukraine battling neo-Nazi militant groups trained and equipped by the CIA.

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national security analyst focused on geo-strategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the Middle East and Eurasia regions. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military-industrial complex and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor of diligently researched investigative reports to Global Research.

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***

 

I think we are now seeing the outlines of how the Fourth Branch of Government are planning to keep control over information, specifically public discussion on Big Tech platforms, even as Elon Musk moves to open the valves of information from the social media platform Twitter.

Previously the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced a new Dept of Homeland Security priority to combat disinformation {LINK} on technology platforms including social media.

Many eyebrows were raised as the announcement appeared to be an open admission that the U.S. government was going to control information by applying labels, that would align with allies in social media, who need a legal justification for censorship and content removal.

This CISA announcement was quickly followed by various government officials and agencies saying it was critical to combat Russian disinformation, as the events in Ukraine unfolded.  In essence, Ukraine was the justification for search engines like Google, DuckDuckGo, and social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to begin targeting information and content that did not align with the official U.S. government narrative.

Previously those same methods were deployed by the U.S. government, specifically the CDC and FDA, toward COVID-19 and the vaccination program. All of this background aligns with the previous visibility of a public-private partnership between the bureaucracy of government, the U.S. intelligence agencies and U.S. social media.  That partnership now forms the very cornerstone of the DHS/CISA effort to control what information exists in the public space.  It is highly important that people understand what is happening.

In July of 2021 the first admission of the official agenda behind the public-private partnership was made public {Reuters Article}.

What we are seeing now is an extension of the government control mechanisms, combined with a severe reaction by all stakeholders to the latest development in the Twitter takeover.

For two years the control mechanisms around information have been cemented by govt and Big Tech.  Even the deployment of the linguistics around disinformation, misinformation and malinformation is all part of that collective effort.  The collaboration between the government and Big Tech is not a matter for debate, it is all easily referenced by their own admissions.   The current issue is how they are deploying the information controls.

We have COVID-19, the vaccination effort and now Ukraine as examples of the collaboration to control information, to control what people are permitted to question and discuss on the internet.  Now things are getting much more detailed, and more alarming.

Shortly after Elon Musk made a bid to purchase a single information platform, Twitter, and then expressed his intent to open the speech valves, former Obama administration intelligence officials wrote a letter {SEE HERE} warning about efforts to break up the information control by Big Tech and Social Media.

That letter was shortly followed by a speech delivered by Obama himself where he specifically demanded that government take a larger role in the control of information {LINK}, essentially promoting an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’ to control information in the public sphere.

The internet search engine operators have already agreed to align with the interests of the government.  That’s not debatable as in the examples of Google {LINK) and DuckDuckGo {LINK} to name just two.  Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube have famously also expressed their intent to align with the control of information, based on the instructions and edicts of the same U.S. government agencies.   Again, this is not a conspiratorial claim, it is self admitted and we have all witnessed it.

Today, however, we are seeing the architecture of how they plan to organize the tools.

(POLITICO) – “DHS is standing up a new Disinformation Governance Board to coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security, focused specifically on irregular migration and Russia. Nina Jankowicz will head the board as executive director. She previously was a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry as part of the Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship and oversaw Russia and Belarus programs at the National Democratic Institute.” (link)

You can read more about Nina Jankowicz and her ideological alignment with the control mechanisms hereand here.  The bigger picture issue is that DHS will now work around any independence of social media, vis-a-vis Twitter as a free speech platform, by defining the parameters of allowed conversation.   A bureaucratic board within DHS will now serve as the group who defines what can and cannot be discussed.

Here’s Ms. Jankowicz in September of 2020. The head of the DHS governance board, Nina Jankowicz, claiming that color revolutions are an appropriate response to rigged elections, but they will never rise in the U.S.  WATCH:

It doesn’t take a deep thinker to see exactly where this is going.  Various U.S. government agencies will now define their interests.  The definitions will then be transmitted to the officers within big tech and social media, and any entity who dares to challenge that govt definition or govt narrative will be targeted for content removal.

Permitted speech will be defined by government agencies, and the mechanisms for controlling, targeting or removing speech that challenges that narrative will now lead to content removal.  The shift here, the part that must be emphasized, is the official justification in the terms and conditions of the social media platform operators will come from U.S. government agencies, not the platform itself.

