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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

Fact-checking is one part of the campaign to control what you see online, and therefore what you think and how you perceive reality

Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson explains how virtually everything you see and hear online has been co-opted, or taken over to serve a greater agenda

Instead of real journalists and reporters, the media is infiltrated with propagandists who dictate what’s “fake news” and what’s not

The public is being manipulated to want their information censored by third-party “fact”-checkers, which were introduced as a tool to confuse and control the public further

“Conspiracy theory”, “debunked”, “quackery” and “antivaccine” are examples of terms that are being used as propaganda tools; if you hear them, it should make you dig deeper for the truth

Those who rely solely on the internet for their information are at serious risk of being controlled; you can fight back by doing your own research, trusting your cognitive dissonance and using your common sense

*

Prior to 2015 or 2016, you could still read what you wanted online without much interference. This has since changed, as propagandists have infiltrated the media and, along with other major players, like Big Tech and government, set out to control information. Fact-checking — a once-obscure term that’s since gone mainstream — is one part of the campaign to control what you see online, and therefore what you think and how you perceive reality — but it’s all a ruse.

Speaking with Jan Jekielek, The Epoch Times senior editor and host of the show “American Thought Leaders,” investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson explains how virtually everything you see and hear online has been co-opted, or taken over to serve a greater agenda:¹

“One has to understand that nearly every mode of information has been co-opted, if it can be co-opted by some group. Fact checks are no different either, they’ve been coopted in many instances or created for the purpose of distributing narratives and propaganda.

And your common sense is accurate when it tells you that the way they chose this fact check and how they decided to word it so they could say this thing is not true when at its heart it really is true, but the message they’re trying to send is that you shouldn’t believe it, your common sense is right.

That’s been created as part of a propaganda effort by somebody, somewhere, as part of a narrative to distribute to the public so virtually every piece of information that can be co-opted has been.”

The Information Landscape Is Being Controlled

Attkisson calls out several common online sources that are heavily manipulated — Wikipedia, Snopes and most “fact” checkers to name a few, along with HealthFeedback.org, which is a fake science group used by Facebook and other Big Tech companies to debunk science that is actually true.

Fact checkers are often referred to as scientists, but this, too, is “part of a very well-funded, well-organized landscape that dictates and slants the information they want us to have.” While there have always been efforts to shape the information being given out by the media, it used to be that news reporters would push back against organizations to ensure the public had the other side of the story.

Beginning in the early 2000s, Attkisson noted a shift from efforts to simply shape information to those that attempt to keep certain information from being reported at all. This was particularly true among the pharmaceutical companies she was covering at that time. Attkisson described “efforts by these large global PR firms that have been hired by the pharmaceutical industry, by government partners that work with the pharmaceutical industry, to keep the story from being reported at all.”²

Now, suppressing and censoring information that those in charge don’t want to be heard is really common. Attkisson believes the practice really took off in 2015 to 2016, “with Donald Trump proving to be a unique danger perceived by both Democrats and Republicans, and by that I mean by the interests that support and pay for them to be in office and make certain decisions.”³

With a wild card in office, a campaign was organized that exploited a media that was already conflicted and less apt to report what was actually going on. “This all dovetailed together to create this crazy information landscape we have today,” she said. Instead of journalists seeking to uncover the truth, we have “writers seeking to spread whatever establishment scientists or politicians want them to say, uncritically and at the expense, oftentimes, of accuracy.”

Now, instead of real journalists and reporters, the media is infiltrated with propagandists who dictate what’s “fake news” and what’s not. Many believe that fake news is a product of Trump, but Big Tech was brought into the campaign early on. A lobby campaign by behind-the-scenes propagandists met with Facebook and said you’ve got to start censoring and “fact” checking information, Attkisson said.

The term “fake news” was popularized after Trump was elected, but it actually got its start before that — it was an invention of political activist website First Draft News, which is partially funded by Google.⁴

Inviting Propagandists Into the Newsroom

We’re in the midst of an information war where it’s difficult to tell truth from fiction or lies. Journalists are no longer the watchdogs; instead, they take information from obviously conflicted sources and then try to convince the public to believe that particular viewpoint. Other information that’s in conflict is censored or “debunked.”

It’s an unusual time in history where efforts are even underway to manipulate the public to want their information censored and appreciate third-party “fact”-checkers, which were introduced as a tool to confuse and manipulate the public further.⁵

Yet, when you only hear one side of the story, and you can’t access other information to the contrary, it’s nearly impossible to uncover the truth — and that’s precisely the point. Is this all just a matter of reporters not knowing how to think critically and ask the right questions, or believing that they’re doing the right thing?

Attkisson states that it goes much deeper. A lot of propagandists have become part of the media, and while there used to be a firewall between reporters and the people they reported on, “that’s long gone.” She says:⁶

“We’ve not just invited them to influence what we report, but we’ve hired them, not just as pundits and analysts but they are reporters. They are editorial presences within our newsrooms. Now we are one and the same.

It’s hard to say that there’s a distinctive difference in many instances between the people trying to get out a message and the messengers in the media who should be doing a more independent job of reporting accurately.”

The COVID Misinformation Campaign

In early 2020, as the pandemic first started brewing, Attkisson talked to everyone she could, including scientists with the government and outside the government. “Pretty quickly, I could see that certain things that were being said publicly were bearing out as not true, and certain things that other scientists were telling me privately rang true, and in hindsight have actually been proven to be true.”⁷

Early on, quite a few scientists she talked to were questioning the advice being given by government scientists, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and lead spokesperson for the president’s COVID response. She asked them if they should say something and speak out about their concerns, but they all came back with the same response:⁸

“They said they dared not speak out for fear of being controversialized and for fear of being called coronavirus deniers, because that phrase was starting to be used in the media. And secondly, they feared contradicting Dr. Fauci, who they said had been kind of lionized or canonized in the press for reasons that they couldn’t understand, because they really didn’t think that his guidance that he was giving publicly was the right guidance.”

Certainly, those scientists’ opinions deserved to be heard, but the fear of speaking out silenced them. They feared losing their grants, as most grants for research are funded by the government. If the government doesn’t like what you say or do, you can get fired or never get a grant again, ending your career and threatening your very livelihood.

“That started to strike me as, this is a really dangerous environment, when esteemed scientists who have valuable information and opinions are afraid to give them, and instead we’re hearing a party line that many of them disagree with but won’t say so,” Attkisson said.⁹

She mentioned the controversial U.S. government funding of gain-of-function research in China, and the notion that SARS-CoV-2 could have come from a Chinese laboratory — both were glaring issues that no one would talk about.

“These are the kinds of things early on that were sort of a red flag to me that says somebody’s trying to shape the information,” she continued. “They’re using reporters to do it. Public health figures are involved in some instances and that makes me want to know what’s really behind it.”¹⁰

‘Conspiracy Theory’ Was Devised by the CIA

The term “conspiracy theory” is now used to dismiss narratives that go against the grain. According to Attkisson, this is intentional, as the term itself was devised by the CIA as a response to theories about the assassination of JFK.

“It was shown in documents that there was a suggestion that agents go out and talk to reporters about these things as conspiracy theories — and again, common sense should tell you, as it does me, I’m married to a former law enforcement official who has said to me many times, you know the conspiracy theory phrase in its use doesn’t make sense. Nearly everything is a conspiracy.”¹¹

Anything that involves two or more people is technically a conspiracy, but now when people hear the term, they’re conditioned to think it’s false. “That’s designed to pluck this little part of your brain that says, ‘well that thing’s not true.’” When Attkisson hears the term, however, she thinks that information may well be true. “If somebody’s trying to debunk it, it usually means a powerful interest is behind it and it makes me want to go search for more information on that thing.”

The term “conspiracy theory” has lost meaning now because it’s used so much. “Debunked”, “quackery” and “antivaccine” are all terms that are similarly being used as propaganda tools. “There’s a whole cast of propaganda phrases that I’ve outlined that are cues. When you hear them, they should make you think, ‘I need to find out more about it,’” Attkisson says.

Fact Checkers Pounce on Accurate BMJ Investigation

In another example of the lengths that fact-checkers will go to discredit a story — even if it’s true — take an article published in the BMJ, titled, “COVID-19: Researchers blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial.”¹² Written by investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker, it details a series of problems with laboratory management and quality control checks by Pfizer subcontractor Ventavia Research Group, which was testing Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

According to a regional director formerly employed by Ventavia, she witnessed falsified data, unblinded patients, inadequately trained vaccinators and lack of proper follow-up on adverse events that were reported. After notifying Ventavia about her concerns, repeatedly, she made a complaint to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — and was fired the same day.¹³

Soon after Thacker’s investigative piece was published in BMJ, it was “fact checked” by a group called Lead Stories, which referred to the investigation as a “hoax alert” in the related URL. Along with “correcting” statements that Thacker did not make, Lead Stories disparaged the investigation for “missing context,” but as investigative reporter Matt Taibbi explained, “‘Missing context’ has become a term to disparage reporting that is true but inconvenient.”¹⁴

Lead Stories took further issue with the BMJ investigation because it was shared by people such as Dr. Robert Malone and Robert F. Kennedy, who themselves have been targeted by fake fact checkers. Taibbi added:¹⁵

“The real issue with Thacker’s piece is that it went viral and was retweeted by the wrong people. As Lead Stories noted with marked disapproval, some of those sharers included the likes of Dr. Robert Malone and Robert F. Kennedy. To them, this clearly showed that the article was bad somehow, but the problem was, there was nothing to say the story was untrue.”

Thacker also called the “fact check” against his BMJ investigation “insane,” telling Taibbi:¹⁶

“Here’s what they do. They’re not fact checking facts. What they’re doing is checking narratives. They can’t say that your facts are wrong, so it’s like, ‘Aha, there’s no context.’ Or, ‘It’s misleading.’ But that’s not a fact check. You just don’t like the story.”

Reality Is Being Altered in Real Time

As it stands, information is being changed in real time to meet the common agenda. This includes definitions in dictionaries and on official government websites. Examples of definitions that have been changed recently include those for pandemic, herd immunity, vaccines and anti-vaxxer. Attkisson reiterates:¹⁷

“Virtually every form of information and sourcing that can be co-opted has been. That includes the dictionary definitions; that includes everything because these are important ways to influence thought. Language is very powerful. People don’t want to be affiliated with certain names and labels.

It reminds me of ‘1984,’ the George Orwell story about the futuristic society, under which history was being rewritten in real time to jive with the version that the government wanted or the party wanted it to be. Definitions now are being rewritten and changed in real time to fit with the vision that the establishment wants people to think.”

For now, you can still use the Internet Archive, commonly known as Archive.org and IA, as a historical archive. In addition to digitally hosting more than 1.4 million books and other documents, Archive.org acts as a historical vault for the Internet, preserving cached versions of websites that are no longer accessible to the public.¹⁸

Archive.org’s Wayback machine preserves digital information that has been removed or deleted, whether intentionally or for other reasons, but it, too, could one day disappear. Attkisson says:¹⁹

“It’s been a fascinating way to prove the effort to change our perception of how things are and the reality and what we thought we remembered from the other day, because all we really have now is the electronic record, by and large, and if that can be manipulated, there could be a time when — if they get rid of the Wayback machine, for example — that we can’t ever prove that anything was any different.”

Attkisson is maintaining a running list of things the media or public policy got wrong during the pandemic, which can still be verified using the Wayback machine, but which were not acknowledged for being wrong or corrected by the press. They include:²⁰

You Can Be Controlled if You Live Inside the Box

Attkisson references a whole generation of people who live inside the box, meaning the internet. Those who rely solely on the internet for their information are at serious risk of being controlled. She explains:²²

“They didn’t know a time when information was to be gathered elsewhere by looking around and seeing what you hear, and seeing what you saw, and talking to people around you and looking at books and research and so on.

And the people that want to control the information understand that if they can only control really a few basic sources — we’re talking about Google, Twitter, Facebook and Wikipedia — they’ve got a lock on information, because we’ve all been funneled to those few sources, and that’s been the goal.

So if you think of it that way, there’s a whole lot of people that get pretty much everything they know through the internet. And the goal of the people trying to make the narrative is to make people live online and to think that’s reality.”

The danger of this is that the internet paints a picture that’s different from reality. You may read something that doesn’t sound quite right, or that you don’t agree with, but the internet makes you feel like you’re in the minority — even if you’re really not.

“Understand that you may actually be in the majority,” Attkisson says, “… but the goal of what they do online is to make you think you’re an outlier when you’re not, to make you afraid to talk about your viewpoint or what you think, because you may actually be the majority opinion but they want to control that and make you think you’re the one who’s crazy.” The solution? Live outside the box:²³

“You can be made to believe that — if you live in the box. So, I’m constantly telling people live outside the box. Yes, you can get information there and do what you do online, but certainly trust your cognitive dissonance, talk to the people around you. If you travel, talk to the people in the places you go. You’ll get a whole different picture, as I do, of what’s really happening out here than if you look online.”

The Truth Finds a Way To Be Told

While there are powerful forces at play to control information, all is not lost. Attkisson is aware of three entities that are actively working on a solution, which include:

1. Investors who want to invest in independent news organizations
2. Technical people trying to invent platforms that can’t be controlled and deplatformed by Big Tech
3. Journalists who want to work or contribute to these efforts

Outlets like Substack newsletters and the video platforms Rumble, Bitchute and Odysee, which don’t censor videos for ideological reasons, are actively getting around the censorship of Big Tech, and Attkisson believes that these efforts will accelerate in the next couple of years.

Further, she says, “The propagandists may have overplayed their hand by being so heavy-handed and obvious about the control of information and the censorship. It’s no longer deniable. Even people who want their information curated, they can’t always be happy with the notion that they’re not going to be able to get the full story, or that they’re only getting one side of something.”²⁴

Ultimately, she adds, “I think the truth finds a way to be told … it may take some time and there may be a lot of people that don’t want the truth out, but we inherently as humans seek it.”²⁵ On a personal level, you can go a long way toward finding the truth by following your own common sense and reason, and Attkisson agrees.

“I always say, do your own research, make up your own mind, think for yourself. Trust your cognitive dissonance, use your common sense. You’re going to be right more often than you think, but open up your mind, read a lot, think a lot and don’t buy into the prevailing narrative at face value.”²⁶

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Notes

¹ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 2:43

² The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 5:44

³ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 6:23

⁴ First Draft News – About

⁵ The Epoch Times January 23, 2022

⁶ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 15:28

⁷ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 17:00

⁸ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 17:46

⁹ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 18:50

¹⁰ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 20:00

¹¹ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 22:26

^12, 13 BMJ 2021;375:n2635

^14, 15, 16 Substack, TK News by Matt Taibbi February 1, 2022

^17, 19 The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 25:31

¹⁸ Vox June 23, 2020

²⁰ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 30:00

²¹ N Engl J Med 2020; 382:1268-1269

^22, 23 The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 39:30

²⁴ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 53:50

²⁵ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 51:10

²⁶ The Epoch Times, American Thought Leaders video, January 20, 2022, 58:30

Featured image is from The Corbett Report

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

As police escalate pressure on the Freedom Convoy of truckers protesting Canada’s COVID vaccine mandates and Twitter bans the group’s account, public support for the protesters continues to grow.

Ezra Levant, journalist and founder of Canada’s Rebel News, on Monday told Tucker Carlson Canadian police forces are hoping to “starve or freeze the truckers out.”

“I don’t think it’s going to work though,” Levant said.

Levant questioned the legality of police confiscating diesel fuel from protesters:

“Taking away the diesel fuel is a low blow [because] it’s very cold in Ottawa and most of these truckers are living in the little cab in their truck so they need diesel fuel for heat. So by taking away their diesel fuel [Trudeau] is really freezing them out … I don’t know what legal justifications they have. The fuel is not illegal. Selling it, owning it, having it, is not illegal.”

The protest against COVID vaccine mandates is gaining popular support, according to Levant, who said:

“There was an opinion poll that showed 32% of Canadians see themselves reflected in the truckers. And in our multiparty system that would make them the leading party of Canada if the truckers formed a political movement.”

The truckers may have the support of the Canadian people but they’re facing strong resistance from Canadian police who’ve facilitated armed raids against the protestors, stolen their supplies and even arrested organizers.

Meanwhile, Twitter permanently suspended the Freedom Convoy account. A spokesperson for Twitter told Newsweek: “The account you referenced has been permanently suspended for violating the Twitter Rules on ban evasion.”

Last week, GoFundMe seized millions of the trucker’s funds, but protestors are receiving support across the border in Alaska, where Alaskan truckers formed their own anti-mandate convoy.

Here’s the latest:

• Ottawa Police tweeted: “Anyone attempting to bring material support (gas, etc.) to the demonstrators could be subject to arrest. Enforcement is underway.”
• Protesters blocked the busiest international crossing in North America as Freedom Convoy drivers hindered travel Monday at the Ambassador Bridge that links Windsor, Ontario and Detroit. Canadian-bound traffic was still shut down this morning, while U.S.-bound traffic was flowing with limited bridge access.
• Canada’s Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom warned Ottawa police would be breaking the law if they attempted to intimidate people who bring food or other supplies to truckers who are peacefully exercising their Charter rights and freedoms in Ottawa.
• Draped in full paramilitary gear, Ottawa police made their “strongest show of enforcement yet” when they raided a parking lot serving as a staging area for anti-mandate protestors. The police confiscated at least a tanker of fuel and arrested two protesters. “Any other place that they’ve displaced to, we are attacking that as quickly as possible to make sure they don’t take root again.” said Ottawa Police Chief, Peter Sloly.
• According to Ottawa City News, Canada’s law enforcement agencies are launching “enhanced intelligence operations” against the protestors, collecting financial and digital information “that will be used in criminal prosecutions.”
• Farmers, in solidarity with the trucker protest, successfully moved their tractors and heavy farming equipment to the border crossing between Alberta and Montana, helping truckers “completely obstruct” border crossings.
• Towing experts told Canada’s CBC that it will be “difficult or impossible” to tow away or remove the hundreds of big rigs that protestors hauled into Ottawa’s downtown area.
• Armed police raided the home of political activist Pastor Artur Pawlowski and arrested him. Undercover police took him into custody the morning he was scheduled to speak to the anti-mandate truckers.
• GoFundMe has successfully seized $9M in fundraising money which was meant to support the truckers. Critics have called the move “pure theft.”

Yep! “Unfortunately GoFundMe caved to the political pressure and threats of legal action and announced they wouldn’t be dispersing the money to the truckers.” @KimIversenShow https://t.co/uFgScP4PJI

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) February 8, 2022

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Jeremy Loffredo is a freelance reporter for The Defender. His investigative reporting has been featured in The Grayzone and Unlimited Hangout. Jeremy formerly produced news programs at RT America.

Featured image is from CHD

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

After the successful Japanese amphibious landings at Kota Bharu, northern British Malaya on 8 December 1941, in the 5 weeks that elapsed Tokyo’s forces had advanced more than 200 miles to capture the Malayan capital city, Kuala Lumpur, on 11 January 1942. This was a remarkable achievement by the Japanese 25th Army, led by the 56-year-old General Tomoyuki Yamashita, who would earn the nickname “The Tiger of Malaya”.

Mark E. Stille, a former United States Navy commander, wrote that “Of all the armies fielded by Japan during the war, the 25th Army was the best led and equipped” (1). On the ground, the distance that Yamashita’s divisions had covered to capture Kuala Lumpur was much greater than 200 miles. They had to take arduous, roundabout routes in the face of substantially larger enemy forces, advancing through the Malayan jungle and along the coastline, before they entered Kuala Lumpur unopposed in central Malaya.

The island of Singapore, another 200 miles to the south-east of Kuala Lumpur, was now very vulnerable. Were Singapore to be taken by the Japanese it would constitute “the worst disaster” in British history, Winston Churchill wrote (2). This calamity for the British did unfold, on 15 February 1942, which will be the subject of the next article.

Almost immediately, the Japanese had gained command of the air over British Malaya (comprising today mostly of Malaysia), and they also dominated the surrounding seas. On 10 December 1941, Japanese aircraft had sunk the famous British warships the ‘Prince of Wales’ and ‘Repulse’, off the east coast of Malaya. News of the battleships’ destruction came as a real blow to prime minister Churchill in London.

English military historian Antony Beevor wrote,

“Churchill, who had exulted in the great ships of the Royal Navy from his times as First Lord of the Admiralty, was stunned by the disaster. The tragedy felt even more personal to him, after his voyage in the Prince of Wales to Newfoundland in August [1941]. The Imperial Japanese Navy was now unchallenged in the Pacific. Hitler rejoiced at the news. It augured well for his declaration of war on the United States, announced on 11 December”. (3)

One indirect result of the early Japanese victories in south-east Asia, was that it had boosted the spirit of the Germans, at a time when their invasion of the Soviet Union was hitting the rocks. Japanese morale itself was very high, and a central factor in their advance through Malaya and elsewhere. The prominent British commander John Dill, in a memorandum to Churchill, had outlined that Singapore held more importance to Britain than the oil rich Middle East; because Singapore was “the most important strategic point in the British Empire” and “a stepping stone to Australia”. (4) (5)

In the final days of 1941 the British had already lost a prized possession, Hong Kong in south-eastern China, which was captured in a rapid Japanese assault. At this time, Japan’s forces were advancing through other Asian states namely British Borneo, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and the Philippines.

Like with the Japanese, the British had no rightful claim to territories such as Hong Kong. American intellectual and analyst Noam Chomsky said, “Hong Kong was stolen from China by British savagery, as part of their effort to destroy China in their huge narco-trafficking operations”. (6)

Regarding some of Britain’s other conquests Chomsky wrote,

“In extenuation, it could be noted that fostering drug production is hardly a US innovation: the British empire relied crucially on the most extraordinary narco-trafficking enterprise in world history, with horrifying effects in China and in India, much of which was conquered in an effort to gain a monopoly on opium production”. (7)

On 7 January 1942 the British General and Commander-in-Chief of India, Archibald Wavell, arrived in Malaya. He promptly attributed the Japanese successes, to date, as being due to errors committed by the British, refusing to give Yamashita’s men credit (8). Yet on the very day that General Wavell had landed in Malaya, along the Slim River the British-led divisions had suffered “The single most disastrous engagement of the entire Malaya campaign”, Stille stated (9); which he also described as “one of the most dramatic and significant actions of the entire Pacific War”. (10)

Stille is referring to the Battle of Slim River on 7 January 1942, which took place about 50 miles north of Kuala Lumpur. Thirty Japanese tanks supported by motorised infantry “rumbled down a single road machine-gunning and shooting up everything in their path”, inflicting 500 fatalities and capturing more than 3,000 British and Indian troops. By contrast the Japanese recorded fewer than 80 casualties during this battle.

The consequences were severe. Stille observed,

“It ensured the loss of central Malaya, and reduced the chances of holding southern Malaya long enough to enable the reinforcements flowing into Singapore to become fully effective”. (11)

Not resting on their gains the Japanese resumed their march southward, and 4 days later Kuala Lumpur was taken. In the capital, Japan’s soldiers found large quantities of ammunition and supplies, left behind by the British (12). These reverses compelled Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival – in overall command of British and Commonwealth divisions in Malaya – to order a withdrawal to southern Malaya, towards the Muar District and Johore.

Lt. Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita (seated, center) insists upon the unconditional surrender of Singapore as Lt. Gen. Percival, seated between his officers, demurs (photo from Imperial War Museum) (Licensed under the public domain)

Allied to the British, the Australian forces laid a devilish trap at Gemencheh, around 150 miles north-west of Singapore. Soldiers from the Japanese 5th Division were in the process of crossing Gemencheh Bridge, at 4 pm on 14 January 1942. They were unaware that the Australians had mined the bridge with explosives. As the Japanese tanks, trucks and cyclists were traversing the bridge, a huge detonation erupted sending bodies, bicycles and armour hurtling into the air, a surreal and terrible sight.

Australian sources claimed to have inflicted 1,000 casualties on the enemy here; but the tally may have been as few as 70 deaths and 57 wounded, initially at least as the fighting continued (13). The Japanese quickly recovered from the shock at Gemencheh Bridge, and in following hours forced the Australians on to the backfoot. By nightfall on 16 January, the Japanese had captured Muar town and the harbour.

As early as 18 January 1942, Lieutenant-General Percival was mulling over whether to pull out of southern Malaya, and to relocate all of his forces to Singapore slightly further south, in order to bolster that island’s defence. On 20 January, General Wavell instructed Percival to defend the southern Malayan region of Johore for as long as possible.

Also on 20 January, an angry Churchill issued an order demanding,

“I want to make it absolutely clear that I expect every inch of ground to be defended, every scrap of material or defences to be blown to pieces to prevent capture by the enemy, and no question of surrender to be entertained until protracted fighting among the ruins of Singapore city”. (14)

By 24 January, Percival had no choice but to compose an outline plan for a total withdrawal from the Malayan mainland, across the narrow Strait of Johore to Singapore (15). Churchill later expressed some sympathy for his beleaguered commander, writing that a “terrible load” had fallen “upon the shoulders of General Percival” (16). Between the 24th and 31st of January, the Australian troops retreated southward through Johore under Japanese pressure. The 11th Indian Infantry Division withdrew along the Malayan coastline, and was pursued by the Japanese Imperial Guards Division.

By the end of January 1942, some Indian and Australian units successfully reached Singapore, either by bridge or vessel across the Strait of Johore. The only road and rail lines, connecting Malaya to Singapore, was the Causeway at Johore Bahru, a kilometre long, 70 foot wide bridge. At 8:15 am on 31 January, the last British troops were safely over the Causeway and had entered Singapore. The Causeway was then destroyed with depth charges to prevent the Japanese from using it.

Seldom lacking in pride even in the most desperate circumstances, the British had conducted their retirement to Singapore in an orderly fashion. A Japanese lieutenant, Teruo Okada, when asked after the war what he thought of Britain’s forces, had said, “We thought the British officer was a very good fighter, although the ones we captured they always said to me ‘We will win the war, you see’. This I couldn’t understand because here is a man who has surrendered, and he still said ‘We will win the war’.” (17)

There was, amazingly enough, no hint of panic from the British soldiers, and no congestion of armour or infantry over the Causeway to Singapore, a commendable action personally overseen by Percival, who has been much criticised.

Stille wrote that this “was certainly Percival’s best-conducted operation of the campaign, and thwarted Yamashita’s plans to destroy British forces before they could reach Singapore” (18). Yamashita was furious to learn that the Japanese aircraft, for some baffling reason which has never been properly explained, had failed to bomb the Causeway at Johore Bahru – which the British and their allies were pouring across, the most ideal target for enemy planes.

Otherwise, Yamashita should have been exuberant with how the fighting had proceeded. In less than 8 weeks, the Japanese had reached the Strait of Johore on 31 January 1942, a lot sooner than they had expected (19). The battle for the Malayan mainland was now over and the battle for Singapore was imminent. From the second half of January 1942, Singapore had been the primary target of Japanese air raids, which occurred each day and were launched against the British naval base in Singapore, along with the nearby airfields and port. The Japanese air superiority contributed to a sense of futility in defending Singapore for long.

The population of Singapore according to one source was 1,370,300 in 1939 (20); but a detailed study shows that the island’s population in 1931 was 557,745, when the last census was compiled (21). About 75% of those living in Singapore by the 1930s were ethnic Chinese, with the remaining percentage consisting largely of Malays (11.7%) and ethnic Indians (9.1%). (22)

Singapore’s majority Chinese population presumably viewed with alarm the Japanese approach – as they should have, considering how Japan’s soldiers had conquered much of eastern China and sometimes committed dreadful atrocities. Of the approximately 70,000 combat soldiers and 15,000 service troops defending Singapore, only 13 of the 38 battalions in all were British, 17 were actually Indian battalions, and the remainder mostly Australians.

Just one of the 17 Indian battalions was at full strength. They had taken a pounding in the earlier fighting for Malaya. The British-led forces, despite suffering heavy personnel losses on the Malayan peninsula, still outnumbered the Japanese by at least 2-to-1, but the defenders for the most part were poorly trained and under-equipped. (23)

Singapore was a fortress in name only. There were no field defences or fortifications on the northern part of the island. Percival was determined to fight the Japanese on the beaches, and to prevent them from establishing a bridgehead. His plan had little chance of succeeding, due to the terrain’s unsuitability and the lack of depth in defence (24). What’s more, none of the officers subordinate to Percival had confidence in his strategy for defending Singapore, particularly the Australians, who were to endure most of the serious fighting.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree and he writes primarily on foreign affairs and historical subjects. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Notes

1 Mark E. Stille, Malaya and Singapore 1941–42: The fall of Britain’s empire in the East (Osprey Publishing; Illustrated edition, 20 Oct. 2016) p. 92

2 Winston S. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate (RosettaBooks, 11 May 2014) p. 81

3 Antony Beevor, The Second World War (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2012) Chapter 16, Pearl Harbor

4 Piers Brendon, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire (Vintage Digital, July 6, 2010) p. 417

5 Donald J. Goodspeed, The German Wars (Random House Value Publishing, 2nd edition, 3 April 1985) p. 381

6 Jenny Li, “Who Rules Asia? An Interview with Noam Chomsky”, 16 September 2021, New Bloom Magazine

7 America’s Other War: Terrorizing Columbia, Doug Stokes, Foreword by Noam Chomsky, Bloomsbury Collections

8 Stille, Malaya and Singapore 1941–42, p. 68

9 Ibid., p. 62

10 Ibid., p. 67

11 Ibid.

12 Alan Chanter, C. Peter Chen, Thomas Houlihan, Hugh Martyr, David Stubblebine, “Kuala Lumpur in WW2 History”, World War II Database

13 Stille, Malaya and Singapore, 1941–42, p. 71

14 Ibid., p. 72

15 Ibid.

16 Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, p. 82

17 The World At War: Complete TV Series (Episode 14, Fremantle, 25 April 2005, Original Network: ITV, Original Release: 31 October 1973 – 8 May 1974)

18 Stille, Malaya and Singapore, 1941–42, p. 73

19 Ibid.

20 C. Peter Chen, “Singapore in World War II”, January 2018, World War II Database

21 Saw Swee Hock, Population Trends in Singapore, 1819-1967, Journal of Southeast Asian History, Cambridge University Press, March 1969, p. 4 of 14, Jstor

22 Ibid., p. 6 of 14

23 Stille, Malaya and Singapore 1941–42, p. 79

24 Ibid., p. 80

Featured image: General Tomoyuki Yamashita plans a successful assault by Japanese troops in Malaya (Licensed under the public domain)

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

A group of Republican lawmakers has introduced a bill to ban US arms shipments to Ukraine while there are unresolved security issues at the southern border. The attitude is a direct consequence of Republicans’ dissatisfaction with the mismanagement of border problems, which has already become a hallmark of Joe Biden. Illegal immigration, drug trafficking and armed militias significantly affect the country’s domestic security, but the White House insists on prioritizing foreign incursions, which do nothing to benefit the American people.

In a recent official Republican statement, it is possible to read: “Today, Representative Rosendale introduced the Secure America’s Borders First Act. This bill would prohibit the US government from providing military and security assistance to Ukraine until the border wall system on the southern border is completed, and operational control of the southern border is achieved”. The bill aims to stop the Biden administration’s lack of priority for US domestic security issues.

As is well known, in recent months Washington has been making Ukraine its main political agenda. The Biden administration continually spreads the fallacious narrative about the existence of a “Russian invasion plan” and states that there is a “need” to strengthen protective measures for Kiev within the NATO framework – despite Moscow constantly making it clear that there is no possibility of such an invasion plan to exist, and that its troops are only deployed within the country’s own territorial limits.

In response to this scenario, Washington frequently approves military aid packages to Kiev, sending money, weapons, military equipment, and soldiers to help the country deal with such alleged Russian threat. In addition, Washington also encourages other countries to do the same, especially the UK and Baltic states, which increasingly send weapons to Kiev. But, while the White House worries about spending large sums to help another country in a non-existent conflict in Eastern Europe, the US’ own internal security deteriorates day after day, with countless problems on the southern border.

One of the biggest criticisms by Republicans against the Biden administration since its inauguration has been precisely the terrible management of the border problems. Since Biden came to power, illegal immigration has become commonplace in the southern region, with entire caravans of irregular migrants crossing the border every day, without the authorities being able to exercise any kind of control. There is no police contingent or sufficient equipment to contain the transit of immigrants, due to the dwindling government funding for border security.

The Democrat president simply ignores the criticism received. For him, there is no problem with the issue of border security, simply because he agrees with the absence of rules for immigration. This is part of Biden’s liberal and humanitarian ideology, which values ​​unrestricted immigration as a “human right”, regardless of the consequences for national security.

In fact, many criminals are taking advantage of Democrat’s humanitarianism and sending drug dealers, terrorists and vandals amid the caravans. Undoubtedly, there is a humanitarian issue, as most immigrants are ordinary people in search of better living conditions, but it is wrong to ignore the profit that criminal networks have made of this type of situation. Some sort of control is needed.

Some months ago, a CIA consultant stated that the US is close to civil war due to its social and security problems. There are still other intelligence reports and analysis that point something in this direction. The problem arising from uncontrolled illegal immigration goes far beyond the security crisis as an extreme opposite pole is also created, with radical political groups demanding the automatic expulsion of immigrants and acting with violence in the streets – generally affecting normal and innocent people.

All these factors make the issue of the southern border the main contemporary American problem. The country faces a challenge of national integrity and emergency measures must be taken by the government in order to prevent further polarization and complete social chaos. But this will not be possible as long as the American priority is to encourage war plans on another continent.

It is necessary to remember that, encouraged by the US and NATO, the Ukrainian government has significantly advanced in its incursions against Russian-speaking populations in the Donbass region in recent weeks. The attacks and bombings have escalated, and, with that, the separatist militias are forced to also react more incisively. American weapons (tanks, rocket launchers, planes, among others) have been used on a large scale by Ukrainians to pursue a policy of ethnic extermination that is currently the topic of a lawsuit in the European Court of Human Rights. So, wouldn’t this be something much more incongruous with Biden’s humanitarianism than a legality control on migrations?

In fact, it urges Washington to review its priorities, or it will risk facing an irreversible scenario of civil conflict.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.

Featured image is from RT

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

The U.S. securing air bases in Slovakia would mark the Pentagon and NATO already or soon having air bases in no less than nine former Warsaw Pact nations: Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. Those are all the former Warsaw Pact countries in NATO except for the Czech Republic.

*

Slovaks protest defense treaty with US as lawmakers debate

By Associated Press

February 8, 2022

Excerpt from the article

Thousands of Slovaks rallied Tuesday to protest a military defense treaty between their nation and the United States, which are both members of NATO.

Waving national flags and banners such as “Stop USA Army,” the protesters gathered in Bratislava in front of Parliament, where lawmakers were debating the Defense Cooperation Agreement. Police prevented some protesters from entering the building.

 …

The opposition claims it would compromise the country’s sovereignty, make possible a permanent presence of U.S. troops on Slovak territory, enable a deployment of nuclear weapons in Slovakia and provoke Russia….

The treaty allows the U.S. military to use two Slovak air force bases – Malacky-Kuchyna and Sliac – for 10 years while Slovakia will receive $100 million from the U.S. to modernize them.

*

General prosecutor: 1968 invasion agreement more advantageous than the US defence deal

By Slovak Spectator

February 8, 2022

Excerpt from the article

The parliament launched a discussion on the Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) between Slovakia and the United States on February 8.

The agreement was recently signed by Defence Minister Jaroslav Naď (OĽaNO) and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington, but it still needs the approval of the parliament and subsequently the president.

…

General Prosecutor Maroš Žilinka came to the session, expressing his will to read an address concerning the DCA. He is known as the critic of the agreement. During the interdepartmental review process, he submitted 35 fundamental objections to the draft and his office has rejected it as a whole.

…

He called the interpretation clauses attached to the agreement by both Slovakia and the USA insignificant, and even called the agreement on the stay of Soviet soldiers on the territory of Czechoslovakia after the 1968 invasion more advantageous than the current defence deal with the USA.

“A person’s own opinion and will are actually his honour,” he claimed.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Rick Rozoff, renowned author and geopolitical analyst, actively involved in opposing war, militarism and interventionism for over fifty years. He manages the Anti-Bellum and For peace, against war website.

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

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

LANCELOT: Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of
the knowing me: it is a wise father that knows his
own child. Well, old man, I will tell you news of
your son: give me your blessing: truth will come
to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man’s son
may, but at the length truth will out.

Shakespeare:  The Merchant of Venice, Act II, Scene 2

Truth will out.  Eventually, given enough time, the good, the bad, and the ugly will be revealed.

