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The majority of UN member states supported this Anti-Nazi Resolution, as they had done since its inception in 2013, when Ukraine merely abstained, and Yanukovich was still the democratically elected President of Ukraine. The United States attempts to justify its opposition to this Resolution for nine years, with a variety of bogus explanations, originally “in defense of free speech,” but considering the recent draconian censorship imposed in the US today, and the imposition of the vaccine mandate, violating the Nuremburg Code and the UNESCO Universal Declaration of Bioethics and Human Rights, the US was obliged to contrive another explanation for their support for burgeoning neo-nazism, now attributing the Resolution to a Russian disinformation campaign. 

Ukraine is now a puppet of the US, since 2014, when the US sponsored overthrow of President Yanukovich in Kiev was  orchestrated by Victoria Nuland of the infamous “F**k the EU” fame, during which time she and her cohorts placed neo-nazis in the most powerful positions of the regime in Ukraine.

This UN Resolution Prohibiting the “Glorification of Nazism” is a crucially needed rebuttal to the obfuscations of the notorious “Prague Declaration,” with its contrivance of the “double genocide” theory, tantamount to Holocaust Denial.  So far from being any form of “Russian Disinformation campaign,” the Anti-Nazi resolution attempts to protect historic truth, and the truth that it was predominantly the 30 million Soviet heroes who died to defeat Hitler, and ultimately won World War II, with the help of the munitions provided by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, under lend-lease, which he had to virtually demand be honored.  Although Roosevelt was loved, and virtually revered by the majority of the American people, there were powerful pro-nazi movements within the USA, including at the State Department, who hated him, and to whom he replied:  “I welcome their hatred.”

Nazi sympathies have always existed in the US, primarily because Nazism is “better for business,” and slave labor drives up profits for the capitalists;  and though there were many heroic anti-nazi fighters in Ukraine, many of whom gave their lives in the “Great Patriotic War,”  there was a powerful nazi underground in Ukraine, led by Stefan Bandera.   It continues today.

“Covert Action Magazine”,  in a recent article exposes some grisly details of Ukranian Nazism:

“Over his lifetime, Lev Dobriansky, who led the Ukranian Congress Committee of America (UCCA),…..ardently supported the ambitious postwar aims of Stefan Bandera (1909-1959), and his dominant, more radical faction of the OUN that arose in 1941, the ‘Banderites’ (OUN-B).  The OUN, founded in 1930 was, in truth a terrorist organization that emulated the Nazis in words and deed for the sake of ‘liberating’ Ukraine.  Bandera was sentenced to life in prison for the 1934 assassination of the Polish Interior Minister, but he escaped at the outbreak of World War II.  Meanwhile, Hryhorii Matseiko, the OUN assassin who gunned down the Polish minister, had fled to South America.  As Bandera established the OUN-B, President Roosevelt’s Secret Service was on the lookout for Matseiko, a “Ukranian Terrorist” believed to be in the United States because the Germans promised him ‘a very considerable financial reward if he should have the ‘same success’ with President Roosevelt.”

Throughout the Administrations of Obama, Trump and Biden, the US has endorsed the resurgence of Nazism throughout Europe and elsewhere, and opposed this UN Resolution prohibiting the rise and glorification of neo-nazism.

The now neo-fascist vaccine mandate forced upon citizens of the US and other nations, including the UN itself, the violation of the Nuremberg Code and numerous UN Resolutions protecting human rights, especially the right to bodily autonomy, indicate an ominous global trend toward totalitarianism which must be opposed by all necessary means.  Otherwise, Hitler’s diabolic agenda will become a global reality.

“The Great Reset” (with its “transhumans”) is an expanded, updated disguised version, of “Mein Kampf,” eugenics masquerading as “public health.”  A new cult has arisen with a tragically gullible mass of deceived people following the cult leader, who arrogantly and falsely claims to “represent science.”

Like the frog boiled to death in water, as the temperature is inexorably raised, until it becomes too late for the frog to escape, will humanity be boiled to death as the population “reduction” efforts accelerate the agenda, under the guise of exterminating Covid-19?

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

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

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***

“Science is more than a body of knowledge. It’s a way of thinking, a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions to interrogate those who tell us something is true to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan political or religious, who comes ambling along.”

– Carl Sagan, 1996 [1]

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One can imagine just how difficult the term ‘anti-science’ would be to some people outside the norm of a society programmed for the continuation of a policy of technical advancement, such as 5G technology, Genetic Modification, etc that while attractive at first glance may have deserved criticisms in relation to impacts on human and animal health.

The points that have been raised about COVID vaccines have painted perhaps the most dramatic portrait of this psychological weapon of wordsmithing that has ever been introduced. Over the last year, skilled medical doctors and researchers hold aloft studies and statistics, including the recent VAERS statistics tabulating injuries and deaths to the COVID and other vaccines. They are dismissed with frightfully little effort from Official Health authorities and their loyal lapdogs in media with their frequent vaccine infomercials masquerading as news. They are completely rejected and ignored by the press as they do not track in ‘anti-science.’

One suspects the CIA suggested to their paid inserts in the major media stations to use the term ‘anti-science’ as a thought stopper, much like the way they got the media to embrace the term ‘conspiracy theory’ in relation to major crimes of State, such as the JFK assassination.

In a world of such bitter divisions where people can be afraid not to conform. Even if they can be convinced of the problems with the COVID vaccine, and indeed the whole COVID narrative, they can be afraid for their reputations that would take a hit. Even their ability to practice is threatened in some cases. [2]

In such unprecedented and intimidating times, it is refreshing to have the voice of someone who has been damned near obsessed with keeping the science disciplined and pure of influences, including and especially the profit-driven thrust of the major pharmaceutical corporations. The man for the Global Research News Hour this week is the renowned author and scientist James Lyons-Weiler.

Not only has Dr. Lyons-Weiler worked on studies in relation to COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2 research, he is the president and CEO of the Institute for Pure and Applied Knowledge (IPAK) a group designed, they claim, to provide impartial research results and views on some of the most important and controversial topics in biomedicine, psychiatry, and sociology. IPAK conducts its research in a manner independent of profit motive so that their results can be better trusted.

In this interview, Dr Lyons-Weiler elaborates on conventional research in COVID-19 and other areas of medicine favoring profits over people, his research into something called Pathogenic Priming and its contribution to severe illness, the possibility of malfeasance by health authorities, the threat to children and more!

James Lyons-Weiler has seventeen years’ experience in biomedical research, serving primarily in the capacity of research study design and analysis. He is president and CEO of the Institute for Pure and Applied Knowledge. HE is also the author of  “Cures vs. Profits“, “Environmental and Genetic Causes of Autism“, and  “Ebola:An Evolving Story.” His site is jameslyonsweiller.com

(Global Research News Hour episode 335)

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The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca .

Other stations airing the show:

CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am.

WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton Massachusetts is Boston College Radio and broadcasts to the greater Boston area. The Global Research News Hour airs during Truth and Justice Radio which starts Sunday at 6am.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 7pm.

CJMP 90.1 FM, Powell River Community Radio, airs the Global Research News Hour every Saturday at 8am. 

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday afternoon from 3-4pm.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 9am pacific time.

Notes:

1. Charlie Rose (May 27, 1996) Carl Sagan in interview (3:53); https://charlierose.com/videos/9094
2. https://www.globalresearch.ca/open-letter-college-physicians-surgeons-bc/5748922?pdf=5748922

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

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***

The winter came to Syria with a hurricane and a new wave of hostilities. On December 1, a storm hit refugee camps in the north of the country. The hurricane damaged and destroyed a large number of settlements in Idlib and in the north of Aleppo.

The hurricane is not the only reason of a headache for Syrian militants in Greater Idlib, where a military storm is going really strong. Several recent reports talked about a near ground operation by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies to reinforce the ceasefire in the region.

On November 30, three militants were killed when the SAA shelled a position they were manning in the al-Ghab Plains in the western part of the Greater Idlib region. The army reportedly used its Russian-made 2K25 Krasnopol laser-guided 155 mm artillery round.

The slain militants were Syrian members of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP). They were fighting in the terrorist group’s Ansar [Supporters] unit which is dedicated for Syrians only.

The SAA shelling was likely a response to the ceasefire violations which led to casualties in Syrian ranks. In the last few days, two soldiers were allegedly killed in the al-Ghab Plains by sniper fire.

Meanwhile, the SAA, supported by the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS), continues fighting terrorists in Syria’s central regions, and the last month was busy enough for the allies.

In November, the VKS carried out more than 610 airstrikes on ISIS cells and their hideouts in Syria’s central region, while the Syrian army conducted several combing operations in different parts of the region.

The most recently, a new wave of airstrikes targeted hideouts of ISIS cells located near the strategic Ithriyah-Khanasir highway, which links Hama with Aleppo.

While the SAA and Russian forces are doing their job, members of the US-led international coalition are busy revealing their activities in Syria.

The UK has officially claimed responsibility for the October 25 drone strike on northeastern Syria. The remotely piloted [MQ-9] Reaper, armed with Hellfire missiles, reportedly killed Sabahi Ibrahim al-Muslih, also known as “Abu Hamzah al- Shheell”, a cochairman of ISIS Shura Council.

The US also did not stay aside. However, it had no successful operation to reveal. Thus, Washington launched investigation into the murder of dozens of civilians.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has ordered an investigation into an airstrike in Syria in 2019. According to The New York Times, an American F-15 fighter jet, by order of Task Force 9, dropped a bomb on a crowd of civilians gathering in a field near the settlement of El-Baguz on March 18, 2019. The US military leadership downplayed the strike, which reportedly killed about 80 people.

Despite the growing discontent among the locals, the US-led international coalition continues its reinforcement in northeastern Syria. Over the last few days, dozens of trucks loaded with supplies and military equipment for the US-led coalition entered the country from Iraq.