Against this backdrop it is not a surprise why Elon Musk’s entry into the information space is now considered a risk.

…”The 2016 U.S. presidential election and the Brexit vote that same year gave Silicon Valley executives, U.S. elected officials and the public a peek into what can go wrong when social media companies opt not to wade too deeply into what people say on their sites.”… (link)

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According to recent Western media, Russian forces have buried up to 9,000 Mariupol civilians in “mass graves” in a town just west of the Ukrainian city. These reports use satellite imagery as supposed evidence and repeat the claims of officials loyal to Kiev that “the bodies may have been buried in layers” and “the Russians dug trenches and filled them with corpses every day throughout April.”

I went to the site in question and found no mass graves.

On April 23, I joined RT journalist Roman Kosarev on a visit to the location, in the town of Mangush. What I saw were new, orderly grave plots including some still empty ones – an extension of a cemetery that already exists at the spot. No mass pit. Many of the graves have placards with the names and dates of birth of the deceased when available, and the remaining plots were numbered according to burial.

Since the media is essentially copy-pasting from the same source – the former mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boichenko (who seems to be far from the city now) – I’ll cite from the Washington Post’s article.

Boichenko, the article notes, “called the site the ‘new Babyn Yar,’ referring to one the largest mass graves in Europe located in the outskirts of Kyiv, where 33,000 Jews where killed by Nazis in 1941 during World War II.”

This is ironic on several levels. A mayor who is whitewashing the neo-Nazis who have run amuck in his city – notably those from the Azov Battalion, who have used civilians as human shields, occupied and militarized civilian infrastructure, point-blank executed civilians – is comparing an alleged (non-existent) mass grave to a Nazi massacre of WW2.

Meanwhile, the Kiev regime has re-written history, making WW2 Nazis and their collaborators heroes of the nation. The most notorious example being the World War Two figure Stepan Bandera.

Boichenko’s other alarming claim was that the alleged “mass grave” was “the biggest war crime of the 21st century.” We are only 22 years into it, but we’ve already seen the US-led invasion and destruction of Iraq, the levelling of Syria’s Raqqa, Saudi Arabia’s ongoing war in Yemen – all of which are much stronger contenders than the nowhere-to-be-found “mass graves” of Mangush.

In reality, the site has around 400 individual plots, including nearly 100 empty ones. The 9,000 bodies and “biggest war crime of the 21st century” were unverified claims made by a mayor who fled his city, promoted by media which down the page admitted they could independently verify the claims – but by then, the damage had been done.

Gravediggers disprove mass grave claims

While walking around the site, two men responsible for burials arrived, and when presented with the former mayor’s accusations of mass graves they vehemently rejected the claims.

“This is not a mass grave and no one is throwing bodies into a pit,” one told me.

According to them, they bury each person in a coffin and separate grave, details are logged in the morgue, and when any documents regarding name and age are given, the plot is marked with a placard containing those details. Otherwise a number is used.

Interestingly, they also noted that a section of the new graves included buried Ukrainian soldiers. “They’re human, too” one of the men said.

For those in doubt as to the location, see Roman’s report: his drone footage shows that it’s precisely the same location as shown in the satellite images used by Western media.

Meanwhile, as Roman noted while walking, mass graves is something Ukraine has previously been accused of. He cited DPR leader Denis Pushilin as having stated that at least 300 such sites have been discovered since 2014.

He also spoke of what he witnessed.

“In 2014 or 2015, mass graves were discovered as Azov or Aidar fighters retreated from the Donetsk region. I even saw a woman, she was dug up, she had her arms tied behind her back, she was in the late stages of pregnancy and she had a hole in her head, so that means she was executed.”

American journalist George Eliason, who has lived in Lugansk for many years, has written about these alleged atrocities. In a documentary on the issue, he said:

“I’m here for five minutes and then I’m told the first five people they found, it was five decapitated heads. They were all civilians. Who does this to people?”

This story of a mass grave in Mangush is another fake from the Western corporate media, which previously pushed incubator babies being thrown on the floor by Iraqi soldiers, pushed lies about WMDs in Iraq, and carried reports of a chemical attack in Douma that never happened, to name but a few of their litany of hoaxes.

Meanwhile, when I was in Mariupol on April 21 and 22, yes there was destruction – thanks to those Neo-Nazi & regular Ukrainian forces occupying upper floors of residential buildings and using them as military positions, thus drawing return fire on the buildings – but I also saw people in the streets, and the beginning of the cleaning up process before rebuilding can occur.