Such is the case with Monsanto’s dubious herbicide glyphosate.  The long-winding story on how Monsanto and its governmental enablers at the Environmental Protection Agency first registered the weedkiller Roundup under at best dubious circumstances is sickening.

In March 2015 U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of California allowed public release of internal Monsanto documents showing how Monsanto influenced EPA to reclassify glyphosate from a Class C carcinogen to a Class E category which paved the way for glyphosate Roundup production.

It was nothing short of a cover-up that put greed ahead of public safety.

And now ironically we learn the cover-up may have included Monsanto’s own investors.  Bayer AG purchased Monsanto and dumped the company name back in 2018.  As if….that would be helpful.  Bayer has lost a string of jury trials where glyphosate was believed to be responsible for cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Now Bayer investors are saying the German agri-giant played fast and loose with the facts,  misleading them on 1) the safety of glyphosate and Roundup; 2) Bayer’s efforts at due diligence; and 3) the legal risks in the acquisition of Monsanto.  Their lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California makes for some interesting reading:

“Defendants specifically downplayed the liability risks related to Monsanto’s Roundup product, emphasizing that Bayer conducted a “thorough analysis” during the due diligence process and “undertook appropriate due diligence of litigation and regulatory issues throughout the process” which led Bayer to finalize the Acquisition. These and similar statements made by Defendants during the Class Period were false and misleading. In truth, Defendants knew or recklessly disregarded that the Acquisition would not result in the benefits for Bayer that Defendants had represented, due to Monsanto’s significant exposure to liability risk related to Roundup.”

Naturally Bayer tried to get the case – Sheet Metal Workers National Pension Fund v. Bayer Aktiengesellschaft – thrown out of court.  But in October the court ruled against Bayer, finding, among other things, that:

“As for the differences between glyphosate and Roundup, Plaintiffs have pled that Monsanto was aware the Roundup formulation was possibly more dangerous than glyphosate, ¶ 141, and that (Bayer CEO Werner) Baumann stated during a conference call, “there is no difference” between glyphosate and the Roundup formulation, ¶ 250. By showing that an executive’s statement was in contradiction to Monsanto’s own assessment of the science, Plaintiffs have adequately pled a material misstatement concerning the safety risks of Roundup as compared to glyphosate.”

So now we’re going to get yet another layer of court discovery on glyphosate.  Given all we already know Roundup and glyphosate should have not been unleashed on the world.  But how companies like Monsanto are willing to go to almost any length – including duping its own investors – is a new low.

Truth will out.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Dickey spent nearly 30 years at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s NPR member station WILL-AM 580 where he won a dozen Associated Press awards for his reporting. For 13 years, he directed Illinois Public Media’s agriculture programming. His weekly column for the Midwest Center covers agriculture and related issues including politics, government, environment and labor. His opinions are his own and do not reflect the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. Email him at [email protected].

Featured image: Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, is the most heavily-used agricultural chemical in history. (Photo: Mike Mozart/Flickr/cc)

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

US President Joe Biden said after his meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that he will “end” the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Europe if Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.

“If Russia invades … there will no longer [be] a Nord Stream 2,” Biden said during a joint press conference with Scholz. “We will bring an end to it.”

When pressed for more details on just exactly how the US can achieve this, Biden could only mutter:

“I promise you, we’ll be able to do it.”

The American president of course found it difficult to answer this question because his country is not involved in the Nord Stream 2 project and has very little influence over it – the only thing Washington can hope for is that sustained pressure on European allies will make them capitulate to their demands.

However, the reality is that Germany, Europe’s most important country alongside France, has its own economic interests that must be served and not compromised for the sake of the US. Berlin has defended its ability to complete the pipeline, despite the fact that the US opposes the project in any way possible. Washington has no interest in the fact that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is vital for the German economy and industry.

None-the-less, to try and appease Washington, Scholz stressed to journalists that Germany was “absolutely united” and that “we will do the same steps, and they will be very, very hard to Russia.”

This is on the assumption though that Russia will invade Ukraine, something that the Kremlin has continually stressed it has no ambition of doing despite the constant warnings and rhetoric emanating from Washington. Both Berlin and Paris understand that Russia does not want to invade Ukraine and desperately want the manufactured crisis to end.

Brandon Weichert, author of “Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower” and a former US congressional staffer, said to the Express newspaper this week:

“Paris is hesitant about getting too bogged down in a Russo-American fight over Ukraine for the same reason that Germany is desperate to avoid escalation in the particular fight over Ukraine.”

“Paris, like Berlin, fears the prospects of their own countries becoming frontline states yet again in either a renewed Cold War between Russia and the US or, more frighteningly, an actual war,” he added.

Following talks on Friday in Moscow between Russian and French Presidents Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron, the Financial Times, citing French sources, reported that Russia had “moved” towards de-escalating the situation around Ukraine.

Specifically, the meeting was said to revolve around the withdrawal of Russian troops from Belarus after the end of their exercises in the country. According to sources, this will lead to further meetings and the signing of an agreement on “structured dialogue on collective security.”

Macron had previously proposed a re-format of the European security system to include Moscow in it, but this offer went unanswered. This time, the French leader again noted that it is impossible to normalize the international situation without dialogue with Russia.

“We must protect our European brothers by proposing a new balance capable of preserving their sovereignty and peace. This must be done while respecting Russia and understanding the contemporary traumas of this great people and great nation,” the French president added.

In this way, Macron, despite some differences with Putin, has an immense respect for the Russian leader. Macron, just like his German colleague Scholz, is a realist and understands that discounting Moscow’s interests and concerns is not a realistic prospect if order, stability and peace is to be maintained in Europe, something that the Anglo Alliance (US and UK) are not interested in as they would not be directly affected by a potential continental war.

As Weichert noted, among other reasons, France and Germany are also dependent on Russian energy supplies. Because of this, the two countries do not want to enforce the harsh restrictions that Biden demands.

In the view of the former Congressional official, the two key allies would surely “[throw] the Americans under the bus, which they will because Paris thinks that would weaken America’s unwanted hold over European affairs.”

In this way, the two European powerhouses, ignoring the incessant complaints from Poland and the Baltic states, are themselves deescalating a crisis in Ukraine that Washington and Kiev manufactured seemingly out of nowhere. In addition, although the Europeans are vowing to respond to any Russian invasion of Ukraine, and in this way shows “unity” with the US, they fully understand that Moscow has no plans for such an invasion. For this reason, Germany is completely unwilling to sacrifice its energy and industrial needs for the sake of appeasing Washington’s hostile anti-Russian policies.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from Strategic Culture Foundation

Dear Readers,

As everyone faces difficult times, the company which deals with the fulfillment of book sales on behalf of Global Research is no longer able to provide its services. We are unfortunately suspending the sale of print books until further notice.

We will be contacting and refunding readers who have purchased our books in print format. Meanwhile, PDF versions are still available for purchase. We hope to be able to resolve this matter as soon as possible. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Thank you for your valuable support.

***

Memo to Congress: Diplomacy for Ukraine Is Spelled M-i-n-s-k

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, February 08, 2022

You would think Congress would be echoing the public sentiment that a war with Russia is not in our national interest. Instead, taking our nation to war and supporting the gargantuan military budget seem to be the only issues that both parties agree on.

Video: Group of Moms Helps Truckers in Ottawa. This Is What It Means to be a Citizen

By Jean-François Girard, February 08, 2022

Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau portrayed Ottawa’s protesters as violent, racists, and more… Here is one of many trucker’s tales showing this is as far from reality as it can go.

Video: Support for Freedom Convoy by Candice Bergen – New Conservative Leader

By Marcel Irnie, February 08, 2022

The Conservative Party of Canada has named Portage-Lisgar MP Candice Bergen as its interim leader. The announcement came Wednesday evening after a vote by caucus members. Bergen is among a growing number of Conservatives allying themselves with the protesters – a position that politicians across the political spectrum have criticized.

Freedom Convoy Is Being Threatened: Preemptive SOS Press Conference. Trudeau Is a Liar

By Global Research News, February 08, 2022

The Trudeau government has refused to enter into dialogue. The Prime Minister has portrayed the protesters (without a shred of evidence) of conducting acts of violence, racism and anti-semitism. Watch videos in the link.

Video: Freedom Convoy, Threats of Mass Arrests. Trudeau Refuses to Enter into Dialogue, SOS Press Conference

By Freedom Convoy, February 08, 2022

The leaders of the Convoy are prepared to talk to the government. We want tangible results. It is a political theater on the part of the Trudeau government. There has been no response from the City of Ottawa. They refuse to sit around a table. We are prepared to meet with Trudeau.

Video: The Powder Keg of Donbass

By Manlio Dinucci, February 08, 2022

The situation in Donbass is increasingly critical: 150 thousand soldiers of the Ukrainian Army and National Guard are deployed in front of Donetsk and Lugansk, inhabited by Russian populations. In the front line there is the neo-Nazi battalion Azov, promoted to regiment of special forces, distinguished for its ferocity in the attacks on the Russian populations of Ukraine, commanded by Andrey Biletsky who educates young people to hatred against the Russians with his book “The Words of the White Führer”.

Regional Power Play and Killing of Bin Laden and ISIS Caliphs

By Nauman Sadiq, February 08, 2022

As a Saudi citizen and belonging to the powerful Saudi-Yemeni clan of Bin Ladens, which has business interests all over the Middle East, Osama bin Laden was almost a royalty.

‘Pure Theft’ — GoFundMe Withholds $9 Million Donated to Truckers Protesting Vaccine Mandates

By Jeremy Loffredo, February 08, 2022

It all started when Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson announced the city was contemplating legal action against GoFundMe, in the hope of diverting the donations raised on behalf of the truckers to the city’s coffers.

This Medical Data from the US Department of Defense Is Explosive – Mainstream Media Has Been Ordered to Ignore It

By Steve Kirsch, February 08, 2022

On February 1st, 2022, US Senator Ron Johnson sent a letter to DoD Secretary Lloyd Austin highlighting the dramatic rise in adverse events reported in the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) after the vaccines were rolled out to the military.

China’s Belt & Road Already Delivering for Southeast Asia

By Brian Berletic, February 08, 2022

The West’s propaganda campaign against China is attempting to convince the world that Beijing and its policies pose a global threat. China is accused of everything from presenting an outright military threat to its neighbors and the world, to sinisterly trapping nations in debt for infrastructure projects the West insists are unnecessary in the first place.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò Endorses Canadian Truck Drivers, Calls for Prayers to Defeat ‘Infernal’ Great Reset

By His Excellency Carlo Maria Viganò, February 08, 2022

The global coup that in these two years of psycho-pandemic farce has been carried out by the globalist elite appears most clearly if we do not limit ourselves to considering what happened in individual Nations, but broaden our gaze to what has happened everywhere. 

NATO Holds Drills with Three Carrier Strike Groups, Seven Interceptor Warships in Eastern Mediterranean

By Rick Rozoff, February 08, 2022

The USS Bainbridge, USS Gonzalez, USS Gravely and USS Ross are Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers designed to fire Standard Missile 3 anti-ballistic missiles of the sort stationed in their so-called Aegis Ashore version in Romania and Poland.

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

The Conservative Party of Canada has named Portage-Lisgar MP Candice Bergen as its interim leader. The announcement came Wednesday evening after a vote by caucus members.

Bergen is among a growing number of Conservatives allying themselves with the protesters – a position that politicians across the political spectrum have criticized.

The protesters want governments to end all pandemic restrictions and vaccination and mask mandates. On Thursday, organizers again said they won’t leave until their demands are met, which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has rejected.

In the House of Commons on Monday, Ms. Bergen described the protesters as “passionate, patriotic and peaceful.”

On Twitter, she posted pictures of her meeting with some of the people blockading the streets and said they “deserve to be heard and they deserve respect.”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

.

The Freedom Convoy is being Threatened

The Trudeau government has refused to enter into dialogue.

The Prime Minister has portrayed the protesters (without a shred of evidence) of conducting acts of violence, racism and anti-semitism.  (See Second Video below)

On the 2nd of February, he added the following tweet to his unsubstantiated accusations.

It is unclear whether the precise wording of his tweet was part of an unanimous vote of the House of Commons.

Why all these Lies on the Part of the Prime Minister of Canada 

Who are the Criminals? 

The Trudeau government’s decisions are in blatant derogation of fundamental human rights. 

All the Covid-19 Mandates implemented since March 2020 are Illegal. 

Amply documented the Covid-19 vaccine has resulted in an upward trend in mortality and morbidity.

It is a dangerous “drug” which is being imposed on Canadians without Informed Consent.  

All the data is there to Confirm that the mrNA vaccine is a dangerous “drug” which should be immediately withdrawn.

***

Video: Press Conference

Video: Trudeau’s libellous and defamatory accusations directed against the Freedom Convoy are without substance or evidence 

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

.

Summary of the Statements and Discussion (not verbatim) raised during the Press Conference

The leaders of the Convoy are prepared to talk to the government.

We want tangible results. 

It is a political theater on the part of the Trudeau government.

There has been no response from the City of Ottawa.

They refuse to sit around a table. We are prepared to meet with Trudeau.

Meanwhile, there are threats to implement mass arrests.  

We are committed to peace and non-violence.

The police forces may resort to violence. 

Politicians were elected to enter into dialogue. 

Police have taken an oath. We encourage police officers to enter into dialogue with scientists within our movement regarding the vaccine.

We have police support within our movement.  We have a solid relationship with the police in Ottawa.

There is the building of a rhetorical language by politicians (and the media) which is totable unacceptable. 

The media are not reporting the news, they are creating the news. 

Regarding Health Canada: We do not have information regarding the vaccine.

Let the public get the information regarding the vaccine.

Video of the SOS Press Club

This second Video provides evidence that Trudeau’s libellous and defamatory accusations directed against the Freedom Convoy are without substance

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

The situation in Donbass is increasingly critical: 150 thousand soldiers of the Ukrainian Army and National Guard are deployed in front of Donetsk and Lugansk, inhabited by Russian populations. In the front line there is the neo-Nazi battalion Azov, promoted to regiment of special forces, distinguished for its ferocity in the attacks on the Russian populations of Ukraine, commanded by Andrey Biletsky who educates young people to hatred against the Russians with his book “The Words of the White Führer”.

The Ukrainian deployment is not mentioned in the mainstream, which speaks only about the Russian one. At the same time it hides the fact that the Kiev armed forces are financed, equipped and trained, and thus in fact commanded, by US-NATO military advisors and instructors. As the Congressional Research Service itself documents, the U.S. and NATO have provided Ukraine with $10 billion in military aid.

There are also those of individual powers: Britain invests £1.7 billion to give the Ukrainian navy 8 fast missile launchers and build naval bases on the Sea of Azov, wedged into Russian territory.

Particularly alarming is the presence in the Donetsk region of US mercenaries, probably equipped with chemical weapons. This could be the spark that provokes the deflagration of a war in the heart of Europe: a chemical attack against Ukrainian civilians in the Donbass, immediately attributed to the Russians in Donetsk and Lugansk, who would be attacked by the preponderant Ukrainian forces already deployed in the region, to force Russia to intervene militarily in their defense.

Grandangolo can also be seen on live TV on cell phones or computers in the site.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

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

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

Dara’a, Syria was the hometown of Khalid. In the years leading up to 2011, he lived between there and Damascus. He was in his 3^rd year studying sociology at Damascus University. He shared a sparely furnished apartment in a working-class neighborhood of the capital with fellow Dara’a students. And all boasted that Dara’a natives were the most diligent and intelligent of all Syrians; naming professors, military officers and other successful Dara’a-born Syrians.

Khalid promised me a tour of his city. And we eventually went there together, but only after the uprising erupted and his proud birthplace was transformed into a garrisoned city with checkpoints along now subdued streets. Dara’a would fall to rebels for some years but was recently liberated by government forces. (Although Khalid himself would not witness any of those battles.)

Neither Dara’a city nor its countryside included Syria’s notable archeological sites or charming parks where families enjoy Friday outings. In 2011 because of its proximity to the Jordanian border, Dhara’a became a point for the infiltration into Syria of rebels and arms supported by the U.S., U.K., Israel and Jordan.

We’d known each other before political unrest erupted in 2011 in Tunisia, then spread to Egypt and finally reached Syria. From among those four friends, why Khalid alone decided to join the opposition movement, I don’t know. Maybe it was the security service indiscriminately detaining young men. Maybe he was recruited by a trusted friend. Maybe it was his fierce Dara’a pride.

Today, only he among those students can’t be traced. He went missing five years ago and none of us has had news of him since then.

Ruknideen Market on 4 May 2011

Nobody could openly criticize the Syrian government. Sometimes a subtle remark might indicate someone’s discontent. Not from Khalid though. In fact, he and his friends voluntarily proffered warm comments about their youthful, modern leader. They appeared genuinely impressed that ‘Dr. Bashar’ had studied abroad, that he moved about in public, that he showed no military ambitions. Al-Assad’s had recently returned from a tour of South American countries where he was warmly welcomed. This following his celebrated reception in Paris by President Sarkozy.

Public optimism grew after Syria and Turkey signed new treaties to open their borders to tourism and expanded trade. Internet access was widening. Syria’s high-quality films and its industrial and agricultural produce were in demand across the region, food was plentiful and the economy thriving. All this despite the obstinate U.S. sanctions begun in 1979 and regularly expanded — to the present.

During those early years of Al-Assad’s leadership Khalid felt encouraged. So he was shocked by the president’s reaction to the trouble that erupted in Dara’a in 2011, after the governor there had severely punished schoolboys who’d painted graffiti in support of the far-away Tunisian protests. Not only did the president not excoriate the governor; he didn’t call for an investigation into claims of torture. Then protests by parents of the jailed Dara’a boys led to demonstrations elsewhere; troops were sent to halt the marches; arrests and jailings began. That incident became sparked a fire which, by stages, would spread through the nation.

The initial uprising in Dara’a had been quelled by the time I travelled there with Khalid a few months later. Along the route from Damascus our bus was stopped at checkpoints. Passing through the city we gazed in silence at army posts newly installed at intersections. (Recalling the many West Bank neighborhoods I knew) The city was palpably tense. Three friends who stopped by to see Khalid stayed the night and spoke together in hushed tones. It was not a cheerful reunion.

Several months passed, by which time I’d returned to New York, not knowing if a new visa to Syria was advisable. Or possible. Khalid and I may have spoken by phone meantime; I forget. Then, suddenly, he called, announcing his arrival in NYC; he was attending some U.N. human rights conference, he said. The next day he visited me at home. Only then did I suspect he was working for the opposition, probably the Free Syrian Army, the U.S.-funded rebel force that emerged early in the conflict.

Khalid never told me about a political mission he may have had. Though he spent much of his time operating two laptops as well as a number of phones, linking up several parties simultaneously. He never discussed this with me. Nor did he hide it, nor inquire about my feelings concerning growing tensions and protests in his country. Was my home a safe location from which to set up his network, to undertake communications training? That hadn’t occurred to me.

I would only realize how deeply involved Khalid was six months later when he returned here. This time he was a guest of the State Department. He admitted his excitement about meeting the anti-Syria U.S. senator, John McCain. I suspect he helped prepare a secret visit by the senator into rebel-held areas of Syria.

We didn’t meet that time; he was busy traveling from city to city, he said. But we talked by phone about his Dara’a university mates.

One had left Syria, and was in Beirut from where he would take a boat to Greece, then walk across Europe with thousands of other refugees. Among family he left behind was his brother, Samir, whom we both knew. Samir was a lawyer in the Syrian military, posted in Palmyra in the eastern desert. (Either he could not or didn’t want to leave.) Their family was told that Samir was among those captured by ISIS rebels when they swarmed that city. Samir was imprisoned; that’s all they knew. Later, when Syrian forces successfully retook the city, no trace of him could be found. Samir’s family had not given up hope that he would be alive, somewhere. By 2021, there was still no word about him. The same goes for Khalid. After McCain’s Syria visit, I lost contact with him. So did the other lads.

Tell me: do these two missing Syrian patriots cancel out each other?

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Barbara Nimri Aziz whose anthropological research has focused on the peoples of the Himalayas is the author of the newly published “Yogmaya and Durga Devi: Rebel Women of Nepal”, available on Amazon. 

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author

“Yogmaya and Durga Devi: Rebel Women of Nepal”

By Barbara Nimri Aziz

A century ago Yogmaya and Durga Devi, two women champions of justice, emerged from a remote corner of rural Nepal to offer solutions to their nation’s social and political ills. Then they were forgotten.

Years after their demise, in 1980 veteran anthropologist Barbara Nimri Aziz first uncovered their suppressed histories in her comprehensive and accessible biographies. Revelations from her decade of research led to the resurrection of these women and their entry into contemporary Nepali consciousness.

This book captures the daring political campaigns of these rebel women; at the same time it asks us to acknowledge their impact on contemporary feminist thinking. Like many revolutionaries who were vilified in their lifetimes, we learn about the true nature of these leaders’ intelligence, sacrifices, and vision during an era of social and economic oppression in this part of Asia.

After Nepal moved from absolute monarchy to a fledgling democracy and history re-evaluated these pioneers, Dr. Aziz explores their legacies in this book.

Psychologically provocative and astonishingly moving, “Yogmaya and Durga Devi” is a seminal contribution to women’s history.

Click here to order.

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

Yesterday I stood with friends and colleagues at one of the many highway overpasses in Toronto as we watched a truly historic moment unfold before our tear-filled eyes. Thousands of liberty-loving Canadians from all walks of life were gathered there—as they were throughout the country—in the freezing cold, holding aloft flags and signs to show support for hundreds of courageous transport truck drivers as they passed by us in the Freedom Convoy on the way to our nation’s capital.  — David Skripac, renowned author and  pilot who served as a Captain in the Royal Canadian Air Force

***

According to Justin Trudeau: 

the protesters “have expressed hateful rhetoric and violence towards their fellow citizens.”

“So to those responsible for this behaviour — it needs to stop, …

Canadians at home are watching in disgust and disbelief at this behaviour, wondering how this could have happened in our nation’s capital. …

Trudeau says that no one has a right “to abuse, intimidate and harass … fellow citizens.”

(January 31 Statement followed by Press Conference, Scroll down for Video)

“Disgust and Disbelief” according to Trudeau.

Millions of Canadians from coast to coast have supported and continue to support the Freedom Convoy 2022.

Statement of Prime Minster Trudeau on February 2, 2022

Are the protesters really what he claims them to be?

The Vaccine Is Safe According to Trudeau

NONSENSE!

Trudeau claims without evidence that the vaccine is safe. We do not support disinformation and conspiracy theories, he says.

He attacks Erin O’Toole, leader of the Conservative Party. He calls on politicians to think very carefully who they are supporting.

He calls upon politicians to “respect science”.

Science and Facts

Trudeau calls for “trust in science, trust in facts”. 

The official science and facts reports of the EU, US and UK pertaining to reported, recorded and registered vaccine-related deaths and adverse events are available.

Bear in mind: Most deaths and adverse events are not reported.

These are official figures. They are facts.

TOTAL for EU/UK/USA – 61,654 Covid-19 injection related deaths and 9,755,085 injuries reported as at 28 January 2022.

Health Canada has compiled the data on mortality and morbidity. But this information has not been made public.

Health Canada does not inform Canadians on the deaths and adverse events pertaining to Covid-19 vaccine.

See Trudeau’s Statement followed by Press Conference

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says “hate speech and racist symbols must not be tolerated in Canada.” 1:46

See video below.

This is what is happening. And Trudeau calls it a “fringe minority”.

Video: ALL of Canada Has Joined The Convoy, Except Trudeau

Swastikas

Trudeau referred to swastikas intimating that the organizers are supportive of Neo-Nazi symbols. (There was one swastika event in Ottawa coupled with a Confederate flag, confirmed by the Times of Israel).

What Trudeau, however, fails to mention is that his government is supporting Ukraine’s National Guard which is controlled by Neo-Nazi elements.

According to the Ottawa Citizen (November 9, 2021)

“Canadian officials who met with members of a Ukrainian battalion linked to neo-Nazis didn’t denounce the unit, but were instead concerned the media would expose details of the get-together, according to newly released documents.

The Canadians met with and were briefed by leaders from the Azov Battalion in June 2018. The officers and diplomats did not object to the meeting and instead allowed themselves to be photographed with battalion officials despite previous warnings that the unit saw itself as pro-Nazi. The Azov Battalion then used those photos for its online propaganda, pointing out the Canadian delegation expressed “hopes for further fruitful co-operation.”

There is ample evidence of Canadian and US support to Neo-Nazis in Ukraine going back to the 2014 Euromaidan:

Andriy Parubiy co-founder of the Neo-Nazi  Social-National Party of Ukraine (subsequently renamed Svoboda) was appointed [in 2014] Secretary of the National Security and National Defense Committee (RNBOU). (Рада національної безпеки і оборони України), a key position which overseas the Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces, Law Enforcement, National Security and Intelligence.

Neo-Nazi Leader Andriy Parubiy Invited by Trudeau to Ottawa 

Upon the formation of a new government in 2014, Neo-Nazi leader Andriy Parubiy became an Member of Parliament. He was then appointed Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament of Ukraine).  

In 2016 Nazi leader Andreiy Parubiy was invited to Ottawa to meet the Prime Minister of Canada.  

Deputy Chairman of Ukraine’s Parliament, Andriy Parubiy, visited Ottawa in February 2016, meeting with the prime minister. At that meeting (from left) are Ukraine’s Ambassador to Canada Andriy Shevchenko, Verkhovna Rada Deputy Chairman Andriy Parubiy, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Member of Parliament Borys Wrzesnewskyj.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Le Olimpiadi invernali del 2014 – che si aprirono a Sochi in Russia il 7 febbraio alla vigilia dell’esplosione della crisi ucraina con il putsch di Piazza Maidan (18-20 febbraio) – furono definite nella campagna mediatica anti-russa le «Olimpiadi dello zar Putin». Il presidente Obama e il vice Biden, seguiti da altri, le boicottarono accusando la Russia di violare i diritti umani degli Lgbt. Stesso scenario oggi con le Olimpiadi invernali di Pechino, definite nella campagna mediatica anti-cinese «i Giochi di potere di Xi, il Grande timoniere olimpico» (La Repubblica, 3 febbraio).

Il presidente Biden le ha boicottate, accusando la Cina di violare i diritti umani degli Uiguri. Al seguito degli Stati uniti, la Gran Bretagna, il Canada, l’Australia, la Lituania, l’Estonia e il Kosovo (noto difensore dei diritti umani, inquisito per traffico di esseri e organi umani alla Corte dell’Aja) hanno dichiarato il «boicottaggio diplomatico» delle Olimpiadi di Pechino.

Il boicottaggio fa parte della strategia di Washington di «contenimento» della Cina. Essa non è rimasta semplicemente la «fabbrica del mondo» in cui le multinazionali statunitensi ed europee hanno delocalizzato da decenni gran parte delle loro produzioni, ricavandone colossali profitti. La Cina ha realizzato un proprio sviluppo produttivo e tecnologico e, su tale base, progetti come la Nuova Via della Seta: una rete terrestre (viaria e ferroviaria) e marittima tra la Cina e l’Europa attraverso l’Asia Centrale, il Medio Oriente e la Russia. In tale quadro, le relazioni economiche tra Cina e Russia si sono rafforzate, soprattutto dopo le sanzioni imposte da Stati uniti e Unione europea alla Russia.

L’interscambio tra Stati uniti e Cina resta maggiore, ma, dato che molti prodotti sul mercato statunitense sono fabbricati in Cina da multinazionali Usa o forniti da società cinesi, gli Stati uniti registrano nel commercio bilaterale un deficit di oltre 300 miliardi di dollari annui. La Cina ha inoltre fortemente ridotto i propri investimenti negli Usa. Ancora più grave per Washington è il fatto che la quota in dollari delle riserve valutarie cinesi è sensibilmente calata e che la Cina cerca monete alternative a quella statunitense da usare nel commercio internazionale, mettendo in pericolo l’egemonia del dollaro.

Non potendo arrestare tale processo che può mettere fine al predominio economico degli Stati uniti, Washington getta la spada sul piatto della bilancia. Il «contenimento» economico diventa «contenimento» militare. L’ammiraglio Davidson, capo del Comando dell’Indo-Pacifico – la regione che nella geopolitica di Washington si estende dalla costa occidentale degli Usa a quella dell’India – ha richiesto al Congresso 27 miliardi di dollari per costruire attorno alla Cina una cortina di basi missilistiche e sistemi satellitari. «Dobbiamo cominciare ad affrontare la Cina da una posizione di forza», ha dichiarato il segretario di Stato Antony Blinken.

In tale quadro rientra l’Aukus, il partenariato strategico-militare costituito da Stati uniti, Gran Bretagna e Australia con «l’imperativo di assicurare la pace e stabilità nell’Indo-Pacifico», Stati Uniti e Gran Bretagna aiuteranno l’Australia ad acquisire sottomarini a propulsione nucleare, armati di missili sicuramente anche a testata nucleare, tipo il Trident D5 Usa che può trasportare fino a 14 testate termonucleari indipendenti. Questi sottomarini di fatto sotto comando Usa, avvicinandosi alle coste della Cina e della Russia, potrebbero colpire in pochi minuti i principali obiettivi in questi paesi con una capacità distruttiva pari a oltre 20 mila bombe di Hiroshima.

Cina e Russia rafforzano di conseguenza non solo la loro cooperazione economica, ma anche quella politica e militare. Nella dichiarazione congiunta a Pechino, i presidenti Xi Jinping e Vladimir Putin hanno sottolineato che «Russia e Cina si oppongono ai tentativi di forze esterne di minare la sicurezza e stabilità nelle loro regioni adiacenti» e che «si oppongono all’ulteriore allargamento della Nato». La strategia Stati uniti-Nato della tensione e della guerra, che riporta al confronto tra blocchi contrapposti, spezza i cinque cerchi intrecciati, simbolo olimpico dei cinque continenti uniti per «un mondo migliore e pacifico».

Manlio Dinucci

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

NATO plans to build a gas pipeline from Spain to Germany – media

By 112 Ukraine

February 7, 2022

NATO is considering building a pipeline from Spain to France and Germany that will “reduce Central Europe’s dependence on Russian gas.” This was reported by La Vanguardia, citing sources in the Spanish government.

“The gas pipeline between Spain and Germany will reduce Central Europe’s dependence on Russian gas in the coming years,” the statement said.

According to the agency, the construction of a new Trans-Pyrenean connection to send gas from Algeria to Central Europe is being considered. It is noted that there are eight regasification stations required for liquefied gas treatment in the Iberian Peninsula, namely in Spain and Portugal.

It is noted that the authorities are studying the option of restarting the Midcat project, which was stopped three years ago. The project involves the creation of a Mediterranean gas corridor to deliver gas from Algeria to central Europe. The newspaper claims that Germany is extremely interested in it.

It was reported earlier that the authorities of Poland and Ukraine are discussing the construction of a joint gas pipeline to transfer large volumes of gas from west to east in the near future.

*

NATO Reportedly Contemplates Building New Pipeline in Bid to Reduce Dependency on Russian Gas

By Tasnim News

February 6, 2022

NATO has plans to build a pipeline that would connect Catalonia, Spain and France in order to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russian natural gas, the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia reported, citing anonymous sources in the country’s government.

The proposed structure could reportedly be used to transfer around 7 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year from Algeria and foreign LNG shipments. The latter could be stored and processed in eight LNG plants located in Spain and Portugal, the newspaper said. La Vanguardia’s sources claim the proposal is on NATO’s “working table” and that Germany is “very interested” in the project, Sputnik reported.

The pipeline project itself is not new and is known as Midcat. It was first proposed three years ago, but was rejected by Spanish and French regulators as potentially unprofitable due to Europe’s plans to achieve net-zero emissions by the middle of the century via the use of green energy.

The reports of a new pipeline being discussed come in the wake of a tough year for the European energy industry, which faced spiking gas prices in 2021. The price tag first breached the ceiling of $1,000 per thousand cubic meters due to the EU’s reservoirs being half full after a tough winter, only to reach $2,000 at the end of the year.

The skyrocketing prices were generally put down to the EU’s failure to fill up its reservoirs in 2021, growing consumption amid the closing of several nuclear power plants in Europe, and the failure to buy extra LNG abroad due to Asian nations buying up all the free stocks of it. Yet, numerous European politicians and their American allies blamed Russia and the EU’s dependency on gas supplies from Moscow.

Moscow and the Russian gas exporting company Gazprom rejected the accusations, with both stressing that the country has fulfilled all of its contractual obligations on natural gas supplies.

At the same time, a joint EU-Russian venture, the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which was finished in September 2021, still remains non-operational due to a lack of certification. The process of issuing the latter was put “on pause” according to German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. Berlin claims the pipeline, which could pump up to 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year, might be violating European energy laws, specifically the Third Energy Package.

However, there have been several media reports, as well as suggestions from American politicians, that Nord Stream 2’s future might fall victim to Western sanctions against Russia in the context of ongoing tensions around Ukraine.

*

Borrell: US, EU to help Ukraine develop energy security

By 112 Ukraine

February 7, 2022

Ukraine is now better prepared for any conflict but it still needs to increase investments in its own sources of renewable energy

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell claimed that the U.S. and the EU will jointly assist Ukraine with maintaining the energy security. The politician wrote that on his blog on the website of the European External Action Service.

“While we seek to address the EU’s own energy and climate goals and enhance our resilience, we must do the same for Ukraine. In terms of energy security, Ukraine today is already better prepared for any conflict. As in the rest of Europe, true energy security can however only come through more investment in domestic renewables and better connections with the EU market”, reads the message.

Before going to the session of the EU-US Energy Council in Washington, Borrell claimed that the meeting “will be an opportunity to seek even tighter coordination on energy market reforms needed in Ukraine to reinforce corporate governance and transparency ahead of Ukraine’s synchronisation to the European electricity network, planned in 2023”.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Rick Rozoff, renowned author and geopolitical analyst, actively involved in opposing war, militarism and interventionism for over fifty years. He manages the Anti-Bellum and For peace, against war website.

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

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

The 2014 Winter Olympics – which opened in Sochi, Russia, on February 7, on the eve of the explosion of the Ukrainian crisis with the putsch in Maidan Square (February 18-20) – were defined in the anti-Russian media campaign as the “Olympics of Czar Putin”.

President Obama and Deputy Biden, followed by others, boycotted them accusing Russia of violating the human rights of LGBT people. Same scenario today with the Beijing Winter Olympics, defined in the anti-Chinese media campaign as “the Games of power of Xi, the Great Olympic helmsman” (La Re-pubblica, February 3). President Biden boycotted them, accusing China of violating the human rights of the Uighurs. Following the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, Lituania, Estonia and Kosovo (a well-known human rights defender, indicted for trafficking of human beings and human organs) declared a “diplomatic boycott” of the Beijing Olympics.

The boycott is part of Washington’s strategy of “containment” of China. China has not simply remained the “factory of the world” in which U.S. and European multinationals have relocated for decades much of their production, earning huge profits. China has realized its own productive and technological development and, on this basis, projects such as the New Silk Road: a land (road and rail) and sea network between China and Europe through Central Asia, the Middle East and Russia. Within this framework, economic relations between China and Russia have strengthened, especially after the sanctions imposed by the United States and the EU on Russia. Trade between the USA and China remains strong, but since many products on the US market are manufactured in China by US multinationals or supplied by Chinese companies, the USA has a deficit in bilateral trade of over 300 billion dollars annually.

China has also strongly reduced its investments in the US. Even more serious for Washington is the fact that the dollar share of China’s foreign exchange reserves has dropped significantly and that China is looking for alternative currencies to the U.S. currency to use in international trade, endangering the hegemony of the dollar.

Unable to stop this process that can put an end to the economic dominance of the United States, Washington throws the sword on the scales. Economic “containment” becomes military “containment”. Admiral Davidson, head of the Indo-Pacific Command – the region that in Washington’s geopolitics extends from the west coast of the U.S. to that of India – has asked Congress for $27 billion to build a curtain of missi-listic bases and satellite systems around China. “We must begin to approach China from a position of strength,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

In this framework is part the Aukus, the strategic-military partnership formed by the United States, Great Britain and Australia with “the imperative to ensure peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific”. The United States and Great Britain will help Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, armed with missiles certainly also with nuclear warheads, such as the U.S. Trident D5 that can carry up to 14 independent thermonuclear warheads. These submarines under U.S. command, approaching the coasts of China and Russia, could hit in a few minutes the main targets in these countries with a capacity of over 20 thousand Hiroshima bombs.