While civilians are preventing some US convoys from passing through their villages, throwing stones to the vehicles, other US convoys suffer more severe damage. On December 1, a convoy moving logistic supplies to US-led coalition bases came under an IED attack, when it was passing near the town of al-Malikiyah in the northeastern countryside of al-Hasakah. Two trucks reportedly burnt out as a result of the explosion.

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***

It’s impossible to understand the resumption of the JCPOA nuclear talks in Vienna without considering the serious inner turbulence of the Biden administration.

Everyone and his neighbor are aware of Tehran’s straightforward expectations: all sanctions – no exceptions – must be removed in a verifiable manner. Only then will the Islamic Republic reverse what it terms ‘remedial measures,’ that is, ramping up its nuclear program to match each new American ‘punishment.’

The reason Washington isn’t tabling a similarly transparent position is because its economic circumstances are, bizarrely, far more convoluted than Iran’s under sanctions. Joe Biden is now facing a hard domestic reality: if his financial team raises interest rates, the stock market will crash and the US will be plunged into deep economic distress.

Panicked Democrats are even considering the possibility of allowing Biden’s own impeachment by a Republican majority in the next Congress over the Hunter Biden scandal.

According to a top, non-partisan US national security source, there are three things the Democrats think they can do to delay the final reckoning:

First, sell some of the stock in the Strategic Oil Reserve in coordination with its allies to drive oil prices down and lower inflation.

Second, ‘encourage’ Beijing to devalue the yuan, thus making Chinese imports cheaper in the US, “even if that materially increases the US trade deficit. They are offering trading the Trump tariff in exchange.” Assuming this would happen, and that’s a major if, it would in practice have a double effect, lowering prices by 25 percent on Chinese imports in tandem with the currency depreciation.

Third, “they plan to make a deal with Iran no matter what, to allow their oil to re-enter the market, driving down the oil price.” This would imply the current negotiations in Vienna reaching a swift conclusion, because “they need a deal quickly. They are desperate.”

There is no evidence whatsoever that the team actually running the Biden administration will be able to pull off points two and three; not when the realities of Cold War 2.0 against China and bipartisan Iranophobia are considered.

Still, the only issue that really worries the Democratic leadership, according to the intel source, is to have the three strategies get them through the mid-term elections. Afterwards, they may be able to raise interest rates and allow themselves time for some stabilization before the 2024 presidential ballot.

So how are US allies reacting to it? Quite intriguing movements are in the cards.

When in doubt, go multilateral

Less than two weeks ago in Riyadh, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), in a joint meeting with France, Germany and the UK, plus Egypt and Jordan, told the US Iran envoy Robert Malley that for all practical purposes, they want the new JCPOA round to succeed.

A joint statement, shared by Europeans and Arabs, noted “a return to mutual compliance with the [nuclear deal] would benefit the entire Middle East, allow for more regional partnerships and economic exchange, with long-lasting implications for growth and the well-being of all people there, including in Iran.”

This is far from implying a better understanding of Iran’s position. It reveals, in fact, the predominant GCC mindset ruled by fear: something must be done to tame Iran, accused of nefarious “recent activities” such as hijacking oil tankers and attacking US soldiers in Iraq.

So this is what the GCC is volunteering to the Americans. Now compare it with what the Russians are proposing to several protagonists across West Asia.

Essentially, Moscow is reviving the Collective Security Concept for the Persian Gulf Region, an idea that has been simmering since the 1990s. Here is what the concept is all about.

So if the US administration’s reasoning is predictably short-term – we need Iranian oil back in the market – the Russian vision points to systemic change.

The Collective Security Concept calls for true multilateralism – not exactly Washington’s cup of tea – and “the adherence of all states to international law, the fundamental provisions of the UN Charter and the resolutions of the UN Security Council.”

All that is in direct contrast with the imperial “rules-based international order.”

It’s too far-fetched to assume that Russian diplomacy per se is about to accomplish a miracle: an entente cordiale between Tehran and Riyadh.

Yet there’s already tangible progress, for instance, between Iran and the UAE. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri held a “cordial meeting” in Dubai with Anwar Gargash, senior adviser to UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. According to Bagheri, they “agreed to open a new page in Iran-UAE relations.”

Geopolitically, Russia holds the definitive ace: it maintains good relationships with all actors in the Persian Gulf and beyond, talks to all of them frequently, and is widely respected as a mediator by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, and other GCC members.

Russia also offers the world’s most competitive and cutting edge military hardware to underpin the security needs of all the parties.

And then there’s the overarching, new geopolitical reality. Russia and Iran are forging a strengthened strategic partnership, not only geopolitical but also geoeconomic, fully aligned to the Russian-conceptualized Greater Eurasian Partnership – and also demonstrated by Moscow’s support for Iran’s recent ascension to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the only West Asian state to be admitted thus far.

Furthermore, three years ago Iran launched its own regional security framework proposal for the region called HOPE (the Hormuz Peace Endeavor) with the intent to convene all eight littoral states of the Persian Gulf (including Iraq) to address and resolve the vital issues of cooperation, security, and freedom of navigation.

The Iranian plan didn’t get far off the ground. While Iran suffers from adversarial relations with some of its intended audience, Russia carries none of that baggage.

The $5.4 trillion game

And that brings us to the essential Pipelineistan angle, which in the Russia–Iran case revolves around the new, multi-trillion dollar Chalous gas field in the Caspian Sea.

A recent sensationalist take painted Chalous as enabling Russia to “secure control over the European energy market.”

That’s hardly the story. Chalous, in fact, will enable Iran – with Russian input – to become a major gas exporter to Europe, something that Brussels evidently relishes. The head of Iran’s KEPCO, Ali Osouli, expects a “new gas hub to be formed in the north to let the country supply 20 percent of Europe’s gas needs.”

According to Russia’s Transneft, Chalous alone could supply as much as 52 percent of natural gas needs of the whole EU for the next 20 years.

Chalous is quite something: a twin-field site, separated by roughly nine kilometers, the second-largest natural gas block in the Caspian Sea, just behind Alborz. It may hold gas reserves equivalent to one-fourth of the immense South Pars gas field, placing it as the 10th largest gas reserves in the world.

Chalous happens to be a graphic case of Russia-Iran-China (RIC) geoeconomic cooperation. Proverbial western speculative spin rushed to proclaim the 20-year gas deal as a setback for Iran. The final breakdown, not fully confirmed, is 40 percent for Gazprom and Transneft, 28 percent for China’s CNPC and CNOOC, and 25 percent for Iran’s KEPCO.

Moscow sources confirm Gazprom will manage the whole project. Transneft will be in charge of transportation, CNPC is involved in financing and banking facilities, and CNOOC will be in charge of infrastructure and engineering.

The whole Chalous site has been estimated to be worth a staggering  $5.4 trillion.

Iran could not possibly have the funds to tackle such a massive enterprise by itself. What is definitely established is that Gazprom offered KEPCO all the necessary technology in exploration and development of Chalous, coupled with additional financing, in return for a generous deal.

Crucially, Moscow also reiterated its full support for Tehran’s position during the current JCPOA round in Vienna, as well as in other Iran-related issues reaching the UN Security Council.

The fine print on all key Chalous aspects may be revealed in time.

It’s a de facto geopolitical/geoeconomic win-win-win for the Russia, Iran, China strategic partnership. And it reaches way beyond the famous “20-year agreement” on petrochemicals and weapons sales clinched by Moscow and Tehran way back in 2001, in a Kremlin ceremony when President Putin hosted then Iranian President Mohammad Khatami.

There’s no two ways about it. If there is one country with the necessary clout, tools, sweeteners and relationships in place to nudge the Persian Gulf into a new security paradigm, it is Russia – with China not far behind.

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This article was originally published on The Cradle.

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

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Cradle

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

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***

As preparations are underway for the second Russia-Africa summit planned for 2022, African leaders, politicians, academic researchers and experts have been discussing several aspects of the current state of Russia-Africa relations. They, most often, compare it with a number of foreign countries notably China, the United States, European Union, India, France, Turkey, Japan, and South Korea that have held such gatherings in that format with Africa.

Some have argued that Russia has moved away from its low-key strategy to vigorous relations, as shown by the first symbolic Russia-Africa summit in the Black Sea city of Sochi in October 2019. Russia and Africa adopted a joint declaration, a comprehensive document that outlines the key objectives and necessary tasks that seek to raise assertively the entirety of relations to a new level.

Long before the summit, at least, during the past decade, several bilateral agreements between Russia and individual African countries were signed. Besides, memoranda of understanding, declaration of interests, pledges and promises dominated official speeches. On the other side, Russia is simply invisible in economic sectors in Africa, despite boasting of decades-old solid relations with the continent.

Undoubtedly, Africa is opening up new fields of opportunity. The creation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) provides a unique and valuable opportunity for businesses to access an integrated African market of over 1.3 billion people with a GDP of over US$2.5 trillion. It aspires to connect all the regions of Africa, to deepen economic integration and to boost intra-African trade and investment.

Despite existing risks, challenges and threats, a number of external countries continue strengthening their economic footholds in Africa and contribute enormously towards the continent’s efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Russia has to upgrade or scale up its collaborative engagement with Africa. It has to consider seriously launching more public outreach programmes, especially working with civil society to change public perceptions and the private sector to strengthen its partnership with Africa. In order to achieve this, it has to surmount the challenges, take up the courage and work consistently with both private and public sectors and with an effective Action Plan.

In this exclusive interview with Steven Gruzd, Head of the African Governance and Diplomacy Programme at the at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), discusses a few questions, highlights existing challenges and passionately offers some progressive suggestions regarding Russia-African relations.

Steven Gruzd also heads the Russia-Africa Research Programme initiated this year at SAIIA, South Africa’s premier research institute on international issues. It is an independent, non-government think tank, with a long and proud history of providing thought leadership in Africa. Here are the interview excerpts:

Kester Kenn Klomegah: What are your appreciations and fears for Russia returning to Africa?