I’ll repeat what I’ve said on Western media reporting on Syria (which in my experience, from on the ground in that country, is largely dishonest): those who promote these hoaxes and war propaganda have blood on their hands.

After the countless lies emanating from Western corporate media, I would hope people would exercise critical thinking whenever a new claim is pushed, particularly when it is repeated in chorus by the usual suspects.

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Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).

She is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

Featured image: A first-hand look at the location where Kiev claims trenches hold thousands of bodies. (Source: Eva Bartlett)

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***

Argentina’s deputy foreign minister Carlos Foradori negotiated a widely-criticised deal with Britain in 2016, which agreed to “remove all obstacles” to developing oil deposits around the Falkland Islands—and to add “further air links” from third countries.

The recently published diaries of Sir Alan Duncan, UK foreign minister for the Americas from 2016-19, make new claims about a “landmark” agreement between Britain and Argentina which has been fiercely criticised by the incumbent left-wing government in Buenos Aires.

Tensions between the UK and Argentina increased recently after Declassified revealed Britain deployed 31 nuclear weapons to the South Atlantic during the 1982 war. The two countries are currently marking the 40-year anniversary of the conflict which ran from April to June of that year.

Relations between the UK and Argentina had been “improving” after the right-wing administration of Mauricio Macri swept to power in Buenos Aires in late 2015.

Image on the right: Alan Duncan, UK foreign minister for the Americas from 2016-2019, negotiated the 2016 agreement with Argentina. (Photo: UK government)

Alan Duncan, UK foreign minister for the Americas from 2016-2019, negotiated the 2016 agreement with Argentina. (Photo: UK government)

Veteran Conservative MP Alan Duncan started as foreign minister soon after, in July 2016, and within two months was in Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires.

In his diaries, In the Thick of It, Duncan notes that on September 12, his first day in the city, he met with the “excellent” new UK ambassador to Argentina, Mark Kent.

“Beneath the [British] embassy residence is a fabulous wine cellar, nicely lit, the walls lined with bottles of Merlot,” Duncan continued. “The setting is nice enough for a meeting and we gather there with Carlos Foradori, the Deputy Foreign Minister.”

“It was a good diplomatic backdrop to some delicate negotiations about securing extra flights into the Falklands – for millions of reasons it requires the cooperation of Argentina for any connections that go via the mainland,” Duncan added. “As one bottle after another somehow moved from the cellar wall to the table, the negotiations improved. At about 2 in the morning we shook hands on an outline deal.”

‘So pissed’ 

The next day, September 13, Duncan wrote:

“Mark Kent says Foradori had just phoned to say he was so pissed last night he couldn’t remember all the details. Like a proper Brit, Mark reminded him what he had agreed, faithfully and without embellishment. So I think we’re still on track.”

Carlos Foradori disputed Duncan’s recollection of events in the wine cellar, telling Declassified “what was described was completely unrealistic”.

Foradori, a 40-year diplomat who is currently awaiting assignment, said the resulting joint communiqué was “far too long to have been formulated in one evening”.

He added that various levels of sign off from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs “prevent any official or diplomat deciding arbitrarily alone about any of the issues, particularly about such a sensitive one as the Malvinas [Falklands].” He added:

“Each issue analysed in the statement still needed to be validated later on in formal agreements.”

Mark Kent, who is now chief executive of the Scotch Whisky Association, did not respond to Declassified’s questions about the September 2016 night in his embassy’s wine cellar.

‘Landmark deal’

Later on during his second day in Buenos Aires, Duncan added,

“At the Argentina Investment Forum I have a brief encounter with President Macri, who gave his blessing to our efforts.”

He concluded:

“We move up a notch from last night to conduct further (sober) negotiations with Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra which go right down to the wire. At times it looked like we wouldn’t be able to agree, but we emerge with the first positive joint statement since 1999, on trade, security and opening new airlines to the Falklands. A real landmark deal.”

The UK government soon reported that

“a UK-Argentine joint statement has been agreed following a series of high-level meetings in Buenos Aires. It identifies new areas of collaboration and reactivates high-level bilateral consultations”.

It added:

“Deputy Foreign Minister Foradori and Minister Duncan held bilateral talks where the main themes of the bilateral agenda…were reviewed.”