As a result, China and Russia are strengthening not only their economic but also their political and military cooperation. In their joint statement in Beijing, Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin stressed that “Russia and China oppose attempts by external forces to undermine security and stability in their adjacent regions” and that they “oppose further enlargement of NATO.” The U.S.-NATO strategy of tension and war, which brings back to the confrontation between opposing blocs, breaks the five intertwined circles, the Olympic symbol of the five continents united for “a better and peaceful world”.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

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

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

In an exclusive insider account [1] with its vast network of NATSEC shills, the New York Times has chronicled the most detailed “official story” of the killing of al-Baghdadi’s shadowy successor at Syria’s border along Turkey in a Special Ops night raid on Thursday.

But the whole screed is based on the testimony of five unnamed witnesses, including the one with pseudonym Abu Muhammad. I’m assuming his real name wasn’t Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, the fearsome head of al-Nusra Front, the savage terrorist organization controlling Syria’s northwest Idlib province, where the new ISIS Caliph, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi, was killed, considering the Times reporters virtually played the role of terrorist apologists for myriad groups of Islamic jihadists and “moderate rebels” during Syria’s decade-long proxy war.

Sarcasm aside, the Times report notes:

“About 11 months ago, a Syrian truck driver rented the house targeted in the raid, said Muhammad Sheikh, whose family owns it. The truck driver paid $130 per month and lived there on the second floor with his wife, their three children, his sister and her daughter, Mr. Sheikh said.

“Late last year, the United States got a tip that Mr. al-Qurayshi was living on the top floor, Biden administration officials said. He never left the building, but sometimes bathed on the rooftop. To communicate with the far-flung terrorist organization he headed, he relied on the polite truck driver who lived downstairs.”

Although the Times report alleges the ISIS leader was killed in a non-descript three-story house on the outskirts of Atmeh, a densely populated town in Syria’s northwest Idlib province straddling the border with Turkey, and the building and the impoverished locality were purportedly inhabited by “civilian refugees,” the fortified neighborhood was in fact an al-Nusra Front redoubt populated by militants and their families, with an al-Nusra Front checkpoint only 200 meters away, a Turkish police station 500 meters and a Turkish military outpost a kilometer away from the building, according to credible sources [2] with inside information of Syria’s Idlib.

Clearly, both the self-styled caliphs of ISIS, al-Baghdadi and al-Quraishi, were hiding in Syria’s Idlib with the blessings of al-Nusra Front and Turkish security forces and were used as bargaining chips to extract geo-strategic concessions from the Trump and Biden administrations, respectively.

The scapegoating of both the ISIS caliphs by the Erdogan government, first in October 2019 to let Turkey mount Operation Peace Spring in northeast Syria and then on February 3 to reconcile with the Biden administration as Erdogan was repeatedly snubbed by Biden throughout his maiden year as president due to Erdogan’s personal friendship and business partnership with Biden’s political rival Trump, are reminiscent of the killing of the foremost terrorist leader, Osama bin Laden, also in a Special Ops night raid in May 2011, who was also hiding under the “protection” of Pakistan’s security forces until he was betrayed by his patrons for “geo-strategic concerns.”

As a Saudi citizen and belonging to the powerful Saudi-Yemeni clan of Bin Ladens, which has business interests all over the Middle East, Osama bin Laden was almost a royalty. He had so much clout even in the governments of Middle Eastern countries that he was treated like a “royal guest” by Pakistan’s military at the behest of the Saudi royal family for five years from 2006 after his escape from Afghanistan right up to his death in 2011.

In comparison, even though they adopted the nom de guerre Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi, respectively, in fact both Ibrahim Awad and Amir Muhammad Sa’id Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla were simply rural clerics in mosques in Iraq before they assumed the title of the caliphs of the Islamic State.

Regarding the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, despite a few minor discrepancies, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has published the most credible account to-date of the execution of Bin Laden in his book and article titled: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden [3], which was published in the London Review of Books in May 2015.

According to Hersh, the initial, tentative plan of the Obama administration regarding the disclosure of the execution of Bin Laden to the press was that he had been killed in a drone strike in the Hindu Kush Mountains on the Afghan side of the border, which could also have provided face-saving to Pakistan’s military authorities.

But the operation didn’t go as planned because a Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound and later blown up by the Navy Seals. Consequently, the whole sleepy town now knew that an operation was underway and several social media users based in Abbottabad live-tweeted the whole incident on Twitter.

Therefore, the initial plan was abandoned and the Obama administration had to go public within hours of the operation with a hurriedly cooked-up story. This fact explains so many contradictions and discrepancies in the official account of the story, the most glaring being the United States Navy Seals conducted a raid deep inside Pakistan’s territory on a garrison town without the permission of Pakistani authorities.

According to a May 2015 AFP report [4], Pakistan’s military sources had confirmed Hersh’s account there was a Pakistani defector who had met several times with Jonathan Bank, the CIA’s then-station chief in Islamabad, as a consequence of which Pakistan’s intelligence disclosed Bank’s name to local newspapers and he had to leave Pakistan in a hurry in December 2010 because his cover was blown.

In his May 2016 report [5], Greg Miller of the Washington Post posited that Mark Kelton, the CIA station chief in Islamabad at the time of Bin Laden’s killing in May 2011, was poisoned by Pakistan’s intelligence service due to Kelton’s role in the killing of Bin Laden. It’s worth noting that Mark Kelton succeeded Jonathan Bank in January 2011, after the latter’s name was made public by Pakistan’s military intelligence due to Bank’s “suspicious activities.”

According to inside sources of Pakistan’s military, after the 9/11 terror attack, the Saudi royal family had asked Pakistan’s military authorities as a favor to keep Bin Laden under protective custody, because he was a scion of a powerful Saudi-Yemeni Bin Laden family and it was simply inconceivable for the Saudis to hand him over to the US. That’s why he was found hiding in a spacious compound right next to the reputed Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad.

But once the Pakistani walk-in colonel, as stated in Seymour Hersh’s book and corroborated by the aforementioned AFP report, told then-CIA station chief in Islamabad, Jonathan Bank, that a high-value al-Qaeda leader had been hiding in a safe house in Abbottabad under the protective custody of Pakistan’s intelligence service, and after that when the CIA obtained further proof in the form of Bin Laden’s DNA through the fake vaccination program conducted by Dr. Shakil Afridi, then it was no longer possible for Pakistan’s military authorities to keep denying the whereabouts of Bin Laden.

In the book, Seymour Hersh has already postulated various theories that why it was not possible for Pakistan’s military authorities to simply hand Bin Laden over to the US, one being that the Americans wanted to catch Bin Laden themselves in order to gain maximum political mileage for then-President Obama’s presidential campaign slated for November 2012.

Here, let me only add that in May 2011, Pakistan had a pro-American People’s Party government led by then-President Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of late Benazir Bhutto, in power. And since Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, then the army chief of Pakistan’s military, and the former head of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Shuja Pasha, were complicit in harboring Bin Laden, thus it cannot be ruled out that Pakistan’s military authorities might still have had strong objections to the US Navy Seals conducting a raid deep inside Pakistan’s territory on a garrison town.

But Pakistan’s civilian administration under then-President Asif Ali Zardari persuaded the military authorities to order the Pakistan Air Force and air defense systems to stand down during the operation. Pakistan’s then-ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani’s role in this saga ruffled the feathers of Pakistan’s military’s top brass to the extent that Husain Haqqani was later implicated in a criminal case regarding his memo to Admiral Mike Mullen and eventually Ambassador Haqqani had to resign in November 2011, just six months after the May 2011 raid.

In his March 2017 article [6] for the Washington Post, Husain Haqqani confessed to the role played by the Asif Ali Zardari government in facilitating the killing of Bin Laden. Husain Haqqani identified then-President Asif Ali Zardari as his “civilian leader” and revealed: “In November 2011, I was forced to resign as ambassador after Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus gained the upper hand in the country’s perennial power struggle. Among the security establishment’s grievances against me was the charge that I had facilitated the presence of large numbers of CIA operatives who helped track down bin Laden without the knowledge of Pakistan’s army, even though I had acted under the authorization of Pakistan’s elected civilian leaders.”

In his April 2013 article [7] for the New York Times, Mark Mazzetti noted: “Husain Haqqani had orders from Islamabad to be lenient in approving the visas, because many of the Americans coming to Pakistan were — at least officially — going to be administering millions of dollars in foreign-aid money. By the time of the Lahore killings, in early 2011, so many Americans were operating inside Pakistan under both legitimate and false identities that even the US Embassy didn’t have accurate records of their identities and whereabouts.”

Although Mark Mazzetti scrupulously avoided mentioning the role played by the mole inside Pakistan’s security forces and the CIA station chiefs in locating the couriers of Bin Laden in his article and even tried to distract attention to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the timing of the surge of CIA operatives in Pakistan, late 2010 and early 2011, was telling, because those were exactly the months when the CIA was tracking Bin Laden’s whereabouts.

Finally, although Seymour Hersh claimed in his account of the story that Pakistan’s military authorities were also on board months before the operation, let me clarify that according to the inside sources of Pakistan’s military, only Pakistan’s civilian administration under the pro-American People’s Party government was on board, and military authorities, which were instrumental in harboring Bin Laden and his family for five years, were intimated only at the eleventh hour in order to preempt the likelihood of Bin Laden’s “escape” from the custody of his facilitators in Pakistan’s security apparatus.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national security analyst focused on geo-strategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the Af-Pak and the Middle East regions. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military industrial complex and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor of meticulously researched and credibly sourced investigative reports to Global Research.

Notes

[1] ‘Those Who Remain Will Die’: Neighbors Recall Night of Fear in Syria Raid: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/03/world/middleeast/isis-raid-idlib-qurayshi.html

[2] Slain ISIS Terror Leader Resided In Turkish Occupation Area Of Syria: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-commandos-take-out-top-isis-leader-daring-raid-syrias-idlib

[3] Seymour Hersh: The Killing of Osama bin Laden: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden

[4] Pakistan military officials admit defector’s key role in Bin Laden operation: http://www.dawn.com/news/1181530/pakistan-military-officials-admit-defectors-key-role-in-bin-laden-operation

[5] CIA station chief in Islamabad was poisoned by Pakistan’s intelligence service: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-bin-laden-raids-shadow-bad-blood-and-the-suspected-poisoning-of-a-cia-officer/2016/05/05/ace85354-0c83-11e6-a6b6-2e6de3695b0e_story.html

[6] Ambassador Husain Haqqani’s article in the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/10/yes-the-russian-ambassador-met-trumps-team-so-thats-what-we-diplomats-do/

[7] How a Single Spy Helped Turn Pakistan Against the US: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/magazine/raymond-davis-pakistan.html

Featured image is from New Lines Magazine

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

Many world leaders have visited the Chinese capital of Beijing to support their national teams in the ongoing Winter Olympics, but the trips of three in particular stand out as extremely strategic. These are the meetings that Argentine President Alberto Fernández, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, and Russian President Vladimir Putin had with Chinese President Xi Jinping. This analysis will highlight the top takeaways from each meeting and explain their impact on the emerging Multipolar World Order.

Argentina is a developed economy that participates in the G20. It’s a regional leader and currently holds the rotating presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). President Fernández’s visit also coincided with the 50^th anniversary of diplomatic relations between his country and China. He became president in 2019, which also resulted in former Cristina Fernández de Kirchner becoming Argentina’s Vice President. Both politicians are regarded as firm believers in multipolarity.

It’s therefore fitting that President Fernández signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China on Cooperation within the Framework of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative. They also reached a deal on nuclear power too, which is fully in line with both leaders’ environmentalist visions. These outcomes showed that developed economies also mutually benefit by cooperation with China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI), which takes more forms than just roads and ports.

Moving along to Prime Minister Khan, his country has long been regarded as China’s iron brother due to their fraternal ties over the decades. His meeting with President Xi saw the two sides further strengthen the Pakistan-China All-Weather Strategic Cooperative Partnership following a 33-paragraph joint statement. They reaffirmed their full support for one another on every issue of importance and agreed to expand the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is BRI’s flagship project.

Unlike Argentina, Pakistan is a developing country but even it too immensely benefits from BRI. Prime Minister Khan specifically praised the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) lifting of 770 million people out of poverty and hopes to emulate its success. To that end, they also signed a number of other deals, including on investment and vaccine cooperation, et al. Both countries also discussed expanding CPEC to Afghanistan and enhancing their cooperation in international fora to promote real multilateralism.

President Putin stands apart from those two other leaders by virtue of the fact that he leads a major country, one that also happens to be experiencing unprecedented pressure from the declining US unipolar hegemon at the moment. Since China and Russia jointly serve as the most powerful engines of the emerging Multipolar World Order, they released a whopping 5,300-word statement together. This declaration confirmed that they see practically everything of global significance the same way.

This meeting was very important for President Putin because Russia was relying on its comprehensive strategic partners in China to serve as a pressure valve vis-à-vis the West. President Xi, of course, didn’t disappoint. Their joint statement literally concerned “International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development”. They also agreed to another gas deal for Russia to supply China with 10 billion cubic metres more of gas a year, which will reduce Russia’s export dependence on the EU.

Most people don’t think of Argentina, Pakistan, and Russia as having much if anything in common, but the Beijing Winter Olympics proved that their leaders all have a shared interest in visiting China to cheer on their national teams and also meet with President Xi. Each of their countries are China’s respected BRI partners, all of whom are envisioned as playing different but complementary roles in this global connectivity vision.

Argentina, by virtue of its developed economy status and presence in Latin America, shows that BRI isn’t just for developing countries in the Eastern Hemisphere like some have wrongly thought. Regarding Pakistan, its hosting of CPEC makes this country’s comprehensive success integral to BRI’s. As for Russia, this country doesn’t just serve as a bridge between Eastern Eurasia and Western Eurasia but is a fiercely sovereign major country that won’t submit to US bullying. All three countries also support multipolarity.

The Winter Olympic Games themselves are a purely apolitical event focusing solely on sporting but they nevertheless served as a convenient reason for many world leaders to visit Beijing and meet with their gracious host President Xi while they were there. The timing couldn’t have been better since the deals that were reached are truly game-changing in the grand strategic sense and came precisely at the moment when the US’ unipolar hegemonic decline has unprecedentedly accelerated.

*

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

As of February 6, Turkish forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continue to exchange fire in Syria’s northern and northeastern regions, further destabilizing the situation in the war-torn country.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) was drawn into the stand-off between the two sides on February 4 when three of its service members were wounded as a result of a series of Turkish artillery strikes that targeted the SDF-held towns of Mara’naz, Shawargha and al-Irshadiyah in the northern countryside of Aleppo.

The SAA responded on the same day by targeting a vehicle of the Turkish-backed Mu’tasim Division near the town of Marea in the northern Aleppo countryside with an anti-tank guided missile. One militant was killed and two others were wounded as a result of the strike.

On the same day, the SDF shelled Marea as well. The attack resulted in some material damage and several civilians were wounded.

On February 5, a primitive suicide drone that was launched by Turkish-backed militants crashed as a result of a technical failure in the outskirts of the SDF-held town of Baylouniyah in the northern countryside of Aleppo. The target of the drone was likely a position of the SDF.

Turkey took matters into its own hands on February 6. Turkish combat drones targeted two positions of the SDF near the village of Arab Hassan in the northeastern countryside of Aleppo. However, no casualties were reported. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, both positions were evacuated before the strikes.

The situation in northern and northeastern Syria may escalate even more in the upcoming days, especially as Turkey appears to be looking for excuses to launch an operation against the SDF.

Meanwhile, in Syria’s central region, the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) continue its combat operations against ISIS cells.

On February 5, at least 16 Russian airstrikes targeted several caves and dens in the eastern Homs countryside and the Hama-Aleppo-Raqqa triangle where ISIS terrorists were hiding.

On February 6, more than 32 Russian airstrikes hit the terrorist hideouts near the town of Ithriyah in the eastern Hama countryside and the town of al-Resafa in the southern countryside of Raqqa.

The recent decline in ISIS attacks indicates that the terrorists group has sustained some serious damage as a result of the recent Russian and Syrian operations in the central region.

In Syria’s northwestern region, known as Greater Idlib, the ceasefire is still holding up despite a few minor ceasefire violations by the al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies.

The VKS responded to these violations on February 6. A series of Russian airstrikes hit the outskirts of the town of Kafer Shalaya in the southern countryside of Idlib. The targets were likely positions belonging to HTS.

The situation in Greater Idlib may deteriorate in the upcoming days as the weather is getting better. This will allow HTS and its allies to carry out larger attacks.

Meanwhile in the southern Syrian regions, the situation has been calm. No security incidents were reported in al-Quneitra, Daraa or al-Suwayda as of February 7. However, there are no guarantees that the situation will remain stable in a short term.

Overall, the escalation between Turkish forces and the SDF in Syria’s northern and northeastern regions remain the biggest threat to the security and stability of the country. A full-on military confrontation between the two sides could break out soon.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

SUPPORT SOUTHFRONT:

PayPal: [email protected], http://southfront.org/donate/ or via: https://www.patreon.com/southfront

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

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

GoFundMe’s suspension of millions to support protesting truckers in Canada shocked many, particularly when the company initially announced its intention to distribute the money to other charities.  It was less of a surprise for those of us who have criticized the company for years over its use of the platform to target and block funds for conservative and libertarian causes. Indeed, the company has revised an old practice known as the “Nag’s Head light” in luring the unsuspecting into what has become a liberal lockbox on funds.

In the Carolinas, locals would sometimes tie a lantern under the head of a horse to lure ships to their doom.  Thinking the light was a ship in deep water, the ships would unwittingly sail into the shore rocks where they would be stripped of their cargo. That is how the resort town Nag’s Head, North Carolina got its name.

GoFundMe is the ultimate Nag’s Head operation. It draws conservative and libertarian causes to its shore with promise of being a neutral crowdfunding site. At its creation, the founders pledged to change the world by “disrupting giving” by handing control to average people in supporting others with common values and views.

The easy-to-use technology and need for crowdfunding services quickly expanded the company into a multibillion enterprise. However, it soon became clear that the company was using its control of funds to advance its own political agenda. Worse yet, the company effectively coaxing groups into fundraising campaigns on its site, only to freeze accounts before the money could be used.

In the case of the Canadian truckers protesting Covid mandate, the company perfectly replicated the Nag’s Head Light. It allowed people to donate over $10 million, thinking that they were helping the truckers and presumably not donating to other sites. It then suspended the account and announced that it would distribute the money to other charities in consultation with the truckers. Once the ships crashed on its rocks, it was literally going to salvage the wreckage.

The announcement was breathtakingly moronic and led some to call for criminal investigations.  It turns out that soliciting funds for one reason and then using them for another (“better”) cause is considered fraud in some circles. The company quickly backtracked. However, it still refused to allow the donations to go to the truckers. It will return the money.  In the meantime, critical time and support has been lost for those who trusted the company.

It is a familiar pattern for the company in allowing people to send money for badly needed support only to lock the funds away at the last minute. The company’s record has moved it well beyond any plausible deniability that it is not using access to donations as a way of advancing its own priorities.

Consider GoFundMe’s freezing of funds for legal defense funds. One would think that funding litigation costs would be unassailable since it is an effort to secure judicial review of the underlying merits of a case or a cause. After all, if a cause is based on disinformation, a court can quickly sort out the truth. Right? Wrong.

GoFundMe froze donations needed to support Kyle Rittenhouse’s legal defense because he was accused of a violent crime. However, that is the point of a trial. He was accused of a crime and he was entitled to a presumption of innocence. However, the media ran false accounts of the story while social media companies like TikTok censored pro-Rittenhouse material. One police officer was fired for simply donating to Rittenhouse anonymously on GoFundMe. Neither the company nor the media came to the defense of Norfolk Police Officer William Kelly. Rittenhouse was, of course, acquitted. Then GoFundMe released the funds after they were no longer needed to support his trial.

The company also suspended litigation funds for accused police officers as well as parents who sought to challenge vaccinate mandates in courts.

When the company blocked the distribution of donations to Rittenhouse, it declared “GoFundMe’s Terms of Service prohibit raising money for the legal defense of an alleged violent crime.” It is a ridiculous policy since defendants have a presumption of innocence and we should all parties being able to present their best cases before independent judges. That includes Canadian truckers, Black Lives Matter, Antifa and other groups facing litigation. Moreover, critics have noted that the company has supported legal funds supporting rioters in various cities as well as an appeal for the 2020 Seattle Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP.)

The hypocrisy of the company on such issues has been flagged repeatedly, including by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Double-standard?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2022

It does not matter. Like the social media companies, GoFundMe controls billions in funds and has become the very scourge that it was designed to combat. Rather than empower average people, it now operates more like a corporate overlord on what causes are worthy of crowdfunding.

Notably, GoFundMe relied on accounts from the Canadian government to label the truckers as violent despite the fact that the truckers are protesting the government. The protests have been largely peaceful, particularly in comparison to the “mostly peaceful” protests in past summers (by groups allowed to crowdfund by the company). It is the same pattern used by other companies in serving as a conduit of government priorities and policies.

YouTube and Twitter have blocked critics of Putin or governments like India. Even the W.H.O. has supported such censorship to deal with what it now calls the “infodemic,” which includes criticism of itself. YouTube and Twitter have blocked critics of Putin or governments like India. In the United States, Democratic leaders (including President Joe Biden) have pushed for more corporate censorship on subjects ranging from global warming to gender issues to election integrity to vaccines.

The inclusion of GoFundMe in this increasingly united front is particularly chilling. As the Supreme Court has repeatedly held, money is a critical part of free speech. You speak through your donations and those funds then support further free speech and associations. As companies like Twitter actively silence dissenting voices, GoFundMe has served as a chokepoint for funds. The result is that many are finding it not only difficult to use social media to voice their views but to use crowdfunding to garner the support of like-minded people.

GoFundMe can clearly redefine itself as a progressive company. It has free speech rights like those who it is seeking to silence. Like many in the media, the company has largely written off half of the country. The problem of the company is when the crowd in its crowdfunding business goes somewhere else.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is a screenshot from a Hugo Talks video

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

“The Canadian government has been doing everything it can to stop and hinder the Freedom Trucker Convoy from continuing,” said journalist and political commentator, Kim Iversen on the latest episode of The Hill’s “Rising.”

Iversen said government officials are issuing $700 tickets and threatening to arrest anyone who brings fuel or other essential supplies to the truckers.

They also declared a state of emergency in Ottawa, giving police more power to begin towing and removing protestors, Iversen said.

Iversen described how the government successfully pressured GoFundMe to withhold more than $9 million in donations from the truckers.

It all started when Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson announced the city was contemplating legal action against GoFundMe, in the hope of diverting the donations raised on behalf of the truckers to the city’s coffers.

Watson told CBC his “hope” was that GoFundMe would understand that “this is a completely inappropriate use of dollars.”

“Unfortunately GoFundMe caved to the political pressure and threats of legal action and announced they wouldn’t be dispersing the money to the truckers, and instead the money would be rerouted to approved charities,” Iversen said.

Watson took to Twitter to “sincerely thank” GoFundMe for seizing the trucker’s funds and implored other crowdfunding platforms to “take the same position.”

Iversen characterized the move as “pure theft.” She said:

“People don’t give money to GoFundMe, people give money to others through GoFundMe. For the platform to take the money and then reroute it to someone other than intended is theft. There’s no other way to put it.”

When donors complained, the platform announced it would offer refunds, but only if, as Iversen put it, donors “jumped through the hoops of filling out forms.”

After several U.S. state attorneys general threatened to sue the crowdfunding platform, GoFundMe announced it would offer automatic refunds.

“Had GoFundMe been allowed to reroute the money, they would have been able to keep their 3% fee, which is probably the reason they didn’t offer refunds automatically,” Iversen argued. “The 3% fee on the $9 million confiscated is about $270,000.”

“Extremely shady stuff,” she said.

The peaceful anti-mandate trucking protests are spreading, and “trouble could be heading to DC,” Iversen said.

“A convoy is forming with the intent to head to the nation’s capital to pressure Biden into dropping the mandates,” she reported. “But of course, Facebook shut down the organizers page.”

“There’s nothing like Big Tech colluding with the government to censor and silence working class protestors,” Iversen said.

Watch the segment here:

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Jeremy Loffredo is a freelance reporter for The Defender. His investigative reporting has been featured in The Grayzone and Unlimited Hangout. Jeremy formerly produced news programs at RT America.

Featured image is from CHD

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

February 1, 2022, Pfizer/BioNTech asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to grant emergency use authorization (EUA) for their COVID shot to babies and children aged 6 months through 4 years

The EUA will be for a two-dose regimen, with the possibility of extending it to a third dose, as two injections have been shown to be ineffective in 2- to 4-year-olds

Children aged 6 months to 4 years will get a dose that is one-tenth the adult dose

Were Pfizer to wait until the triple-dose experiment is completed, the EUA request would not be possible until late March 2022, and federal officials are reportedly “anxious to begin a vaccination program for the youngest children because the studies showed there were no safety concerns with two doses”

Meanwhile, Pfizer’s own data raise massive safety concerns, as they received 42,086 injury reports, including 1,223 fatalities in the first 2.5 months of their COVID jab rollout for adults

*

I’m sure you’re aware of the massive catastrophe we have with children under 5 dropping ill like flies from COVID, as this is the justification Pfizer is using to get an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) so they can jab these defenseless and innocent children. No? Me, neither.

Despite conclusive evidence that young children have virtually no risk of severe complications or death from COVID-19, Pfizer is hustling to get our infants and toddlers injected with their experimental gene transfer technology.

February 1, 2022, Pfizer/BioNTech asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to grant emergency use authorization (EUA) for their COVID shot to babies and children aged 6 months through 4 years.^1,2,3

In mid-December 2021, Pfizer admitted that two injections, at one-tenth the adult dose, failed to produce an adequate immune response in 2- to 4-year-olds. They’re now experimenting to see if three doses will produce adequate results in that age group. In the meantime, the EUA will be for a two-dose regimen, with the possibility of extending it to a third dose.

As reported by The New York Times,⁴ were Pfizer to wait until the triple-dose experiment is completed, the EUA request would not be possible until late March 2022, and federal officials are reportedly “anxious to begin a vaccination program for the youngest children because the studies showed there were no safety concerns with two doses.”

In other words, they apparently don’t care whether the shots are effective or not. They claim the shots are “safe,” so it’s OK to inject young children even though they might not gain any benefit. Does that make any sense?

According to MSN:⁵

“[Pfizer] and its partner BioNTech said that the submission was at the request of the FDA, which is an unusual move. Quickly after the announcement, the FDA scheduled a meeting of its vaccine advisory committee for Feb. 15 to discuss the application.

Allowing Pfizer to submit the request now means that, if authorized, ‘parents will have the opportunity to begin a COVID-19 vaccination series for their children while awaiting potential authorization of a third dose,’ according to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. Data on the third dose will be submitted to the FDA ‘in the coming months,’ the company said.”

COVID Shots Shown to Destroy Immune Function

Click here to watch the video.

The list of concerns is a long one. We’ve already seen that Pfizer’s own data reveal there are serious problems with the shots, and real-world data confirming worst fears are mounting by the day.

A number of medical experts, scientists and published studies have warned the COVID shots can reprogram your immune system to respond in a dysfunctional manner. For example, a study⁶posted on the preprint server medRxiv, May 6, 2021, found the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID jab “reprograms both adaptive and innate immune responses,” causing immune depletion.

While the jab “induced effective humoral and cellular immunity against several SARS-CoV-2 variants,” the shot “also modulated the production of inflammatory cytokines by innate immune cells upon stimulation with both specific (SARS-CoV-2) and nonspecific (viral, fungal and bacterial) stimuli.”

People who were “fully vaccinated,” having received two doses of the Pfizer shot, also produced significantly less interferon upon stimulation, which hampers vitally important innate immune responses.

In other words, we’re looking at a horrible tradeoff. You may get some protection against SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, but you’re weakening your overall immune function, which opens the door wide to all sorts of other health problems, from bacterial, fungal and viral infections to cancer and autoimmunity.

Is it really wise to expose babies and toddlers to such risks? Just because children aren’t dying within a few weeks of the shot does not mean it’s harmless and therefore safe to use. Most of the damage from these jabs will emerge far down the road, long after they’ve gotten the shot.

The FDA is really behaving in an irresponsible and negligent manner, putting every child in America in harm’s way in the longer term — and for no reason at all, since they know very well two doses won’t work in 2- to 4-year-olds, and they have no idea if three doses will do the trick.

Pfizer’s own trial data,⁷ which are starting to be released in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the FDA, also do nothing to assuage safety concerns. Quite the contrary. Cumulatively, between December 1, 2020, and February 28, 2021 — a period of just 2.5 months — Pfizer received 42,086 injury reports, including 1,223 fatalities.

Compare that to the 1976 swine flu vaccine, which was pulled after 25 deaths. Pfizer even acknowledges the abnormal rate of injuries. They actually had to hire more data entry and case processing personnel to handle the influx of adverse events reports. Still, they insist everything is hunky-dory and there’s absolutely no problem.

Initially, the FDA wanted 55 years to release all of Pfizer’s trial data at a rate of 500 pages per month. After finding another trove of related documents, they asked for 75 years. A judge denied both requests, ordering the agency to release the data at a rate of 55,000 pages per month, starting March 1, 2022, to finalize the full release in about eight months.⁸

Judging by what we found in the initial 500-page batch released in November 2021, it’s no wonder the FDA wanted enough time to make sure all culpable parties would be dead and buried before the full truth of their malfeasance came out. If all goes well, we should have all that evidence by September 2022.

Pfizer Intervenes in FOIA Lawsuit

There’s yet another wrinkle in the FOIA lawsuit against the FDA, though. Pfizer is now pushing to intervene in the case. Pfizer says it wants to “help” the FDA with the redaction of the documentation, claiming it contains trade secrets and proprietary information that need to be protected and might be inappropriately disclosed if rushed.^9,10 January 26, 2022, Reuters reported:¹¹

“Pfizer Inc. wants to intervene in a Texas federal lawsuit seeking information from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration used in licensing the company’s COVID-19 vaccine, a litigation move that plaintiffs who are suing for the data say is premature.

Pfizer’s lawyers at DLA Piper told U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman on Jan. 21 it wanted a role in the proceedings to help the FDA avoid ‘inappropriately’ disclosing trade secret and confidential commercial information …

The group of doctors and scientists who sued last year over public access to the FDA’s Pfizer licensing records said in a court filing that the company’s bid to jump into the lawsuit was untimely because the plaintiffs have not challenged any redactions to requested records.”

The Defender further reported:¹²

“The FDA claimed Pfizer is entitled to intervene in the case and the process of redacting the documents in question, due to the “Trade Secrets Act,” signed into law by President Obama in 2016, stating:

‘FDA anticipates that coordination with Pfizer to obtain the company’s views as to which portions of the records are subject to Exemption 4, the Trade Secrets Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1905, or other statutory protections will be a necessary component of the agency’s endeavors to meet the extraordinary exigencies of this case.’

However, according to The Gateway Pundit, the Trade Secrets Act is being misinterpreted by the FDA and Pfizer: ‘[T]he protections provided under that law allow for an owner of a trade secret to sue in federal court when its trade secrets have been misappropriated and does not even imply that a company could intervene in a public records request through the FOIA.’

[Aaron] Siri [of the Siri & Glimstad law firm] also questioned the FDA’s commitment to transparency and hinted at a cover-up, stating: ‘The Court is, other than Congress, the only check on the FDA …

It is understandable that the FDA does not want independent scientists to review the documents it relied upon to license Pfizer’s vaccine given that it is not as effective as the FDA originally claimed, does not prevent transmission, does not prevent against certain emerging variants, can cause serious heart inflammation in younger individuals, and has numerous other undisputed safety issues.’

Siri said the FDA’s ‘potential embarrassment’ over its decision to license the Pfizer vaccine must take a back seat to the transparency demanded by FOIA and ‘the urgent need and interests of the American people to review that licensure data.’”

‘The Truth About Pfizer’

Click here to watch the video.

The British “Dispatches” documentary above, “Vaccine Wars: The Truth About Pfizer,” reviews a number of issues relating to Pfizer’s handling of the COVID pandemic, including its “war profiteering” (focusing on profits during a pandemic) and spreading misleading claims about its competitors, a whistleblower’s claims of scientific misconduct, and questions about Pfizer “playing God” by unilaterally dictating who would get its jab and who wouldn’t, thereby prolonging the pandemic.

According to the Dispatches report, Pfizer’s jab was not only more expensive than its rival AstraZeneca to begin with, costing the U.K. government £18 per dose compared to £3 for AstraZeneca, but as a third booster dose rolled out, Pfizer raised its price to £22, a decision that has raised questions about the company’s motives. It seems fairly obvious that it’s all about the money for them.

Pfizer will, of course, disagree with that obvious conclusion. According to professor Sir Andrew Pollard, who helped develop the Pfizer shot, the company’s incentive was never about maximizing profits. U.S. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, on the other hand, told Dispatches that Pfizer clearly made no effort to rein in their pricing or limit their profits.

Unprecedented Profiteering

According to Dispatches, Pfizer’s COVID jab has become the most profitable pharmaceutical product the world has ever seen. As of the third quarter of 2021, Pfizer’s revenues were 130% above operational costs, with COVID jab revenue for 2021 reaching $36 billion. Revenue from the jab is predicted to rise to $55 billion in 2022 — equivalent to the gross domestic product (GDP) of Croatia.

One of the reasons for Pfizer’s record-breaking profits, Dispatches says, is because it has been prioritizing sales to wealthier Western nations willing and able to pay the higher cost. Pfizer has also refused to license its patented recipe to ensure an adequate supply for poorer nations.

Its gross profit margin is estimated to be somewhere around 80%, or perhaps a little more. Pfizer, meanwhile, claims its profit margin for the jab is in the high-20%. Pfizer defends its profiteering, in part, by saying it pays for needed research and development, but let’s remember that taxpayers paid for all of the research and development that went into this jab in the first place.

As explained in the video, the initial development of the Pfizer jab was done by BioNTech, which received millions of euros of public funding from both the German government and the European Union. Essentially, the public paid for its development and then got fleeced while Pfizer makes out like a bandit.

By the end of 2021, Pfizer had manufactured 2 billion doses of the jab. But while the company claims it’s dedicated to provide “equitable and affordable access,” only 16% had gone to lower- and middle-income countries, and only 1% to the poorest of nations.

In 2022, Pfizer intends to produce 4 billion doses. According to Dispatches, the total cost of manufacturing is somewhere between 80 cents and $1.40 per dose. The most likely cost is right around $1.05. Pfizer disputes this, saying it “does not reflect the true costs” of making the jab, as this cost does not include the cost of scaling up manufacturing efforts, global distribution and clinical trials.

The U.K., which pays the highest price for Pfizer’s jab, had at the end of 2021 paid Pfizer an estimated £2.6 billion (about $3.5 billion) which, based on the cost of production, is thought to be about £2 billion (around $2.7 billion) more than it should have paid, had the profit margin been more reasonable.

Pfizer Spread Misinformation About Rivals

According to Dispatches, Pfizer is also responsible for spreading misinformation about rival COVID shots, including the AstraZeneca injection. A Canadian PowerPoint presentation sent to medical professionals included a slide detailing alleged disadvantages of viral vector DNA injections (such as the AstraZeneca shot).

The slide states that viral vector DNA injections might cause chromosomal integration and oncogenesis. In other words, the DNA might become permanently integrated in your genes, and could cause cancer. There was also a warning against its use in immunocompromised patients.

Curiously enough, when asked, Pollard claims there’s no truth to any of those claims. So, “how did those claims come to be shown to health professionals across Canada?” Dispatches asks. After some digging, they discovered the presentation was, in part, funded by Pfizer, and that the key speaker who gave the presentation had received Pfizer funding.

More specifically, the portion of the presentation that listed disadvantages of viral vector DNA products was written by a team that included at least one member who had previously worked in Pfizer’s vaccine department.

When asked about the risks associated with vaccine misinformation, Pollard says there are “huge risks,” as anything that causes people to be hesitant about getting the shot can result in them risking their lives.

So, seeing how Pfizer appears to have undermined a competing COVID jab, aren’t they then guilty of causing vaccine hesitancy and putting lives at risk? And, seeing how Pollard claims there’s no truth to any of those warnings, doesn’t that suggest Pfizer put people’s lives at risk for no other reason than to maximize their own profits? Pfizer, of course, denies having had any influence over the creation of the presentation.

Keep in mind, I strongly disagree with Dispatches’ claims that the Pfizer shot is a life-saving drug. I also disagree with Pollard’s claim that vaccine hesitancy is potentially life-threatening. What I’m pointing out here is the hypocrisy.