Steven Gruzd: Africa is becoming crowded, with many old and new actors actively involved on the continent. Apart from EU countries, China and the US, we have players such as Iran, Turkey, Israel, the UAE, Japan and others. So Russia’s renewed interest in Africa does not happen in isolation. It, of course, seeks to build on Soviet-era ties, and several African leaders today studied in the USSR or the Soviet sphere of influence. Russia has tended to focus on niche areas such as weapons sales, nuclear energy and resource extraction, at a much smaller scale than China. Many leaders are welcoming the attention of Russia, but some remain wary of Russia’s hidden motives and intentions. Russia’s dealings are not transparent and open compared to China. The shadowy world of private military companies such as Russia’s Wagner Group is causing concern in unstable countries like the CAR, Libya and Mali. So, in fact, there is a kind of mixed picture, sentiments and interpretations are also varied here.

KKK: How would you argue that Russia engages fairly in “competition for cooperation” in Africa?

SG: Africa is a busy geopolitical arena, with many players operating. Russia has to compete against them, and distinctively remain focused its efforts. Russia welcomes diplomatic support from African countries, and unlike the West, it does not demand good governance or advocate for human rights reforms. Russia likes to portray itself as not interfering in local politics or judging African countries, even though there is mounting evidence that it has been involved in meddling in elections in Africa through disinformation, fake news and attempting to exploit fault lines in societies through social media.

KKK: Do you think, to some extent, Russia is fighting neo-colonial tendencies, as shown in Guinea, Mali, CAR and Sudan? Does it imply that Russia supports military leaders in Africa?

SG: Russia uses the rhetoric of anti-colonialism in its engagement with Africa, and that it is fighting neo-colonialism from the West, especially in relations with their former colonies. It sees France as a threat to its interests especially in Francophone West Africa, the Maghreb and the Sahel. Russia has invested resources in developing French-language news media, and engages in anti-French media activity, including through social media. I think Russia has its own economic and political interests in countries like Guinea, Mali, CAR and Sudan, even if it uses the language of fighting neo-colonialism. It explicitly appears that Russia supports several undemocratic African leaders and their regimes.

KKK: Some experts have argued that Russia’s diplomacy is full of bilateral agreements, largely not implemented, and gamut of pledges and promises. What are your views about these?

SG: I would largely agree that there is a divide between what has been pledged and promised at high-level meetings and summits, compared to what has actually materialised on the ground. There is more talk than action, and in most cases down the years mere intentions and ideas have been officially presented as initiatives already in progress. It will be interesting to see what has been concretely achieved in reports at the second Russia-Africa summit scheduled for late 2022.

KKK: From the above discussions so far, what do you think are Russia’s challenges and setbacks in Africa?

SG: Africa is a crowded playing field. Russia does not have the same resources and approaches as China, France, UK or US, so it has limited impact. The language barrier could be used as an excuse, but Russia has the great possibility to leverage into the Soviet- and Russian-trained diaspora. On the other hand, Russia feels it is unfairly portrayed in Western media, so that is another perception it seeks to change. It can change the perception by supporting public outreach programmes. Working closely with the academic community, such as the South African Institute of International Affairs and similar ones throughout Africa, is one potential instrument to raise its public image. In places like Mozambique and the CAR, the Wagner Group left after incurring human losses – does Russia have staying power?

KKK: As it prepares to hold the second Russia-Africa summit in 2022, what could be the expectations for Africa? What to do ultimately with the first Joint Declaration from Sochi?

SG: As already mentioned, there needs to be a lot of tangible progress on the ground for the second summit to show impact. It is worth to reiterate here that African countries will expect more debt relief and solid investment from Russian businesses. In terms of political support at places like the UN Security Council, there is close interaction between Russia and African States, but as recent research by SAIIA shows, not as much as assumed. See this. The relationship has to however deliver, and move from words to deeds. In conclusion, I would suggest that Russia has to take up both the challenges and unique opportunities, and attempt to scale up its influence by working consistently on practical multifaceted sustainable development issues and by maintaining appreciable relations with Africa. And African countries likewise have to devise viable strategies for engaging with Russia.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), is now a frequent and passionate contributor to Global Research. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

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

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***

The COVID shot, COVID jab or COVID fake-vaccine is not a real vaccine, however its grave and sometimes lethal effects are definitely real.

Databases worldwide are overflowing with reports of COVID vaccine injuries (adverse events) and deaths. As of the time of writing, the US-based VAERS database shows approximately 915,000 injuries including 20,000 deaths, which according to the 2010 Harvard Pilgram Study is underreported by a factor of 100 [for injuries]. As of the time of writing, the Europe-based EudraVigilance database (which tracks data from the 30 nations of the European Economic Area) records approximately 2,900,000 injuries including 31,000 deaths following the COVID shot. It would be fair to assume similar underreporting happens there, although it is hard to know for sure.

All the Big Pharma apologists and NWO-funded fact checkers are naturally eager to jump in and claim that this data is all just self-reported and doesn’t prove causation, however it doesn’t take a genius to see the trends here. Whatever the real stats, the fake-vaccine effects are devastating. However, there is some good news. If you or someone you know has taken the COVID shot, and is experiencing post-vaccine regret, there are some possible ways you can recover. Below is a list of options for COVID shot detox.

COVID Shot Detox: Self-Made Spike Proteins

Before I begin, I want to make something very clear. We’ve all been bombarded with the fear narrative of the dreaded spike protein of SARS-CoV-2. This is pure fiction. SARS-CoV-2 only exists in a digital viral database and is not an actual real-world virus. There is no isolated, real-life SARS-CoV-2 specimen.

Therefore, when I refer to spike proteins below, I am not talking about the spike proteins of an abstract virus. I am talking about the spike proteins your body has been genetically instructed to make (if you took the COVID shot). Remember, the various COVID chemical devices (fake-vaccines) on the market rewire your genes so you make spike proteins (either via mRNA, in the case of Pfizer and Moderna, or via an adenovirus, in the case of AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson). These spike proteins that your body makes then bind to your own ACE2 receptors or cause havoc in numerous other ways. Some of the remedies listed below are to detoxify these self-made spike proteins.

Chlorine Dioxide (ClO2, MMS)

In a recent interview with Sarah Westall, Dr. Joe Nieusma, who has a PhD in toxicology, discusses possible ways to detox from the COVID shot. He spends quite a bit of time discussing the merits of chlorine dioxide (chemical abbreviation ClO2) which has been marketed by Jim Humble as Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS) for some time. Humble had great success with it helping those with malaria in Africa. Other claims attributed to it are that it can help with Hepatitis A, B and C, herpes, TB, AIDS and cancer. Recently, Dr. Andreas Kalcker has become well known for recommending it to fight COVID itself (whatever you think COVID really is).

Dr. Nieusma points to a June 2021 study entitled Inhibition of the Binding of Variants of SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus Spike Protein to a Human Receptor by Chlorine Dioxide which concluded that ClO2 could stop the spike protein (from the COVID fake-vaccine) attaching itself to the Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors:

“Aim: COVID-19 caused by a new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has become an ongoing worldwide pandemic. A safe and potent virucidal disinfection system is urgently needed to protect the population from the virus. Chlorine Dioxide (ClO2) is a powerful disinfectant that is known to inactivate both viruses and bacteria. The aim of this study was to investigate whether chlorine dioxide inhibits the binding of the receptor-binding domain of the Spike protein (S protein) from variant coronavirus (British and South African variants) to human receptor, Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2).

Materials and Methods: In vitro experiments to determine binding of the purified receptor-binding domain of spike protein to ACE2 were performed in the presence of various concentrations of chlorine dioxide. Purified spike proteins from the British and South African variants were used. Spike protein coated onto a microtiter plate was treated with chlorine dioxide aqueous solution or chlorine dioxide spray solution.

Result: Binding of variant spike proteins was inhibited in a concentration-dependent manner (50% Inhibitory Concentration (IC50) of 7.6 μmol/L and 5.8 μmol/L for the British and the South African variants, respectively).

Conclusion: These findings show that chlorine dioxide aqueous solution can inactivate the binding of the variant spike proteins to the human ACE2 receptor protein, indicating that this strategy may be useful in blocking the transmission of variant SARS-CoV-2  viruses.”

For readers who know little to nothing about ClO2, here are some basic facts. ClO2 is very different to bleach, chlorine compounds or chlorine alone. Chlorine kills by chlorination whereas chlorine dioxide kills by oxidation. That is a huge difference, because chlorination ends up making molecules toxic to the human body. ClO2 is an oxidizer which draws off electrons from pathogenic molecules, thus weakening and breaking them up; however, it is a weak oxidizer, unlike oxygen (O2), ozone (O3) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) which are strong oxidizers. ClO2 won’t have any effect on strong healthy cells and molecules which are alkaline, but it will tear apart weak acidic molecules. ClO2 has no byproducts, can be used as a disinfectant and is effective against spore-forming bacteria like Anthrax. It is also effective against microorganisms hiding inside the biofilm of your body (where other remedies can’t reach). The biofilm is a thin layer of bacteria that form inside a sticky slime matrix, usually on surfaces in contact with water. The biofilm protects microorganisms (like listeria), so remedies like ClO2 are extremely useful for detoxification.

In a May 2021 article entitled Is This a Possible COVID Vaccine Antidote?, I talked about the potential of suramin to inhibit blood coagulation and RNA replication, after Dr. Judy Mikovits had touted suramin as a COVID vaccine detox strategy. After all, the COVID fake-vaccine has become notorious for its blood clotting effects, which in serious cases can lead to stroke and heart attack, and has aptly earned the nickname of the clot shot. Later it appears that Dr. Mikovits has emphasized that suramin does not come from or is not connected to pine needle tincture, which is strange, since the evidence I have seen is that it does. In the above-linked interview, Dr. Nieusma points out that suramin is structurally similar to ivermectin. I encourage anyone interested in this to do their own research, however suramin seems to be a very important detox remedy for the COVID shot, since it inhibits and prevents both blood clotting and unwanted DNA/RNA replication, 2 of the worst effects of the jab.