Ten areas of increased cooperation were stipulated. Duncan and Foradori had “resolved to identify investment opportunities in each country with a particular focus on areas such as infrastructure, energy and mining.”

The communiqué also noted that the ministers had “both agreed to strengthen relations between the two armed forces.”

‘Appropriate measures’

The final area of increased cooperation was the most controversial and titled, “South Atlantic”. The statement noted

“it was agreed to take the appropriate measures to remove all obstacles limiting the economic growth and sustainable development of the Falkland Islands, including in trade, fishing, shipping and hydrocarbons.”

These obstacles had included firm Argentinian opposition to the UK prospecting for resources in the South Atlantic.

In 2010, UK company Rockhopper Petroleum made the first significant discovery of oil deposits – estimated to be 242m barrels – off the Falkland Islands. At the time, this “raised hopes among other explorers in the South Atlantic region”. More discoveries came in 2015 and 2016.

Upon becoming President in 2015, Macri appointed the former chief executive of UK oil company Shell in Argentina, Juan José Aranguren, to be the country’s energy minister.

Alan Duncan was himself an oil trader before entering politics, and returned to the industry after stepping down as an MP in 2019.

When applying for approval to take up a job with an oil company after service, Duncan told the UK government that while a foreign minister he had “made no decisions affecting the oil sector except for being informed of the licensing regime which might apply to oil exploration in respect to the Falklands Island [sic].”

‘Serious consequences’

The South Atlantic section of the 2016 joint communiqué also noted that “both sides agreed that further air links between the Falkland Islands and third countries would be established.”

This was again controversial. Argentine policy before the Macri government, and again now, has been to strongly oppose any new flights from third countries to the Falkland Islands.

Currently, there is only one third-country flight, which goes from Chile to the Falklands and stops every two weeks in Río Gallegos in Argentina. Argentine carriers are barred from flying to the islands.

Guillermo Carmona, Argentina’s minister for the Malvinas (Falklands) and the South Atlantic, told Declassified:

“The Macri administration policy, after Foradori’s intervention, could have brought serious consequences for Argentina’s position on las Malvinas.”

He added:

“At the time, we asked for Foradori’s resignation because we believed he did things that were out of line, and had it not been for the parliament’s opposition the consequences could have been very serious.”

Of the revelations related to the wine cellar, Carmona added:

“I’m not at all surprised,” adding “Foradori will have to be accountable for whatever he has said and done.”

Despite some pressure, however, the current left-wing government of Alberto Fernández has so far refused to revoke the 2016 UK-Argentina joint communiqué.

Image below: Mark Kent, British ambassador to Argentina 2016-21, hosted negotiations in the UK embassy wine cellar in 2016. (Photo: UK government)

Mark Kent, British ambassador to Argentina 2016-21, hosted negotiations in the UK embassy wine cellar in 2016. (Photo: UK government)

‘Political consequences’

On the three-year anniversary of what is known in Argentina as the ‘Foradori-Duncan agreement’, Daniel Filmus, now the country’s minister for science, technology and innovation, called the deal “one of the most harmful events to have taken place for our national interest in general and for our historic claim for the exercise of sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands in particular”.

He added that it

“proposed to make concessions to British interests regarding the exploitation of Argentine natural resources in the region and to lower the intensity of the claim for sovereignty.”

It appears the Macri government was aware at the time that it was offering the British more than the Argentinian population were willing to give.

The year after his trip to Buenos Aires, in March 2017, Duncan reported a call he had with then Argentine foreign minister Susana Malcorra. He wrote:

“She speaks very frankly and explains that they just cannot take any further steps to help the Falklands until after the October mid-term elections, because they cannot risk the political consequences.”

Malcorra did not respond to Declassified’s request for comment.

Alicia Castro, Argentina’s ambassador to Britain from 2012-15, told Declassified:

“These new revelations mean the Argentine government should rip up the Foradori-Duncan agreement immediately.”

She added:

“The deal was a massive give away by Foradori to the British, which rightly caused outrage in Argentina. Now we have a better idea of how this present was given, it looks even worse. As a former ambassador, I can say this is absolutely no way to conduct serious diplomacy. It’s time to cancel the agreement in full.”

The UK Foreign Office did not respond to a request for comment.