While Dispatches valiantly tries to paint Pfizer as a global savior, albeit a greedy one, I believe all COVID jabs are a dangerous scam that are doing far more harm to humanity than good. They’re literally raking in unprecedented profits from the suffering and death of untold millions.

Were Corners Cut?

After giving the audience a blanket assurance that the Pfizer jab is “clearly safe and effective,” Dispatches goes on to review whistleblower testimony¹³ from Brooke Jackson, a clinical research coordinator and former regional director of Ventavia Research Group, a research organization charged with testing Pfizer’s COVID jab at several sites in Texas.

Jackson, who worked on Pfizer’s Phase 3 COVID jab trial in the fall of 2020, claims she found evidence of trial data being falsified. She was also shocked to realize that patients in the clinical trials were unblinded.

Their charts contained information showing whether they got the real shot or a placebo, which is a serious breach. “In all the time I’ve been doing research, I’ve never seen the type of misconduct that I saw [at Ventavia],” Jackson says.

She repeatedly informed her superiors about concerns over poor laboratory management, patient safety and data integrity issues — all of which were ignored. She also tried to get in touch with the Pfizer site liaison, but was never able to speak to him directly. Eventually, she filed a complaint with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and that too was ignored. To top it off, she was fired.

In response to Dispatches inquiries, Pfizer claims they conducted “a thorough investigation” into Jackson’s claims, that “actions were taken to correct and remediate” the problems she’d reported, and that no evidence was found that would “invalidate the data or jeopardize the integrity of the study.” Ventavia also claims they found Jackson’s accusations to be “unsubstantiated,” and the FDA insists it has “full confidence” in Pfizer’s data.

Why Are We Experimenting on Children?

Historically, children have been excluded from early human trials, and for good reason. The possibility of harm is great no matter what the drug, and here we’re talking about a never-before-used gene transfer technology that hasn’t even been tested on animals.

Worse yet, hundreds of thousands of American adults have experienced very serious and debilitating side effects. More than 10,300 have died post-jab, as of January 21, 2022, in the U.S. territories alone.¹⁴ Why is the FDA risking our children?

As mentioned, we already know children are essentially at zero risk of dying from COVID. They might test positive. They might develop symptoms, but they get through it just like they get through the common cold or flu. There’s no reason to jeopardize their long-term health with a COVID jab. They don’t need it, and therefore ANY risk of the jab, no matter how small, is unconscionable and unacceptable.

Fortunately, many parents, including many who got the shot themselves, are not willing to gamble their young ones. By mid-December 2021, just under 20% of children between the ages of 5 and 11 in the U.S. had received their first COVID shot, with vaccination rates among urban children being twice that of those living in rural areas.¹⁵

However, since then, the injection rate has rapidly dropped off. In Florida, the weekly injection rate among children 5 to 11 was 55,548 in mid-November 2021, when the EUA for this age group went into effect. By the last week of January 2022, that weekly rate had dwindled to 10,084.¹⁶ I would sincerely hope that as the EUA is extended all the way down to 6-month-olds, parents simply refuse their children’s participation in this ongoing experiment.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Notes

^1, 4 New York Times January 31, 2022 (Archived)

^2, 5 MSN February 1, 2022

^3, 16 Yahoo! News February 1, 2022

⁶ medRxiv May 6, 2021

⁷ PHMPT.org Pfizer documents

⁸ Denver Gazette January 7, 2022

⁹ Endpoint News January 27, 2022

^10, 12 The Defender January 31, 2022

¹¹ Reuters January 26, 2022

¹³ The BMJ 2021; 375:n2635

¹⁴ OpenVAERS US/Territories data as of January 21, 2022

¹⁵ NBC News December 15, 2021

Featured image is from National File

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed of the Democratic Federal Republic of Ethiopia welcomed presidents, ministers and other delegates to the first African Union (AU) Summit held since the advent of COVID-19 in 2020.

This gathering was held under the theme of “Strengthening Resilience in Nutrition and Food Security on the African Continent: Strengthening Agro-Food Systems, Health and Social Protection Systems for the Acceleration of the Human, Social and Economic Development”.

Image on the right: Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed at AU Summit, Feb. 2022 (Source: Ethiopian Press Agency via Abayomi Azikiwe)

During the course of the summit held on February 5-6, a change of leadership took place as the chairperson serves only a one-year term of office. President Macky Sall of the Republic of Senegal assumed control of the AU from H.E. Felix- Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), who ended his term as the Chairperson of the African Union for 2021. The transitional ceremony occurred as part of the official opening of the 35th AU Summit of Heads of State and Government, in the presence of the Chairperson of the AU Commission (AUC), H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat, the Deputy Chairperson of the AUC, H.E Dr. Monique Nsanzabaganwa, representatives of the United Nations, the Economic Commission for Africa, dignitaries and invited guests as well as the AU staff.

The AU headquarters has been located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia since the inception of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the predecessor of the AU, in May 1963. The formation of the OAU in 1963 came just three years after the so-called “Year of Africa” during 1960 when 18 former colonies gained their independence. Prior to 1960, several African territories such as the Gold Coast, now Ghana, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco had already gained their freedom from colonial rule. Liberia was formed by emancipated Africans from the United States with the assistance of the American Colonization Society (ACS) in 1847, while Ethiopia, which had never been formally colonized although the country was occupied between 1936-1941 by the Italian fascist regime.

In 2002, two decades ago, the OAU was transformed into the AU, where the organizational charter was revised to adopt strengthened principles and guidelines as it relates to the overall objective of enhancing unity through economic, cultural and military cooperation. In recent years, an African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was formed in Rwanda and headquartered in Ghana as more states join the initiative to integrate national planning.

Contemporary Questions Facing the AU

Since the early months of the pandemic two years ago, AU member-states have adopted various means of curbing the public health disaster which has compounded the existing social problems related to underdevelopment stemming from the international system of neo-colonialism.

Initially there was the difficulty in security effective coronavirus tests and later after it was broadly acknowledged that the pandemic was spreading rapidly across Africa, the energy was rapidly shifted to the acquisition and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. The African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (ACDC), an affiliate of the AU based in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, has taken on a leading role in educating the African people, the international community and the media on the status of the pandemic, the rollout of the vaccination programs and the already operational production facilities manufacturing vaccines in Africa for continental and foreign distribution.

In the opening report by AU Commission Chair Faki Moussa Mahamat commented extensively on the security crisis on the continent. There have been a rash of military coups that have exposed the lack of effectiveness of regional organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Inter-governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in light of the seizure of power by army officers under the guise of fighting terrorism.

In West Africa, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Chad and Niger have either had coups or attempted usurpation of state power by the military. These defense forces elements have all been shown to enjoy close ties with the Pentagon and the French foreign services. The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has thousands of troops occupying permanent and temporary bases from Djibouti in the Horn of Africa to Mali in West Africa. Annual joint military exercises involving Pentagon, French and allied national defense forces have not enhanced the security status of the affected states. To further illustrate the threat of instability, DRC President Tshisekedi was compelled to leave the AU Summit before its conclusion due to the arrest of a leading official inside his government on suspicions of a plot to undermine the authority of the state.

The reality is that the increasing presence of western imperialist military and intelligence agencies has been positively correlated with the worsening security crisis in African states. A coup in the Republic of Sudan in April 2019 has been utilized by Washington and the state of Israel to further penetrate and manipulate the domestic and foreign policy imperatives of the interim regime. Since the masses appear to want immediate democratic rule, the imperialists realize that the realization of self-determination for the people of Sudan could prove disadvantageous for Washington and its allies.

In reference to the character of the discussions at the AU Summit, the North Africa Post reports from the 35th Ordinary Summit that:

“Addressing the session, Chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat expressed concern over the security situation in the African continent. ‘The security situation of the continent today is deeply marked by terrorism and the dangerous resurgence of unconstitutional changes of governments,’ Mahamat said.

Chairperson of the pan-African bloc said terrorism and violent extremism was Africa’s security challenge last year with international terror links are embedded in east, west, and southern Africa. ‘The security situation on the continent now calls for a real new approach which should question our peace and security architecture and its correlation with the new destabilizing factors in Africa,’ Mahamat said.”

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the AU Summit was the challenge by South Africa and Algeria to the unilateral decision made during 2021 by Commission Chair Mahamat to grant Israel observer status within the continental organization. Historically the progressive and anti-imperialist forces in Africa have demonstrated unconditional solidarity with Palestine along with other national liberation movements fighting colonialism. To grant Tel Aviv observer status absent broad consultations within the organization raises questions about the loyalty and commitment to the most progressive legacy within the OAU-AU tradition.

Mahamat in a lengthy memorandum explaining his rationale for the decision to grant such a concession to the apartheid Israeli state, attempted to utilize the already existing diplomatic relations between Tel Aviv and various African states to justify further acquiescence to Washington’s foreign policy in West Asia and North Africa by the continental organization. The Camp David Accord signed in 1978 between Egypt and Israel has not led to the liberation of Palestine. This was the position articulated by Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh of the Palestinian Authority who spoke at the AU Summit. The people of Gaza and the West Bank died in large numbers during 2021 due to the bombing by the Israel Air Force (IAF) and the security apparatus utilizing live ammunition against nonviolent demonstrators in Jerusalem and other areas of occupied Palestine. These attacks on the oppressed Palestinians are facilitated by U.S. weapons, intelligence technology and diplomatic cover. (See this)

According to a report published by Al Jazeera on Shtayyeh’s speech, it emphasized:

“’Israel should never be rewarded for its violation and for the apartheid regime it does impose on the Palestinian people,‘ he said. ‘Your excellencies, I’m sorry to report to you that the situation of the Palestinian people has only grown more precarious. The decision to grant Israel an observer status is a reward that [Tel Aviv] does not deserve, and we call for this decision to be withdrawn.’”

By the second day of the AU Summit, it was announced that the debate on Palestine would be suspended and relegated to a special committee to be discussed at a later date. Mahamat suggested that the Palestinian question should not divide the AU. Nonetheless, there is nothing more important in the present period than the solidarity of the African people with the Palestinians in their struggle against colonialism and for an independent sovereign state.

Pan-Africanism Cannot Accommodate Apartheid and Neo-colonialism

These contradictions within the AU deliberations must be resolved in order for the majority of African workers, farmers, women and youth to be adequately represented in international bodies. By upholding the right to self-determination of oppressed peoples inside and outside of Africa would considerably lend moral authority to regional organizations which have not been readily effective in resolving internal political crises stemming from the continuing dependency of the 1.3 billion Africans to the world capitalist system.

Today in states where military coups have occurred, the people are rapidly turning against the former colonial and current neo-colonial power blocs within North America, Britain and the European Union (EU). In Mali, the coup government has expelled the French ambassador while people have gone into the streets in the thousands to celebrate the erosion of the legitimacy of Paris.

In both Burkina Faso and Mali, people raised the Russian flag alongside their national symbols as a means of demonstrating their exasperation with France. However, to remove French and U.S. military penetration of African states, the masses must be organized and mobilized independently of imperialist-backed apparatuses in order to exercise genuine liberation and sovereignty.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @crg_globalresearch. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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

Featured image: African Union appoints new chair Senegal President Macky Sall (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

The global coup that in these two years of psycho-pandemic farce has been carried out by the globalist elite appears most clearly if we do not limit ourselves to considering what happened in individual Nations, but broaden our gaze to what has happened everywhere. 

Your protest, dear Canadian truck driver friends, joins a worldwide chorus that wants to oppose the establishment of the New World Order on the rubble of nation states, through the Great Reset desired by the World Economic Forum and by the United Nations under the name of Agenda 2030. And we know that many heads of government have participated in Klaus Schwab’s School for Young Leaders – the so-called Global Leaders for Tomorrow – beginning with Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron, Jacinta Ardern and Boris Johnson, and before that Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Tony Blair. 

It would seem that Canada is – along with Australia, Italy, Austria and France – one of the nations most infiltrated by the globalists. And in this infernal project we must not only consider the psycho-pandemic farce, but also the attack on traditions and Christian identity – indeed, more precisely the Catholic identity – of these countries. 

You understood this instinctively, and your yearning for freedom was shown in all its coordinated harmony, moving towards the capital Ottawa. Dear truck drivers, you are facing great difficulties, not only because you give up your work to demonstrate, but also because of the adverse weather conditions, long nights in the cold, and attempts to be cleared away that you face. But along with these difficulties you have also experienced the closeness of many of your fellow citizens, who like you have understood the looming threat and want to support you in protesting against the regime. Allow me also to express to you my support and my spiritual closeness, to which I join the prayer that your event may be crowned with success and may also extend to other countries. 

In these days we see the masks of tyrants from all over the world fall, and unfortunately we also see so much conformism, so much fearfulness, so much cowardice in people who up until yesterday we regarded as friends, even among our family members. Yet, precisely because of this extreme situation, we discover with amazement gestures of humanity made by strangers, signs of solidarity and brotherhood on the part of those who feel close to us in the common battle. We discover so much generosity and so much desire to shake us from this stupor. We discover that we are no longer willing to passively suffer the destruction of our world imposed by a cabal of unscrupulous criminals, thirsty for power and money. 

In this relentless attack on the traditional world, not only your way of life and your identity have been affected, but also your possessions, your activities, and your work. This is the Great Reset, this is the future promised by slogans like Build Back Better, this is the future of billions of people being controlled in their every move, in all their transactions, in every purchase, every bureaucratic practice, every activity. Automatons without souls or wills, deprived of their identity, reduced to having a universal income that allows them to survive, to buy only what others have already decided to put up for sale, transformed by a gene serum into people who are chronically ill. 

Today more than ever it is essential that you realize that it is no longer possible to passively assist: it is necessary to take a position, to fight for freedom, to demand respect for natural freedoms. But even more, dear Canadian brothers, it is necessary to understand that this dystopia serves to establish the dictatorship of the New World Order and totally erase every trace of Our Lord Jesus Christ from society, from history, and from the traditions of peoples. 

Demonstrate for your rights, Canadian friends: but may these rights not be limited to a simple claim to the freedom to enter supermarkets or not to be vaccinated: may it also be a proud and courageous claim to your sacrosanct right to be free men. But your demonstration should be one of true freedom, reminding you that it is the Truth – that is, Our Lord Jesus Christ – who alone can guarantee you freedom: the truth will make you free.

Let us pray that Christ will return to reign in society, in your hearts and in your families. Take up the spiritual weapon of the Holy Rosary, and pray to the Blessed Virgin, Sainte Ann, Saint George and the Holy Canadian Martyrs to protect your homeland.

I would like to conclude my appeal by asking you to pray with me, with the words that Our Lord has taught us: may they be the seal of this awakening, of this national liberation. Let us all pray it together, out loud, so that our prayer may rise to Heaven, but also so that it may resound powerfully in these squares, in these streets, all the way to the palaces of the powerful:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. Amen.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image: Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò at the Rome Life Forum on May 18, 2018. (Source: Steve Jalsevac / LifeSiteNews)

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

New tensions are emerging over the legitimacy of British rule over the Falkland Islands. In a joint statement with the Argentine president, Xi Jinping declared that China supports Buenos Aires’ sovereignty over the islands’ territory. In response, the UK’s foreign minister published a statement reaffirming British sovereignty, starting a war of words and narratives over this old and controversial topic, which still seems far from any final resolution.

Last week, Argentine President Alberto Fernandez visited Beijing in order to attend the Winter Olympics. On the occasion, Fernandez met with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, and a broad dialogue took place about several issues relevant to both countries. The most important result of the meeting was the release of a joint statement, in which the Chinese government said it supports the Argentine sovereignty over the territory of the Falkland Islands – a South American island area dominated by the UK and historically claimed by Argentina.

The case generated deep fury in the British government. Chinese support for Argentine claims about the Isles sounded unacceptable to London, leading government officials to publish several pronouncements repudiating the joint attitude of the Chinese and Argentine presidents and reaffirming British sovereignty over the Falklands. The British Foreign Minister, Liz Truss, for example, wrote the following words in one of her webpages: “We completely reject any questions over the sovereignty of the Falklands. The Falklands are part of the British family and we will defend their right to self-determination. China must respect the Falklands’ sovereignty”.

Responding the words of Truss and other politicians and media agencies, the Chinese Embassy in London issued a new document reaffirming its unconditional support for Argentine sovereignty over that disputed zone. With this, new tensions arose, with the legitimacy of British rule over the Falkland Islands being questioned once again.

In fact, British dominance in that region has always been controversial. The territory is located within the Argentine coastal zone, but in the 19th century the British began to invest in a strong policy of occupation, turning most of the local people into British citizens, which later came to ‘justify’ the UK’s claims in this regard – which has never been accepted by Argentina. In the early 1980s, the situation reached the extreme of tensions. At the time, the Argentine military invested in a military intervention with the objective of regaining control over the region, but, after a two-month war, the London’s forces obtained their victory, making UK’s sovereignty over the territory official.

In fact, there are many reasons for a government to defend Argentine dominance in the Falkland Isles – called “Malvinas” by the Argentinians. The very fact that the zone is located within the Argentine national territory is a very strong argument, for example. However, the biggest curiosity in this case is the advanced degree of Chinese involvement. Chinese foreign policy is guided by a trade agenda, in search of global partners for economic cooperation projects. With this, the country avoids getting involved in major international controversies or disputes involving two or more states. In general, for China, it is enough that there are mutual commercial interests in order to establish a bilateral partnership.

It is not a typical attitude for China to engage in foreign territorial disputes, but the country not only issued a declaration of support for Argentine sovereignty in the islands but also reiterated its support after the actions of British officials. This kind of attitude is interesting, considering the Chinese internationalist tradition, but can easily be explained if we remember some recent events involving China and the UK.

Since it leaved the European Union, the UK has been trying to invest in new markets around the world and has combined its commercial strategy with a policy of automatic support for US international plans. As a result, the British government has adopted aggressive measures in Asia and the Pacific to combat Chinese influence. One such measure has been the attempt to restore colonial ties in Hong Kong.

British politicians created, for example, a law that facilitates the process to get a permanent visa in case of Hong Kong citizens. As a result, a wave of mass emigration was initiated, with risks of harm to the local demography. All these factors directly affect China’s interests and motivates the country to develop response measures. In this regard, taking a position in historical territorial disputes and defending the interests of its partners (China and Argentina are nations with great bilateral partnerships in various areas, mainly agribusiness) really seems to be one of the tactics used by Beijing today.

It is still too early to say to what extent the position taken by China will represent some political force for the nations chosen as partners, however, this is undoubtedly an interesting step in strengthening south-south cooperation. Beijing’s message is simple: if the West continues to interfere in China’s internal affairs with its dissident territories, the Asian country will be also willing to use its power and influence to act contrary to its enemies in their respective internal affairs.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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

Featured image is from unitedworldint.com

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

“Why is Boris Johnson making false claims about Starmer and Savile?” runs a headline in the news pages of the Guardian. It is just one of a barrage of indignant recent stories in the British media, rushing to the defence of the opposition leader, Sir Keir Starmer.

The reason? Last week the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, blamed Starmer, now the Labour party leader, for failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile, a TV presenter and serial child abuser, when his case came under police review in 2009. Between 2008 and 2013, Starmer was head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Savile died in 2011 before he could face justice.

Johnson accused Starmer, who at the time was Director of Public Prosecutions, of wasting “his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile”. 

The sudden chorus of outrage at Johnson impugning Starmer’s reputation is strange in many different ways. It is not as though Johnson has any record of good behaviour. His whole political persona is built on the idea of his being a rascal, a clown, a chancer.

He is also a well-documented liar. Few, least of all in the media, cared much about his pattern of lying until now. Indeed, most observers have long pointed out that his popularity was based on his mischief-making and his populist guise as an anti-establishment politician. No one, apart from his political opponents, seemed too bothered.

And it is also not as though there are not lots of other, more critically important things relating to Johnson to be far more enraged about, even before we consider his catastrophic handling of the pandemic, and his raiding of the public coffers to enrich his crony friends and party donors.

Jumping ship

Johnson is currently embroiled in the so-called “partygate” scandal. He  attended – and his closest officials appear to have organised – several gatherings at his residence in Downing Street in 2020 and 2021 at a time when the rest of the country was under strict lockdown. For the first time the public mood has shifted against Johnson.

My latest: The media's watchdog role is an illusion. The current scandal over Boris Johnson's lockdown parties reveals just how dependent journalists are on government https://t.co/BxykcG3qfc

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) January 21, 2022

But it was Johnson’s criticisms of Starmer, not partygate, that led several of his senior advisers last week to resign their posts. One can at least suspect that in their case – given how quickly the Johnson brand is sinking, and the repercussions they may face from a police investigation into the partygate scandal – that finding an honorable pretext for jumping ship may have been the wisest move.

But there is something deeply strange about Johnson’s own Conservative MPs and the British media lining up to express their indignation at Johnson’s attack on Starmer, a not particularly liked or likable opposition leader, and then turning it into the reason to bring down a prime minister whose other flaws are only too visible.

What makes the situation even weirder is that Johnson’s so-called “smears” of Starmer may not actually be smears at all. They look like rare examples of Johnson alluding to – admittedly in his own clumsy and self-interested way – genuinely problematic behaviour by Starmer.

One would never know this from the coverage, of course.

Here is the Guardian supposedly fact-checking Johnson’s attack on Starmer under the apparently neutral question: “Is there any evidence that Starmer was involved in any decision not to prosecute Savile?”

The Guardian’s answer is decisive:

“No. The CPS has confirmed that there is no reference to any involvement from Starmer in the decision-making within an official report examining the case.

“Surrey police consulted the CPS for advice about the allegations after interviewing Savile’s victims, according to a 2013 CPS statement made by Starmer as DPP.

“The official report, written by Alison Levitt QC, found that in October 2009 the CPS lawyer responsible for the cases – who was not Starmer – advised that no prosecution could be brought on the grounds that none of the complainants were ‘prepared to support any police action’.”

That’s a pretty definite “No”, then. Not “No, according to Starmer”. Or “No, according to the CPS”. Or “No, according to an official report” – and doubtless a determinedly face-saving one at that – into the Savile scandal.

Just “No”.

Here is the Guardian’s political correspondent Peter Walker echoing how cut and dried the corporate media’s assessment is: “[Starmer] had no connection to decisions over the case, and the idea he did emerged later in conspiracy theories mainly shared among the far right.”

So it’s just a far-right conspiracy theory. Case against Starmer closed.

But not so fast.

Given Savile’s tight ties to the establishment – from royalty and prime ministers down – and the establishment’s role in providing, however inadvertently, cover for Savile’s paedophilia for decades, it should hardly surprise us that the blame for the failure to prosecute him has been placed squarely on the shoulders of a low-level lawyer in the Crown Prosecution Service. How it could be otherwise? If we started unpicking the thorny Savile knot, who knows where the threads might unravel?

Sacrificial victim 

Former ambassador Craig Murray has made an interesting observation about Johnson’s remark on Starmer. Murray, let us remember, has been a first-hand observer and chronicler of the dark arts of the establishment in protecting itself from exposure, after he himself was made a sacrificial victim for revealing the British government’s illegal involvement in torture and extraordinary rendition.

My latest: The refusal to hear Craig Murray’s appeal against his unprecedented conviction for ‘jigsaw identification’ means the British state has now effectively been given the power to license journalists https://t.co/czxg9VNtnU

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) July 30, 2021

As Murray notes:

“Of course the Director of Public Prosecutions does not handle the individual cases, which are assigned to lawyers under them. But the Director most certainly is then consulted on the decisions in the high profile and important cases.

“That is why they are there. It is unthinkable that Starmer was not consulted on the decision to shelve the Savile case – what do they expect us to believe his role was, as head of the office, ordering the paperclips?”

And of the official inquiry into Starmer’s role that cleared him of any wrongdoing, the one that so impresses the Guardian and everyone else, Murray adds: 

“When the public outcry reached a peak in 2012, Starmer played the go-to trick in the Establishment book. He commissioned an ‘independent’ lawyer he knew to write a report exonerating him. Mistakes have been made at lower levels, lessons will be learnt… you know what it says. Mishcon de Reya, money launderers to the oligarchs, provided the lawyer to do the whitewash. Once he retired from the post of DPP, Starmer went to work at, umm,…”

Yes, Mischon de Reya.

Delighted to be joining Mishcon de Reya and to remain with Doughty Street Chambers under new dual capacity rules http://t.co/ejoBDIxImK

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) June 23, 2014

Starmer and Assange

Murray also notes that MPs and the British media have resolutely focused attention on Starmer’s alleged non-role in the Savile decision – where an “official report” provides them with cover – rather than an additional, and far more embarrassing, point made by Johnson about Starmer’s behaviour as Director of Public Prosecutions.

The prime minister mentioned Starmer using his time to “prosecute journalists”. Johnson and the media have no interest in clarifying that reference. Anyway, Johnson only made it for effect: as a contrast to the way Starmer treated Savile, as a way to highlight that, if he chose to, Starmer was quite capable of moving to prosecute.

But this second point is potentially far more revealing both of Starmer’s misconduct as Director of Public Prosecutions and about the services he rendered to the establishment – the likely reason why he was knighted at a relatively young age, becoming “Sir” Keith.

The journalist Johnson was presumably referencing is Julian Assange, currently locked up in Belmarsh high-security prison as lawyers try to get him extradited to the United States for his exposure of US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

At an early stage of Assange’s persecution, the Crown Prosecution Service under Starmer worked overtime – despite Britain’s official position of neutrality in the case – to ensure he was extradited to Sweden. Assange sought political asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London in 2012, when Starmer was still heading the Crown Prosecution Service. Assange did so because he got wind of efforts by the Americans to extradite him onwards from Sweden to the US. He feared the UK would collude in that process.

Assange, it turns out, was not wrong. With the Swedish investigation long ago dropped, the British courts are now, nearly a decade on, close to agreeing to the Biden administration’s demand that Assange be extradited to the US – both to silence him and to intimidate any other journalists who might try to throw light on US war crimes.

My latest: It is the ultimate, ugly paradox that Julian Assange’s legal and physical fate rests in the hands of two states – the US and UK – that have the most to lose by allowing him to regain his freedom and publish more of the truths they want concealed https://t.co/M7WTKq0ZXf

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) December 17, 2021

The Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi has been pursuing a lengthy legal battle to have the CPS emails from Starmer’s time released under a Freedom of Information request. She has been opposed by the British establishment every step of the way. We know that many of the email chains relating to Assange were destroyed by the Crown Prosecution Service – apparently illegally. Those would doubtless have shone a much clearer light on Starmer’s role in the case – possibly the reason they were destroyed.

The small number of emails that have been retrieved show that the Crown Prosecution Service under Starmer micro-managed the Swedish investigation of Assange, even bullying Swedish prosecutors to pursue the case when they had started to lose interest for lack of evidence. In one email from 2012, a CPS lawyer warned his Swedish counterpart: “Don’t you dare get cold feet!!!”. In another from 2011, the CPS lawyer writes: “Please do not think this case is being dealt with as just another extradition.”

Prosecutors arm-twisted 

Again, the idea that Starmer was not intimately involved in the decision to arm-twist Swedish prosecutors into persecuting a journalist – a case that the UK should formally have had no direct interest in, unless it was covertly advancing US interests to silence Assange – beggars belief.

Despite the media’s lack of interest in Assange’s plight, the energy expended by the US to get Assange behind bars in the US and redefine national security journalism as espionage shows how politically and diplomatically important this case has always been to the US – and by extension, the British establishment. There is absolutely no way the deliberations were handled by a single lawyer. Starmer would have closely overseen his staff’s dealings with Swedish prosecutors and authorised what was in practice a purely political decision, not legal one, to persecute Assange – or as United Nations experts defined it, “arbitrarily detain” him.

My latest: Lies about UN body threaten not just Julian Assange https://t.co/AKiTmP8VL5 #Assange #unwgad

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) February 5, 2016

Neither Murray nor I have unique, Sherlock-type powers of deduction that allow us to join the dots in ways no one else can manage. All of this information is in the public realm, and all of it is known to the editors of the British media. They are not only choosing to avoid mentioning it in the context of the current row, but they are actively fulminating against Boris Johnson for having done so.

The prime minister’s crime isn’t that he has “smeared” Starmer. It is that – out of desperate self-preservation – he has exposed the dark underbelly of the establishment. He has broken the elite’s omerta, its vow of silence. He has made the unpardonable sin of grassing up the establishment to which he belongs. He has potentially given ammunition to the great unwashed to expose the establishment’s misdeeds, to blow apart its cover story. That is why the anger is far more palpable and decisive about Johnson smearing Starmer than it ever was when Johnson smeared the rest of us by partying on through the lockdowns.

Scorched-earth tactic? 

Look at this headline on Jonathan Freedland’s latest column for the Guardian, visibly aquiver with anger at the way Johnson has defamed Starmer: “Johnson’s Savile smear was the scorched-earth tactic of a desperate, dangerous man”. 

A prime minister attacking the opposition leader – something we would normally think of as a largely unexceptional turn of political events, and all the more so under Johnson – has been transformed by Freedland into a dangerous, scorched-earth tactic.

Quite how preposterous, and hypocritical, this claim is should not need underscoring. Who really needs to be reminded of how Freedland and the rest of media class – but especially Freedland – treated Stramer’s predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn? That really was a scorched-earth approach. There was barely a day in his five years leading the Labour party when the media did not fabricate the most outrageous lies about Corbyn and his party. He was shabby and unstatesmanlike (unlike the smartly attired Johnson!), sexist, a traitor, a threat to national security, an anti-semite, and much more.

Anyone like Freedland who actively participated in the five-year campaign of demonisation of Corbyn has no credibility whatsoever either complaining about the supposed mistreatment of Starmer (a pale shadow of what Corbyn suffered) or decrying Johnson’s lowering of standards in public life.

We have the rightwing populist Johnson in power precisely because Freedland and the rest of the media relentlessly smeared the democratic socialist alternative. In the 2017 election, let us recall, Corbyn was only 2,000 votes from winning. The concerted campaign of smears from across the entire corporate media – and the resulting manipulation of the public mood – was the difference between Corbyn winning and the Tories holding on to power.

Corbyn was destroyed – had to be destroyed – because he threatened establishment interests. He challenged the interests of the rich, of the corporations, of the war industries, of the Israel lobby. That was why an anonymous military general warned in the pages of the establishment’s newspaper, The Times, that there would be a mutiny if Corbyn ever reached 10 Downing Street. That was why soldiers were filmed using an image of Corbyn as target practice on a firing range in Afghanistan.

Johnson’s “smears” aside, none of this will ever happen to Starmer. There will be no threats of mutiny and his image will never used for target practice by the army. Sir Keir won’t be defamed by the billionaire-owned media. Rather, they have shown they have his back. They will even promote him over an alumnus of the Bullingdon Club, when the blokey toff’s shine starts to wear off.

And that, it should hardly need pointing out, is because Sir Keir Starmer is there to protect not the public’s interests but the interests of the establishment, just as he did when so conscientiously he was Director of Public Prosecutions.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This essay first appeared on Jonathan Cook’s blog: https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

As Turkey attempts to economically recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is facing uncertainties due to formidable challenges, including high inflation rates, depleting central bank reserves and continued depreciation of the local currency, the lira. The uncertainties have further intensified due to a sudden energy crisis following shortages of natural gas. Facing the brunt of power shortage are the Turkish people and industries. But this does not auger well for a nascent economic recovery, especially as Ankara refuses to deescalate its military adventures and provocations.

Turkey recently experienced electricity shortages due to Iran’s unexpected cut in gas supply for ten days under the pretext of a “technical malfunction.” Although Tehran announced restarting the supply after payment of the outstanding dues, the possibility of shortages in the future is haunting Turkey and its industrial sector.

While people bore immitigable pain during the cold winter, the electricity outage (January 24-28) caused an estimated cost of $5 billion to industry. The industrialists, who cannot fulfill their export commitments due to the energy outage, are afraid of orders from foreign clients being cancelled.

Power shortage and price hike is also fuelling inflation in the country. From the beginning of 2021, the price of natural gas used by Turkish industry increased 5.5 times and the price of natural gas used in electricity production increased four times.

Recovery of the Turkish economy depends on some of the crucial sectors, especially automobiles and tourism. However, during the power shortage, car maker Renault SA stopped production for 15 days at its Bursa plant. Automakers such as Tofas halted production altogether. It is reminded that the automotive sector contributed to 11% of Turkish exports in 2021.

Power shortage in the country is partly caused by non-payment of dues to traditional suppliers. Ankara also erred in planning and making early decision about gas supply contracts. Although Iran’s share in Turkey’s total gas supply is 16% and plays a crucial role in the country’s energy matrix, Turkey also imports gas from Russia and Azerbaijan. Despite varying energy sources, Turkey was not able to get the required gas due to the great global energy demand this winter.

Analysts say that Ankara failed to take adequate measures despite expected harsh winters and high oil prices. Turkish leaders expected a fall in energy prices, which might have saved deterioration in the economic crisis amidst the COVID-19 impact, but it did not happen. The error in judgment by Ankara led to the non-renewal of medium and long-term natural gas contracts.

A sudden surge in international energy prices is now forcing Ankara to buy Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) at the spot market. Fearing for the worst, Ankara secured a deal with Azerbaijan to import an additional four million cubic meters of natural gas per day in February.

Spokesperson for the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Faik Öztrak, stated that “the [Erdoğan] government gambled thinking that natural gas prices would decrease, but they lost.”

This gamble has caused further pressure on its foreign exchange reserves, which is already under pressure for debt servicing requirements in immediate terms.

Ankara is facing multiple problems since the COVID-19 pandemic exposed Turkey’s volatile and high-risk economic policies. Its annual inflation has already reached 49%, hitting a 20 year high, and the lira depreciated by over 40% last year. Turkey is now trying to ward off recession and pins its hope on an expected tourism revenue of $30 billion in 2022 – so long as the pandemic does not strike once again.

Meanwhile from a low base of economic growth of under 2% in the last three years since 2018, Turkey’s growth rate has been estimated to be around 9% in 2021, only to be moderated to 3.3% in 2022 and 3.9% in 2023. However, it all depends how Ankara addresses it impending economic problems, including power shortage, and perhaps most importantly, military adventurism.

With inflation out of control and the Turkish lira at its weakest point, Turkey is unrelenting in continuing its military occupations of Cyprus, Syria, Libya and Iraq, as well as sponsoring war in the South Caucasus. This too absorbs up desperately needed funding.

Turkish military expenditure has increased by 8.6% since 2010 to reach an estimated $20.4 billion in 2019, representing 2.7% of GDP. However, this does not take into account its secret operations, such as financing, training and arming terrorist forces, including ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

With military adventurism sucking up finances, compounded by energy issues, Turkey’s economy is in dire straits. This is also now being reflected in polls as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s approval rating was only at 40.7% in January. His disapproval rating still remains higher though, at 54.4%.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from marketfeed.news

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

While the Biden administration is sending more troops and weapons to inflame the Ukraine conflict and Congress is pouring more fuel on the fire, the American people are on a totally different track. 

A December 2021 poll found that a plurality of Americans in both political parties prefer to resolve differences over Ukraine through diplomacy. Another December poll found that a plurality of Americans (48 percent) would oppose going to war with Russia should it invade Ukraine, with only 27 percent favoring U.S. military involvement.

The conservative Koch Institute, which commissioned that poll, concluded that

“the United States has no vital interests at stake in Ukraine and continuing to take actions that increase the risk of a confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia is therefore not necessary for our security. After more than two decades of endless war abroad, it is not surprising there is wariness among the American people for yet another war that wouldn’t make us safer or more prosperous.”

The most anti-war popular voice on the right is Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has been lashing out against the hawks in both parties, as have other anti-interventionist libertarians.

On the left, the anti-war sentiment was in full force on February 5, when over 75 protests took place from Maine to Alaska. The protesters, including union activists, environmentalists, healthcare workers and students, denounced pouring even more money into the military when we have so many burning needs at home.

You would think Congress would be echoing the public sentiment that a war with Russia is not in our national interest. Instead, taking our nation to war and supporting the gargantuan military budget seem to be the only issues that both parties agree on.

Most Republicans in Congress are criticizing Biden for not being tough enough (or for focusing on Russia instead of China) and most Democrats are afraid to oppose a Democratic president or be smeared as Putin apologists (remember, Democrats spent four years under Trump demonizing Russia).

Both parties have bills calling for draconian sanctions on Russia and expedited “lethal aid” to Ukraine. The Republicans are advocating for $450 million in new military shipments; the Democrats are one-upping them with a price tag of $500 million.

Progressive Caucus leaders Pramila Jayapal and Barbara Lee have called for negotiations and de-escalation. But others in the Caucus–such as Reps. David Cicilline and Andy Levin–are co-sponsors of the dreadful anti-Russia bill, and Speaker Pelosi is fast-tracking the bill to expedite weapons shipments to Ukraine.