Black Seed Oil

Black seed oil is another great supplement and natural remedy that can help with COVID shot detox. According to Dr. Nieusma, it binds to the spike proteins before they bind to your body’s ACE2 receptors. It also prevents inflammation and the dreaded cytokine storms which have been responsible for some horrendous effects of the fake-vaccine.

Antioxidants

After these 3 supplements, Dr. Nieusma lists some others that I believe are more general detoxifiers, rather than substances or remedies specific to the COVID shot. He recommends C60 (carbon 60) to manage oxidative stress and inflammation, which makes sense, since C60 is known as the strongest antioxidant in the world. He recommends glutathione, which is the human body’s master antioxidant, capable of preventing cellular damage via reactive oxygen species such as free radicals, peroxides, lipid peroxides and heavy metals. Boosting glutathione is a clear and obvious tactic for detoxification and good health. Some easy ways to do this are to get regular exercise, good sleep, high levels of Vitamin C and D, and to eat foods like sulfurous veggies, avocado, spinach, asparagus, okra, whey protein and turmeric. You can also boost glutathione via supplements like NAC, DMG (dimethylglycine) and milk thistle.

Dr. Nieusma also mentions ozone as a COVID shot detox method, but he doesn’t elaborate on how to take it, so I encourage readers to do their own research and be careful, because ozone can be dangerous if used in the wrong way. Lastly, let us remember one of the best detox strategies of all, a method which is also free: fasting. Fasting is a way that your body can clean up things it would not normally pay attention to during the process of constant digestion. It is an under-used but very effective way to detoxify virtually anything unwanted from your body.

Ways to Detox Graphene from the Body

Another good source of information for COVID shot detox is Ricardo Delgado, who is a part of La Quinta Columna, the Spanish research organization that first brought to light in a major way that the fake-vaccine shots contained graphene or graphene oxide. This was later corroborated by other researchers such as Dr. Robert Young. Whitney Webb has rightly challenged Delgado’s claim that the vaccine is over 90% graphene, however that is irrelevant to our discussion today. Regardless of the exact percentage of graphene in the shot, it does contain some, and we know that graphene oxide is a superconductor that emits and receives signals. It could be fully or partially responsible for the COVID vax magnetism phenomenon. In this video (in Spanish but with English subtitles), Delgado proposes 7 natural products which help detox graphene from the body:

1. NAC (N-acetylcysteine)
2. Zinc

3. Astaxanthin

4. Quercetin

5. Vitamin D

6. Milk thistle

7. Melatonin

I will comment briefly on each. NAC is mentioned above in the antioxidant section as a way to boost gluathione. Zinc is an essential mineral that many people are deficient in; it is commonly suggested for colds, flu and detox, and is particularly important for men to build testosterone. Astaxanthin is an algae superfood which I take personally and which I highly recommend; it also helps with immunity, energy, stamina, eye health, joint health and skin health. Quercetin is a well-known antioxidant and detox agent. I mentioned Viatmin D and milk thistle above, and finally, melatonin (the sleep hormone) is known to stimulate glutathione production, as this study found.

I would also encourage vaccined-damaged individuals to experiment with safe and trusted detoxifiers such as zeolite, clay, boron and epsom salts, many of which can be used topically and internally.

Final Thoughts on COVID Shot Detox

The products listed in this article are meant as a starting place for your research. As always, conduct your own due diligence and check anything out thoroughly before putting it in your body. For those with post-vaccine regret, the good news is that the human body is capable of amazing healing and regeneration, however you need to stop poisoning it and to give it what it needs. As humanity continues its awakening journey, there will be many who didn’t see through the COVID scamdemic propaganda at first, but who later caught gist of it, a couple of shots later. My hope is that those people can recover their health and that we can reach as many people as possible with this information before people succumb to fake vaccine-induced “adverse events,” injuries and death.

As a final comment, I will note that this article does not specifically address how to get nanotechnology out of your body – whether it’s self-aware fibers, self-propelling critters, machine-like discs or any of the other weird things which people have found. In pre-COVID times, Clifford Carnicom and Tony Pantelleresco have done good work in this area, which Morgellons’ sufferers have found useful. If you know of any solutions here, please leave your ideas in the commments below.

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This article was originally published on The Freedom Articles.

Makia Freeman is the editor of alternative media / independent news site The Freedom Articles, author of the book Cancer: The Lies, the Truth and the Solutions and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com. Makia is on Steemit and Odysee/LBRY.

Sources

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https://healthimpactnews.com/2021/31014-deaths-2890600-injuries-following-covid-shots-in-european-database-of-adverse-reactions-as-young-previously-healthy-people-continue-to-die/

https://thefreedomarticles.com/10-reasons-sars-cov-2-imaginary-digital-theoretical-virus/

https://odysee.com/@sarahwestall:0/Joe-Nieusma—Nov.-26:b

https://www.remedypublications.com/open-access/inhibition-of-the-binding-of-variants-of-sars-cov-2-coronavirus-spike-7364.pdf

https://thefreedomarticles.com/covid-vaccine-antidote-pine-needle-tea-suramin-inhibits-dna-rna-replication/

https://thefreedomarticles.com/c60-best-known-life-extender/

https://thefreedomarticles.com/covid-vax-ingredients-exposed-graphene-nano-metals-parasites/

https://thefreedomarticles.com/covid-vaxxed-magnets-sticking-to-vaccinated-at-injection-site/

https://www.brighteon.com/0c52cc81-c0fa-4277-be73-878c24ad2c13

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8750343/

https://thefreedomarticles.com/strange-alive-worm-like-mask-fibers-found-in-covid-face-masks/

https://thefreedomarticles.com/covid-vax-creatures-live-self-aware-critters-found-microscope/

https://thefreedomarticles.com/covid-vax-contents-2-more-docs-reveal-creepy-microscopy-images/

Featured image is from TFA

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When the Department of Defense released its annual report on Chinese military strength in early November, one claim generated headlines around the world. By 2030, it suggested, China would probably have 1,000 nuclear warheads — three times more than at present and enough to pose a substantial threat to the United States. As a Washington Post headline put it, typically enough: “China accelerates nuclear weapons expansion, seeks 1,000 warheads or more, Pentagon says.”

The media, however, largely ignored a far more significant claim in that same report: that China would be ready to conduct “intelligentized” warfare by 2027, enabling the Chinese to effectively resist any U.S. military response should it decide to invade the island of Taiwan, which they view as a renegade province. To the newsmakers of this moment, that might have seemed like far less of a headline-grabber than those future warheads, but the implications couldn’t be more consequential. Let me, then, offer you a basic translation of that finding: as the Pentagon sees things, be prepared for World War III to break out any time after January 1, 2027.

To appreciate just how terrifying that calculation is, four key questions have to be answered. What does the Pentagon mean by “intelligentized” warfare? Why would it be so significant if China achieved it? Why do U.S. military officials assume that a war over Taiwan could erupt the moment China masters such warfare? And why would such a war over Taiwan almost certainly turn into World War III, with every likelihood of going nuclear?

Why “Intelligentization” Matters

First, let’s consider “intelligentized” warfare. Pentagon officials routinely assert that China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), already outmatches the U.S. in sheer numbers — more troops, more tanks, more planes, and especially more ships. Certainly, numbers do matter, but in the sort of high-paced “multi-domain” warfare American strategists envision for the future, “information dominance” — in the form of superior intelligence, communications, and battlefield coordination — is expected to matter more. Only when the PLA is “intelligentized” in this fashion, so the thinking goes, will it be able to engage U.S. forces with any confidence of success.

The naval aspect of the military balance between the two global powers is considered especially critical since any conflict between them is expected to erupt either in the South China Sea or in the waters around Taiwan. Washington analysts regularly emphasize the PLA’s superiority in sheer numbers of combat naval “platforms.” A Congressional Research Service (CRS) report released in October, for instance, noted that “China’s navy is, by far, the largest of any country in East Asia, and within the past few years it has surpassed the U.S. Navy in numbers of battle force ships, making China’s navy the numerically largest in the world.” Statements like these are routinely cited by Congressional hawks to secure more naval funding to close the “gap” in strength between the two countries.

As it happens, though, a careful review of comparative naval analyses suggests that the U.S. still enjoys a commanding lead in critical areas like intelligence collection, target acquisition, anti-submarine warfare, and data-sharing among myriad combat platforms — sometimes called C4ISR (for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), or to use the Chinese terms, “informationized” and “intelligentized” warfare.

“Although China’s naval modernization effort has substantially improved China’s naval capabilities in recent years,” the CRS report noted, “China’s navy currently is assessed as having limitations or weaknesses in certain areas, including joint operations with other parts of China’s military, antisubmarine warfare, [and] long-range targeting.”

This means that, at the moment, the Chinese would be at a severe disadvantage in any significant encounter with American forces over Taiwan, where mastery of surveillance and targeting data would be essential for victory. Overcoming its C4ISR limitations has, therefore, become a major priority for the Chinese military, superseding the quest for superiority in numbers alone. According to the 2021 Pentagon report, this task was made a top-level priority in 2020 when the 5th Plenum of the 19th Central Committee established “a new milestone for modernization in 2027, to accelerate the integrated development of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization of the PRC’s armed forces.” The achievement of such advances, the Pentagon added, “would provide Beijing with more credible military options in a Taiwan contingency.”

Five years is not a lot of time in which to acquire mastery over such diverse and technically challenging military capabilities, but American analysts nonetheless believe that the PLA is well on its way to achieving that 2027 milestone. To overcome its “capability gap” in C4ISR, the Pentagon report noted, “the PLA is investing in joint reconnaissance, surveillance, command, control, and communications systems at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels.”

If, as predicted, China succeeds by 2027, it will then be able to engage the U.S. Navy in the seas around Taiwan and potentially defeat it. This, in turn, would allow Beijing to bully the Taiwanese without fear of intervention from Washington. As suggested by the Defense Department in its 2021 report, China’s leadership has “connected the PLA’s 2027 goals to developing the capabilities to counter the U.S. military in the Indo-Pacific region and compel Taiwan’s leadership to the negotiation table on Beijing’s terms.”