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Matt Kennard is chief investigator at Declassified UK. He was a fellow and then director at the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London. Follow him on Twitter @kennardmatt

Featured image: Carlos Foradori, who as Argentina’s deputy foreign minister negotiated a landmark agreement with the UK in 2016. (Photo: Violaine Martin/WIPO)

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If we were to believe the mainstream media’s spin on the past two years of COVID-19, then the pharma industry saved the world, our governments told us the truth about the virus and the experimental vaccines developed to fight it, and journalists were a reliable source of news and information about the pandemic. A new survey paints a rather different picture, however. Polling 10,000 people from 10 different countries, it found that pharma company CEOs, government leaders, and journalists are now the least trusted sources in relation to health.

Conducted by communications firm Edelman, the survey illustrates how the public are increasingly turning away from traditional authorities when it comes to who they trust on the subject of health. Revealingly, only 46 percent of those questioned said they trusted pharma CEOs and government leaders to tell the truth. Journalists fared worst of all, with just 41 percent of people saying they could be trusted about health.

The most trusted sources in the survey turned out to be the patients’ own doctors, with 76 percent of respondents saying they could rely upon them to tell the truth. Even friends and family were seen as more trustworthy than pharma CEOs, government leaders, and journalists, with 63 percent of people citing them as a reliable source of health information.

Similar findings emerged when people were asked who could be trusted to do what is right. Doctors fared best, with 76 percent saying they could be trusted on this. The groups seen as being least trustworthy in this respect were government leaders, trusted by just 43 percent, and journalists, trusted by 44 percent.

Interestingly, there was widespread agreement among the survey respondents that good quality healthcare is a basic human right and that it should be available to everyone. A majority of people in all 10 of the countries taking part in the survey agreed with this statement. The numbers agreeing ranged from 84 percent in Mexico down to 69 percent in the United States and 64 percent in Japan. The average across all 10 countries was 76 percent.

A majority of people also said the COVID-19 pandemic had actually decreased their confidence that their national healthcare systems were equipped to handle major health crises. The highest numbers of respondents agreeing with this statement were found in Japan (71 percent) and Mexico (64 percent). Globally, the average was 52 percent.

Large numbers of people questioned in the survey said they now see governments and the media as dividing forces in society, rather than unifying forces. Many were also worried that medical science is becoming politicized or is being used to support a specific political agenda. Taken together these findings go a long way towards explaining the overall tone of the responses received by the survey. With trust in the provision of accurate health information having clearly been lost in many countries, it will not be easily won back. In this situation, a continuation of the existing healthcare status quo is clearly not the answer.

Worldwide there is now increasing recognition that the drug industry has corrupted the practice of medicine. Peer-reviewed research published in 2019 demonstrated the effects of this when it identified almost 400 commonly used medical practices that are ineffective. Accounting for over one-third of such practices, pharmaceutical drugs were the most commonly administered ineffective interventions. Evidence suggests these medications are simply the tip of the iceberg.

The growing worldwide interest in non-patentable natural health therapies such as vitamins demonstrates that patients are now well aware of the existence of alternative approaches to healthcare. As a result, doctors increasingly get requests for non-drug forms of treatment. Despite this, it would appear that governments see the existence of non-drug approaches as an economic threat to the trillion dollar a year pharmaceutical industry. This stance has clearly not been taken in the best interests of patients.

Trust is hard to win. Once lost, it is difficult to win back. If pharma CEOs, government leaders, and journalists want to improve their reputations as untrustworthy sources of information on health, they would probably do well to reflect on this.

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This article was originally published on Dr. Rath Health Foundation.

Executive Director of the Dr. Rath Health Foundation and one of the coauthors of our explosive book, “The Nazi Roots of the ‘Brussels EU’”, Paul is also our expert on the Codex Alimentarius Commission and has had eye-witness experience, as an official observer delegate, at its meetings.

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

Freedom of Speech Is Threatened: Global Research Needs Your Support

April 29th, 2022 by The Global Research Team

Global Research extends our thanks to our readers for your continued support over the last few years.

We have intimated the issue of online censorship and how it affects our readership. Unfortunately, this diabolical act of curtailing free speech is in the heat. 

For almost two weeks, we have been the object of coordinated cyberattacks emanating simultaneously from 5 countries consisting in targeting Global Research with several hundred million “malicious DoS requests” (“A Denial of Service”). While our readership has been affected, thanks to our security specialists, the cyberattacks have failed. 