But sending more weapons and imposing heavy-handed sanctions can only ratchet up the resurgent U.S. Cold War on Russia, with all its attendant costs to American society: lavish military spending displacing desperately needed social spending; geopolitical divisions undermining international cooperation for a better future; and, not least, increased risks of a nuclear war that could end life on Earth as we know it.

For those looking for real solutions, we have good news.

Negotiations regarding Ukraine are not limited to President Biden and Secretary Blinken’s failed efforts to browbeat the Russians. There is another already existing diplomatic track for peace in Ukraine, a well-established process called the Minsk Protocol, led by France and Germany and supervised by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

The civil war in Eastern Ukraine broke out in early 2014, after the people of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces unilaterally declared independence from Ukraine as the Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR) People’s Republics, in response to the U.S.-backed coup in Kiev in February 2014. The post-coup government formed new “National Guard” units to assault the breakaway region, but the separatists fought back and held their territory, with some covert support from Russia. Diplomatic efforts were launched to resolve the conflict.

The original Minsk Protocol was signed by the “Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine” (Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE) in September 2014. It reduced the violence, but failed to end the war. France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine also held a meeting in Normandy in June 2014 and this group became known as the “Normandy Contact Group” or the “Normandy Format.”

All these parties continued to meet and negotiate, together with the leaders of the self-declared Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR) People’s Republics in Eastern Ukraine, and they eventually signed the Minsk II agreement on February 12, 2015. The terms were similar to the original Minsk Protocol, but more detailed and with more buy-in from the DPR and LPR.

The Minsk II agreement was unanimously approved by the U.N. Security Council in Resolution 2202 on February 17, 2015. The United States voted in favor of the resolution, and 57 Americans are currently serving as ceasefire monitors with the OSCE in Ukraine.

The key elements of the 2015 Minsk II Agreement were:

• an immediate bilateral ceasefire between Ukrainian government forces and DPR and LPR forces;
• the withdrawal of heavy weapons from a 30-kilometer-wide buffer zone along the line of control between government and separatist forces;
• elections in the secessionist Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR) People’s Republics, to be monitored by the OSCE; and
• constitutional reforms to grant greater autonomy to the separatist-held areas within a reunified but less centralized Ukraine.

The ceasefire and buffer zone have held well enough for seven years to prevent a return to full-scale civil war, but organizing elections in Donbas that both sides will recognize has proved more difficult.

The DPR and LPR postponed elections several times between 2015 and 2018. They held primary elections in 2016 and, finally, a general election in November 2018. But neither Ukraine, the United States nor the European Union recognized the results, claiming the election was not conducted in compliance with the Minsk Protocol.

For its part, Ukraine has not made the agreed-upon constitutional changes to grant greater autonomy to the separatist regions. And the separatists have not allowed the central government to retake control of the international border between Donbas and Russia, as specified in the agreement.

The Normandy Contact Group (France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine) for the Minsk Protocol has met periodically since 2014, and is meeting regularly throughout the current crisis, with its next meeting scheduled for February 10 in Berlin. The OSCE’s 680 unarmed civilian monitors and 621 support staff in Ukraine have also continued their work throughout this crisis. Their latest report, issued February 1, documented a 65% decrease in ceasefire violations compared to two months ago.

But increased U.S. military and diplomatic support since 2019 has encouraged President Zelensky to pull back from Ukraine’s commitments under the Minsk Protocol, and to reassert unconditional Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea and Donbas. This has raised credible fears of a new escalation of the civil war, and U.S. support for Zelensky’s more aggressive posture has undermined the existing Minsk-Normandy diplomatic process.

Zelensky’s recent statement that “panic” in Western capitals is economically destabilizing Ukraine suggests that he may now be more aware of the pitfalls in the more confrontational path his government adopted, with U.S. encouragement.

The current crisis should be a wake-up call to all involved that the Minsk-Normandy process remains the only viable framework for a peaceful resolution in Ukraine. It deserves full international support, including from U.S. Members of Congress, especially in light of broken promises on NATO expansion, the U.S. role in the 2014 coup, and now the panic over fears of a Russian invasion that Ukrainian officials say are overblown.

On a separate, albeit related, diplomatic track, the United States and Russia must urgently address the breakdown in their bilateral relations. Instead of bravado and one upmanship, they must restore and build on previous disarmament agreements that they have cavalierly abandoned, placing the whole world in existential danger.

Restoring U.S. support for the Minsk Protocol and the Normandy Format would also help to decouple Ukraine’s already thorny and complex internal problems from the larger geopolitical problem of NATO expansion, which must primarily be resolved by the United States, Russia and NATO.

The United States and Russia must not use the people of Ukraine as pawns in a revived Cold War or as chips in their negotiations over NATO expansion. Ukrainians of all ethnicities deserve genuine support to resolve their differences and find a way to live together in one country – or to separate peacefully, as other people have been allowed to do in Ireland, Bangladesh, Slovakia and throughout the former U.S.S.R. and Yugoslavia.

In 2008, then-U.S. Ambassador to Moscow (now CIA Director) William Burns warned his government that dangling the prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine could lead to civil war and present Russia with a crisis on its border in which it could be forced to intervene.

In a cable published by WikiLeaks, Burns wrote, “Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.”

Since Burns’s warning in 2008, successive U.S. administrations have plunged headlong into the crisis he predicted. Members of Congress, especially members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, can play a leading role in restoring sanity to U.S. policy on Ukraine by championing a moratorium on Ukraine’s membership in NATO and a reinvigoration of the Minsk Protocol, which the Trump and Biden administrations have arrogantly tried to upstage and upend with weapons shipments, ultimatums and panic.

OSCE monitoring reports on Ukraine are all headed with the critical message: “Facts Matter.” Members of Congress should embrace that simple principle and educate themselves about the Minsk-Normandy diplomacy. This process has maintained relative peace in Ukraine since 2015, and remains the U.N.-endorsed, internationally agreed-upon framework for a lasting resolution.

If the U.S. government wants to play a constructive role in Ukraine, it should genuinely support this already existing framework for a solution to the crisis, and end the heavy-handed U.S. intervention that has only undermined and delayed its implementation. And our elected officials should start listening to their own constituents, who have absolutely no interest in going to war with Russia.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. 

Featured image: Peace protest at the White House (Source: iacenter.org)

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau portrayed Ottawa’s protesters as violent, racists, and more… Here is one of many trucker’s tales showing this is as far from reality as it can go.

“Trucker’s Tales” is a collection of great testimonies from Canadians who take a stand for truth and freedom. God bless their souls.

In French:

Le premier ministre Justin Trudeau a dressé un portrait méchant des manifestants à Ottawa. Violents, racistes, islamophobes et j’en passe… Pour montrer la réalité, j’ai collecté des témoignages de manifestants Canadiens. La réalité ne ment pas, les manifestants sont en grande majorité des citoyens exemplaires. Dieu bénisse leurs âmes.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

As of this writing, GoFundMe has cut off (stolen) $9 million from the Canadian Trucker Convoy.

The money was donated by thousands of individuals to support the truckers, who are demanding the Canadian government cancel vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, and brutal COVID restrictions.

After a major backlash from the enraged public, GoFundMe has stated it will automatically refund all $9 million to the individual donors.

Regardless, GoFundMe will not forward the money to the group it was intended for: the truckers.

All right: here come the dots—

A venture capital firm, Accel, and Technology Crossover Ventures, own the majority stake in GoFundMe.

The big infusion of cash that sent Mark Zuckerberg and his fledgling college enterprise on their way came from Accel, in 2004.

Jim Breyer, head of Accel, attached a $13 million rocket to Facebook, and nothing has ever been the same. (Breyer—billionaire, CFR, World Economic Forum, major fund investor in China.)

Earlier in 2004, a man named Gilman Louie joined the board of the National Venture Capital Association of America (NVCA). The chairman of NVCA? Jim Breyer. Gilman Louie happened to be the first CEO of the important CIA start-up, In-Q-Tel.

In-Q-Tel was founded in 1999, with the express purpose of funding companies that could develop technology the CIA would use to “gather data.”

That’s not the only connection between Facebook funder and Accel’s Jim Breyer and the CIA’s man, Gilman Louie. In 2004, Louie went to work for BBN Technologies, headed up by Breyer. Dr. Anita Jones also joined BBN at that time. Jones had worked for the CIA’s In-Q-Tel and was an adviser to DARPA, the Pentagon’s technology department that helped develop the Internet.

With these CIA/DARPA connections, it’s no surprise that Jim Breyer’s jackpot investment in Facebook is not part of the popular mythology of Mark Zuckerberg. Better to omit it. Who can fail to realize that Facebook, with its endless stream of personal data, and its tracking capability, is an ideal CIA asset?

Accel co-owns the majority stake in GoFundMe. Accel has a history of rubbing shoulders with the CIA. Accel helped launch Facebook, the largest profiling and data-mining company in the world.

Given all this, it might be more surprising if GoFundMe DIDN’T cut off the Canadian truckers’ $9 million.

It’s also worth mentioning that Accel has invested in Spotify, the platform whose number-one star is Joe Rogan. Spotify is now under pressure to cancel Rogan, because his views and guests don’t align 100% with the official COVID narrative. In step one of a new censorship program, Spotify has stated it will post warning messages on all content that veers from official COVID positions and offer links to approved government and public health sources (for outrageous lies).

GoFundMe, Accel, Facebook, CIA, In-Q-Tel, Jim Breyer, CFR, World Economic Forum, major investments in China.

Basically, The Club.

The member’s statement of belief: “More money for me, less freedom for the peons, global control.”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

Featured image is from The Daily Signal

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

A peer-reviewed study published last month found the prophylactic use of ivermectin reduced COVID mortality by 90% among more than 223,000 study participants in a town in Southern Brazil.

A peer-reviewed study published last month found the prophylactic use of ivermectin reduced COVID mortality by 90% among more than 223,000 study participants in a town in Southern Brazil.

The study, published in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science, also found a 44% reduction in COVID cases among those who took the re-purposed drug.

Between July 7, 2020, and Dec. 2, 2020, all residents of Itajaí were offered ivermectin. Approximately 3.7% of ivermectin users contracted COVID during the trial period, compared with 6.6% of residents who didn’t take the drug.

Based on the results, Dr. Flavio Cadegiani, one of the study’s lead authors, said, “Ivermectin must be considered as an option, particularly during outbreaks.”

Dr. Pierre Kory told The Epoch Times the results of the study “should convince any naysayer. What they found was astounding.”

Kory said:

“You would think this would lead to major headlines everywhere. And yet, nothing. And this is not new, this censorship of this highly effective science and evidence around repurposed drugs. The censoring of it, it’s not new, it’s just getting more and more absurd. And it has to stop.”

Kory said it’s not even about ivermectin, “it’s about the pharmaceutical industry’s capture of our agencies and how our policies are all directed at suppressing and avoiding use of re-purposed drugs” in favor of high-profit medicines.

As is common with studies that show ivermectin as an effective treatment for COVID, various “fact-checkers” were quick to discount the study.

A number of sources, including Politifact, cited a long Twitter thread by an Australian graduate student in epidemiology, Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, as evidence the study was “flawed.”

One tweet called the study “a fairly simple example of observational research that you’d do on routine medical data” but alleged the controls for confounding factors such as occupation and risk factors were “pretty inadequate given the purpose.”

Cadegiani called the criticism unfounded, saying researchers controlled for “all relevant factors,” including comorbidities, age, sex and race.

He said the inability of critics “to focus on the data provided by the study itself is … proof of the extreme high quality of the study.”

“To us, this is the best observational study on COVID-19 to date,” Cadegiani concluded, “with a power almost equivalent to a huge, randomized clinical trial.”

Cadeigiani and his colleagues also plan to publish further results about hospitalization rates based on the study.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

David Charbonneau, Ph.D. is a fellow for The Defender.

Featured image is from CHD

Dear Readers,

As everyone faces difficult times, the company which deals with the fulfillment of book sales on behalf of Global Research is no longer able to provide its services. We are unfortunately suspending the sale of print books until further notice.

We will be contacting and refunding readers who have purchased our books in print format. Meanwhile, PDF versions are still available for purchase. We hope to be able to resolve this matter as soon as possible. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Thank you for your valuable support.

***

Video: Trudeau’s Brother Kyle Kemper takes Firm Stance against the Vaccine Mandate and “The Great Reset”

By Kyle Kemper, February 07, 2022

Its’ a “globally orchestrated phenomenon” by the World Economic Forum.  According to Kyle Kemper, the COVID scam is there to facilitate a massive processes of wealth appropriation as outlined in  WEF’s Great Reset.

Life Insurance Payouts Skyrocket 258% as Post-Vaccine Deaths Rapidly Accelerate

By Mike Adams, February 07, 2022

In a little-known Reuters story that garnered almost no attention in the corporate media, Dutch insurer Aegon revealed its third quarter, 2021 life insurance payouts skyrocketed 258% compared to third quarter, 2020 payouts.

The British Medical Journal Story That Exposed Politicized “Fact-Checking”

By Matt Taibbi, February 07, 2022

Thacker has an in-your-face style and a dark sense of humor, and talking to him can feel like being lost in a Bill Hicks routine, but his information is good. In his years in the Senate, his job was publicizing damaging information about the world’s most litigious companies.

Bowing to Authority: The Real Contagion of Our Time

By Julian Rose, February 07, 2022

There must be some powerful subconscious process at work throughout a large swathe of the population to cause such a high percentage to do what they are told, in spite of the fact that what they are told to do lacks any practical justification or logical explanation and is highly likely to harm them.

How the Corporate Media Smears Canada’s Freedom Convoy. Trudeau Accuses Them of “Racism, Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Homophobia, Transphobia”

By CJ Hopkins, February 07, 2022

Trudeau had vowed to stand and fight, but he had no choice but to flee the capital after he mysteriously tested positive for Covid (which also might have been the work of the Russians, possibly the same professional team of weed-smoking, hooker-banging Novichok assassins that got to the Skripals back in 2018).

Video: Freedom Convoy Address to the Nation. “State of Emergency Update”. Movement Spreads Across Canada

By Marcel Irnie, February 07, 2022

Ottawa Mayor declared a state of emergency. How Ottawa Police taking the convoy fuel and occupying the convoy tents does not impact the Freedom Convoy logistics.

Video: Prove It’s Misinformation: Dr. Peter McCullough after the Joe Rogan Show on Covid

By Dr. Peter McCullough and Kristina Borjesson, February 07, 2022

Dr. Peter McCullough talks about the fallout from his bombshell interview on the Joe Rogan Experience: celebrities have left or are threatening to leave Spotify because they’re angry Rogan interviewed guests like him who they say are spreading covid disinformation.

An Inconvenient Truth: The Peasant Food Web Feeds the World

By Colin Todhunter, February 07, 2022

In October 2020, CropLife International said that its new strategic partnership with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) would contribute to sustainable food systems. It added that it was a first for the industry and the FAO and demonstrates the determination of the plant science sector to work constructively in a partnership where common goals are shared.

Hidden Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Data Suggests All Pregnant Vaccinated Women Miscarried

By Captaindaretofly, February 07, 2022

A lawsuit filed by Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency produced documents from Pfizer revealing that its Covid-19 vaccine caused all of the pregnant women in its trial to miscarry.

British Children Up to 52 Times More Likely to Die Following a COVID Shot: Government Report

By David McLoone, February 07, 2022

Britain’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released data indicating that children who received the COVID-19 jabs have suffered a death rate 54 times greater than that of their un-jabbed counterparts.

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

The January 6 death of Sidney Poitier came at a portentous time. The screen’s seminal Civil Rights icon died on the one-year anniversary of an attempted insurrection by Confederate flag-waving white supremacists and as the voting rights he had campaigned for remained in limbo.

More than the career of any other major actor in Hollywood history, the motion picture odyssey of the man who became the first Black male to win an Oscar for playing Homer Smith resembles a tightrope act. Poitier, who was born in 1927 in Miami but raised in the Bahamas, somehow had to fulfill the expectations of two constituencies: Obviously, of Blacks, but also of whites, who formed the dominant majority culture, bought most movie tickets and financed films. To please both audiences Poitier had to somehow perform a delicate, intricate balancing act between appearing to be an Uncle Tom on the one hand and an “uppity” you-know-what on the other.

The following is a motion picture postmortem, an analysis of the political highlights and meanings of Sidney Poitier’s screen career, which stretched for more than half a century and included at least 55 acting credits and more.

In terms of the African-American screen image, Poitier was a transitional figure. In D.W. Griffith’s 1915 racist epic The Birth of a Nation, the Ku Klux Klan put the Reconstruction Era’s Badass Brothers and Sisters back into “their place.” For the next 35 years or so Black actors played mostly subservient, sexless, superstitious, celluloid stereotypes typified by Stepin Fetchit, Mantan Moreland and Butterfly McQueen.

Then three things happened that would change these humiliating onscreen depictions: The independence movements in Africa; the Civil Rights cause in the segregated South; and World War II. Blacks who fought against fascism abroad were unwilling to continue accepting racism at home. One of those WWII-era veterans was Poitier, who lied about his age while he was only 16 to join the Army.

In Sidney’s first credited movie role, 1950’s No Way Out, he plays a doctor who treats the criminal Richard Widmark, despite his abusive racism. The film, directed and co-written by Joe Mankiewicz, also depicts a race riot. In a way, No Way Out set the template for Sidney’s most successful screen image, as the noble Black who loftily sacrifices himself for ignoble whites.

Sidney Poitier in No Way Out (1950). [Source: irishnews.com]

But before he returned to this motion picture persona Poitier played a reverend in the 1951 South Africa-set anti-apartheid drama Cry, the Beloved Country, clandestinely co-written by the blacklisted Communist Party member John Howard Lawson, one of the Hollywood Ten.

Source: imdb.com

In 1957 Poitier co-starred in three roles that were departures from the “Good Negro” characters. In the Civil War drama Band of Angels, featuring Gone with the Wind’s Clark Gable, Poitier plays a plantation “House Negro” who escapes and joins the Union Army. In Something of Value opposite Rock Hudson, Sidney became a leader of the violent Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya against British colonialism. In The Mark of the Hawk, Poitier plays a character with the presidential sounding name of “Obam” (!) and is again embroiled in Africa’s anti-colonial cause, but this time he opts for non-violence.

Poitier achieved greater success in Stanley Kramer’s 1958 The Defiant Ones, as an escaped convict who sacrifices himself for the bigoted prisoner he has been chained to. White audiences cheered when Sidney gave up his chance for freedom to instead help Tony Curtis, but according to James Baldwin, Black ticket buyers jeered this act of self-sacrifice.

Source: amazon.com

A Hollywood favorite, both of these were Oscar-nominated and The Defiant Ones received five more nominations, including for Best Picture, and won two Academy Awards (including for blacklisted screenwriter Ned Young, who used a pseudonym but was glimpsed in the opening credits).

Sidney played the crippled title character in Otto Preminger’s 1959 adaptation of the George Gershwin opera Porgy and Bess. He attained well-deserved acclaim for playing the chauffeur who yearns for a better life in 1961’s screen adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s “moving-on-up” Broadway hit A Raisin in the Sun.

That year, Poitier also co-starred with Paul Newman as expatriate jazz musicians who romance Diahann Carroll and Joanne Woodward in Paris Blues, directed and written by Martin Ritt and Walter Bernstein, who had both been blacklisted. Carroll pointedly reminds her expat beau that after their Parisian idyll, they eventually must return home to fight for their people’s rights.

In 1962’s Pressure Point, Poitier once again played a Black medical practitioner caring for a white racist, this time as a psychiatrist treating Bobby Darin’s imprisoned neo-Nazi.

In 1964—as LBJ was launching the Great Society—Poitier became the first Black performer to win a Best Actor Academy Award for a leading role and the first Black to win any Oscar since Hattie McDaniel had won for playing the slave-cum-servant Mammy in 1939’s Gone with the Wind.

As Homer Smith in 1963’s Lilies of the Field, Poitier is the lord’s servant, henpecked by nuns into building a chapel. Because they are celibate women of the cloth, handsome Sidney is allowed close proximity to these white females.

Source: wikipedia.org

But four years later, at the pinnacle of his stardom, Poitier was permitted to openly woo a white woman in Kramer’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? The year this tepid interracial romance was lensed, Sidney also starred in two other major releases, including as a teacher presiding over troubled white pupils from the slums of London’s East End in James Clavell’s pseudo-hip To Sir, with Love.

In 1967, Poitier had become the world’s number one box office star. Until that point, Poitier’s career trajectory had reflected the pro-integration, non-violent, Civil Rights Movement. But by 1967, as militants such as Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown and the Black Panthers vied with Dr. Martin Luther King for hegemony over the African-American masses, as civil disobedience competed with armed struggle. “Black Power” impacted movies, too.

In the third and best of the trilogy of Sidney’s 1967 productions, he played a Philadelphia detective who confronted Southern bigotry. Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won five, including for Best Picture, Best Writing and Best Actor for Rod Steiger.

There’s a key, compelling scene that has been repeatedly screened in TV tributes to Sidney after his death, wherein Poitier the tightrope walker transcended passive resistance, moved toward militancy and helped set the stage for the return of the Badass Brothers (who’d been banished from the screen by Griffith and his Klansmen in 1915) in militant and Blaxploitation pictures.

In this pivotal, singular sequence a prominent plantation owner slaps Poitier who, instead of just simply, subserviently taking it, slaps whitey back. When the powerful Endicott (Larry Gates) asks the police chief what he’s going to do about the blow, Steiger is staggered, at a loss as to how to react. It was the slap heard ’round the world, which may have cost Poitier another Oscar nomination but announced the emergence of a new movie militancy.

Poitier’s leftward-veering screen image reflected the offscreen Stokely vs. King, “The-Fire-Next-Time” vs. the “We-Shall-Overcome” dynamic and dialectic. As the title to Heat’ssequel suggests, Poitier insists upon his honorific—and, like Aretha, respect—in 1970’s They Call Me Mister Tibbs! Male Blacks are second-class “boys” no more. As the picket signs of protesters way down yonder in the land of cotton had been poignantly proclaiming: “I am a Man.”

The 1968 assassination of Reverend King and ensuing urban rebellions also marked the death knell of passive resistance as a viable tactic in the equal rights crusade. That same year, when the revolutionary H. Rap Brown (who famously said: “Violence… is as American as cherry pie”) became its Chairman, SNCC (which had already expelled all white members and staffers by 1967) changed its name from the Student NONVIOLENT Coordinating Committee to the Student NATIONAL Coordinating Committee.

Trying to stay timely and relevant, Poitier appeared in several movies with Black Power themes, although his characters were not necessarily militants per se. Carol Reed’s 1947 Odd Man Out IRA drama was adapted and updated, relocated to a Black militant milieu in Philadelphia in 1969’s The Lost Man. Poitier uses the activist group as a diversion in order to pull a heist.

When Poitier returns home in a small Southern town to attend his sister’s funeral in 1971’s Brother John, he is suspected of being an outside agitator from the North on a mission to incite Black folks. Instead, in a version of the “magical Negro” trope, this mystical movie reveals that John Kane is the messiah—and he’s Black! (Call it “Guess Who’s Second Coming to Dinner?”) In 1971 Sidney also reprised his role as Lt. Virgil Tibbs in The Organization, cooperating with a band of Black radicals to stop drug trafficking in the community.

While Poitier fights with a white lawman in Brother John, Melvin Van Peebles actually shoots and kills a Caucasian policeman for using excessive force as the title character in Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song in the actor/writer/director’s trendsetting militant movie made the same year as the tamer Brother John. Like Van Peebles’ 1970 Watermelon Man, both of these indies were far more militant than any of Poitier’s political pictures and openly advocated armed self-defense.

In 1975’s South Africa-set, Kenya-shot The Wilby Conspiracy, Poitier is an anti-apartheid activist teamed up with Michael Caine, a pairing reminiscent of The Defiant Ones. Sidney went on to portray Thurgood Marshall in the 1991 TV miniseries Separate But Equal and as Nelson Mandela opposite Michael Caine again in another South Africa-set production, the so-so 1997 made-for-TV movie Mandela and de Klerk.

Source: imdb.com

But Poitier never fully made the transition for the new Black Consciousness audience and its expectations. His smooth, middle class, integrationist image and oeuvre were too ingrained for more politically aware, nationalistic, militant moviegoers of the sizzling sixties and seventies, as the Black proletariat replaced the Black bourgeoisie.

Although Poitier continued to act, he started directing mass entertainment pictures that he sometimes also acted in and were particularly popular with African-American audiences, starting with the 1972 Western Buck and the Preacher, co-starring Harry Belafonte. Most of the nine movies Sidney helmed featured Black casts and were more lighthearted fare, comedies and/or shoot-’em-ups, starring actors such as Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, and also Gene Wilder.

Poitier’s movie moment as the top box office attraction for the Civil Rights period had passed as he became increasingly passe. The Blaxploitation genre largely stripped Sweetback of its political awareness while perpetuating some of Van Peebles’ empowering elements with muscular, sexualized, nitty-gritty characters such as Shaft, Superfly or “Dracula’s soul brother,” Blacula. With an eye on the dominant majority culture, which bought most movie tickets and financed all Hollywood productions, and only one foot in the changing Black community, the superstar never shed his turn-the-other-cheek, Civil Rights skin to successfully evolve into a more assertive, empowered persona that connected with theatergoers.

Poitier never resolved the contradictions engendered by a new “Black and Proud” nationalist sense of self and ethnic pride. And after the upsurge of the “We-Shall-Overcome” and Black Power periods from the 1950s to the 1970s had subsided, and Reaganism reigned, there was less of a demand for Black-themed films and stars. President Reagan’s racial rants about “welfare queens” replaced Blaxploitation characters such as Pam Grier as Coffy and Foxy Brown or Tamara Dobson as Cleopatra Jones or Vonetta McGee as Blacula’s wife and the Angela Davis-like political prisoner in 1977’s Brothers.

As the current iteration of America’s racial reckoning unfolds, it is up to Black artists of today, such as Daniel Kaluuya, who won an Oscar for portraying a Black Panther revolutionary in Judas and the Black Messiah, Michael B. Jordan who was in the Africa-set Black Panther superhero blockbuster, directors Spike Lee and Ava DuVernay, et al., to complete the image arc in the 21^st century that Sidney Poitier helped launch in 1950.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Ed Rampell is an L.A.-based film historian and critic who also also reviews culture, foreign affairs and current events. Ed can be reached at [email protected].

Featured image: Sidney Poitier in his glory days. [Source: achievement.org]

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

Near the entrance to the Black Sea.

Charles de Gaulle is the only nuclear aircraft in the world aside from the U.S.’s eleven.

The USS Bainbridge, USS Gonzalez, USS Gravely and USS Ross are Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers designed to fire Standard Missile 3 anti-ballistic missiles of the sort stationed in their so-called Aegis Ashore version in Romania and Poland. The USS Cole, USS Jason Dunham and USS San Jacinto are Ticonderoga-class cruisers are also equipped for Standard Missile 3 interceptors.

*

Below is an excerpt from the following article:

American, French, Italian Carrier Strike Groups Sail Together in the Mediterranean Sea

By U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa/U.S. Sixth Fleet Public Affairs

February 7, 2022

Naval forces from France, Italy and the U.S. sailed together while conducting naval training in the Mediterranean Sea, Feb. 6-7.

The Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group (HSTCSG) integrated with the French carrier Charles de Gaulle’s Task Force 473 and Italian carrier Cavour strike groups….

“The capabilities of a US aircraft carrier strike group are made stronger by operating alongside our allies and partners; and adding the French and Italian carrier teams provides an exciting chance to strengthen our interoperability together.”

The HSTCSG completed participation in the NATO-led activity Neptune Strike 22, Feb. 4, 2022. This activity involved the handover of the HSTCSG to NATO command and control, highlighting the natural evolution of NATO’s ability to integrate the high-end maritime warfare capabilities of a carrier strike group to support the defense of the Alliance.

The Italian aircraft carrier Cavour and elements of its associated carrier strike group also participated in Neptune Strike 22, strengthening their maritime partnership with both the U.S. and NATO. This partnership has shone through in other activities in recent months as well, as SIXTHFLT units participated in Italy’s Mare Aperto exercise in October 2021 and as American and Italian naval units continue to operate alongside one another bilaterally and through the NATO alliance on a routine basis.

***

“There are few nations that are able to operate carrier strike groups and this was a great opportunity to confirm the high level of integration.”

The Charles de Gaulle CSG departed Toulon, France, to begin its 14th deployment in the Mediterranean, Feb. 1. This deployment, named Clemenceau 22, brings together a variety of allied resources, including the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Ross.

***

The convergence of three allied aircraft carrier strike groups strengthens maritime integration by allowing naval crews and aircraft to operate in relatively close water and airspace…..

Elements of the strike group include the staff of Carrier Strike Group 8; flagship USS Harry S. Truman; the nine squadrons of Carrier Air Wing 1; the staff and guided-missile destroyers of Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 28, which include: USS Gonzalez , USS Bainbridge, USS Gravely ; the Royal Norwegian Navy’s Fridtjof-Nansen class frigate HNoMS Fridtjof Nansen deployed as part of the Cooperative Deployment Program; and the Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS San Jacinto. USS Coleand USS Jason Dunham are also part of the carrier strike group and currently supporting U.S. Fifth Fleet Area of Operations….

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Rick Rozoff, renowned author and geopolitical analyst, actively involved in opposing war, militarism and interventionism for over fifty years. He manages the Anti-Bellum and For peace, against war website.

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

Featured image is from U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa/U.S. Sixth Fleet Public Affairs

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

Its’ a “Globally orchestrated phenomenon” by the World Economic Forum.  

According to Kyle Kemper, The Covid Scam is there to facilitate a massive processes of wealth appropriation as outlined in  WEF’s Great Reset  

Below is an important interview with Justin Trudeau’s Brother, who has taken a firm stance against the Vaccine Mandate

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

In a little-known Reuters story that garnered almost no attention in the corporate media, Dutch insurer Aegon revealed its third quarter, 2021 life insurance payouts skyrocketed 258% compared to third quarter, 2020 payouts. The difference, of course, is found in covid vaccines. In 2020, vaccines weren’t yet available, so payouts for Aegon only reached $31 million. But after three quarters of aggressive vaccinations throughout 2021, the death benefit payouts hit $111 million, an increase of 258%.

From Reuters via Yahoo Finance:

Dutch insurer Aegon, which does two-thirds of its business in the United States, said its claims in the Americas in the third quarter were $111 million, up from $31 million a year earlier. U.S. insurers MetLife and Prudential Financial also said life insurance claims rose. South Africa’s Old Mutual used up more of its pandemic provisions to pay claims and reinsurer Munich Re raised its 2021 estimate of COVID-19 life and health claims to 600 million euros from 400 million.

Insurance companies are slowly coming to realize the truth about covid vaccines, even as the complicit, murderous mainstream tries to cover up the accelerating deaths. The death signals now emerging in the finances of insurance companies can’t simply be swept under the rug, and given that a 258% increase was recorded for Q3, 2021, it begs the obvious question: How much worse will this be for Q4, 2021? Or Q1, 2022?

On any “normal” (pre-covid) day in America, about 7,700 people die. If those deaths rise by 100%, that means an extra 7,700 people are dying each day. Multiply that over one year, and it’s an additional 2.8 million deaths. Note this is for merely a 100% increase in deaths.

Aegon is reporting a 258% increase in payouts on life insurance policies. Although Aegon doesn’t insure the entire country, obviously, this data point should be raising alarms among those people paying attention. If we start to consistently see something like a 200% increase in all-cause mortality, that would mean an extra 15,000+ people are dying each day in America. That’s a vaccine holocaust playing out in real time.

Truth be told, we’re probably at that point right now. The data sets just haven’t caught up yet with the reality of what’s happening in February, 2022. Cancer death rates have almost certainly doubled in 2021 and are headed for even higher numbers in 2022, but the cancer industry — dominated by pharma interests — will of course bury the numbers as long as possible to avoid anyone asking questions of why so many people are dying from cancer all of a sudden.

(The answer is obvious: It’s the mRNA vaccines.)

So not only do we have an actual vaccine holocaust taking place in America right now, we have a cover-up being run by all the complicit, murderous parties, including Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Media and Big Government. They’re all in on it. They’re all mass murderers, and they’re all working to cover this up as long as possible so they can coerce even more people into committing vaccine suicide before the body count becomes undeniable.

That’s the level of evil we’re dealing with in society right now, and it’s all being run under the banner of “science.”

Under this dangerous death cult of “science,” the whole world is supposed to pretend that covid vaccines are halting infectious, transmission and hospitalizations, all while looking the other way when so many vaccinated people prematurely die. Israel, at a 96.2% vaccination rate across the population, is now leading the world in covid cases per capita. This proves the vaccine has the opposite effect that we were promised in the name of “science.” In fact, the more a country vaccinates its people, the higher covid cases rise.

That’s because, of course, the vaccine is the pandemic. Covid would be over by now if not for the vaccines continuing to inject people with spike protein bioweapons that cause organ failure and death. It’s no coincidence that vaccine injury symptoms are then categorized as “covid” by the corrupt, murderous medical establishment that receives financial kickbacks from the government for killing people with ventilators and remdesivir.

The Hershey company

The Hershey company, meanwhile, is firing all its unvaccinated employees, confirming that it is an evil corporation that denies faith-based exemptions from deadly vaccines. As The Epoch Times reports:

“I really thought I’d be OK,” Kim Durham, a payment analyst and sourcing buyer, told The Epoch Times. “I thought, you cannot question my faith. Nobody can question that.”

Durham asked for a religious accommodation in August and assumed she would get it.

“I thought this was behind me until September when I met with an HR representative. It was an interrogation on your religious beliefs. They twisted your words and tried to put words in your mouth. It was terrible. I was asked such personal questions that had nothing to do with religion.”

She was shocked when, in November, she received word that her request for religious accommodation had been denied.

Everyone interviewed mentioned being troubled by similar questions during the meetings, usually held with an immediate supervisor and someone from HR, such as:

Have you ever been vaccinated? Are your children vaccinated? How do you protect yourself when you leave your home? How often do you go to church? Do you take Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Tums, or Midol?

So the Hershey company, which sells low-grade processed, sugar-filled candy bars that promote diabetes and obesity, is interrogating employees over whether they take Tums? And if they take Tums, they’re not allowed to object to spike protein mRNA injections?

****

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

In February of 2010, the New York Times released a front page story entitled, “Research Ties Diabetes Drug to Heart Woes.” The lede read:

Hundreds of people taking Avandia, a controversial diabetes medicine, needlessly suffer heart attacks and heart failure each month, according to confidential government reports that recommend the drug be removed from the market.

The Times piece quoted an internal F.D.A. report that said the GlaxoSmithKline diabetes drug Avandia, also known as Rosiglitazone, was “linked” to 304 deaths in 2009, adding the conclusion of the two doctors who authored the report: “Rosiglitazone should be removed from the market.” The story was released in advance of a Senate Finance Committee study that produced a series of damning internal documents, including one in which an FDA safety officer expressed concern that Avandia presented such serious cardiovascular risks that “the safety of the study itself cannot be assured, and is not acceptable.”

One of the chief investigators on that study was Paul Thacker, at the time a committee aide under Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley. Multi-year document hauls like the Avandia report were Thacker’s stock in trade. I first met him around then because his committee frequently dealt with financial crisis issues I covered. Thacker, who went on to contribute to a number of commercial and academic journals, was trained in a tradition of bipartisan committee reporting that relies heavily on documents and on-the-record testimony, i.e. the indisputable stuff both sides are comfortable backing.

Thacker has an in-your-face style and a dark sense of humor, and talking to him can feel like being lost in a Bill Hicks routine, but his information is good. In his years in the Senate, his job was publicizing damaging information about the world’s most litigious companies. Certain Washington jobs require a healthy fear of the $1000-an-hour lawyers that every Fortune 500 company has on speed dial, and Thacker has always retained the Beltway investigator’s usefully paranoid approach to publishing.

“I know how to do these things,” he says. “I know how to work with whistleblowers.”

It was more than a little surprising, then, when Thacker’s name appeared in the middle of a bizarre international fact-checking controversy. In an article for one of the world’s oldest academic outlets, the British Medical Journal, Thacker wrote a piece entitled, “Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial.”

He did what he’d done countless times, shepherding into print the tale of an apparent whistleblower with an unsettling story. Brook Jackson worked for a Texas firm called Ventavia that conducted a portion of the research trials for Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine. This is the same vaccine that Thacker himself, who now lives in Spain and is married to a physician, had taken.