Beijing’s Taiwan Nightmare

Ever since Chiang Kai-shek and the remnants of his Chinese Nationalist Party (the Kuomintang, or KMT) fled to Taiwan after the Communist takeover of China in 1949, establishing the Republic of China (ROC) on that island, the Communist Party leadership in Beijing has sought Taiwan’s “reunification” with the mainland. Initially, Taiwanese leaders also dreamed of reconquering the mainland (with U.S. help, of course) and extending the ROC’s sway to all of China. But after Chiang died in 1975 and Taiwan transitioned to democratic rule, the KMT lost ground to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which eschews integration with the mainland, seeking instead to establish an independent Taiwanese state.

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More than 10,000 Australians so far requested compensation for COVID vaccine injuries under the country’s vaccine injury compensation scheme. What types of compensation programs exist in other countries?

Recent reports from Australia indicate more than 10,000 Australians are requesting compensation for vaccine injuries that they received following inoculation with the COVID-19 vaccine.

The claims come as part of an Australian government program allowing individuals to be compensated for lost income after being hospitalized for “rare but significant” side effects resulting from the vaccination.

As originally conceived, compensation through the program was available to people who incurred A$5,000 or more in vaccine injury-related medical costs. However, the government enacted a reduction in the compensation threshold, permitting claims for the cost of vaccine injuries beginning at A$1,000.

The 10,000-plus compensation claims were submitted as almost 79,000 adverse side effects after COVID vaccines were reported to the country’s Therapeutic Goods Administration, as of mid-November.

No-fault vaccine liability: what is it?

Australia’s vaccine injury compensation program is an example of a “no-fault compensation program.”

This refers to a measure put in place by public health authorities, private insurance companies, manufacturers, and/or other stakeholders to compensate individuals harmed by vaccines. Such programs allow a person who has sustained a vaccine injury to be compensated financially, without having to attribute fault or error to a specific manufacturer or individual.

No-fault compensation schemes are one of three options used by various countries to handle vaccine injury claims.

The other two options include allowing vaccine-injured people to sue private-sector actors, such as vaccine manufacturers or their insurers, or to place the full financial burden on the patient.

Australia’s no-fault compensation program is fairly new. It was launched in August 2021, despite longstanding calls for the development of such a scheme well before COVID.

A 2020 study found 25 countries with a no-fault program in place, with 15 of these programs administered at the government level.

In some countries, such programs are administered at the provincial level or at multiple levels of government, while two countries (Sweden and Finland) were identified by the study as having no-fault programs fully administered by the insurance sector.

The exact nature of such no-fault schemes, however, can differ significantly from one country to another. As explained in the 2020 study:

• In Sweden and Finland, pharmaceutical companies who market their products in these jurisdictions provide insurance contributions which fund those countries’ no-fault programs.
• Similarly, Norway’s no-fault program is funded by a special insurance organization known as the Drug Liability Association.
• Latvia’s Treatment Risk Fund is funded through contributions from medical institutions, acting as professional indemnity insurance.
• In China and South Korea, there are two separate programs, covering those vaccines in each country’s national immunization program (NIP) and those not included in the respective country’s NIP. Each government funds injury claims for NIP vaccines, while pharmaceutical companies or those holding a drug’s market authorization are responsible for funding injury claims regarding non-NIP vaccines.
• The U.S. no-fault Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is funded by a flat-rate tax of 75 cents for each disease covered in each vaccine dose.
• New Zealand has set up an Accident Compensation Corporation, which acts as a general compensation fund for accidents stemming from vaccinations, and treatment injuries. The program is funded through general tax contributions and levies on employee wages, businesses, vehicle licenses and fuel sales.

Not all no-fault programs compensate for injuries arising from all vaccines. For instance, according to the 2020 study:

• Only five (Japan, France, Italy, Hungary, and Slovenia) of the 23 programs specifically examined by the study covered injuries arising from mandatory vaccines or vaccines recommended by law — of particular significance in a world where more and more countries are attempting to implement COVID vaccine mandates.
• Just over half (57%) of the programs examined provide compensation for injuries arising from registered and recommended vaccines for children, pregnant women or adults and for special indication, such as occupation or travel, within the jurisdiction. This latter point is also significant in an era where many COVID vaccine mandates are being imposed on specific occupations or as a means of being “allowed” to travel.

Different no-fault programs also have differing rules with regard to when claims can be filed.

Referring again to the 2020 study, in certain countries, claims have to be filed within a certain number of years of vaccination or, in some cases, of the initial onset of vaccine injury symptoms. This ranges from 20 years (Norway), to six years (UK, for adults), to three years (U.S. and several other countries).

In some other countries, the maximum interval varies by province (China), or there is no specific deadline for filing a claim (including Sweden, Germany, New Zealand and Japan for NIP vaccines).

As seen with the example of Australia above, no-fault programs also set compensation thresholds. This is true in all no-fault countries examined by the 2020 study.

Thresholds of eligibility also exist, which may include injuries resulting in financial loss or permanent or significant injury (such as a medical disability), serious health damage or death, severe injuries surpassing normal post-vaccination reactions or other degrees of injury.

Just over half (52%) of the programs studied also provided compensation for claims regarding vaccine defects or immunization errors, while in the remaining countries, these types of claims are covered separately, through civil litigation or medical malpractice indemnity.

The 2020 study also noted that in almost all no-fault jurisdictions, such programs are non-judicial in nature and are instead administrative in scope, typically involving panels of medical experts who review each individual vaccine injury claim.

In a minority of countries, the administrative program is combined with a legal approach and the involvement of legal experts, while in Finland and Sweden, compensation decisions are made based on civil liability (tort) laws.

The standard of proof the claimant is required to demonstrate is generally similar across most no-fault programs, according to the 2020 study. These programs tend to employ a “balance of probabilities” approach that weighs whether it is “more likely than not” that the vaccination led to the injury in question.

This approach takes into consideration such factors as the time interval since vaccination, and existing medical evidence establishing a connection between the vaccine and that type of injury.

A country-by-country look

The above provides a general overview of how no-fault compensation programs work. However, it is also worth examining the specific rules in place in major countries and blocs of nations around the world.

United States:

In 1986, the U.S. Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, often simply referred to as the Vaccine Act. Under this act, a no-fault program for administering vaccine claims, known as the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) was established.

Through this program, any individual claiming a vaccine injury (or a parent or guardian of a child) can file a petition with the U.S.Court of Federal Claims. The petition is reviewed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which makes a preliminary recommendation.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) then prepares a legal report, which includes the medical recommendation, and submits it to the court. The court then appoints a special master, who may convene a hearing, and who decides whether the petitioner should be compensated, and if so, what the level of compensation will be.

This compensation is then disbursed to the petitioner through HHS. Petitioners may also appeal a decision that isn’t in their favor, and by rejecting the decision of the court, may then file a lawsuit in civil court against the vaccine maker and/or the healthcare provider who administered the vaccine.

VICP, however, does not encompass all vaccines. It covers vaccines that are routinely administered to children and to pregnant women, and that are subject to the previously-mentioned 75-cent excise tax.

To date, more than 8,400 VICP claims have been settled, out of more than 24,000 petitions, with a total of $4.6 billion issued in settlements.

Compensation has also been issued. However, most such settlements were reached following negotiations instead of a hearing, with no admission on the part of HHS that vaccines were ultimately responsible for the injuries in question.

A different category of vaccines, including, at present, the existing COVID-19 vaccines, are covered under what is known as the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).

This program was established under the aegis of the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act of 2005. The PREP act was developed to coordinate the response to a “public health emergency.” The law is scheduled to remain in place until 2024.

CICP specifically focuses on countermeasures, that is, “a vaccination, medication, device or other item recommended to diagnose, prevent or treat a declared pandemic, epidemic or security threat.”

Under CICP, a different claims process exists as compared to the VICP. The process for claimants is more cumbersome, and individuals have only one year after the administration of the vaccine to file a claim. Injuries whose symptoms materialize later in life, for instance, would presumably not be covered under this process.

Moreover, the likelihood of success, if past precedent is any indication, is slim. As previously reported by The Defender:

“The program’s parsimonious administrators have compensated under 4% of petitioners to date — and not a single COVID vaccine injury — despite the fact that physicians, families and injured vaccine recipients have reported more than 600,000 COVID vaccine injuries.”

Notably, vaccines with full FDA approval but which are not placed on a vaccination schedule for children or pregnant women are subject to ordinary product liability laws, while vaccines administered under an Emergency Use Authorization are protected from legal liability.

Furthermore, a 2011 Supreme Court decision, Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, held that the Vaccine Act preempts claims made under state-designed defect laws, against vaccines covered by the Act. The decision stated that ““[The Vaccine Act] reflects a sensible choice to leave complex epidemiological judgments about vaccine design to the FDA and the National Vaccine Program rather than juries.”

Until the 1980s, a series of successful lawsuits against vaccine makers was seen as resulting in increasing vaccine hesitancy and declining vaccination rates, as indicated in a 1985 National Research Council publication, released just one year before the passage of the Vaccine Act.

Canada:

In recent years, Canada was the only G7 country without a nationwide no-fault vaccine injury compensation program. On a provincial level, Quebec established such a program in 1985, at which time calls for the creation of a national program followed. Attempts were made to develop a national program at this time, which ultimately failed.

As of 2018, Quebec’s program had approved a total of 43 claims, paying $5.49 million (CAD) in compensation.

In June 2021, launched a national vaccine injury compensation program, the Vaccine Injury Support Program. The program covers all provinces except Quebec, whose provincial program will continue to operate.

While this program is funded by Public Health Canada, it is administered by a private company, RCGT Consulting.

The program covers claimants who received a Health Canada-authorized vaccine (on or after Dec. 8, 2020), administered in Canada, with a resulting injury that is serious and permanent or which has resulted in death, and which was reported to the healthcare provider that administered the vaccine.