In this context, with a view to sustaining our endeavours, we ask our readers to help us reach as many people as possible (forwarding, referral of  GR articles to friends and colleagues, crossposts, social media, etc). 

We send two newsletters during a weekday and one on the weekend. We are active on social media. We are doing our best to circumvent all forms of censorship but only an army of readers and supporters can get us through it.

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Healthy teenagers, athletes and doctors are among the tens of thousands of people who died within hours or days after getting their Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine doses. And an increasing number felt the need to speak out about the ways the COVID-19 injections have altered their lives.

Long-term effects of COVID-19 shots are not yet clear, although spike proteins are said to circulate in the body after injections, causing damage to cells, tissues and organs. Dr. Peter McCullough, an internist, cardiologist and trained epidemiologist known for voicing out against the vaccines said spike proteins are deadly.

Experimental and observational evidence showed that the human immune response to the shots is very different compared to the response induced by exposure to the virus. Some believe that the COVID-19 shots may actually damage the innate immune systems of humans, leading to a form of vaccine-induced acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or VAIDS.

Moreover, due to the monocyte activation by the spike protein from the vaccine, there are those who experienced a range of debilitating symptoms after receiving a dose of the vaccine, similar to those found in long-haul COVID-19 syndrome, including headaches, fatigue, cognitive dysfunction and joint and chest pain.

Others believe the adverse effects occur quickly, resulting in life-changing debilitation.

COVID-19 vaccines affect healthy people

Among the most surprising effects of the vaccines is how they have been affecting otherwise healthy people. Athletes around the world have died of heart attacks and strokes following their shots.

Marathon champion Alexaida Guedez of Venezuela died of a heart attack during a 5,000-meter race on August 22, 2021. Abou Ali, a 22-year-old soccer player suffered from cardiac arrest in Denmark on September 11, 2021. Andrea Astolfi, a 45-year-old sports director of Calcio Orsago in Italy, died of a heart attack on the same day as Ali, after returning from training. Caddy Alberto Olguin collapsed and died from a heart attack on the golf course nearly a month later. Another soccer player, 14-year-old Ava Azzopardi, collapsed on a soccer field in the U.S. on October 15, 2021, following a cardiac arrest. She had to be put in a medically induced coma to survive.

Dr. Neil Singh Dhalla, an ophthalmologist, died from a heart attack four days after he got his COVID-19 booster shot. His autopsy also showed myocarditis – an inflammation of the heart muscle that is considered to be an adverse effect of the mRNA COVID-19 shots.

An unnamed vaccine advocate who took a Pfizer shot said he started having blurry vision in his left eye after his shot, and lost 60 percent of his vision within three days. After a slew of medical examinations, he was diagnosed with central serous retinopathy, where a small vein rupture led to fluid accumulation under the retina and caused partial blindness.

Long-term effects of COVID-19 vaccines

More than the already apparent short-term adverse effects of the vaccines that have been reported through clinical trial reports and personal experiences, there’s little that is known about the possible long-term effects of the COVID-19 shots. Scientists have studied available evidence and the rules of science have not allowed scientists to say that long-term effects can never happen.

The history of vaccines shows that there are severe effects that can follow vaccination, and they tend to happen within two months of vaccinations.

For COVID-19 vaccines, there had been some severe side effects that occurred shortly after vaccination, including thrombosis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, myocarditis and pericarditis. These usually happen within a few days after receiving the vaccine, leading many to wonder what might happen months or years down the line.

Watch the video below to know how the COVID-19 vaccines are killing athletes with fatal heart attacks.

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Reports are circling that the Biden Administration has begged Germany to hold off on banning Russian oil until after the midterm elections. The Democrats are so desperate to win amid their record-low popularity that they are openly asking other nations to alter major policies at the expense of the people. Biden has banned Russian energy imports, but the EU, which is more reliant on Russian energy, must wait.

Banning Russian energy will backfire on Europe and send aftershocks throughout the market. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock initially announced that Germany would cease purchases from Russia but quickly changed her stance. Finance Minister Christian Lindner said that Germany would support Ukraine but not at the expense of the German people.

“It was a mistake that Germany became so heavily dependent on energy imports from Russia,” she admitted after avoiding warnings years ago.

Germany is the #1 importer of Russian energy, with 34% of its total petroleum coming from Russia. Nearly half of Germany’s coal is tied to Russia, and one-third of homes are heated with Russian imported oil. Germany purchased 27 billion tons of crude from Russia in 2021 alone.