After going through both legal and peer review, but without contacting Ventavia — apparently, they feared an injunction — the BMJ published Thacker’s piece on November 2nd, 2021. The money passage read:

A regional director who was employed at the research organization Ventavia Research Group has told The BMJ that the company falsified data, unblinded patients, employed inadequately trained vaccinators, and was slow to follow up on adverse events reported in Pfizer’s pivotal phase III trial.

Beginning on November 10th, 2021, the editors began receiving complaints from readers, who said they were having difficulty sharing it. As editors Fiona Godlee and Kamran Abbassi later wrote in an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg:

Some reported being unable to share it. Many others reported having their posts flagged with a warning about “Missing context … Independent fact-checkers say this information could mislead people.” Those trying to post the article were informed by Facebook that people who repeatedly share “false information” might have their posts moved lower in Facebook’s News Feed. Group administrators where the article was shared received messages from Facebook informing them that such posts were “partly false.”

Facebook has yet to respond to queries about this piece. Meanwhile, the site that conducted Facebook’s “fact check,” Lead Stories, ran a piece dated November 10th whose URL used the term “hoax alert” (Lead Stories denies they called the BMJ piece a hoax). Moreover, they deployed a rhetorical device that such “checking” sites now use with regularity, repeatedly correcting assertions Thacker and the British Medical Journal never made. This began with the title: “The British Medical Journal Did NOT Reveal Disqualifying And Ignored Reports Of Flaws In Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Trials.”

The British Medical Journal never said Jackson’s story revealed “disqualifying flaws” in the vaccine. Nor did it claim the negative information “calls into question the results of the Pfizer clinical trial.” It also didn’t claim that the story is “serious enough to discredit data from the clinical trials.” The BMJ’s actual language said Jackson’s story could “raise questions about data integrity and regulatory oversight,” which is true.

The real issue with Thacker’s piece is that it went viral and was retweeted by the wrong people. As Lead Stories noted with marked disapproval, some of those sharers included the likes of Dr. Robert Malone and Robert F. Kennedy. To them, this clearly showed that the article was bad somehow, but the problem was, there was nothing to say the story was untrue.

In a remarkable correspondence with BMJ editors, Lead Stories editor Alan Duke explained that the term “missing context” was invented by Facebook:

To deal with content that could mislead without additional context but which was otherwise true or real… Sometimes Facebook’s messaging about the fact checking labels can sound overly aggressive and scary. If you have an issue with their messaging you should indeed take it up with them as we are unable to change any of it.

“Missing context” has become a term to disparage reporting that is true but inconvenient. As Thacker notes in the Q&A below, “They’re checking narrative, not fact.”

The significance of the British Medical Journal story is that it showed how easily reporting that is true can be made to look untrue or conspiratorial. The growing bureaucracy of “fact-checking” sites that help platforms like Facebook decide what to flag is now taking into account issues like: the political beliefs of your sources, the presence of people of ill repute among your readers, and the tendency of audiences to draw unwanted inferences from the reported facts. All of this can now become part of how authorities do or do not define reporting as factual.

“But that’s not a fact check,” says Thacker. “You just don’t like the story.”

The BMJ story is about a woman, Jackson, who was fired shortly after complaining of sloppy practices to the F.D.A. and also to Pfizer. Ventavia claims her firing was unconnected to her official complaint — “Ventavia was not aware of a complaint made to the FDA until we saw it on Twitter in early November of 2021,” they told me. They also contest other aspects of her story:

These same accusations were made a year ago, at which time Ventavia notified the appropriate parties. The allegations were investigated and determined to be unsubstantiated.

I asked Ventavia who these “appropriate parties” were, and who conducted the investigation. At this, they brought in an outside PR consultant who asked for more time to answer, but ultimately decided not to answer further.

It’s not easy to see how the firm can claim the allegations were “unsubstantiated,” since Jackson supplied the BMJ with documents, photos, and recordings. Also, a number of the article’s claims were backed up, directly or indirectly, by other former employees. One, admittedly unnamed, told Thacker about the Pfizer trial, “I don’t think it was good clean data… It’s a crazy mess.”

The British Medical Journal didn’t publish all of the potentially damaging information. In one recorded meeting, to which I was allowed to listen, a senior Ventavia executive tells Jackson he knows the trial situation is a “cleanup on aisle five. And we know that it’s significant.”

In that same meeting, in which Jackson seems to be quizzed by two of the company’s top executives about whether or not she might have shared her concerns outside the company (“What have you done?” she’s asked), there’s another bizarre exchange.

“We haven’t even finished quantifying the number of errors, and categorizing the types of errors that we’re seeing. In my mind, it looks like it’s something new every day,” one of the executives says to her.

Obviously, Jackson’s story by itself doesn’t suggest the Pfizer vaccine didn’t work, or contain proof of damaging side effects. However, her story does suggest that the subcontractors hired by Pfizer to conduct its trials were and are, at best, incautious. In one meeting, an executive talks about seeing “exposed, used needles thrown into biohazard bags” instead of sharps containers as required. There is also information about breaking protocol on blinding, failing to follow up properly with subjects experiencing adverse reactions, mislabeling specimens, and other problems.

Whether about maintenance issues at American Airlines or a bank employee’s reports about the pooling and marketing of defective mortgages, such “bad practices” reporting has long been a staple of investigative journalism. Previously, the idea of spiking or flagging such reports on the grounds that they might have convinced some people not to fly or use banks would have been laughable. Having done many of thesestories myself, I’m familiar with demands for “missing context,” but always from a corporate defense lawyer or a political spokesperson. That it’s coming from media gatekeepers now is crazy.

Lead Stories eventually wrote a second piece entitled, “Why Lead Stories Fact Checked the BMJ,” which complained that a variety of sites ranging from the Conservative Beaver to Natural News to The Free Thought Project had written fake or misleading stories based upon the BMJ piece. This second article also complained Robert F. Kennedy’s site, The Defender, republished the piece.

Worse, they wrote, Kennedy had republished three other Thacker stories, with titles like “New WHO Group to Look Into Pandemic Origins Dogged by Alleged Conflicts of Interest” and “The covid-19 lab leak hypothesis: did the media fall victim to a misinformation campaign?” This is how Lead Stories phrased their complaint:

This was not the first BMJ piece from Thacker copied by the Defender this way. The site has an entire author profile page for him with the oldest article listed dating back to July 2021.

Were there factual issues with any of those other pieces? If so, Lead Stories didn’t indicate any. The mere fact that Robert F. Kennedy liked previous Thacker stories was the apparent issue. Lead Stories also took issue with the fact that Thacker thanked Dr. Robert Malone on Twitter for highlighting the BMJ response to their fact check. You can’t see the whole exchange, because of course Twitter has since zapped Malone’s account:

I am the reporter who wrote that investigation for The BMJ about the whistleblower on Pfizer's clinical trial.

That fact check was nonsense and incompetent.

Thank you for sending this around.

— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) December 25, 2021

I asked Duke if he believes who reads or retweets an article bears upon its factuality. “Who does or does not retweet or read something has no bearing on the factuality,” he conceded. “But it can reveal important clues about how it is received or understood.”

Another apparent source of “clues” about a piece of factual reporting? The political views of the sources. These passages are from the first Lead Stories “fact check”:

“On Twitter, Jackson does not express unreserved support for COVID vaccines…”

Elsewhere on Twitter, the Brook Jackson account wrote that vaccination makes sense if a person is in a high-risk category and called a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the Biden Administration’s vaccine mandates “HUGE!”

I asked Duke if Jackson’s failure to express “unreserved support” for vaccines, or if her agreement with the roughly half of Americans who opposed Biden’s mandate plan, had bearing on the factuality of the story. If they didn’t, why was this information in the piece? Was the suggestion that she fabricated documents and photographs because she doesn’t like mandates? Lead Stories has not yet responded, but I’ll update the piece as they do.

It goes without saying that in this environment, any negative information about Pfizer, or any report of issues with the company’s trials, is likely to be upheld as meaningful by people suspicious of the vaccine. That does not mean one gets to exonerate companies based upon audience reaction. Are we now saying that anything Robert Kennedy Jr. or Robert Malone finds newsworthy is suspect? By this method, we’re taking stories that aren’t “anti-vax” by any rational standard, and making them anti-vax by association.

This new “fact-checking” standard bastardizes the whole idea of reporting. It’s also highly convenient for corporations like Pfizer, which incidentally have extensive records of regulatory violations. As Thacker details below, firms have successfully manipulated reporters and Internet platforms into seeing a binary reality in which all critics are conspiracy theorists.

“We don’t have main and minor [points of view] anymore,” he says. “What we have is truth, and conspiracy.”

After the BMJ episode, a “Missing context” flag should be understood for what it is: an intellectual warning label for true but politically troublesome information.

Thacker has written for, and been a source for, both conservative and mainstream outlets. A year ago he was writing an article in The Daily Beast that was widely shared by center-left audiences because it suggested Pharma companies had undue influence on Donald Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed.” He now has his own site on Substack, the Disinformation Chronicle, that continues his career-long focus on malfeasance involving companies that produce pharmaceuticals, genetically modified food, and other products. I talked to him about the BMJ mess:

Matt Taibbi: How much experience with this type of story do you have?

Paul Thacker: I’ve done investigations for about 15 years involving corruption in science. I did investigations of the pharmaceutical industry for about three years in the Senate Finance Committee. These were big investigations. Avandia was the best-selling drug for diabetes on the planet then, a $3 billion a year product. When the final report came out, the Swiss bank UBS said GlaxoSmithKline faced $6 billion in litigation exposure. So, I know how to do these things, and I know how to work with whistleblowers.

Taibbi: Is part of the story about how easy it is to get into the business of doing clinical trials, and how little oversight there is in this world?

Thacker: There’s a lot of money in this type of research. If you can get a doctor to sign on and say that he’s going to be the physician for your research company, you can basically start one of these research groups in America. That’s how it works.

Jackson realizes the place is just kind of a mess. She thinks, “I’m going to fix this.” But then she realizes also, you’re not supposed to say there are problems. But their own internal emails speak to this.

One internal email that went out essentially said, “We can’t keep up.” She started taking pictures. One of the things she found was that they were putting sharps in a plastic bag. You’re supposed to put them in what’s called a sharps container.

What the fact-checker sites came back with was, “Well that doesn’t mean anything about data.” Which is true. But it tells you something. I worked in a lab before I went into journalism, doing research at Emory University, and I knew how to handle sharps. I looked at it sort of like that old trick that restaurant reviewers will use, checking out the bathroom. If the bathroom is fucking dirty, what do you think the kitchen is like?

She got scared and started making recordings. In one, they brought her into a room to counsel her for doing her job and finding problems. In this conversation, one of the guys, he says in the interview, “Look, we know it’s a cleanup on aisle five. And we know it’s significant.” He called it a cleanup on aisle five! Fucking ridiculous. They didn’t put that in the BMJ because that’s an American saying. So I had it in the story but they took out the idiom because it’s a very American thing.

Taibbi: How unusual would a lack of a response from the FDA be, and did that happen here? [Note: the FDA has not responded to queries]

Thacker: She realizes, “No one’s listening to me.” So she files a complaint with the FDA, lays out like 12 different problems she’s encountered there. Later that afternoon Ventavia calls her up and fires her, and says that it’s not a good fit. She notified Pfizer, so Pfizer knew. Pfizer turns back around, and if you look them up, they hired Ventavia to do other clinical trials for them. The FDA never goes and inspects.

Now, there’s no regulatory response, but the company was expecting one. I’ll read from an email that Ventavia sent out about a week before she was fired. It says:

I’ll say it again here, it’s not a matter of IF the FDA is coming, it’s a matter of when the FDA is coming. And they are coming soon. This is the biggest clinical trial in the entire world and we are a top enroller.

And then here it’s like all bold, underlines, all caps.

THE FDA IS COMING SOON, in a matter of days, if I had to make a guess.

They were in a fucking panic, man. [The original documents are on Thacker’s Disinformation Chronicle site].

Taibbi: When did you first hear about a potential problem with the “fact check”?

Thacker: I was ignoring it at first. I thought, “How are they going to fact check this?” I’ve dealt with this before. The smartest people in terms of finding error are the fucking lawyers working for the drug companies. There’s an army of those people who will go through and find anything that’s out of order and throw it up in the air. And they couldn’t find anything here. So what issue could there possibly be?

Then I went to the “fact check,” and it was just insane. It looked like it’d been written by high school students. It describes the British Medical Journal as a “blog.” I was joking with my editors about how they work. They pick some proposition out of the blue and then they debunk it, and it’s like, “Aha, win!” Bullshit. It’s like, “Did the BMJ prove that the vaccine kills Martians? No! Fact check: wrong.” And you’re thinking, “Wait, what?”

Here’s what they do. They’re not fact checking facts. What they’re doing is checking narratives. They can’t say that your facts are wrong, so it’s like, “Aha, there’s no context.” Or, “It’s misleading.” But that’s not a fact check. You just don’t like the story.

Taibbi: How new is this phenomenon? If there was one, when did the change happen?

Thacker: Here’s what always happened in America previously. You got a big, broad look. In science and in the media, we would always have a main narrative or a main theory. And then around that, within science, there would be other minor theories, other alternative viewpoints. The New York Times would have something. On the left, the New Republic had a view, and on the right you’d get the National Review. They’re reexamining it, but they don’t change the facts.

Well, we don’t have main and minor anymore. What we have is truth, and conspiracy. Or vax, and anti-vax. There are only two possibilities you can go through. Do you know where you find that kind of black-white thinking? In people who have major personality disorders. And psychopaths. Psychopaths and people with narcissistic personality disorder engage in black-white thinking. America right now is in this weird situation in which it’s a country that to the outside looks psychopathic or disordered.

Taibbi: Have you seen this phenomenon in other big news stories?

Thacker: What’s happened with this pandemic is the same shit that happened with the 2008 meltdown. People were like, “Well, how the fuck did this happen? We didn’t see it coming.” And then you find out later: maybe it’s because all these fucking reporters are in bed with these guys in Wall Street and see them as the masters of the universe, and don’t cover them very effectively, because they think they’re fucking awesome.

Taibbi: It’s similar also in the respect that the safety and compliance procedures are flawed inside these companies, yet the reporters don’t want to go near those stories, because they’re afraid of upsetting sources.

Thacker: The people we have, I don’t call reporters. I call them science writers. The people who write for Science, Nature, Scientific American, these are people who write forscience, not on science. They see their job as telling you how fucking awesome science is. That’s what they do for a living.

That’s in part what’s going on with this story about Pfizer. It’s the same shit that has been going on with these goddamn vaccines. Because if you watch and see what happened when these vaccines rolled out, you would see there’d be a story in The New York Times about, “Pfizer announces,” or “Pfizer Expected To Ask for Authorization,” blah, blah, blah. And then about four or five paragraphs, you go down and you realize: “Wait, this is just a Pfizer press release.” This isn’t a study or anything. This is a Pfizer press release. You just reported a fucking press release as a news story.

They do press release journalism. You can argue that’s good or bad, but what that does — and no one talks about this — is it creates all this social pressure on the FDA for approval. It creates all this expectancy amongst the public that the product is coming. So, by the time you go in front of an FDA panel for authorization, it’s already been churned up in the media, they’ve got a month of positive press.

They’ve been running this game from the beginning. They’re just much better at it now.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from the author

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were maverick outsiders unacceptable to the ruling elite. In his new book, States of Emergency, Kees Van Der Pijl explains how the establishment got rid of both. The ruling elite’s effort to remove Trump with Russiagate and impeachment failed.

Had the plan to steal the election also failed, everything was ready for Trump to be removed by the military. Sanders was twice undermined by the elite, with the Democrat nomination going first to Hillary Clinton and then to Joe Biden, two reliable puppets of the establishment.

In chapter 3, “Restructuring the Ruling Class in the IT Revolution,” Van Der Pijl explains in the section,

“The Coup Against Trump,” that Federal Continuity Directive 1 was issued a few days prior to Trump’s inauguration and served as a basis for a military coup to remove Trump from office. The directive provided the military the authority to take over the government “in the event that a US administration would fail to ‘demonstrate leadership that is visible to the nation and the world and preserve the confidence of the American people.’”

The elite’s propaganda organs then started on Trump. First there was Russiagate. Then Impeachgate. As the second term election approached, letters from retired generals were printed saying that if Trump contested the election he had to be removed by the military.

Trump’s Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, ignored Trump’s order to use the Insurrection Act to put down the widespread destruction and looting that comprised the George Floyd protests. General James Mattis, Esper’s predecessor,

“called Black Lives Matter a healthy and unifying force and pointed to the lack of mature leadership in the White House.”

Generals denounced Trump for wanting to use the military against the people although the Continuity in Government procedure designed to be implemented by the military in the event of widespread disturbances in support of Trump does precisely that. DefeatDisinfo.org run by retired General Stanley McChrystal went to work discrediting all of Trump’s statements about Covid. Critics accused Trump of spreading disinformation about Covid and questioned Trump’s authority as president. Social, print, and TV media denied President Trump and his supporters forums.

The discredited president was an easy target for a coup, which was a certainty had the theft of the election not succeeded. The ruling elite used the orchestrated “Trump insurrection” to stop the January 6 examination by Congress of the evidence of election theft, and has prosecuted hundreds of Trump supporters as insurrectionists and domestic terrorists. You can bet your life that all future presidential candidates got the message.

Van Der Pijl sees the orchestrated “Trump insurrection” as essentially a color revolution that is

“a further step toward the conversion of the US into an authoritarian state, which in the aftermath of 9/11 had already taken a huge step forward with the Patriot Act.”

Another big step was taken with the “Covid pandemic.” In chapter 4 Van Der Pijl describes “the virus scenario as the basis for a seizure of power.”

People without understanding are sitting ducks for tyranny. Van Der Pijl gives you information. If enough Americans can pass from insouciance to understanding, our freedom can survive.

Readers will be surprised to find a leftwinger giving Trump a fair shake. Van Der Pijl is one of the well educated and thoughtful old European left. He understands that this is not a left-right issue. It is no longer the capitalists against the workers. It is the elite against the people, and he stands with the people.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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.

Featured image is from Amazon

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

There must be some powerful subconscious process at work throughout a large swathe of the population to cause such a high percentage to do what they are told, in spite of the fact that what they are told to do lacks any practical justification or logical explanation and is highly likely to harm them.

Examples abound. One of the most stark is ‘the great Covid mask wearing scam’. Why would anyone go along with the order to wear such a mask? With the minimal amount of research one would instantly recognise it to be a useless bit of cloth/paper that restricts one’s breathing and makes one look like a criminal. 

Why would anyone trust and follow the advice of a politician who demonstrates no understanding of that which he demands his constituents conform to?

How could anyone capable of independent thought  – without even stopping to reflect – consider that some editorial in the corporate backed mainstream media represents the voice of reason?

Why would anyone unquestioningly fall in line with an announcement on the BBC telling viewers to denounce someone who chooses not to vaccine herself? And so forth and so on.

Deep in our psyches there must be a strong predetermined need to conform. To choose ‘political correctness’ and uncritical obeisance to the instructions of authority figures and so called ‘experts’. Something that causes people to fall on their knees to a certain kind of figurehead, without ever bothering to check the authenticity of that person’s proclamations.

It is particularly apparent how TV exerts such an instantly subversive effect on people’s judgement. “I saw him on TV!”says the exited being justifying his reason for giving special importance to the words and views of that individual. It’s enough that this person ‘appeared’ on the hallowed screen.

To appear on TV gives someone an instantly superior status to someone of a similar standing who doesn’t. 

The authenticity of the TV company or journalist is rarely questioned. National TV stations have developed a carefully crafted ‘aura of authority’ and those who appear on them are elevated into a category of ‘important’ even if what they say is sheer gibberish.

Like the reaction to the doctor in his white coat and stethoscope – the majority appear to lose all sense of balance when this mythic figure comes through the door and says “What seems to be the problem?”

This form of obeisance to authority is age old. And one of its key authority icons is a figurehead called ‘god’.

How many reading this were raised on a diet of Old and New Testaments?  The old one, as I recall, was chock-full of pronouncements by a highly dictatorial god. An authority particularly keen on vengeance and war, who used ‘fear of disobedience’ to ensure that his lofty position was never under serious threat.

It was hard not to feel a sense of awe concerning this god’s seemingly omniscient powers.

Then moving on, we find this same highly authoritarian figure punishing Adam and Eve for having dared to take a bite from a particularly alluring apple. ‘The forbidden fruit.’ Something this god had specifically ordered them not to do “Do not eat from the tree of knowledge” said he.

Now why on earth would he give that order? Nature surely gave that apple a special aura, a natural attraction that would appeal directly to one’s taste buds and sense of curiosity – God given gifts of every human being, after all.  And if this apple also grew on ‘the tree of knowledge’, well, one would be doubly tempted to pluck it and take a bite. Well I would – wouldn’t you?

But oh, what disaster – Adam and Eve had the timerity to disobey the authority of some heavenly control freak – and got the boot from the Garden of Eden. What Adam and Eve were subsequently accused of is referred to as ‘the original sin’. But is it a sin to to defy the word of some irrational god who wants to control the behaviour of two prototypes of humanity?

The whole tribe of man has been suffering under the yoke of this false ‘proclamation of guilt’ ever since.[1]

I see here a powerful myth which, to this day, works on the psyche of those who follow the commands of those deemed to be ‘higher’ than them. Adam and Eve, for me, were the first properly documented practitioners of ‘civil disobedience’. There is something distinctly heroic about their defiance of ‘the word of god’.

In this bold act I recognise a very necessary breaking out from a state (and place) of child like innocence in which one’s ‘freedom’ is dependent upon unquestioningly obeying the father figure and having no true mind of one’s own. We are talking about adults, not children.

Yet all around are those who appear to have not yet discovered that they have a mind of their own, especially when coming-up against those who get up on their political pedestals to declare “You must vaccinate yourself”. “You must not leave your home”. “You must be afraid of Covid”. “You must trust us.”

What about to trust yourself? Who is advising one to do this?

To trust one’s self is to trust one’s powers of discernment. To trust one’s intuition, one’s ability to be aware – and one’s ability to say ‘NO’.

That ‘self’ which you grow to trust above all else, is a conduit of cosmic consciousness, a fragment of the divine. By getting on good terms with this ‘self’ you discover that you are following the path of truth and thereby overcoming the fake authority figures who want you to buy their lie and abandon your precious freedom for their deadly protection.

At this very moment hundreds of millions are finding in themselves this treasure and learning to trust it. What’s more they are finding themselves attracted to the same richness in others – and are getting together as part of a powerful global resistance movement.

It is this movement that is destined to topple the sterile gods from their hollow narcissistic thrones.

For those who are addicted to bowing to the fake gods, this is going to be a rough ride. Freedom involves using one’s mind; taking responsibility; forming creative relationships and becoming a mature human being.

Those fearful of moving down this road will thus remain trapped in their less than human slavery. But once their dark protectors have been forced to flee by the rising tide of manifest truth – where will they hide?

The turning point for most comes at the moment our comfort zone diversions have all but dried up.

When the chimeric ‘authority’ we allowed to run the show is no longer there to be blamed for a continual backward slide into slavery, a void opens-up. A void which those addicted to the old fake order will find themselves a part of.

While those already freed from compromised dependency on the rules of the matrix, will come together, joined in the liberating pursuit of encouraging the manifestation an enlightened new era. Those who have been through the fire and come out the other side freed from illusion.

Covid has done us a favour. It has given us the chance to finally face our delusional addictions and to see that ‘the authorities’ pushing this egregious lie are nothing more or less than the hired hands of a Lucifer infected criminal cabal.

If we want never to be fooled again we have to be fully cured from the contagion of deference to false gods and sickly bowing to fake authorities.

The time has come to unsheath our swords, cast out the demons and regain our self respect – as warriors of Truth.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer, international activist, entrepreneur and holistic teacher.  He is President of The International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside. His latest book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ is particularly recommended reading for this time: see www.julianrose.info

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[1] See Overcoming the Robotic Mind – chapter: ‘Original Sin – A Myth Whose Time Is Up’

Featured image is from Anti-Empire

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

Forward this article. Global Research is Censored by Google. Spread the Truth. 

***

They rolled up on Ottawa’s Parliament Hill like one of the plagues in the Book of Revelations, honking their infernal air horns, the grills of their tractors grinning demonically, the sides of their dry vans painted with blasphemies like

“FREEDOM TO CHOOSE,”

“MANDATE FREEDOM,”

“NO VACCINE MANDATES,” and

“UNITED AGAINST TYRANNY.”

Yes, that’s right, New Normal Canada has been invaded and now is under siege by hordes of transphobic Putin-Nazi truckers, racist homophobes, anti-Semitic Islamaphobes, and other members of the working classes!

According to the corporate media, these racist, Russia-backed, working-class berserkers are running amok through the streets of Ottawa,

waving giant “swastika flags, (Guardian)

”defecating on war memorials,

sacking multi-million-dollar “soup kitchens,”

and eating the food right out of homeless people’s mouths.

Rumor has it, a kill-squad of truckers has been prowling the postnatal wards of hospitals, looking for Kuwaiti babies to yank out of their incubators.

I know, this is Canada, so that sounds a little dubious, but this has all been thoroughly fact-checked by the fact checkers at the New Normal Ministry of Truth … you know, the ones that fact-checked Russiagate, and the Attempted Putin-Nazi Insurrection of January 6 at the US Capitol, and the safety and effectiveness of the Covid “vaccines,” and the masks, and the inflated Covid statistics, and the rest of the official Covid narrative.

Or just take it from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau …

Now, this is the actual prime minister of Canada, not just some woke fanatic on Twitter.

He was tweeting from his fortified Covid Bunker in an undisclosed location somewhere in the Yukon, or possibly the United States, where he fled as the transphobic Putin-Nazi truckers rolled up outside his office in Ottawa.

Trudeau had vowed to stand and fight, but he had no choice but to flee the capital after he mysteriously tested positive for Covid (which also might have been the work of the Russians, possibly the same professional team of weed-smoking, hooker-banging Novichok assassins that got to the Skripals back in 2018).

Russian involvement has not yet been confirmed by the ex-CIA and NSA officials posing as “analysts” on CNN, but according to the CBC, “there’s concern that Russian actors could be continuing to fuel things as the protest grows, and perhaps even instigating it from the outset.”

And, in light of the exposure of Putin’s plot to produce a “very graphic” false-flag video “involving the deployment of corpses” as a pretext to invade the Ukraine and set off nuclear Armageddon, or at least a raft of economic sanctions and DEFCON 1-level bellicose verbiage, it’s possible that the entire “Covid pandemic” was an elaborate Putin-Nazi ruse designed to bring down the Trudeau government, and sabotage the implementation of the New Normal global-segregation system, and the compulsory mRNA “vaccination” of every man, woman, and child on earth, and “democracy,” and transgender rights … or whatever.

But, seriously, this is where we are at the moment. We are in that dangerous, absurdist end-stage of the collapse of a totalitarian system or movement where chaos reigns and anything can happen.

The official Covid narrative is rapidly evaporating. More and more people are taking to the streets to demand an end to whole fascist charade … no, not “transphobic white supremacists” or “anti-vax extremists,” or “Russian-backed Nazis,” but working-class people of all colors and creeds, families, with children, all over the world.

The Covidian Cult has lost control. Even hardcore mask-wearing, social-distancing, triple-vaxxed-double-boosted members are defecting. Formerly fanatical New Normal fascists are mass-deleting their 2020 tweets and switching uniforms as fast as they can. No, it isn’t over yet, but the jig is up, and GloboCap knows it. And their functionaries in government know it.

And therein lies the current danger.

There is a narrow window — a month or two, maybe — for governments to declare “victory over the virus” and roll back their segregation systems, mask-wearing mandates, “vaccine” mandates, and the rest of the so-called “Covid restrictions.” Many governments are already doing so, England, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Ireland, etc. They have seen which way the wind is blowing, and they are rushing to dismantle the New Normal in their countries before … well, you know, before a convoy of angry truckers arrives at their doors.

If they let that happen, they will find themselves in the unenviable position that Trudeau is now in. The Canadian truckers appear to be serious about staying there until their demands are met, which means Trudeau only has two options: (1) give in to the truckers’ demands, or (2) attempt to remove them by force. There’s already talk about bringing in the military. Imagine what an unholy mess that would be. Odds are, the military would disobey his orders, and, if not, the world would be treated to the spectacle of full-blown New Normal Fascism in action.

Either way, Trudeau is history, as long as the truckers stand their ground. I pray they do not give an inch, and I hope the leaders of other New Normal countries, like Australia, Germany, Austria, Italy, and France, are paying close attention.

Some of my readers will probably remember a previous column in which I wrote:

“This isn’t an abstract argument over ‘the science.’ It is a fight … a political, ideological fight. On one side is democracy, on the other is totalitarianism. Pick a fucking side, and live with it.”

This is it. This is that fight. It is not a protest. It is a game of chicken. A high-stakes game of political chicken. In the end, politics comes down to power. The power to force your will on your adversary. GloboCap has been forcing the New Normal on people around the world for the past two years. What we are witnessing in Canada is the power of the people, the power the people have always had, and which we will always have, when we decide to use it … the power to shut down the whole GloboCap show, city after city if necessary.

So get out there and support the Canadian transphobic Putin-Nazi truckers … or your local transphobic Putin-Nazi truckers. Don’t worry if you don’t have a swastika flag. The agents provocateurs and the official propagandists in the corporate media will take care of that!

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

All images in this article are from Twitter via Consent Factory, Inc.

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

In latest developments, the Movement is Spreading Across Canada,

Demonstrations in solidarity with the  “Freedom Convoy” have unfolded across Canada, in Toronto, Quebec City and Vancouver.

The Trudeau Government does not have a leg to Stand On.  “Indefinite Quarantine for Justice Trudeau”. It’s a Big Lie.

All  Covid Mandates must be be  immediately suspended.  

The evidence is overwhelming. 

Consult Global Research Articles to Get the Truth on the Covid Crisis. 

Our thoughts today are with The Truckers of Freedom Convoy 2022

M. Ch.  Global Research, February 7, 2022

***

Freedom Convoy Leadership Update – Address to the Nation at 7:00pm on February 6, 2020.

Ottawa Mayor declared a state of emergency. How Ottawa Police taking the convoy fuel and occupying the convoy tents does not impact the Freedom Convoy logistics.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

Dr. Peter McCullough talks about the fallout from his bombshell interview on the Joe Rogan Experience: celebrities have left or are threatening to leave Spotify because they’re angry Rogan interviewed guests like him who they say are spreading covid disinformation.

McCullough has also been fraudulently fact-checked by several media outlets and says he’s willing to have a public discussion with any pro-vax expert as credentialed as he is but so far has no takers.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on The Whistleblower Newsroom.

Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

Belarus since Monday, in response to the blocking of the transit of potash fertiliser through the Baltic port of Klaipėda, lowered the barrier against trains with Lithuanian petroleum products and fertilizers, especially those going to Ukraine. For several days now, economists and policymakers in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius have been counting possible economic losses due to their transit war with Belarus. The current crisis in the relations between Minsk and Vilnius was instigated by Lithuania’s ruling coalition, particularly Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė and Foreign Minister Gabriel Landsbergis.

“We see it as threats that need to be taken seriously – no matter even if threats sometimes seem strange or incomprehensible, we have experience when those threats have been implemented. Let us say that this was the case with the organization of illegal migration at the borders of the European Union, which was also a threat from Minsk. It was organized with the help of the Minsk regime,” Šimonytė said after reports of retaliation from Belarus.

Social media commentators bitterly responded to the Prime Minister, with many highlighting that his calls for a change of power and endless sanctions against a neighboring country are quite obviously threats themselves and contradictory.

Lithuanian Railways has already received an official notification from Belarus that oil products belonging to Poland’s ORLEN Lietuva and fertilizers from Lithuanian company Achema will no longer be able to be transported through Belarus to consumers in Ukraine.

“Belarus reserves the right to take further economic actions, including together with partners,” explained Anatoly Glaz, spokesperson for the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko even added:

“We have lost nothing, maybe we have even won. Lithuania’s economy is lost.”

None-the-less, Lithuanian Minister of Economy and Innovation Aušrinė Armonaitė said:

“We do not know exactly what retaliatory sanctions Belarus can impose.”

One of the transit options under consideration is Polish railways, but there is one problem – Poland uses the European railway gauge. This means that carriages going to Ukraine will have to be changed twice, which will ultimately affect the cost of goods and their competitiveness in the market. The second transit option is via Latvia and Russia, however, this costs no less. Another plan is to move the goods from railway to the road and bypass Belarus completely or at least just quickly cross the country by road. However, Minsk can close the borders to drivers heading towards Ukraine, thus making this option fragile and risky.

In this way, although Vilnius believes it is pressuring Belarus, it is actually on the path of creating a complete paralysis of its own transportation system and industry. Lithuania’s provocative behavior is all the more confusing when noting the dire economic situation in the country. Vilnius’ action may start a chain reaction that will affect the entire economy of the excessively “proud” country, especially when we consider its endless “defiance” of Beijing in serving Washington’s interests.

“If we step back, then any country will be kneeling and asked to apologize for any other violation in China’s eyes. It is now up to us to decide whether the Chinese order will be in force in the European Union and around the world or whether it will be any different,” said Viktorija Čmilytė- Nielsen, Speaker of the Seimas (Parliament) of the Republic of Lithuania.

In December 2021, China imposed a customs blockade on Lithuanian exports amid the deepening spat between Beijing and Vilnius about the Baltic state’s decision to allow Taiwan to open a de facto embassy. Although Lithuania trades largely with European Union countries, it still exported 300 million euros worth of goods to China in 2020, making it the 22nd largest export destination.

Although this is paltry, especially when remembering that 120 countries out of 193 UN Member States have China as their largest trading partner, it can be observed that Lithuania’s ruling coalition prioritizes serving the Anglo Alliance (US and UK) agenda against Russia and its neighboring partners then that of their own state and citizens. China in 2020 overtook the US to become the EU’s top trading partner for the first time, yet despite this trend, Vilnius has opted not to take advantage to improve their weak economic situation.

Other economically weak EU countries like Greece have taken advantage of trade with China to claw their way out of a devastating decade-long recession. However, it appears that Lithuania, rather than utilising every advantage from the Great Powers to help boost its ailing healthcare and education system, increase industrial output and end the mass emigration that is leading to a brain drain, is prioritizing the geopolitical interests of the Anglo Alliance.

Rather, instead of only provoking the far-off East Asian country of China, Lithuania is now doubling down on provoking Belarus and Russia, which in turn just negatively affects its own economy once again, and thus the cycle repeats itself.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

In October 2020, CropLife International said that its new strategic partnership with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) would contribute to sustainable food systems. It added that it was a first for the industry and the FAO and demonstrates the determination of the plant science sector to work constructively in a partnership where common goals are shared.

A powerful trade and lobby association, CropLife International counts among its members the world’s largest agricultural biotechnology and pesticide businesses: Bayer, BASF, Syngenta, FMC, Corteva and Sumitoma Chemical. Under the guise of promoting plant science technology, the association first and foremost looks after the interests (bottom line) of its member corporations.

Not long after the CropLife-FAO partnership was announced, PAN (Pesticide Action Network) Asia Pacific along with 350 organisations wrote a letter to FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu urging him to stop the collaboration and for good reason.

A 2020 joint investigation by Unearthed (Greenpeace) and Public Eye (a human rights NGO) revealed that BASF, Corteva, Bayer, FMC and Syngenta bring in billions of dollars by selling toxic chemicals found by regulatory authorities to pose serious health hazards.

It also found more than a billion dollars of their sales came from chemicals – some now banned in European markets – that are highly toxic to bees. Over two thirds of these sales were made in low- and middle-income countries like Brazil and India.

The Political Declaration of the People’s Autonomous Response to the UN Food Systems Summit in 2021 stated that global corporations are increasingly infiltrating multilateral spaces to co-opt the narrative of sustainability to secure further industrialisation, the extraction of wealth and labour from rural communities and the concentration of corporate power.

With this in mind, a major concern is that CropLife International will now seek to derail the FAO’s commitment to agroecology and push for the further corporate colonisation of food systems.

The July 2019 UN FAO High Level Panel of Experts Report concluded that agroecology provides greatly improved food security and nutritional, gender, environmental and yield benefits compared to industrial agriculture. This report formed part of the FAO’s ongoing commitment to agroecology.

But agroecology represents a direct challenge to the interests of CropLife members. With the emphasis on localisation and on-farm inputs, agroecology does not require dependency on proprietary chemicals, seeds and knowledge nor the long-line global supply chains dominated by transnational agrifood corporations.