Though it wasn’t until a few months ago that Canada was able to establish a nationwide vaccine compensation program, COVID vaccine manufacturers were already, as of December 2020, indemnified against claims of vaccine injuries.

United Kingdom:

In the UK, the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) provides compensation totaling £120,000 to anyone who suffers a disability of 60% or more, as a result of their vaccination.

The percentage figure refers to a severe disability resulting in such injuries as the loss of a limb, an amputation, losing 60% or more of normal vision or severe narcolepsy.

Additionally, the 1987 Consumer Protection Act also applies to those who have sustained a vaccine injury, if is found that the product in question did not meet safety standards or was defective. This is further strengthened by the 2005 General Product Safety Regulations.

Consumer protection rights still apply for people injured by the COVID vaccine, as the government wasn’t allowed to take those away. But due to the legal definition of defects, and a rule known as the state-of-the-art defense, it is difficult to get compensation when specific problems with the vaccine are not yet known.

COVID vaccines have been added to the VDPS. However, according to the Human Medicines Regulation of 2012, protection against civil liability is provided to vaccine manufacturers for unlicensed products issued under a temporary use authorization by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.

This regulation was further amended by the Human Medicines (Coronavirus and Influenza) (Amendment) Regulations 2020, providing extended immunity from civil liability to vaccine makers and those administering vaccinations. However, the consumer protection laws mentioned above still apply.

Legal indemnity has also been directly provided to vaccine manufacturers in the case of the COVID-19 vaccine.

European Union

The UK laws are based largely on EU legislation, which was codified into British law prior to Brexit.

For instance, the UK Human Medicines Regulations of 2012 and 2020 are largely based on their EU equivalent, EU Directive 2001/83/EC relating to medicinal products for human use. This includes protections against civil actions for products released under temporary or emergency authorizations.

The 1987 Consumer Protection Act in the UK is, in turn, equivalent to the EU’s Directive 85/374/ECC of 1985, on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning liability for defective products, while the 2005 General Product Safety Regulations were harmonized with EU Directive 2001/95/EC on general product safety.

At the EU level, immunity for vaccine manufacturers was not standard prior to COVID, when legal responsibility tended to lie with the companies.

This, however, is not the case with the COVID vaccines. Under pressure from Vaccines Europe, a trade organization representing vaccine manufacturers in the EU, and under the guide of “ensuring access” to vaccines, exemptions from liability were granted to companies such as AstraZeneca.

Notably, a question posed in August to the European Parliament by one of its elected representatives, Ivan Vilibor Sinčić of Croatia, regarding liability for COVID-19 vaccine side effects, remains unanswered as of this writing.

Within the EU, different member states have enacted their own legislation with regard to vaccine injury compensation claims. These programs were summarized in a 2021 study examining such policies on a global basis. They can be summarized as follows:

• Austria: The Vaccine Damage Act is a public-law system for the payment of compensation for vaccine injuries by the state. COVID vaccines are included in this program.
• Belgium: No vaccine compensation legislation exists.
• France: The existing vaccine injury compensation program provides relief only for injuries related to mandatory vaccinations. Claims for injuries resulting from non-compulsory vaccinations fall under the general principles of French civil law. For COVID vaccines, claims can be lodged with the National Office for Compensation of Medical Accidents, without having to prove a defect with the vaccine or fault on the part of healthcare providers.
• Germany: A flat-rate no-fault compensation program exists for vaccines that are mandatory or that are publicly recommended, including COVID vaccines.
• Greece: A no-fault program doesn’t exist, but a May 2021 high court ruling held that those who sustained vaccine injuries are entitled to state compensation.
• Italy: A no-fault program providing state compensation for injuries stemming from required or highly recommended vaccines exists, although it is unclear if this extends to COVID vaccines. Claimants are also free to pursue claims under tort law.
• Netherlands, Portugal: There is no specific no-fault scheme, but vaccine injury claims can be filed via provisions of the civil code.
• Sweden: An insurance fund, Swedish Pharmaceutical Insurance, handles vaccine injury claims out of court. However, new legislation which took effect Dec. 1 will provide additional state compensation for injuries arising from COVID-19 vaccinations.

Israel:

In Israel, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Law was passed in 1989, providing compensation to those injured by vaccines, without having to prove negligence.

Earlier this year, COVID-19 vaccines were included under this law.

New Zealand:

New Zealand maintains a no-fault system for accident compensation, including vaccine injuries, under the aegis of the previously-mentioned Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC).

Although most information on claims appears to be classified, financial compensation totaling $1.6 million (NZD) was provided between 2005 and 2019.

The ACC also handles claims related to COVID-19 vaccination.

China:

China’s vaccination program differentiates between mandatory and non-mandatory vaccinations, for the purposes of vaccine injury claims.

The 2019 Law on Vaccine Administration establishes a compensation system for deaths or significant injuries, such as organ or tissue damage, stemming from vaccines. Compensation is paid from the vaccination funds of the country’s provincial governments.

Draft legislation in 2020 called for mandatory liability insurance for vaccine manufacturers distributing vaccines in mainland China. However, it is unclear if this legislation was enacted.

Japan:

Until recently, Japan did not have a specific no-fault compensation program for vaccine injuries. But temporary programs where the government would provide compensation to vaccine makers for legal claims they sustained due to vaccine injuries had previously been passed in 2009, for the H1N1 vaccine, and again in 2011 until 2016.

However, a 2020 amendment to Japan’s Immunization Act now allows the government to take on the liability risks for COVID-19 vaccines.

India:

India has no specific no-fault legislation under the Drugs and Cosmetic Act for injuries stemming from vaccines that are fully licensed by the country’s regulator.

Claimants are, however, able to file claims in consumer courts or in India’s High Court, and the country’s drug regulator can also take action against vaccine manufacturers for violations of the law.

Indian law does provide for compensation in the event of injury or death following participation in clinical trials.

Notably, the Indian government’s negotiations with Pfizer fell through earlier this year when Indian regulators refused to provide it legal protection via indemnity.

Such protection was not provided to the three COVID-19 vaccines which received an emergency use authorization in India: Covishield, Covaxin and Sputnik V.

Adar Poonawalla, the head of the India-based Serum Institute, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, had previously called for protection from lawsuits for COVID vaccine injuries.

Malaysia and Singapore:

The country has not developed a no-fault vaccination program, unlike nearby Singapore.

Instead, a variety of legal remedies exist for claimants under civil law, including the Sales of Goods Act of 1957, the Consumer Protection Act of 1999, and the Contracts Act of 1950, and under criminal law, including the Poisons Act of 1952 and the Sale of Drugs Act of 1952.

South Africa:

South Africa is another country that did not develop a no-fault vaccine injury compensation fund until recently, but did so as a result of COVID and, apparently, pressure from vaccine manufacturers.

The fund is meant to provide compensation for “serious adverse responses” which lead to “permanent or significant injury, serious harm to a person’s health, other damage or death,” assuming these injuries were caused by vaccination.

Philippines:

Similar to South Africa, the Philippines only recently set up a no-fault indemnity program, shielding vaccine manufacturers, as well as public officials, from lawsuits, except in instances of gross negligence or willful misconduct.

This same program will also set up a state fund to provide compensation for vaccine injury claims.

Developing world:

Finally, for 92 low- and middle-income countries, the World Health Organization (WHO), along with a private company, Chubb Limited, has begun to administer a no-fault compensation program.

The countries in question are receiving COVID vaccines via the Gavi Alliance’s COVAX Advanced Market Commitment (AMC) program, with vaccine injury claims processed through the WHO’s new program, which is set to remain in effect until June 30, 2022.

No-fault schemes are increasing, but questions remain

With the recent examples of countries such as Canada and Australia, as well as South Africa and the Philippines, developing their own no-fault vaccine injury compensation funds, as well as their further extension to 92 low- and middle-income countries via the WHO, this type of compensation scheme is clearly the predominant method of dealing with financial claims stemming from vaccine injury claims.

As seen in the case of the U.S., such no-fault programs were developed to address claims of increased vaccine hesitancy, as a result of high-profile lawsuits against vaccine makers, and a decline in vaccine production from hesitant pharmaceutical companies which did not want to shoulder the legal and financial risks involved with releasing a new vaccine to the public.

What, however, goes unaddressed in such claims is the vaccine hesitancy, or outright refusals to get vaccinated, as people question why vaccine makers and, in many cases, everyone involved in distributing and administering vaccines, are shielded from legal action.

Such legal shields cast, for some people at least, a net of doubt, calling into question the safety of such vaccines if their manufacturers, distributors, and public health officials involved in their administration feel the need for legal protections. They may wonder why a product that is said to be safe requires such legal shields.

Such doubts further increase when governments and their agencies, which are essentially acting as guarantors of these vaccines through various no-fault schemes, redact critical information about these products, including their ingredients, and claims that releasing such documentation will take several decades, as the FDA did recently regarding its documents related to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine.

This is despite the fact that in the 2011 Bruesewitz v. Wyeth decision, the U.S. Supreme Court gave considerable latitude to the FDA for, essentially, knowing better than judges and juries, or state lawmakers, how to regulate vaccines.

Despite this legal shielding, plenty of coverage of adverse reactions, and even deaths, following vaccinations is making its way into the media, and to the public consciousness, seemingly negating yet another argument in favor of indemnity.

Furthermore, as many no-fault schemes place the burden on taxpayers and government coffers, these financial costs are ultimately borne by the public.

Arguments that claim shielding vaccine makers from lawsuits also helps to keep the cost of these products down can be called into question on such grounds, especially if the government is the one making deals with vaccine manufacturers and paying for these vaccines.

Costs may be reduced in their purchase price, but the same government and same funds are then used to settle vaccine injury claims.

Such claims from vaccine makers, such as Pfizer for instance, also appear to be disingenuous when considering their high marketing budgets, which in the U.S., far exceed their research and innovation expenditures.

Arguments can be made that such funding could be redirected towards legal claims, towards reducing vaccine and drug prices, or both.