Zelensky has cried that the EU is spending “blood money” on Russian energy without understanding there is no immediate alternative. Zelensky accused nations who purchase Russian oil of being guilty of genocide and war crimes. “If Russians are committing war crimes, even genocide, whoever is supplying Russia with this bloody money is guilty of the same war crime.” If he had his way, he would punish each nation accordingly.

Germany recently stated they will ban Russian oil by the end of the year, regardless of the repercussions, and will ban gas imports by next year. While it is unconfirmed whether Biden begged Scholz to hold off on additional sanctions, the prospect is highly likely. In the end, Biden, Scholz, and Zelensky are subservient to the Build Back Better agenda, and policies will be aimed at that socialistic goal rather than what is best for the people.

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The AXIS Act, a Step toward World War III

April 29th, 2022 by Adam Dick

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The Axis powers, including Germany and Japan, were the foes of the United States and other Allied powers in World War II. Decades later, President George W. Bush chose to term some other nations — Iraq, Iran, and North Korea — as a new “axis of evil.” That was followed by a US invasion and overthrow in Iraq. Decades later, US troops remain in Iraq, and US sanctions and hostility directed at the other two nations continue.

This week, the United States House of Representatives is set to bring the Axis designation back to the big time — seeking to lump China in with Russia as the new Axis powers the US should be devoted to opposing. The movement toward a new world war — the first one with nuclear powers on both sides — grows stronger.

The House is scheduled to consider the AXIS Act (HR 7314) this week. “AXIS” in the title is the kind of ridiculous acronym that has become common in US legislation. It stands for “Assessing Xi’s Interference and Subversion.” “Xi” is Xi Jinping, the leader of China’s government.

The AXIS Act is being considered under suspension of the rules. Legislation deemed noncontroversial by House leadership can be considered under suspension of the rules in which there is usually a relatively brief House floor debate. Suspension legislation is also often passed by voice vote on a nearly empty house floor. Pressing forward toward World War III is not controversial? For many oblivious House members that probably is the case.

The AXIS Act starts off with a series of findings attempting to paint China as an aider of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The accusations included are underwhelming: China and Russia made a strategic partnership announcement a few weeks before the invasion; China abstained from voting on resolutions condemning the invasion in the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly; China has not publicly condemned the invasion.

That’s it. The resolution implicitly admits its backers cannot really tie China to supporting the invasion of Ukraine. Still the resolution proceeds, in what it states is the “sense of Congress,” to bluster that “the People’s Republic of China’s disinformation efforts relating to the Russian Federation’s war against Ukraine make it culpable in whitewashing Russia’s war crimes, which include the indiscriminate killing of countless Ukrainian men, women, and children.”

It is the second and final listed “sense of Congress” that is the heart of the resolution and that holds the threat of increased animosity toward China and the potential eruption of World War III. It states that it is the sense of Congress that, “if China is found to be materially supporting Russia in its war against Ukraine, there should be swift and stringent consequences for China.”

Swift and stringent consequences have already been imposed against Russia. They amount to nearly everything short of US troops fighting against the Russian military, though, with US history as a guide, it should be suspected that US troops are engaged covertly in some military actions against Russians. The US has established expansive sanctions on Russia, extensively blocked investment in and commerce with Russia, and excluded Russia from financial systems including SWIFT that facilitate participation in international trade. The US has also been funding, supplying, and training Ukraine military forces that are fighting against Russians.

In an apparent effort to justify the US treating China similarly, the AXIS Act requires the real experts at depicting other nations as enemies — the Department of State — to “submit to the appropriate congressional committees” within 30 days and then every 90 days thereafter “a report on whether and how the People’s Republic of China, including the Government of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party, any Chinese state-owned enterprise, and any other Chinese entity, has provided support to the Russian Federation with respect to its unprovoked invasion of and full-scale war against Ukraine.”

These reports will provide House members keen on ramping up hostilities against China with the steady stream of pro-war propaganda they desire. And have no doubt that the executive branch will be happy to provide such. The Biden administration’s interests are in the same direction as the House members raging at China. President Joe Biden has already been out using the Ukraine War as a reason for threatening China. Indeed, the AXIS Act notes one example of this:

“In his call with Xi Jinping on March 18, 25 2022, President Joe Biden communicated that there would be ‘implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians’.”