There does now appear to be an ideological assault from within the FAO on alternative development and agrifood models that threaten CropLife International’s member interests.

In the report ‘Who Will Feed Us? The Industrial Food Chain vs the Peasant Food Web (ETC Group, 2017), it was shown that a diverse network of small-scale producers (the peasant food web) actually feeds 70% of the world, including the most hungry and marginalised.

The flagship report indicated that only 24% of the food produced by the industrial food chain actually reaches people. Furthermore, it was shown that industrial food costs us more: for every dollar spent on industrial food, it costs another two dollars to clean up the mess.

However, two prominent papers have since claimed that small farms feed only 35% of the global population.

One of the papers is ‘How much of our world’s food do smallholders produce?’ (Ricciardi et al, 2018).

The other is an FAO report, ‘Which farms feed the world and has farmland become more concentrated? (Lowder et al, 2021).

Eight key organisations have just written to the FAO sharply criticising the Lowder paper which reverses a number of well-established positions held by the organisation. The letter is signed by the Oakland Institute, Landworkers Alliance, ETC Group, A Growing Culture, Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, GRAIN, Groundswell International and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

The open letter calls on the FAO to reaffirm that peasants (including small farmers, artisanal fishers, pastoralists, hunters and gatherers and urban producers) provide more food with fewer resources and are the primary source of nourishment for at least 70% of the world population.

ETC Group has also published the 16-page report ‘Small-scale Farmers and Peasants Still Feed the World‘ in response to the two papers, indicating how the authors indulged in methodological and conceptual gymnastics and certain important omissions to arrive at the 35% figure – not least by changing the definition of ‘family farmer’ and by defining a ‘small farm’ as less than 2 ha. This contradicts the FAO’s own decision in 2018 to reject a universal land area threshold for describing small farms in favour of more sensitive country-specific definitions.

The Lowder et al paper also contradicts recent FAO and other reports that state peasant farms produce more food and more nutritious food per hectare than large farms. It maintains that policy makers are wrongly focused on peasant production and should give greater attention to larger production units.

The signatories of the open letter to the FAO strongly disagree with the Lowder study’s assumption that food production is a proxy for food consumption and that the commercial value of food in the marketplace can be equated with the nutritional value of the food consumed.

The paper feeds into an agribusiness narrative that attempts to undermine the effectiveness of peasant production in order to promote its proprietary technologies and agrifood model.

Smallholder peasant farming is regarded by these conglomerates as an impediment. Their vision is fixated on a narrow yield-output paradigm based on the bulk production of commodities that is unwilling to grasp an integrated social-cultural-economic-agronomic systems approach that accounts for the likes of food sovereignty and diverse nutrition production per acre.

This systems approach also serves to boost rural and regional development based on thriving, self-sustaining local communities rather than eradicating them and subordinating whoever remains to the needs of global supply chains and global markets. Industry lobbyists like to promote the latter as ‘responding to the needs of modern agriculture’ rather than calling it for what it is: corporate imperialism.

The FAO paper concludes that the world small farms only produce 35% of the world’s food using 12% of agricultural land. But ETC Group says that by working with the FAO’s normal or comparable databases, it is apparent that peasants nourish at least 70% of the world’s people with less than one third of the agricultural land and resources.

But even if 35% of food is produced on 12% of land, does that not suggest we should be investing in small, family and peasant farming rather than large-scale chemical-intensive agriculture?

While not all small farms might be practising agroecology or chemical-free agriculture, they are more likely to be integral to local markets and networks, short supply chains, food sovereignty, more diverse cropping systems and healthier diets. And they tend to serve the food requirements of communities rather than those of external business interests, institutional investors and shareholders half a world away.

When the corporate capture a body occurs, too often the first casualty is truth.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

 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.

Featured image is from US Right to Know

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

A lawsuit filed by Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency produced documents from Pfizer revealing that its Covid-19 vaccine caused all of the pregnant women in its trial to miscarry.

The report, titled “Cumulative Analysis of Post-authorization Adverse Event Reports,” describes events reported up to February 2021 and shows that not a single pregnant woman who took the Pfizer vaccine delivered a live baby.

Table 6 of the report, titled “Missing Information,” reveals under the first topic of “Use in pregnancy and lactation” the following statement:

“Pregnancy outcomes for the 270 pregnancies were reported as spontaneous abortion (23), outcome pending (5), premature birth with neonatal death, spontaneous abortion with intrauterine death (2 each), spontaneous abortion with neonatal death, and normal outcome (1 each). No outcome was provided for 238 pregnancies (note that 2 different outcomes were reported for each twin, and both were counted).

This suggests that of 270 pregnancies, there were 23 spontaneous abortions, five “outcomes pending,” two premature births with neonatal death, two spontaneous abortions with intrauterine death, one spontaneous abortion with neonatal death, and one normal outcome. However, there is also that tricky statement: “no outcome was provided for 238 pregnancies.”

One outlet reported:

“We have no idea what happened with 243 (5 + 238) of the pregnancies of these injected women; they have just not been included in the report.

“What we do know is that of 27 reported pregnancies (270 subtract 243), there are 28 dead babies! This appears to mean that someone was pregnant with twins and that 100 percent of the unborn babies died.”

It is possible that the five “outcomes pending” may have resulted in a normal and healthy delivery, but this remains unclear. This means, that at best, 87.5 percent of babies within fully vaccinated wombs died as opposed to 100 percent.

Regardless, this is still an incredibly horrific and disgusting outcome. No babies should be dying as a result of these “safe and effective” vaccines, and no mother should be harmed in the process.

Pfizer sneakily attempted to cover this up with an article titled “Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine,” which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on Dec. 31, 2020.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from The Expose

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

When US Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) held a hearing on vaccine safety in January this year, a number of DOD whistleblowers stepped forward with alarming data. They shared data from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) which tracks every illness of military members.

The purpose of gathering such data is expressly to spot adverse health trends that could affect combat readiness. It is therefore accurate, complete and designed for early detection.

Lawyer Thomas Renz reported on five years of data during the hearing which showed an alarming rise in medical problems related to Covid vaccines. The whistleblowers stepped forward because their superiors had ignored the problem. Renz plans to pursue the matter in a US federal court.

Arguably, the DMED is the best epidemiological database in the world and since neither Pfizer nor Moderna is able to provide better data, this upward trend related to vaccine injury must be cause for great concern.

In a declaration under penalty of perjury, the three military physicians Samuel Sigoloff, Peter Chambers, and Theresa Long, exposed the 300 percent increase in DMED codes registered for miscarriages in the military in 2021 over the five-year average. The five-year average has been 1499 codes for miscarriages per year, but during the first 10 months of 2021, it shot up to 4 182.

The same trend was seen in spiking cancer cases, from a five-year average of 38 700 per year to 114 645 in the first 11 months of 2021, coinciding with the vaccine. And reported neurological disorders increased by an incredible 1000 percent.

DoD suddenly discovers a ‘glitch’ after the hearing

A spokesman for the Defense Health Agency has explained the alarming data by a “glitch” in their own epidemiological surveillance system, with no details as to how a “glitch” could have escaped the competent and well-paid staff for the last five years.

The “glitch” curiously stopped plaguing DMED in January 2021, but it was never detected until Thomas Renz testified before Senator Johnson.

The data was downloaded by several named and unnamed military physicians and they signed a sworn affidavit blaming the mass vaccination campaign for the increase in ailments. These ailments are similar to what German doctors have seen.

• Hypertension – 2 181 percent increase
• Diseases of the nervous system – 1 048 percent increase
• Malignant neoplasms of esophagus – 894 percent increase
• Multiple sclerosis – 680 percent increase
• Malignant neoplasms of digestive organs – 624 percent increase
• Guillain-Barre syndrome – 551 percent increase
• Breast cancer – 487 percent increase
• Demyelinating – 487 percent increase
• neoplasms of thyroid and other endocrine glands – 474 percent increase
• Female infertility – 472 percent increase
• Pulmonary embolism – 468 percent increase
• Migraines – 452 percent increase
• Ovarian dysfunction – 437 percent increase
• Testicular cancer – 369 percent increase
• Tachycardia – 302 percent increase

“One would think this data would be the biggest national news story for the ensuing week, but the revelation was met with radio silence. Then, late Monday night, PolitiFact finally drops its obligatory ‘fact-check’ and posts the first and only response from a defense official. Shockingly, they validate the data, but suggest without cause that somehow the 2016-2020 data in the system was all a glitch,” noted Daniel Horowitz.

The DMED system has been taken offline to “identify and correct the root-cause of the data corruption”, but it may have been done to hide data manipulation. “This statement, taken at face value, is the equivalent of a political and national security nuclear bomb that requires immediate follow-up questions just to make sense of it, yet PolitiFact takes this absurdity at face value and goes on to rule the articles on the DMED data ‘false’.”

Suggesting that the entire military health surveillance system malfunctioned on every diagnostic code for five years in a row, is somewhat farfetched, to say the least. This very expensive database was purposely designed to give “military health officials unprecedented access to epidemiologic data on active component service members and tailored queries that respond in a timely and efficient manner”.

The Defense Health Agency chose not to put out a press release to inform the public of this grave issue and rather had it “fact-checked”.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image: Senator Johnson speaking to military staff. Facebook

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

Britain’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released data indicating that children who received the COVID-19 jabs have suffered a death rate 54 times greater than that of their un-jabbed counterparts.

In December, the ONS published age-standardized data on the mortality rates of individuals in 5-year age sets in Britain, grouped by their “vaccination” status for the COVID-19 shots. The data accounts for the period from January 1 to October 31, 2021.

The ONS tabulated “Monthly age-standardised mortality rates by age-group and vaccination status for deaths involving COVID-19, per 100,000 person-years” but presented the data only for ages 18 and over. However, the jabs are available to children as young as 12, and those children are allowed to receive the shot against their parents’ wishes. In limited cases, children as young as 5 have been given a reduced dosage of the shots.

Nevertheless, as noted by The Exposé, a separate table outlining “deaths and person-years by vaccination status” includes 5-year age groups from 10-years-old and up. From the data provided, a calculation of the mortality rate per 100,000 person-years can be made.

The rate per 100,000 person-years delineation is used in preference over the simpler 100,000 population calculation to better represent the mortality rates over a specific period of time, as people in one “vaccination” group – such as un-jabbed, single-jabbed, and double-jabbed – soon move into the next group.

Table 9 of the ONS report shows the “deaths and person-years by vaccination status and five-year age group” for the entire ten-month period. According to the report, the un-jabbed 10–14-year-old group represents 2,094,711 person-years, and the 15–19 age set 1,587,072 person-years over the same time.

Table 9, ONS Report

From the above table the 100,000 person-years calculation can be made, with the younger group coming out at 20.9 un-jabbed per 100,000 person-years and the older group at 15.9. Following this, the mortality rate per 100,000 person-years is worked out by dividing the number of deaths within each group by the 100,000 person-years calculation.

The result is that for the 10–14 year group, the un-jabbed mortality per 100,000 person-years is 4.6 while the un-jabbed mortality rate per 100,000 person-years for the 15–19 group is 10.1.

Using the same data set and calculation, the mortality rate for 10­–14-year-olds who received one dose of the jabs suffered a 45.1 per 100,000 person-years death rate, while 15–19-year-olds with one jab suffered 18.3 deaths per 100,00 person-years.

Table 9, ONS Report

Table 9, ONS Report

Among those who received two doses of the COVID jabs in both young age groups, the death rates were higher still, with 32.9 deaths per 100,000 person-years among the 15–19 age group and a staggering 238.4 deaths per 100,000 person-years among 10–14-year-olds in the U.K.

The data show a stark increase in deaths among children both single- and double-jabbed compared to their un-jabbed counterparts. For children aged 15–19, the risk of death increases by almost double if they take the first shot and by over three times if they take the second.

10–14-year-olds, on the other hand, run the risk of dying almost by a factor of ten following the first dose while the second dose brings a 51.8 times greater risk of death than if they had remained un-jabbed.

On average, it means that children between 10 and 19 years of age who had received at least one shot of the COVID jabs had a 3.7 times greater chance of dying between January and October last year.

Additionally, according to the ONS’ “five-year average weekly deaths by sex and age group” figures between 2015 and 2019 among children ages 10-14, recorded deaths have risen by 44 percent above the average in weekly figures provided by the ONS for 2021.

The JCVI, an independent adviser to the U.K. government on immunization programs, determined in a September 3 statement that the “available evidence indicates that the individual health benefits from COVID-19 vaccination are small in those aged 12 to 15 years.” They added that any benefit granted by the shots is only “marginally greater than the potential known harms,” while acknowledging that “there is considerable uncertainty regarding the magnitude of the potential harms.”

Given the uncertainty of risks involved with the COVID shots, the JCVI considered the benefits “too small to support advice on a universal programme of vaccination of otherwise healthy 12- to 15-year-old children at this time.”

Moreover, COVID shot trials have never produced evidence that the vaccines stop infection or transmission. They do not even claim to reduce hospitalization, but the measurement of success is in preventing severe symptoms of COVID-19 disease. Indeed, there is strong evidence that the “vaccinated” are just as likely to carry and transmit the virus as the unvaccinated.

Many Catholics and other Christians have rejected the currently available COVID inoculations because they were developed or tested using cell lines derived from aborted children.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from Shutterstock

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

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

Between 1935 and 1952 seven films were made based on the novels of Charles Dickens.[1] They were filmed in the social realist style, a style that was popular after the Great Crash and reflected the hardships facing people at the time. Social realism is a style often used by directors, artists, composers and writers to expose the living conditions of the poor and government lack of action.

Dickens’s works on film, as in their literary forms, satirise the money lenders, bankers, the rich, the aristocracy, and the landed gentry, while at the same time showing the effects of poverty on the working class in what some would see as overly sentimental depictions. This is not surprising as sentimentalism was an earlier literary movement at the time and which Dickens was likely to have been influenced by. However, Dickens’s novels went way beyond the sentimentalist style and delved into critical realism which made them ideal for later social realist films. These films stand in stark contrast to much cinema today for their satire, humanity and empathy with the downtrodden. Here I will look it the ideas and influences in Dickens’s novels and why they are still important as a standard for contemporary literature.

Was Dickens a sentimentalist or realist?

The extent of extreme poverty in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is not disputed but at the time few wrote about the poverty and less cared about it. Robert C. Solomon wrote that: “There have always been the very rich. And of course there have always been the very poor. But even as late as the civilized and sentimental eighteenth century, this disparity was not yet a cause for public embarrassment or a cry of injustice. […] Poverty was considered just one more “act of God,” impervious to any solution except mollification through individual charity and government poorhouses to keep the poor off the streets and away from crime.” [2]

Enlightenment ideas eventually gave rise to social trends that emphasised humanism and the heightened value of human life. These trends had their complement in art, creating what became known as the ‘sentimental novel’. While today sentimentalism evokes maudlin self-pity, in the eighteenth century it was revolutionary as sentimental literature that:

“focused on weaker members of society, such as orphans and condemned criminals, and allowed readers to identify and sympathize with them. This translated to growing sentimentalism within society, and led to social movements calling for change, such as the abolition of the death penalty and of slavery. Instead of the death penalty, popular sentiment called for the rehabilitation of criminals, rather than harsh punishment.”

So how did the elites react to such criticism of their way of life in literature? In the eighteenth century, as Ralph Fox writes: “‘Society,’ by which we mean the ruling class, could not allow the moral perversion of the ‘public'”. However, the writer of the English novel in the eighteenth century could “sit apart and observe the life of the nation, to be angry, ironical, pitiful and cruel as the occasion demanded” as “there was no chance of any but the smallest number of his characters, the wealthy and the privileged ones, reading his books.” [3]

However, this all changed as books became more affordable and a large reading public developed in the nineteenth century. Literary style moved from the subjectivity of sentimentalism to the objectivity of realism:

“Realism as a movement in literature was a post-1848 phenomenon, according to its first theorist Jules-Français Champfleury. It aims to reproduce “objective reality”, and focused on showing everyday, quotidian activities and life, primarily among the middle or lower class society, without romantic idealization or dramatization. It may be regarded as the general attempt to depict subjects as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation and “in accordance with secular, empirical rules.”

The interest in documenting the living and working conditions of the poor in objective literary works could be seen in such works as The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) by Friedrich Engels, London Labour and the London Poor (1851) by Henry Mayhew, and Past and Present (1843) by Thomas Carlyle. The works of Mayhew and Carlyle had a profound effect on Dickens. The incorporation of such observations and detailed contemporary reports into Dickens’ style of writing effectively made him more of a realist than a sentimentalist. In fact, the critical nature of his work and the popularity of the realist style led Marx to comment:

“The present splendid brotherhood of fiction-writers in England, whose graphic and eloquent pages have issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together, have described every section of the middle class from the “highly genteel” annuitant and fundholder who looks upon all sorts of business as vulgar, to the little shopkeeper and lawyer’s clerk. And how have Dickens and Thackeray, Miss Brontë and Mrs. Gaskell painted them? As full of presumption, affectation, petty tyranny and ignorance; and the civilised world have confirmed their verdict with the damning epigram that it has fixed to this class that “they are servile to those above, and tyrannical to those beneath them.””

Films based on Charles Dickens novels

Here I will summarise briefly not the plot of each movie but the characters and their treatment that Dickens wants to draw attention to:

David’s father dies before David is born and his mother remarries with Murdstone, a harsh man who is intent on beating education and respect into the young boy with a cane (reflecting changing attitudes towards children and childhood). David is sent to work in a bottling plant and this gives Dickens a chance to show working conditions and child labour (of which he knew from first-hand experience, Dickens was forced to leave school and work ten-hour days at Warren’s Blacking Warehouse). David leaves the factory and seeks out his aunt who appears harsh at first but is actually a humane person who deals kindly with her mentally unstable friend, Mr. Dick (reflecting changing attitudes towards the mentally ill).

A Tale of Two Cities (1935)

An historical novel set in London and Paris covering several years before and during the French Revolution. It deals with the inhumane attitudes of the aristocracy which led to the revolution. Dickens shows that not all were bad as the main aristocratic villain’s nephew, Charles Darnay, is sympathetic to the plight of the oppressed and impoverished French masses. He is denounced by his uncle, relinquishes his title and goes to England to begin a new life. The long suffering peasants gather to see the aristocrats executions at the guillotine. Dickens also depicts the ultimate in heroism as the cynical lawyer Sydney Carton switches places with Darnay, who is innocently condemned to die at the guillotine.

Great Expectations (1946)

Orphan Phillip “Pip” Pirrip lives with his shrewish older sister and her kindhearted blacksmith husband, Joe Gargery. Pip meets an vicious escaped convict, Magwitch, who threatens him into bringing some some food and drink back to him the next day. This he does and the convict thanks him. However the convict is caught and is seen quietly being returned to prison. A rich spinster arranges for him to visit and play with her adopted daughter. Six years later Pip is informed that he has a mysterious benefactor who has offered to transform him into a gentleman. Grown up and living in London Pip is visited by Magwitch and is shocked and anxious after his childhood experience. Magwitch tells Pip that he escaped from prison again and made a fortune sheep-farming in New South Wales, Australia. He then tells Pip that he was very taken by the Pips kindness in bring the food in stead of revealing his whereabouts to the police, and resolved to help Pip have a better life with his new found wealth. Here Dickens shows the basic humanity of convicts as victims of an oppressive society who can change for the better, in line with popular sentiment that called for the rehabilitation of criminals, rather than harsh punishment.

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1947)

Nicholas Nickleby, travels to London with his mother and his younger sister Kate, to seek help from their wealthy but cold-hearted uncle Ralph, a money-lender. Nicholas gets a job teaching at a boarding school which is run like a prison. The owners “physically, verbally, and emotionally abuse their young charges on a regular basis”. He meets Madeline Bray whose father who gambled away his fortune and now is indebted to Nicholas’s uncle. In this narrative Ralph’s past deeds catch up with him and he faces prison and financial ruin, but instead commits suicide.

Oliver Twist (1948)

Here Dickens shows up the institutional abuse of the parish workhouse as children go hungry and corrupt officials live well. Oliver runs away to London and falls in with a street gang whose leaders corrupt the boys and train them to steal valuables for their benefit. In his spare time Dickens campaigned vigorously for children’s rights, education and other social reforms.

Scrooge (1951)

Scrooge is a well known film and adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843). The plot revolves around Scrooge being informed that he will be visited by three spirits: the Ghost of Christmas Past (a device to show Scrooge’s lonely childhood, and broken engagement because of his dedication to “a golden idol”),  the Ghost of Christmas Present (a device to break down Scrooge’s misanthropy and cynicism), and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come (a device to show that unless he changes his ways he will leave no positive reputation or respect behind him). Thus, Dickens “catalysed the emerging Christmas as a family-centered festival of generosity, in contrast to the dwindling community-based and church-centered observations, as new middle-class expectations arose.”

The Pickwick Papers is a sequence of loosely related adventures written for serialization in a periodical wherein Dickens satirises a wide range of English types and English life in a good humoured style.

In his books, Dickens manages to comment on every section of society and dramatise it in such way as to create empathy where there was none, and to satirise those who thought they could enrich themselves without criticism. José Ortega y Gasset wrote about the effect of realism on culture:

“Works of this nature are only partially works of art. In order to enjoy them we do not have to have artistic sensitivity. It is enough to possess humanity and and a willingness to sympathize with our neighbour’s anguish and joy. It is therefore understandable that the art of the nineteenth century should have been so popular, since it was appreciated by the majority in proportion to its not being art, but an extract from life.” [4]

Ortega y Gasset also wrote about emotions in art, and why they are important:

“What do the majority of people call aesthetic pleasure? What goes on in their mind when a work of art ‘pleases’ them? There is no doubt about the answer: people like a work of art that succeeds in involving them in the human destinies it propounds. The loves, hates, griefs and joys of the characters touch their heart: they participate in them, as if they were occurring in real life. And they say a work is ‘good’ when it manages to produce the quantity of illusion necessary for the imaginary characters to rate as living persons.” [5]

It is in this way that Dickens’s novels delighted and enraged his audiences. His style of critical realism, in terms of form and content, is still relevant today. Sally Rooney, the Irish novelist, writes that:

“The problem with the contemporary Euro-American novel is that it relies for its structural integrity on suppressing the lived realities of most human beings on earth. To confront the poverty and misery in which millions of people are forced to live, to put the fact of that poverty, that misery, side by side with the lives of the ‘main characters’ of a novel, would be deemed either tasteless or simply artistically unsuccessful. […] Do the protagonists break up or stay together? In this world, what does it matter? So the novel works by suppressing the truth of the world — packing it down tightly underneath the glittering surface of the text. And we can care once again,as we do in real life, whether people break up or stay together – if, and only if, we have successfully forgotten about all the things more important than that, i.e. everything.” [6]

Yet, it is still possible to enter the mainstream with satire and humour, to recognise “the lived realities of most human beings on earth”, to acknowledge the importance of social truth in art and to be sharply critical of social and political ills.

What can the writer write about? Tara Henley (TV and radio producer, on-air columnist) summarises her frustration with media policy at CNC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) while inadvertently showing so many things that can be part of contemporary fiction, without being “either tasteless or simply artistically unsuccessful”. Things that may be suppressed at media policy level but not in a work of art. She writes:

“It is to endlessly document microaggressions but pay little attention to evictions; to spotlight company’s political platitudes but have little interest in wages or working conditions. It is to allow sweeping societal changes like lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and school closures to roll out — with little debate. To see billionaires amass extraordinary wealth and bureaucrats amass enormous power — with little scrutiny. And to watch the most vulnerable among us die of drug overdoses — with little comment. It is to consent to the idea that a growing list of subjects are off the table, that dialogue itself can be harmful. That the big issues of our time are all already settled. It is to capitulate to certainty, to shut down critical thinking, to stamp out curiosity. To keep one’s mouth shut, to not ask questions, to not rock the boat. This, while the world burns.”

Dickens did it and was hugely popular for it. Today, there is certainly plenty to be critical about. There is, of course, plenty of wealth, as there was in  Dickens’s day. But there is also poverty, very high rents, low-paid jobs, homelessness, avaricious banks, and a general system of economics and culture to make sure it stays that way. Sure, it does not have the same look as poverty did in Dickens’s era. There are social welfare systems, better standards of housing, and better working conditions. However overall contemporary income in many cases allows young people and the working class to just about get by without much hope for improvement, despite living in a system that produces massive amounts of wealth. In other words, there are similarities with  Dickens’s time but on a modern, international scale that also deserve a sharp, critical, writerly eye.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here.   

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

[1] Silent films were made too but I will just discuss the talkies.

[2] Robert C Solomon, A Passion for Justice: Emotions and the Origins of the Social Contract (Rowman and Littlefield Pub., Lanham, 1995) p13

[3] Ralph Fox, The Novel and the People (Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1979) p71

[4] José Ortega y Gasset, The Dehumanization of Art, p69

[5] José Ortega y Gasset, The Dehumanization of Art, p67

[6]  Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You (Faber and Faber, London, 2021) p95/6

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

Obama killed bin Laden, Trump killed Baghdadi, and now Biden has his trophy kill.

President Biden said that the operation to kill Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi in Idlib “took a major terrorist leader off the battlefield.” He added,

“Operating on my orders, the United States’ military forces successfully removed a major terrorist threat to the world, the global leader of ISIS, known as Hajji Abdullah. This operation is testament to America’s reach and capability to take out terrorist threats no matter where they try to hide anywhere in the world,” he said.

Idlib wasn’t much of a hiding place, as it is the most obvious place on earth for ISIS commanders, followers, and their Al Qaeda brothers in arms. Intelligence found that al-Qurayshi was living in Atmeh, Idlib province, within walking distance of Turkey, and identified his house and his neighbors.  He had succeeded al-Baghdadi as the head of ISIS; however, not much is known about him or his inner circle, but he had ordered a series of atrocities, including against the Yazidi people.

“U.S. Special Operations forces under the control of US Central Command conducted a counter-terrorism mission this evening in northwest Syria,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said in a news conference on Thursday afternoon. “To the degree, there’s loss of innocent lives, it’s caused by Abdullah and his lieutenants,” he said.

No sooner had the statement by Biden and Kirby hit the airwaves, reports coming in from the US-backed “White Helmets” and the UN said six children and four women were among 13 people killed as a result of the US special ops raid. The Whitehouse and Pentagon attributed the civilian loss of life to the terrorist killed, as he had detonated a suicide bomb during the raid.  However, witnesses and activist groups did not agree with the sanitized version.

In December, an investigation by the New York Times based on confidential Pentagon documents, that US air wars in the Middle East have been marked by “deeply flawed intelligence” and “faulty targeting” that has resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 civilians over the last decade.

Idlib

Idlib is identified by western media as “the last rebel stronghold in Syria”.  In reality, it is a conclave of armed militias who are all following Radical Islam, which is not a religion, or a sect, but a political ideology.  Whether it is the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, or ISIS they all share the same goal: to remove governments and establish an Islamic State globally.

“Idlib is essentially the largest collection of Al Qaeda affiliates in the world right now,” Michael Mulroy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, said at the Center for a New American Security in Washington.  US officials also have voiced concerns about the presence of tens of thousands of foreign terrorists in Idlib, but no US policy was ever formed to address the issue.  The US policy was to protect Idlib from attack by either Russia or the Syrian government in Damascus and allow Turkey, a US ally and NATO member to continue supporting and protecting the terrorists there.

Whenever there were Russian or Syrian airstrikes on Idlib, the western allies of the US would call for a UN security council meeting to condemn any action against Al Qaeda or ISIS in Idlib.  However, there have been several cases in which the US made attacks on Idlib, in a display of double standards.

Idlib province is mostly controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, who used to be called Jibhat al-Nusra, who was designated a terrorist group by the US and the UN. With a name change, the US was able to justify continued support of the bloodthirsty terrorist who is well known for beheading, rape, kidnapping, and murder.

The civilian population is about 2 million and they are kept as human shields.  They are not welcome in Turkey, and they live in tents without warm clothes and heating.  Recently, Syria and Lebanon have been hit with unusual amounts of rain and snow. Two babies have died from the cold after heavy snow and freezing temperatures hit camps in Idlib. A UN official reported that the seven-day-old and two-month-old girls had died there.

The UN has warned that the situation is getting worse due to a severe economic downturn in Syria that has seen food prices double in a year, as well as a shortage of funding to provide winter aid and increased needs.

Save the Children’s Syria response director, Sonia Khush said it was “incomprehensible that any child should face the winter scared for their life”. “Almost 11 years after the crisis in Syria started, it feels like the world has forgotten about children in northwest Syria,” she added.

The US killed Baghdadi in Idlib 

The former leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was also killed in Idlib by an American special ops raid in October 2019, similar to the recent raid.  He also detonated a suicide vest when cornered.  The two operations were similar: the same place, helicopters used, and the suicide vest.

One key common component shared by both raids is the location directly on the Turkish border.  Whether it was the US-sponsored Free Syrian Army, Al Qaeda, or ISIS the key component in the puzzle is Turkey.  President Erdogan of Turkey heads a party which is Muslim Brotherhood supporters. During the Trump administration, the Whitehouse made it clear that Turkey was more involved with helping terrorists in Syria, than fighting ISIS.  In 2017, Trump had pulled the plug on the CIA program headquartered in Turkey, “Timber Sycamore”, which trained and supported armed terrorists in Syria, in hopes of ‘regime change’.

Sadradeen Kinno, a Syrian researcher who closely follows Islamic militant groups in Syria, told VOA that following the defeat of ISIS in its last pocket of control in eastern Syria in March 2019, a significant number of its fighters fled to Idlib.

“ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliated groups in Syria disagree ideologically, but now they face a common existential threat from the U.S. and Russia. So I believe al-Baghdadi ended up in Idlib by striking a deal with Huras al-Din and other groups that are active there,” he said.

White Helmets

The Syrian Civil Defense is a group purporting to be rescuers in areas under the occupation of terrorist groups, such as Idlib.  The group stole the name from the real group of the same name, which is a working fire department and paramedics group in locations across Syria.  While Biden and Kirby were explaining the attack in Idlib, the “White Helmets” were issuing details on the ground, that at least 13 people were killed, including four women. Our teams rushed an injured child to the hospital. The child’s entire family was killed in the operation. The teams also rushed another person to the hospital who was injured in the clashes when he approached the scene to witness what was happening.”

The White Helmets won the Alternative Nobel Prize in 2016, and a Netflix documentary about the group won an Oscar in 2017. They have been accused of working with Al Qaeda and ISIS, and of having staged videos of rescues.

Videos and photos online show that the “White Helmets” have supported terrorists and ISIS, and in one case they are seen removing the dead bodies after a terrorist massacre. It would be difficult to work alongside, and in a supporting role, with armed terrorists in Syria without having formed a personal affiliation with the fighters.

“There’s no way to deny it,” says Nur (not his real name) who helps manage the White Helmets’ media online. “Former volunteers were in pictures waving flags.” This is about the black ISIS flag. Some men joined the “White Helmets” having left terrorist groups, he says.

“The White Helmets cannot be considered a humanitarian organization when they are embedded with a designated terrorist organization al-Qaeda, and of course, ISIS and various other armed groups… They do not behave in any way like a humanitarian organization inside Syria, and therefore… they are a legitimate target in a war situation,” Vanessa Beeley said in an interview in2020. The British activist has become the foremost expert on the “White Helmets” after spending almost 10 years in Syria during the conflict.

James Le Mesurier, a former British officer once honored by the queen, married Emma Winberg, a former diplomat, and fellow activist. They were married in Istanbul, Turkey where Mayday was headquartered. However, he committed suicide thereafter it was revealed he had used the humanitarian group’s money inappropriately.

Le Mesurier founded Mayday in 2014 after having spent some time organizing aid and arranging initial training sessions for Syrian emergency responders in Turkey.  Between 2014 and 2019, Western governments would provide around 120 million euros in support to Mayday, about 20 million of it coming from Germany. Mayday has since been dissolved, though the White Helmets are continuing their operations in Idlib with backing from the US and Europeans.

The Russian-Turkish deal on Idlib

Idlib has been a divisive point between Russia and Turkey, who share energy interests. Russia back the central government in Damascus, which Turkey backs the terrorists.  In September 2018, Moscow and Ankara reached an agreement that postponed a planned Syrian offensive on Idlib and other areas near the Turkish border. As part of that agreement, Turkey was required to remove all extremist groups from the province, some of which are allied with Al Qaeda.

3 and one-half years later, Turkey has failed to implement its commitment with Russia, leaving most of Idlib under the control of Al Qaeda, and some pockets of ISIS. Turkey has maintained several military outposts while illegally occupying sections of Syria, and Russia has chosen not to open an armed conflict with the NATO member.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from MD

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

In recent days, Western media has been declaring that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent, and discussing what Canada’s role should be in light of that possibility. 

Last year, I wrote an article tracking Canadian media’s editorial support for wars the country has participated in over the years. I found that editorial boards supported these ventures (from the First World War to the operation against ISIS) 98 per cent of the time. In the past, I’ve also privately tracked Canadian media calling for regime change in countries where war has yet to happen. From these efforts, I know the question to ask about Canadian media is not what it takes for them to support a war, but rather what would it take for them to oppose one.

There are many good reasons for Canada not to go to war in Ukraine, continue to help train their troops or send military aid. But these reasons probably aren’t convincing to Canadian media pundits, who tend to have much different political views than I do.

So, I’ll go with one I think we can all agree on: Canada should avoid participating in Ukrainian military ventures because doing so would require working with neo-Nazis. Certainly everyone across the political spectrum in mainstream Canadian media could agree on that, right?

Wrong!

I’m going to break down some media coverage over the past few years to show you how editorial support for sending Canadian troops and arms to Ukraine didn’t waver when any of the following three things became clear: neo-Nazis were fighting alongside the official Ukrainian forces in volunteer paramilitaries; the neo-Nazis paramilitaries were incorporated into official Ukrainian forces; Canada worked specifically with the neo-Nazi elements of the Ukrainian forces.

Neo-Nazis Fighting In Ukraine 

In May 2014, amidst the unrest in Ukraine, the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion was formed as a civilian paramilitary group to combat Russian separatists. The organization has never been shy about its Nazi links and ideology. For example, in a 2015 interview with USA Today, a drill sergeant with the group “admitted he is a Nazi and said with a laugh that no more than half his comrades are fellow Nazis.” Disputing the claim, a spokesperson for the group told the outlet that “only 10 per cent to 20 per cent of the group’s members are Nazis.” Not exactly reassuring.

Since the group was created, reporters have worked to expose its neo-Nazi ideology.

A German TV show in September 2014, for example, broadcast images of Azov members with swastikas and SS runes on their helmets. This news made its way into American outlets as well. So, from May 2014 onward, at the very least, we knew there were neo-Nazis fighting alongside official Ukrainian forces in an organized paramilitary. But this didn’t stop Canadian media outlets from encouraging Canada to help out.

For example, in September 2014 the Toronto Star published an editorial arguing that while Canadians shouldn’t “feel obliged to spend an extra $20 billion on defence because Russian President Vladimir Putin is bullying Ukraine,” we can “help them manage the threat without busting the bank.” Their suggestion was that, “Harper could reasonably commit CF-18 fighter-bombers, airlift, troops and armour to NATO’s brigade, on a rotating basis and through military exercises.”

The article didn’t mention Nazis.

Neo-Nazis Joining The Official Ukrainian Forces

At the time, perhaps the Star and other papers would have said that while they wouldn’t support neo-Nazis, the Azov Battalion wasn’t part of the official Ukrainian forces, so it shouldn’t be a major concern. That excuse, however, couldn’t work for long.

In November 2014, the Battalion was officially incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard. This means the Ukrainian government knowingly decided to make a neo-Nazi group part of its forces, giving, at the very least, a tacit acceptance of their ideology. This news, and the extent of the neo-Nazi presence in Ukraine’s forces, would get reported on extensively over the next few years, including (to a more limited extent) in Canadian media.

On Nov. 26, 2014, the National Post published a letter by John Meinhold, responding to an editorial from the paper: “I was aghast at the statement in your article: ‘As a general rule, Canada is opposed to the glorification of Nazism.’ In which cases does Canada support Nazism? Is it the neo-Nazis in Ukraine, to which the rule does not apply? It is not OK for Canada or the United States to be allied with Ukrainian fascist groups such as Right Sector, Svoboda Party and the Azov Battalion. Just like the Nazis, these groups have spearheaded atrocious crimes against humanity in eastern Ukraine.”

Postmedia would also publish several articles by Ottawa Citizen reporter David Pugliese over the next few years, who has done great work on this topic.