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Things are starting to get really weird.  What I am about to share with you sounds very strange, but it is all true.  Before I get into it, let me ask you a question.  If you could have a vaccine passport permanently embedded into your hand, would you do it?  Amazingly, some people in Sweden are willingly doing this to themselves.  They are putting microchips that contain their vaccine passport information into their hands, and they are raving about how convenient this is.  You can actually watch a video of this being done to someone right here.  The video is not in English, but you will be able to understand what is happening.

Sweden: Get your vaccine passports in a chip in your hand or elsewhere under the skin.

It is increasingly popular to insert an #IoB chip into the body with different types of data and now you can insert your covid certificates in the chip.https://t.co/woSzB6zeRC pic.twitter.com/6QWEYlgRlz

— 'Sikh For Truth'. (@SikhForTruth) November 29, 2021

I was absolutely floored when I first watched that.

Do they not understand where this could lead?

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Just as the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) was being unveiled to the world back in late 2019, a team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) conveniently rolled out a new injectable marking method to label, identify and track people based on their “vaccination” status.

Funded in large part by billionaire eugenicists Bill and Melinda Gates, the transdermal patch technology contains special quantum dots that are inserted subcutaneously into the body. Though invisible to the naked eye, these patches are easily scanned with special equipment.

Think of it like an invisible tattoo that a person might inject into, say, the right hand or the forehead. When going to pay for groceries, for instance, these tattoos can be scanned and verified as part of the “vaccine passport” systems that are now being rolled out all around the world.

“When the quantum dots are illuminated by UV light, an electron in the quantum dot can be excited to a state of higher energy,” reported Free West Media.

“In vitro studies, based on cell cultures, on quantum dots suggest that their toxicity may derive from multiple factors including their physicochemical characteristics.”

Soon, the “fully vaccinated” will need to get injected with a Mark of the Beast chip in order to participate in society

According to Kevin McHugh, a member of the research team that developed the technology, these patented transdermal patches are a way to easily label people while also storing their medical and other information on hidden microchips within their skin.

The technology can also be used to rapidly inspect a person’s vaccination history, having been specifically designed for use in “regions where vaccination cards are easily lost and the equipment needed by authorities to read the information encapsulated in the arm is not expensive,” Free West Media further explained.

The latest smartphones reportedly come equipped with the built-in infrared cameras that are needed to capture the presence of invisible quantum dot tattoos – meaning the plandemic purveyors planned for all of this well in advance.

“Because many people do not make sure to get a booster vaccination in time, 1.5 million people could die in these regions every year,” alleges McHugh, using scare tactics to try to justify the technology.

McHugh says that he and his colleagues have long wanted to create a “safe replacement” for paper vaccination records. Their goal was to create a microchip of sorts capable of storing one’s medical records inside their bodies for easy scanning.

“In many third world countries, getting vaccinated regularly is a real challenge,” insists Ana Jaklenec, another MIT researcher who supports the technology.

“Because there is a lack of data on when children were vaccinated against which disease.”

Thus far, the technology has only been tested on animals, specifically rats “vaccinated” against polio. These same rats were given a color code to identify that they had received the injection.

Once these invisible quantum dot tattoos get approved for human use, you can be sure that they will be mandated right alongside the “vaccine” injections in order to achieve “fully vaccinated” status.

Only those people who take the injections and the injectable microchips will be awarded with valid “vaccine passport” certificates, allowing them to buy, sell and participate in society.

As many have predicted, this is all part of the Mark of the Beast, starting with the injections. It is a processthat is building over time, and eventually every last person will be required to take all of it in order to live.

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Before we get to Omicron, there’s two important things related to COVID Mania that are worth highlighting:

1. If your COVID test comes back positive on a PCR test, you have a well over 99% chance of recovering from the disease that you are being diagnosed with. This has remained the case since the beginning of COVID Mania. It doesn’t matter which “new strain” surfaces, whether it’s Alpha, Beta, Delta, or the next dominant strain, the result has remained consistent.

2. The average age of a COVID death both in the United States and abroad is about the same as the average lifespan. In previous global plagues, this was not at all the case. The hysteria surrounding COVID Mania is the product of the world’s largest and most widespread case of wholesale statistics fraud, corruption, and deceit.

Recall the early reporting on the Delta strain from earlier this summer. Similar to previous strains, Delta sported an extremely high recovery rate, significantly higher than the original strain “detected” in Wuhan. Here’s the data straight from the U.K. government:

However, as Delta became the dominant strain (according to gene sequence tests), everyone who was “dying of COVID” now had a Delta tag attached to their case file. Since earlier this summer, Delta has had complete dominance over COVID testing. Here’s the latest from the CDC, showing that over 99.9% of samples in recent months have come back attached to Delta.

The early Omicron cases, like 99+% of all other COVID cases, regardless of variants, have been reported as mild. This has confused doctors and scientists who don’t know what to make of the panicked presses and world governments treating Omicron as if it’s the Black Plague once more.

Should Omicron defeat Delta on the surveillance test, then Omicron will inevitably replace Delta as the new “deadly virus.” Every death with a positive Omicron test is a corporate press headline. Every hospitalization is a “mandate” for the ruling class to impose more tyranny on the masses, in the name of our health.

If Omicron indeed becomes the dominant gene sequence, the corporate press and the tyrannical “public health expert” class will of course reframe the strain from “mild” to something far more dangerous. If Omicron becomes dominant (and some virologists are convinced that it will, but it remains to be seen), it will inevitably find its way into a nursing home or another setting where the average individual is both very old and very sick. When these individuals tragically pass away, they will be considered “Omicron deaths.” The same goes for the 450 pound diabetic, or someone the media will describe as a “young and healthy person with no comorbidities,” eventually “dies of Omicron.” If Omicron supersedes Delta, that means billions of potential hosts for a virus with a previously tracked 99.8-99.9% recovery rate. So regardless of whether Omicron has become a mutation so weak that it is akin to the common cold, there’s enough headlines in there for the panicked presses and maniacal governments to seize the situation to their benefit.

South African Dr Angelique Coetzee first raised the alarm over the Omicron variant and says the rest of the world is over-reacting.

"Patients I've seen had mild symptoms and recovered. None were admitted and no oxygen was needed. The hype makes no sense to at all."@JuliaHB1 pic.twitter.com/c14pbzveN6

— talkRADIO (@talkRADIO) November 29, 2021

There is only one way Omicron remains attached to the “mild” tag, and that would come through its failure to supersede Delta through genomic surveillance. If Omicron dominates Delta, it will become just one of an endless series of excuses for the failure of governments to “stop the spread,” along with the failure of products coerced upon us by mafia-like pharmaceutical companies. As with Delta, the Omicron stats trick can serve as the perfect pretext for more government-imposed tyranny, coupled with hundreds of billions of dollars in further sales of junk pharma products.

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Julian Assange’s fate lies in the hands of an appeal judge who is a close friend of Sir Alan Duncan – the former foreign minister who called Assange a “miserable little worm” in parliament.

Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett, the judge that will soon decide Julian Assange’s fate, is a close personal friend of Sir Alan Duncan, who as foreign minister arranged Assange’s eviction from the Ecuadorian embassy.

The two have known each other since their student days at Oxford in the 1970s, when Duncan called Burnett “the Judge”. Burnett and his wife attended Duncan’s birthday dinner at a members-only London club in 2017, when Burnett was a judge at the court of appeal.

Now the most powerful judge in England and Wales, Burnett will soon rule on Assange’s extradition case. The founder of WikiLeaks faces life imprisonment in the US.

In his recently published diaries, In The Thick of It, Duncan wrote in July 2017: “My good friend and Oxford contemporary Ian Burnett is announced as the next Lord Chief Justice.”

He continued: “At Oxford we always called him ‘the Judge’ and they always called me ‘Prime Minister’, but Ian’s the one who’s got there.”

In an emailed response to Declassified, Lord Chief Justice Burnett confirmed he and Duncan have been “friends since university days”.

Duncan studied politics and economics at St John’s College, Oxford from 1976-79, while Burnett studied jurisprudence at Pembroke College in the same period.

“Miserable little worm”

Duncan’s diaries also show that as foreign minister he spoke privately to Lord Chief Justice Burnett in May 2019, a conversation that was not logged in government records. Burnett briefed him on a dinner he’d had with then prime minister Theresa May two days before.

But Duncan told Declassified: “There was nothing that was required to be ‘logged in government records’.” He and Burnett both said nothing related to their roles as a minister or judge was discussed.

Duncan served as foreign minister for Europe and the Americas from 2016-19. He was the key official in the UK government campaign to force Assange from the embassy.

As minister, Duncan did not hide his opposition to Julian Assange, calling him a “miserable little worm” in parliament in March 2018.

In his diaries, Duncan refers to the “supposed human rights of Julian Assange”. He admits to arranging a Daily Mail hit piece on Assange that was published the day after the journalist’s arrest in April 2019.

Duncan watched UK police pulling the WikiLeaks publisher from the Ecuadorian embassy via a live-feed in the Operations Room at the top of the Foreign Office.

He later admitted he was “trying to keep the smirk off [his] face”, and hosted drinks at his parliamentary office for the team involved in the eviction.

Duncan then flew to Ecuador to meet President Lenín Moreno in order to “say thank you” for handing over Assange. Duncan reported he gave Moreno “a beautiful porcelain plate from the Buckingham Palace gift shop.”

“Job done,” he added.

“Generous present”

Duncan’s diaries also highlight a birthday dinner held for him in June 2017 that was attended by Burnett and his wife. The dinner, held at the private Beefsteak club in London the day before the general election, was a “generous present from David Ross”, Duncan noted.

Ross, a businessman and co-founder of Carphone Warehouse, has funded an array of Conservative MPs, including Duncan, and gave the Conservative Party £250,000 to fight the 2019 election.

Other guests included the Syrian-Saudi billionaire businessman Wafic Saïd. Long close to the Saudi royal family, Saïd helped negotiate the massive UK-Saudi arms deal known as al-Yamamah in the 1980s.