The AXIS Act is a significant step in the effort by Congress members and the Biden administration, using the Ukraine War as an excuse, to direct against China hostilities already directed against Russia, and maybe more. Most of the backers of this effort probably expect that such actions will not lead to World War III. Hopefully, they are correct in that assessment. Even if they are correct that the most dire consequences will be avoided, the toll of expanding hostilities against China will still be harsh for people across the world. For what gain? None is clear. What is clear is that there is much potential danger ahead and that US politicians are propelling Americans and the world toward it.

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Earlier this month, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union listed Russia’s Alrosa, the world’s largest producer of diamonds, on the sanctions list. Alrosa accounts for 27% of the world market share and 95% of Russia’s diamond mining. Last year, sales of rough and manufactured diamonds by the Russian group reached $4.1 billion. Due to Alrosa’s status, sanctions on Russia’s diamond industry will negatively impact the industry around the world, something that the US, UK and EU had not considered.

According to Edahn Golan, an Israeli diamond industry analyst, if the US government decides to extend sanctions on all diamonds mined in Russia, no matter where they are made, then there will be a significant disruption in the industry across the world. Excluding Alrosa from the global market would cause serious damage to the company itself and the entire market, because in Golan’s view, the contribution of Alrosa to the world market is irreplaceable.

The expert said that the effect of the sanctions would be significantly reduced if only the ban on rough diamonds were included, because in this case, when diamonds are made outside of Russia, they will be imported normally into the US without violating the regulations. This is something that the US must consider quickly because if the sanctions against Alrosa remain in place until the end of the year, consumers will likely suffer an increase in the cost of diamond jewellery during important shopping periods, such as Christmas and New Year.

Regardless of the sanctions, the price of rough diamonds has not increased much for now, but if there is a shortage, prices will certainly soar. The price is set depending on how much the consumer is willing to pay, and if it is found to be too expensive, naturally the buyer will move to another type of product.

Ben Davis, an analyst at London-based investment firm Liberum Capital Limited, also spoke about the indispensable position of the Russian market share in the volume of diamonds mined on the world market. Although Davis stressed that no crude diamond supplier can replace Russia, he did note the rapid development of synthetic and recycled diamonds, as well as other gemstones.

He also claimed, in opposition to Golan, that the stagnation of the global economy could lead to lower prices for rough diamonds and as a result, lower prices for manufactured diamonds. In his view, even if Russia completely leaves the market, it will not see a sudden price increase. While it is believed that the price level in the market will maintain relative stability, the expert also said that it is unlikely that the West will soon lift sanctions against the Russian diamond industry, specifically the Alrosa Group.

Despite Davis’ positive outlook that prices will not increase, according to sources cited by Bloomberg, diamond buyers across the big trading centres in Antwerp and Dubai and manufacturing hubs in India have spent considerable time “consulting lawyers to determine what the US sanctions on Alrosa PJSC mean and how they can continue to buy.” This once again demonstrates the unwillingness of non-Western countries to end their trade with Russia. At the same time though, Russia is not just accepting the sanctions without response.

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on April 27 that it would impose “personal restrictions” on 287 members of the UK’s House of Commons, arguing these politicians “took the most active part” in London’s decision on March 11 to sanction 386 members of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament. Among the latest sanctions imposed by the UK was a 35% tariff on the importation of diamonds, both rough and polished, from Russia and Belarus.

However, just as the West is forcing Russia to establish new sanction-busting financial methods, thus accelerating the de-Dollarization of the global economy, Russia may pursue a wholesale purchase of the diamonds via the State Fund of Precious Metals and Precious Stones – Gokhran. Gokhran, a state institution which operates under the Russian Ministry of Finance, acts as a repository for the handling of purchases, storage and sale of precious items, such as diamonds, on behalf of the Russian government.

Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov told Reuters that the government remained open to purchasing its own rough product if the sanctions continue.

“We do not rule out the possibility of Gokhran purchasing diamonds produced by Alrosa. The amount will be determined later,” he said.

It is recalled that Gokhran previously purchased diamonds valued at more than $1 billion during a period of weakened demand caused by the 2009 Global Financial Crisis. In this way, Russia is formulating new methods so that the diamond industry does not only develop steadily in the country, but is also able to continue working with traders and manufacturers outside of the West that have not imposed sanctions.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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