For example, on April 18, 2015, Postmedia published an article by Pugliese, which noted that the Azov Battalion spokesperson admitted up to 20 per cent of its members are Nazis, and that the group’s symbol is “similar to the insignia used by some Nazi SS units.”

On June 17, 2015, they published another article by Pugliese, where he wrote, “Defence Minister Jason Kenney acknowledged in April that Canadian military leaders discussed how to avoid training extremists in the upcoming Ukraine mission. He said Canadian soldiers would not be training ad hoc militias and would only instruct units of the Ukrainian National Guard and the army. But Conyers pointed out while the Azov Battalion is a 1,000-man militia unit, it is also now part of the Ukrainian National Guard.”

And yet, once again, editorials calling on Canada to support Ukrainian forces continued.

On June 8, 2015, the Post published an article arguing that, “Money, training and whatever military assistance we can supply, including weapons and munitions, must be made available [to the Ukrainian forces].”

On Jan. 31, 2017, the Globe and Mail published an editorial arguing,

“The Canadian military personnel can’t do anything to directly help the civilians of southeast Ukraine, or the Ukrainian troops in the Donbass region itself. But they can and should continue with their training mission, and could do even more by expanding the mission.”

On March 9, 2017, the Toronto Star published an editorial arguing that “it was entirely right for the Trudeau government to announce this week that Canada will extend its military deployment in Ukraine for another two years.”

None of these articles mentioned the presence of neo-Nazis in Ukraine’s forces.

Canadians Directly Working With Nazis

Throughout this period, newspaper staff could have made the argument that while the neo-Nazi battalion was now officially part of Ukraine’s forces, they made up just a small chunk of it, and Canada’s aid would likely go elsewhere. Once again, however, this excuse wouldn’t hold up for long.

For example, Pugliese reported that,

“In June 2018 the Canadian government and military officials in Ukraine met with members of the ultranationalist Azov Battalion, which earlier that year had been banned by the U.S. Congress from receiving American arms because of its links to neo-Nazis. The Canadians were photographed with Azov battalion members, images that were shared on the battalion’s social media site.”

In October 2021, he followed up on this reporting with an article noting,

“Canadian officials who met with members of a Ukrainian battalion linked to neo-Nazis didn’t denounce the unit, but were instead concerned the media would expose details of the get-together, according to newly released documents.  The Canadians met with and were briefed by leaders from the Azov Battalion in June 2018. The officers and diplomats did not object to the meeting and instead allowed themselves to be photographed with battalion officials despite previous warnings that the unit saw itself as pro-Nazi. The Azov Battalion then used those photos for its online propaganda, pointing out the Canadian delegation expressed ‘hopes for further fruitful co-operation.’”

Pugliese also writes,

“One gathering that journalists didn’t find out about was a December 2018 event in Ukraine attended by then Canadian Army commander Lt.-Gen. Jean-Marc Lanthier, according to the documents. Members of the Azov Battalion were present, but, again, instead of denouncing the battalion’s Nazi sympathies, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces focused concern on the possibility that photos might have been taken showing Canadian soldiers with members of the Azov unit. Chris Henderson, then assistant deputy minister for public affairs, emailed more than 20 DND public-relations officers, worried that photos might appear online.”

Another Pugliese article from October noted,

“Far-right extremists in Ukraine’s military have bragged they received training from the Canadian Forces and other NATO nations.” Pugliese writes that one group, Centuria, “acknowledged on social media they have received training from the Canadian military and have participated in military exercises with Canada.” A Canadian Forces spokesperson said that they don’t vet the forces they’re training.

And yet, despite all of this, Canadian media is still, even in just the past few days, publishing editorials and articles calling for sending weapons and military training to troops in Ukraine.

On January 20, Sun Media published a chain-wide editorial attacking Canada and other NATO members for “urging a diplomatic solution” without committing “significant military support.”

On January 21, the Star published an editorial arguing,

“Canada should formally renew [its training mission] now for another six months to underline its determination to stand by Ukraine. And it should send additional military equipment to Ukraine as a further sign of its commitment to the country’s independence and integrity.”

On January 23, the Toronto Sun published an opinion article by multiple contributors, calling for Canada to “deploy special forces and provide some financial aid,” “expand our military training mission,” and “work in concert with our allies to immediately send arms and resources to Ukraine.”

The next day, the Sun published an article by a columnist calling for Canada and allies to “send Ukraine anti-aircraft weapons, drones, air and coastal defence systems, Javelins, Stingers. And arms — and ammunition, and armed drones, long-range counter-artillery radar, electronic warfare capabilities, anti-ship capabilities, and anti-tank and naval mines. Failing that, access to NATO military stockpiles and intelligence. Immediately. Now.”

Not one of these articles mentions neo-Nazis in Ukraine. And the examples go on. But what’s the excuse now?

In mid-2014, we knew neo-Nazis were fighting alongside the Ukrainian forces. In late-2014, we knew that they were officially incorporated into their forces. Since then, the Canadian army has been confirmed, on multiple occassions, to have worked directly with the neo-Nazis. And not only do the calls for arming continue, but they aren’t even qualified with the shallowest words of warning about neo-Nazis.

Trudeau Invited Neo-Nazi leader and co-founder of Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Party Svoboda to Ottawa in 2014

The only remaining excuse I can think of is that media pundits would argue Canadian forces have a Nazi problem as well, so who are we to judge? In that case, even more reason not to send troops to Ukraine, and instead abolish the Canadian Armed Forces entirely.

Canada is certainly not in a position to lecture other armed forces about keeping neo-Nazis out of their ranks, but it shouldn’t make things worse by sending its extremist forces to train theirs.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from Passage

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

During the visit by President Vladimir Putin to Beijing on Friday, the world attention was focused on how far China would go in support of Russia in the latter’s standoff with the US and NATO. From the joint statement issued after the visit, China has given fulsome support to Russia, endorsing Moscow’s demand for security guarantee and its opposition to NATO expansion, the two core issues. 

Russia never expected or sought any Chinese intervention in any military confrontation with the western alliance. Russia has the capability to safeguard its sovereignty.

The Chinese support to Russia at the present juncture can still manifest in a variety of ways. Aside China’s backing at the UN Security Council, what really matters most for Moscow would be the myriad ways in which Beijing can mitigate the effect of any harsh western sanctions against by way of transfer of technology, trade, investments, etc. Conceivably, Putin and Xi Jinping have reached an understanding. 

Already, a significant step has been taken this direction during Putin’s visit with the agreement on new Russian oil and gas deals with China worth an estimated $117.5 billion, and China promising to ramp up Russia’s Far East exports. A new 30-year contract to supply 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year to China from Russia’s Far East was signed. 

Separately, Russian oil giant Rosneft signed a deal with China’s CNPC to supply 100 million tonnes of oil through Kazakhstan over 10 years, effectively extending an existing deal, which is worth an estimated $80 bn. The construction of the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline to China with a massive capacity of 50 bcm annually is also under discussion. 

No doubt, Russia is seriously diversifying its markets for oil and gas exports. This will create space for Moscow to negotiate with its European partners. The new deal with Beijing will not necessitate diversion of Russia’s gas exports to Europe, as they are linked to the gas reserves from the Pacific island of Sakhalin, whereas Russia’s European pipeline network sources gas from the Siberian fields. 

The ball is in now entirely in the European court — whether to continue to source assured energy supplies from Russia at such incredibly low prices or punish itself by forgoing that option. 

While sanctions may inflict some dislocation initially necessitating readjustments, Moscow will cope with it, as past experience shows. With around $640 billion in foreign exchange reserves, Moscow could persevere longer than the Europeans in the energy market. 

The big question is about Putin’s decisions regarding the dangerous situation on Russia’s western borders. The short answer is that Putin will not be browbeaten by the Biden Administration’s threat of sanctions. 

China does not consider that a full scale invasion of Ukraine is in the Russian calculus but it neatly sidesteps the issue, nonetheless. Putin acts very cautiously, and almost always is reactive. Be it in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria or Ukraine itself, that has been the pattern. Of course, it is a different matter that in all these instances, Putin acted decisively to make sure his objectives were realised. 

In the situation surrounding Ukraine, the Biden Administration is forcing Putin’s hands. The latest US and NATO troop reinforcements to Russia’s neighbours—particularly to the Baltic states, in close proximity to St. Petersburg — were completely unwarranted and can only be seen as a calculated act of provocation when there has so far been no evidence of an adequate justification for a major Russian military operation. 

Yet, there could be a method in this madness, given the real possibility of risky military operations in Donbass by an emboldened Ukrainian military or even worse, by the nationalist battalions in that region (to whom NATO has secretly provided a large influx of arms in recent weeks.) 

In the event of any attack on Donbass, make no mistake, Russian intervention is guaranteed. The legislation under consideration with the Duma in Moscow currently factors in precisely such a contingency. It calls upon the Russian government to recognise the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk and, secondly, authorises the government to provide with new weapons to these two “people’s republics.”            

A plausible scenario could be that Russia will patiently wait for the Ukrainian provocation. That is, it all boils down to a question of resolve. For Russia, the stakes are exceedingly high and its staying power is far greater than that of its Western adversaries. 

There is a big element of brinkmanship here. What is happening in Europe at the moment has turned out to be a huge distraction for the US and as time passes, the Biden Administration would rue that its Indo-Pacific strategy is faltering and it is bogged down. The likelihood of Russia backing off is zero.

Evidently, the North Korean missile testing is already putting enormous strain on the US’ alliance system in the Far East. Unlike Ukraine, the US’ security interests are directly affected. Yet, on Friday, a US-drafted statement condemning Pyongyang crash-landed. 

Ironically, China called on the US to be more flexible in its dealings with North Korea and joined six other member countries (including Russia and India) in refusing to sign the joint statement. 

China’s ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun later told reporters,

“If they do want to see some new breakthrough, they should show more sincerity and flexibility. They should come up with more attractive and more practical, more flexible approaches, policies and actions and accommodating the concerns of the DPRK.” 

This is where the US is facing the new reality that its Cold War mentality to isolate China in the Asia-Pacific region and Russia in Europe will not work.

The solidarity between China and Russia reflected in Friday’s joint statement goes far beyond the immediate crisis in Ukraine or the tensions over Taiwan and has an epochal significance heralding a new era in international relations based on a pluralistic world order where the role of the US will no longer be exclusive or defining. 

Russia and China have a broad consensus today on almost all core issues related to global strategic stability, which is unprecedented in modern history. 

The joint statement mentions the US not less than five times while highlighting the common stance of China and Russia on several key regional and global issues, including the expansion of NATO, the US-led ideological clique in the name of democracy, the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy, AUKUS, etc. 

Xi told Putin he is willing to work with him to plan a blueprint and guide the direction of China-Russia ties under the new historical conditions. China has lent support to the fundamental principle of the indivisibility of security that Russia is upholding. In these circumstances, if the US with its zero-sum mindset thinks it can defeat Russia through sanctions, it is being delusional. 

Stonewalling the Russian demands is not going to be feasible, either. The challenge facing the Biden Administration will be how to preserve its credibility, especially in the European eyes. For, if Russia is compelled to act militarily to defend its non-negotiable core interests, as it will be at some point, a dangerous escalation may happen. 

Is the US ready for an open-ended conflict with Russia? Are its allies game for it? Can they afford it? Will their domestic opinion allow it — war with a thermonuclear nuclear power in Europe to defend ill-defined notions? 

A far better judicious course will be to seek a diplomatic formula that takes into account all these self-evident realities and negotiate some kind of a document that guarantees Russia’s legitimate security needs.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image: Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) held talks with visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Beijing, Feb. 4, 2022. (Source: Indian Punchline)

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

The American tactic of disinformation about the Ukrainian security situation continues to advance. Now, Washington appears willing to invest in short-term alarmism rather than adopting a long-term narrative. In recent years, US officials have insisted that Russia plans to invade Ukraine, but in a new statement, Jake Sullivan, national adviser to the Biden administration, said such an invasion is about to happen at any time soon, which generates even more concern, fear, and undeserved anti-Russian sentiments around the West.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, US national advisor Jake Sullivan stated that the Russian invasion against Ukrainian territory is very close to happening, in a matter of days. The official’s words lead to a significant rise in international tensions, escalating general distrust towards Moscow. In this regard, previously, the UN Secretary General had already asked Washington to avoid such alarmist actions, as this unnecessarily intensifies anxieties, but the US government seems unwilling to change its discourse, whose only objective is to induce Western society to support the imposition of more and more anti-Russian sanctions.

These were some of Sullivan’s words:

“We are in the window. Any day now, Russia could take military action against Ukraine, or it could be a couple of weeks from now. […] We believe that there is a very distinct possibility that Vladimir Putin will order an attack on Ukraine (…) It could take a number of different forms. It could happen as soon as tomorrow, or it could take some weeks yet. He has put himself in a position with military deployments to be able to act aggressively against Ukraine at any time now”.

As expected, the adviser failed to present any evidence that there is a Russian plan in this regard. Apparently, it has become a tradition of American foreign policy to accuse Russia of all kinds of hostile attitudes without presenting any evidence or information about what leads the White House to conclude about the existence of such “risks”. Several American media channels spread the accusations that Moscow’s plan is to conduct the invasion in the next few days, staging one of the most successful operations of spreading fake news in recent time.

A few days ago, Bloomberg had accidentally spread a news headline claiming that Russia had already invaded Ukraine. The agency apologized for the mistake and removed the article from its website, but the news had already spread quickly, making thousands of readers believe that a new war had already started in Eastern Europe. There is no reason to believe that the publication was intentional, but the accident itself is unacceptable because in a globalized and interconnected world this type of negligence is capable of generating a major global crisis in a few seconds. Now, the US government appears to be doing something similar, claiming that the invasion will take place at any time – but it is doing so officially and intentionally.

The power of the mass media to influence international crises is notorious. With the complete absence of evidence about the alleged Russian invasion plan, the media has become the only method by which allegations in this regard are able to form public opinion. There is no scientific validity in the arguments for the population to be rationally convinced that there is a “Russian threat”, there are only unfounded accusations that start to receive credibility after being repeated countless times by the media agencies.

With this, anti-Russian paranoia is expected to grow significantly. The populations of western countries, victimized by the unethical action of the pro-NATO media in the dissemination of fake news, will start to support any anti-Russian measure in order to neutralize the “imminent risk” of a new war on European soil, including “preventive measures” of NATO on the Russian border. This means that new sanctions will be imposed on Moscow and NATO will have “justification” in public opinion to seek further militarization of Eastern Europe – disregarding the Russian government’s calls for such militarization to cease.

However, this kind of attitude certainly has an expiration date. Moscow does not want to invade Ukraine, and, with that, the ”next few days” will become increasingly distant. At some point, the Western media will lose all its arguments to keep constantly postponing war predictions and then Western public opinion will decrease its support for NATO. It remains to be seen when the White House will understand that no foreign policy project can be long-lasting based on lies and fallacious narratives.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

The Justice Centre today sent a letter to the City of Ottawa, advising that Justice Centre lawyers are in Ottawa representing the Freedom Convoy 2022, and outlining the efforts being made by the Freedom Convoy to maintain safety and security during the peaceful protest. The Chief of Ottawa Police, the Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner, and the Parliamentary Police Service Superintendent are copied on the letter.

The Justice Centre was recently advised that during the first few days of the truckers’ peaceful protest in Ottawa, closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras were offline entirely, and remain off.

“These cameras do not actually show what is happening on the ground in downtown Ottawa. For safety reasons we strongly urge you to remedy this situation and restore live feed from those CCTV cameras. It is imperative that law enforcement and the public have access to video footage, in order to know what is actually occurring in and around the protest,” states Eva Chipiuk, Staff Lawyer at the Justice Centre.

“Canadians have the legal right to protest peacefully in their capital city. The freedom of peaceful assembly is expressly protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Freedom Convoy has always been clear that it supports only peaceful assembly,” states Ms. Chipiuk.

The Freedom Convoy has stated consistently, repeatedly, and publicly that unlawful activity will not be condoned, and that unlawful conduct will undermine the goals of this peaceful protest. The Freedom Convoy has expressed concerns that there may be individuals or groups who may instigate conflict or engage in illegal behaviour in order to undermine this peaceful citizens’ protest. The Freedom Convoy has maintained a relationship and a direct line of communications with the Ottawa Police Services (“OPS”), Ontario Provincial Police (“OPP”), Royal Canadian Mounted Police (“RCMP”), and the Parliamentary Protective Services (“PPS”).

The Freedom Convoy benefits from the expertise of Danny Bulford, a recently resigned member of the RCMP with 15 years of service. Mr. Bulford has extensive experience in large scale events and protective operations, stating:

“I would like to just put people’s minds at ease. The …heavy police presence…the barricades, and some of the equipment that people have seen …[are] all standard practice, and it’s no reason for panic. Anytime we have a massive event such as this, such as Canada Day in downtown Ottawa, that’s the norm, so it’s no reason for alarm, I assure you. We have been working closely with the Ottawa Police Service, the OPP, the RCMP, and the Parliamentary Protective Service.”

When receiving information that relates to public safety concerns, the Freedom Convoy immediately informs the respective police services, to guarantee the safety of the truckers, public and first responders.

“We are aware of media reports about people associated with the Freedom Convoy being arrested and charged. These were agitators not affiliated with us. Offences related to property damage and an alleged assault were witnessed by a trucker and one of our volunteer security personnel, who reported this to the Ottawa Police Service,” states Mr. Bulford.

“What I have seen with my own eyes [is] …  truckers and supporters of the movement feeding the homeless for free, right on Wellington Street and filling their backpacks. Truckers taking a whole trailer full of food down to the homeless shelter. Maintaining cleanliness of city streets, including picking up discarded masks all over the ground that we’ve come to see. Centralized garbage collection, shoveling snow at the War Memorial and the Terry Fox statue, decorating those two locations, and providing security for those two locations.”

“I’ve even seen people have tents set up right by Terry Fox in order to protect that statue and I expect that that level of commitment to the City of Ottawa and respecting our traditions in this country is just getting started,” adds Mr. Bulford.

“It is disturbing to see this peaceful protest being mischaracterized,” states Ms. Chipiuk.

“The truckers in the Freedom Convoy are feeding the homeless, shovelling snow downtown and cleaning up garbage. They want their voices heard for themselves and behalf of all Canadians and are conveying their message peacefully and lawfully,” concludes Ms. Chipiuk.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from JCCF

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

This article was originally published on Canadian Dimension on May 21, 2020.

Stoking the fire

For over six years, Ukrainian and Russian-supported separatist forces have been in a stand-off in an armed conflict that has ravaged the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. It has claimed the lives of over 13,000 people, including over 3,000 civilians. Awaiting return to peaceful life, residents have had to pass through military checkpoints to go to work, visit family, and deal with administrative matters. Further, the coronavirus crisis has resulted in additional measures preventing movement between the separatist-controlled regions and the rest of Ukraine.

Canada’s policy of providing Ukraine military aid has been disproportionately shaped by both Ukrainian far-right nationalism and the domestic right-wing lobby in Canada. The far-right in Ukraine holds a degree of military power and a corresponding threat of violence that surpasses that of other comparable European ultranationalist organizations. Numerous acts of violence by the far-right have directly contributed to enflaming and prolonging the drawn-out war, in some cases subverting action taken toward peace. Yet, Canada’s preference for fueling a military resolution has come at the expense of addressing the Donbass region’s complex underlying discontent, and at the cost of normalizing ultranationalist right-wing factions within the country.

A year after the conflict erupted, the Conservative Party of Canada under former Prime Minister Stephen Harper initiated a military mission in Ukraine known as Operation UNIFIER, through which Canada provided training and weapons to the Ukrainian military and paramilitary police. On March 18, 2019, former Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Minister of National Defense Harjit Sajjan announced the extension of UNIFIER until 2022. This extension was notably endorsed by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and by the Conservative Party of Canada. James Bezan—the Conservative Shadow Minister for National Defense and Manitoba’s MP for Selkirk-Interlake-Eastman—also promoted Canadian military aid and weapons sales to Ukraine in the House of Commons.

Until the appointment of François-Philippe Champagne as the Liberals’ Foreign Minister in November 2019, military engagement in the Donbass conflict was conspicuously championed by Freeland, who walked in-step with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. In May 2019, Ukraine elected President Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian with no prior political experience, on the ‘pro-peace’ and anti-corruption platform of his “Servant of the People” party. Champagne’s appointment has also signaled a slight shift away from Freeland’s approach toward more neutral diplomacy, as he has not been as personally invested in the Donbass war.

Two Minsk agreements were signed between Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in September 2014, calling for ceasefire and withdrawal of heavy weapons from eastern Ukraine. Some progress on the agreements has since been made, including a pact on April 10, 2020 to exchange 37 prisoners. On May 5, Zelensky also appointed representatives for the Trilateral Contact Group to interface with the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The Minsk agreements notably proposed a form of semi-autonomous governance for Donbass. Both the government and separatist-controlled regions of Donbass have significant diversity, with mixed Ukrainian-Russians, Russian-speaking Ukrainians, and an ethnic Russian diaspora. During his term, Poroshenko introduced a slew of nationalist legislation targeting the Russian diaspora in Ukraine, including a law which granted special status to the Ukrainian language, making it mandatory for public sector workers, particularly those in regional administration in areas with large cultural minorities—such as the Donbass.

While on a dramatically different scale, the issue of minority rights in Ukraine resonates at different frequencies elsewhere in the country. Hungary, for example, has recently withheld its support for NATO-Ukraine Council meetings due to a perceived neglect of Hungarian minority rights, particularly language rights, in the western Ukrainian region of Zakarpattya. Far-right groups that have promoted views of an ethnically homogenous Ukraine have instigated violence at key moments that inform the crisis in the Donbass.

In numerous papers, Ivan Katchanovski, political scientist and professor at the University of Ottawa who has been researching the far-right, has drawn attention to the continuity between far-right violence in the Maidan and the Odessa massacres, and the Donbass war.

Members of far-right groups were found to be responsible for the murder of protesters with hunting pellets during the Maidan coup of February 2014. One of the most prominent participating groups was the Right Sector, an alliance of the ultranationalist organizations Tryzub, Social National Assembly, and Patriot of Ukraine. The latter group was inspired by the Nazi Ukrainian Insurgent Army of the Second World War.

Since May 2014, the Right Sector has also included the Ukrainian National Assembly (UNA) and its paramilitary branch, known as the Ukrainian National Self Defence Organization (UNSO). The UNA-UNSO has been identified by Human Rights Without Frontiers as anti-Semitic, and recognized as a neo-fascist organization. In their eyes, the narrative of a sovereign Ukraine is that of a homogenous country made up of “ethnically pure” Ukrainians. The UNA-UNSO has deplored “abhorrent Russification” and openly called for the slaughter of Russians.

In the Odessa massacre of May 2, 2014, fifty people died in the arson of the House of Trade Unions. Most of those who died were pro-Russian Odessans in the wake of the February coup—which deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, who had received majority support in eastern Ukraine, after he rejected Ukraine’s association agreement with the European Union.

Ukraine’s shift toward the West carried heavy implications for the Donbass, a region that is relianton coal-mining, metallurgical and chemical industries. The dissolution of the Soviet Union left many people divided across new state borders, with differing expectations of economic promise in eastern Ukraine that, over the past decades of neoliberalization, were not realized.

“You have people in the Donbass who actually feared going into the European Union, and feared for their jobs and their livelihoods because their whole industry, their whole economy is very geared toward Russia,” noted Andrew Rasiulis, former defense official and fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, who was responsible for Canadian national defense policy in the 1990s on central and eastern Europe.

“There is the whole cultural, ethnic mindset in western Ukraine that is very different, and the trick for Ukraine is to actually accommodate both sides,” he noted. “I think the west has a hard time understanding that there’s this nuance. The west tends to read the Ukrainian nationalist narrative as being the holistic narrative for all of Ukraine.”

Both Russia and the separatists have since supported the Minsk agreement’s call for reintegration of Donbass into Ukraine. Normandy summit talks in December 2019 were intended to re-affirm the Minsk agreements, which would mean steps toward the withdrawal of troops, and Ukrainian government support for an election in Donbass under the observation of the OSCE.

Zelensky continues to face criticism from influential ultranationalist factions in Ukraine, who have depicted the president’s actions since his election victory as “treason” and a form of “capitulation” to Russia. Nationalist far-right groups like the Azov Battalion have significantly more influence in western Ukrainian cities like Lviv, where Zelensky also garnered the least support during last year’s elections.

Street exhibit commemorating the Azov Battalion in Kharkiv (Kharkov), Ukraine, August 2018. Photo from Flickr.

Created in the spring of 2014 out of the Social National Assembly and Patriot of Ukraine, the Azov Battalion has been one of the most prominent far-right organizations volunteering on the Donbass frontlines. The paramilitary group has notably been involved in undermining actions toward demilitarization in Luhansk by the Ukrainian military, as with the case of Zolote in October 2019 when the volunteer battalion replaced withdrawing Ukrainian troops.

Andriy Parubiy, leader of the Svoboda party that grew out of the neo-Nazi Patriot of Ukraine party, clearly stated in 2014 that attacks on ‘insurgents’ would continue after withdrawal of Russian troops. An amnesty agreement for Donbass has been debated since 2015 but has still not been signed, although Ukraine has proposed amendments for a draft agreement.

While Canada has focused on providing weapons and military training to Ukraine, many experts agree that a more productive role for Canadian involvement would be to advance the Minsk agreement for the reintegration of Donbass.

Rasiulis has pointed to the potential for Canada to play a more proactive role through the OSCE, where Canada has a seat, by supporting Russian language rights, for example, and federalism to facilitate the integration of Donbass into a culturally heterogenous Ukraine. “These are things that Canada has a lot of experience in,” he notes.

Canada has instead taken a less productive route. As Rasiulis observes, “we have distanced ourselves and aligned ourselves with the nationalist sector of Ukrainian politics.” Increasing Canadian weapons sales and military aid to Ukraine has shown that some Canadian actors in the Donbass conflict have only their own interests at heart.

Video of an announcement by Andrei Biletskii, the first commander of the volunteer-based Azov Regiment of the National Guard of Ukraine, with volunteer fighters near Zolote. Still image from YouTube.

Out of our hands

In August 2018, Global Affairs Canada approved a record-breaking arms deal to sell Ukraine fifty LRT-3 50 calibre sniper rifles manufactured by Winnipeg’s PGW Defense Technologies. With an approximate range of 1,800 meters, the rifles are described by PGW as intended for “long-range engagements of both hard and soft targets”—in other words, machines and people.

The sale became controversial because in June 2014 Ukraine had formally integrated extremist far-right militias including the Aidar, Dnipro, Donbass, and Azov battalions into the National Guard—which is itself under the command of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. With this integration, the distinction between the official military and its extremist, far-right volunteer factions has been blurred.

In September 2014, Amnesty International released a report on war crimes by the far-right Aidar Battalion. Aidar was found to have detained, beaten and tortured civilians in Donbass including businessmen and farmers that members of the battalion accused of collaborating with the separatists. The UN Human Rights Commission reported on executions of Donbass civilians by members of the Dnipro Battalion. Testimonials by captives have also described torture by both National Guard servicemen and volunteer battalions.

Winnipeg’s PGW made headlines when sniper rifles sold to Saudi Arabia (Coyote, LRT-3, and Timberwolf) were found in the possession of Yemeni soldiers, and also captured by Houthi forces who targeted civilians in Yemen. As Project Ploughshares researcher Kelsey Gallagher explained, the PGW rifles that made their way to Yemeni soldiers “have recently been illegally diverted from Saudi Arabian stockpiles to illicit third-parties in Yemen, in breach of Canadian export controls.” General Dynamics Land Systems light armoured vehicles (LAVs)—manufactured in London, Ontario—were also found as part of Yemeni convoys.

When PGW’s rifles were found in Houthi hands, the rifle company’s founder Ross Spagrud hired consultant Kory Teneycke, of lobbying firm Coriolis Public Affairs, former VP of Sun News and previously Director of Communications for the Conservatives under Harper.

Teneycke confirmed by email that he advised PGW on both Saudi Arabia and Ukraine in 2016, indicating PGW’s concerns with the potential controversy in the Ukrainian deal months before Canada even approved sales of restricted weapons to Ukraine. Canada had lifted the restrictions on prohibited firearms trade with Ukraine in December 2017, adding the country to Canada’s Automatic Firearm Country Control List (AFCCL).

Compared to the Canadian arms trade with Saudia Arabia and Israel—both of which are destinations for the majority of Canadian military exports—$1 million worth of sniper rifles is not a large military sale. The rapid increase in exported weapons following the addition of Ukraine to the AFCCL, however, allows the sale of Canadian-made firearms, making the Donbass conflict a profitable opportunity for Canadian weapons manufacturers.

As Kelsey Gallagher explained, the AFCCL is supposed to act as an arms control instrument but actually becoming a member of the AFCCL “frequently predates an associated spike in Canadian arms sales, acting to facilitate the Canadian arms trade, as opposed to hinder it.”

This became clear when Canada’s total military exports to Ukraine in 2018 quickly doubled that of 2014, rising to $5.2 million. What’s more, shortly before Canada added Ukraine to the AFCCL, Minister Harjit Sajjan met with former Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak in September 2017 to discuss the construction of a joint ammunition production plant in Ukraine.

While the far-right battalions in Ukraine’s National Guard are not representative of the country’s army as a whole, they still play an active role on the front-lines of Donbass and may be the recipients of American Javelin missiles or Winnipeg-made sniper rifles. Gallagher noted that Canada’s lack of a “functioning post-export inspection regime” means there is not enough oversight to ensure that weapons are not being used by far-right extremists.

In the case of Ukraine, Canadian equipment has already been found with the volunteer battalions, whose integration into the National Guard makes it all the more difficult to track weapons use. According to Ivan Katchanovski, “Azov got several Spartan armoured personnel carriers, which were produced in Ukraine under a Canadian license.” Ukrainian officials have also recently discovered a weapons cache at what was alleged to be a volunteer battalion base.

The human rights violations of the volunteer battalions and their disregard for civilians—documented for years by Amnesty International, the UN Human Rights Commission, and other human rights non-profits—should have triggered alarm concerning the far-right groups within the Ukrainian military.

“This fact alone would, [under] Canadian export law, preclude the transfer of these rifles to Ukraine,” said Gallagher. “Yet we continue to see Global Affairs very flexibly interpret their obligation to stem weapon exports [into] scenarios where there is overriding risk that these violations can occur, or where Canadian weapons can contribute to ongoing instability.”

Phil Gurski, former senior strategic analyst at CSIS specializing in terrorism and president of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting, referred to such arms deals as “strictly a political decision”. Global Affairs Canada can approve deals, like PGW’s rifles, overriding concerns from National Defense or CSIS on the risk of weapons being diverted to, or captured by, extremists.

By the end of May 2019, Operation UNIFIER had trained over 12,500 Ukrainian troops. The Canadian government has offered assurances that the Canadian Armed Forces would not provide training or support for Ukrainian extremists. But there is no explicit law prohibiting Canadian military aid to Azov or other far-right regiments. This is in contrast to restrictions adopted, at least on paper, by the United States. Katchanovski’s academic studies of the Ukrainian far-right contributed to the US adoption of a defense appropriations bill amendment in 2018, which banned U.S. military aid including prohibitions on providing arms, funding or training to the Azov Regiment.

Official statements by the Canadian government haven’t stopped Canadian military personnel from training the neo-Nazi battalions on their own initiative. Retired Canadian Armed Forces Major Oksana Kuzyshyn—who previously served in Israel, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Haiti—spent 60 days training the Azov Battalion to NATO standards. She even gave a presentation about it in 2016 to the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Association of Calgary. Kuzyshyn was a member of the Canadian military since 1985, and since May 2014 has worked as a CAF contract officer.

Canadian civilians have also fought with Ukraine’s far-right battalions—finding common cause in the nativist, extremist politics of these battalions. An anonymous data-dump on the now-defunct far-right message board Iron March in November 2019 released a list of identities connected with various violent far-right groups including Atomwaffen—a terrorist group created through the forum—National Action, and Golden Dawn. The Azov Battalion was also among them.

The message board, now archived and maintained by The Jewish Worker, included messages between members discussing joining Azov at the headquarters in Kiev. Boris Mihajlovic, a Canadian Navy reservist based in Alberta—identifying as Serbian with Croatian citizenship—acted as a moderator on the Iron March forum, and brokered arms deals in Bosnia. Known as MOONLORD, Mihajlovic promoted training to forum members with the Canadian Armed Forces.

Excerpt from a conversation about the Azov Battalion on the Iron March message board.

The Florida-based Atomwaffen already had members embedded within the Canadian military. As Mack Lamoureaux and Ben Makuch reported for Vice in May 2019, Canadian military intelligence documented over 50 CAF members as connected to a hate group or who “made statements/took actions deemed to be discriminatory in nature.”

In its September 2019 report on the transnational rise of violent white supremacism, the New York-based Soufan Centre called out the Azov Battalion for its “neo-Nazi beliefs”. Citing the global connections of white supremacist groups, the Centre described how far-right agents have taken advantage of the conflict in eastern Ukraine to pursue their own agendas. The highest numbers of foreign volunteers in Ukraine, other than Russia, have come from Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Croatia, Georgia, and Italy, among others.

Undue influence

Rather than distancing themselves from the ultranationalist Ukrainian far-right, influential institutions within the Ukrainian Canadian diaspora have instead supported these alliances. The Toronto-based Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC), for example, is one of the main organizations lobbying the Canadian government to send weapons to Ukraine. As Moss Robeson reported for The Grayzone, the UCC had denounced support for Ukrainian fascist martyr Stepan Bandera in its early years, yet has recently adopted his symbolism of Ukrainian nativist unity and historical alliance with the Nazis. Canadian Armed Forces Major Oksana Kuzyshyn—the contract officer who trained the Azov Battalion to NATO standards—is a board member of the UCC.

In addition to Canada’s official military aid, Canadian civilians have raised funds and provided lethal aid to Ukraine through channels in the Canadian-Ukrainian diaspora. The UCC has fundraised for Right Sector and Army SOS, an organization that operates a drone factory based in Kiev that was founded by investment banker Yaroslav Tropinov. In the early years of the conflict, Army SOS claimed that it worked “directly with commanders and soldiers (bypassing corrupt generals),” providing drones, weapons and vehicles, among other forms of military aid. According to the Globe and Mail in 2015, Army SOS had also “purchased parts for sniper rifles and tripwire detonators.”

As a result, Canadian foreign policy on Ukraine and, by extension, the media narrative, has also been largely influenced by right-wing factions of the Ukrainian Canadian diaspora, which have an influential electoral base with strong support for Conservatives in the Canadian mid-west. According to Rasiulis, they have had a disproportionate influence on Canadian foreign policy.

In Ukraine, far-right groups continue to undermine the role of Ukrainian authorities and implement their own interpretation of the law. For example, a volunteer battalion known as National Druzhina, formed out of Azov veterans, is known to have attacked Roma camps in 2018, when it decided that a Roma community had not complied with an ultimatum issued on Facebook to clear out of their camp. The ultimatum stated, “When the police don’t act, the National Druzhyna takes control of the situation.” Druzhina also announced its intention to monitor the 2019 presidential elections.

The links to the Ukrainian far-right as well as to domestic right-wing politics have ultimately affected Canada’s actions with respect to the resolution of the Donbass conflict. Rasiulis maintains that “the nationalists’ influence on Canada—and Freeland particularly in her role as Deputy Prime Minister—still restrains Canadian diplomacy from going so far as to actually work toward a solution.”

Canada has used its stature as a perceived leader in international development, humanitarian, and peace and security assistance efforts to forge dubious alliances, supposedly promoting what Freeland has referred to “rules-based international order”. Since 2014, however, Canada’s focus on military aid and arms deals with Ukraine has done more to foment hostilities and lend legitimacy to ultranationalist subversion in the Donbass. Everyday people in Donbass have been treated by their governments as political pawns, by Canadian politicians as fodder for distant, nationalist electorate bases, and by North American weapons manufacturers as dispensable justification for profit. But Canadian politicians have opted to disregard their involvement in supporting the far-right and simply look the other way.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @globalresearch_crg. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Lital Khaikin is an author and journalist based in Tiohtiá:ke (Montréal). She has published articles in Toward Freedom, Warscapes, Briarpatch, and the Media Co-op, and has appeared in literary publications like 3:AM Magazine, Berfrois, Tripwire, and Black Sun Lit’s “Vestiges” journal. She also runs The Green Violin, a slow-burning samizdat-style literary press for the free distribution of literary paraphernalia.

Featured image: Members of the Azov Battalion and other far-right groups march through Kyiv during Defenders of Ukraine Day, October 14, 2018. Photo from Leave the West Behind.