Saïd’s wife, Rosemary, who was also in attendance, is another major donor to the Conservative Party and has funded Boris Johnson. She was a guest at David Cameron’s “Leader’s Group” meetings of key party donors.

Other attendees at Duncan’s birthday dinner included William Hague, Duncan’s close colleague and friend, who was foreign secretary when the UK decided not to recognise the asylum granted to Assange by the Ecuadorian government.

Also present was Salma Shah, an adviser to Sajid Javid when, as home secretary, he controversially certified the initial US extradition request for Assange.

Sir Alan Duncan and Lord Chief Justice Burnett both told Declassified they have never discussed the Julian Assange case with each other.

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Matt Kennard is chief investigator at Declassified UK. He was a fellow and then director at the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London. Follow him on Twitter @kennardmatt.

Mark Curtis is the editor of Declassified UK, and the author of five books and many articles on UK foreign policy.

Featured image is from Lawyers for Assange

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As of midnight November 15, 2021, Austria began another nationwide lockdown, but it only applies to residents aged 12 and older who have declined the experimental COVID jab. An exception is made for unvaccinated individuals who have recently recovered from COVID-19. The lockdown will reportedly affect an estimated 2 million of the 8.9 million residents

Germany is preparing legislation to make people work from home again unless they have a “compelling professional reason” to be in the office, in which case they must prove they’ve gotten the COVID jab or show a negative PCR test

In 2017, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was granted authority to restrict interstate travel during a health crisis and to quarantine Americans without a clear and direct path to challenge the quarantine order in federal court

Will the CDC use these powers? At the end of October 2021, CDC director Rochelle Walensky said “there’s a plan” to provide unvaccinated workers with “education and counseling,” which sounds like a plan to put people in reeducation camps

The plan to quarantine people in their homes and shutter private businesses as a form of pandemic response was invented by Dr. Rajeev Venkayya, president of the Global Vaccine Business Unit at Takeda Pharmaceuticals and a former head of pandemic policy for the Gates Foundation

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As of midnight November 15, 2021, Austria began yet another nationwide lockdown, ostensibly to rein in rising COVID cases.¹ What makes this lockdown unique is that it only applies to residents aged 12 and older who have declined the experimental COVID jab. An exception is made for unvaccinated individuals who have “recently recovered from COVID-19.”

They’re only permitted to exit their front door for “essential” work, “essential” shopping (such as food), quick exercise and getting vaccinated. All other outdoor leisure activities are forbidden. The lockdown will reportedly affect an estimated 2 million of the 8.9 million residents.

Random spot-checks are prescribed to make sure no healthy unvaccinated people are roaming the streets, and fines for breaking the lockdown order can run as high as €1,450 (approximately $1,640).

Just two days earlier, it had been suggested the lockdown would only affect the northern portion of Austria and Salzburg,² but that quickly changed to include the whole country. It’s hard to see this action as anything but punishment for refusal to be a medical guinea pig, considering Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg referred to the country’s 65% COVID jab rate as “shamefully low.”³

How Do Austrians Feel About It?

On the first day of Austria’s quarantine of the unvaxxed, Freddie Sayers of Unherd.com took to the streets to find out how Austrians feel about it. He writes:⁴

“What strikes me most is the class inflection to the whole thing. We started this morning on one of the fancier shopping streets in the old town, full of Rolex and Karl Lagerfeld stores in which well-heeled locals lined up to express their support for the lockdown. There is very little sympathy for a truculent minority that is seen as ‘stupid’ and ‘having brought it on themselves.’

On the same street, however, if you approach the people wearing fluorescent vests, guarding the stores and making deliveries, you tend to get a different response. They are more reluctant to speak to us, but decidedly less supportive. ‘It is bullshit,’ was one man’s pithy response.

Questions about the practical efficacy of such a measure don’t seem to be of much interest. When I ask people if they know that vaccinated people can also contract and transmit COVID, they tend to brush it aside as a minor detail.

Not a single person we have spoken of so far referred to the likely practical outcome of this new policy — it is simply a hardening of the vaccine passport policy that so far has evidently failed to contain the latest wave of infections …

I can’t escape the sense that the motivation is at least partly punitive. They don’t understand people who are not taking the vaccine, they don’t like them, and they are slightly afraid of them — so the simplest thing is to remove them from society altogether.”

Totalitarians Are Ignoring the Will of the People

It’s interesting to note that this latest round of lockdowns comes despite persistent, ongoing public protests. In fact, some areas of Europe have regularly held mass protests for well over a year, yet government leaders are flatly ignoring the will of the people and mainstream media refuse to report on these gatherings.

And, as the failures of the COVID shots are becoming increasingly evident, public demonstrations against mandates and lockdowns are gaining speed. As reported by The Vaccine Reaction,⁵ Vienna, Amsterdam, The Hague, Rome, Brussels, Rotterdam and other European cities all held mass protests the weekend of November 19 and 20, 2021. Some of these cities are among the most highly vaccinated in Europe. The Vaccine Reaction reports:⁶

“Nov. 19, 2021, the Austrian government announced a new 10-20 day nationwide lockdown … The government also became the first E.U. country to institute mandatory vaccination, giving citizens a Feb. 1, 2022 deadline to get vaccinated.

The next day, tens of thousands of Austrians took to the streets whistling, blowing horns and banging drums in Vienna. Waving Austrian flags, chanting ‘Resistance’ and holding signs that proclaimed ‘no to vaccination’ and ‘enough is enough’ and ‘down with the fascist dictatorship,’ they marched to Heroes’ Square in front of the former Hofburg Palace in central Vienna.

There was another big rally on Nov. 27 in Graz, Sankt Poelten and Klagenfurt. This time they chanted ‘Peace, freedom, no dictatorship’ …

[T]he leader of Austria’s populist FPO party Herbert Kickl branded the government’s mandatory vaccination announcement as ‘unconstitutional’ and said ‘Austria is now a dictatorship.’ He called on the nation’s high court to intervene and block ‘totalitarian’ measures by a government ‘that believes it should think and decide for us.’ He said:

‘… In almost two years, the government has not been able to develop effective strategies to protect the people. Instead it has set up new harassment week after week to curtail healthy people in their basic rights bit by bit. And now we have reached a level with compulsory vaccination that nobody actually thought was possible. We cannot and must not put up with that.’”

Several other European countries are also in turmoil, as their governments ignore the people’s demand for freedom. Germany, which is also reporting a new spike in cases, is reportedly preparing a law to make people work from home again unless they have a “compelling professional reason” to be in the office, in which case they must prove they’ve gotten the COVID jab or show a negative PCR test.⁷

In Belgium, which has a 76% COVID jab rate, government officials have reinforced its COVID restrictions, triggering a protest of at least 35,000 people in central Brussels. People were shouting “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” and singing “Bella Ciao,” an anti-fascist song.⁸

The rally remained peaceful until the very end, when a small number of people clashed with police, who brought out tear gas and water cannons. Forty-two protestors were detained; two were arrested.

Violence also erupted in the Netherlands during an anti-lockdown protest. November 12, 2021, government placed limits on the number of people allowed in each home. Bars, restaurants, cafes and supermarkets all faced a mandatory 8 p.m. closure and “nonessential” shops had to close at 6 p.m. They also canceled a number of public events. According to The Vaccine Reaction:⁹

“Nov. 19, seven people were injured when Dutch police used water cannons and fired on anti-lockdown protesters throwing rocks and fireworks, wounding two and arresting 20 people during a demonstration in one of Rotterdam’s main shopping areas.

Riot police carrying shields and batons and officers on horseback and in police vans patrolled the streets after the confrontation that left at least one police car burned out and dozens of bicycles destroyed.”

People are also fighting for freedom in Italy, where thousands gathered in the Circus Maximus in Rome, November 20, 2021, to protest the Green Pass requirement. One demonstrator carried a banner that said, “People like us never give up.”

Australia, where some of the most mind-boggling overreaches have occurred in recent weeks, is also fighting back. November 27, 2021, Millions March against Mandatory Vaccination organized protests in 30 cities, including Sydney and Melbourne, where thousands gathered. Here, protesters bore signs saying “Never lock down again,” and “Less government, more freedom.”

CDC’s Unconstitutional Quarantine Powers

Around the world, we’re seeing ever-more tyrannical infringement on basic human rights and freedoms, and while the Supreme Court recently paused president Biden’s vaccine mandate for businesses with 100 employees or more, pending judicial review,^10,11 Americans are not out of the woods yet.

As reported in a New York Times op-ed back in January 2017,¹² there’s reason to be concerned about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s authority to quarantine Americans at will. At that time, we didn’t know how that power might be used. Today, you don’t need a very vivid imagination to see how that 2017 regulation might be pulled out as a fail-safe if the mandates fall through. As reported by the NYT at the time:¹³

“The rules outline for the first time how the federal government can restrict interstate travel during a health crisis, and they establish in-house oversight of whether someone should be detained, without providing a clear and direct path to challenge a quarantine order in federal court.

State and local authorities had previously been the ones to usually deal with issues like this during epidemics … It’s imperative that whenever the next outbreak hits, emergency health measures are grounded in scientific evidence and guided by clear, fair rules to protect people from wrongful deprivation of their liberties …

Prompt judicial review has always been important during epidemic scares. People can usually challenge a state’s order of quarantine immediately. Indeed, in several states, the government has to get a judge’s approval before quarantining someone.

Unfortunately, the new rules give the C.D.C. significant in-house oversight of the decision to quarantine, with up to three layers of internal agency review. This internal review has no explicit time limit and could easily stretch on for weeks while a healthy person languishes in quarantine.

And since federal courts often wait until an agency has completed its internal process before it will consider hearing an appeal, we won’t know until the next crisis hits whether a federal judge will agree to hear a petition from someone detained before the C.D.C. review is completed. In addition, the C.D.C. now has clear legal authority to take over the quarantine role from states in many cases, and to restrict interstate travel.”

Fast-forward to the end of October 2021, and CDC director Rochelle Walensky is now on record saying “there’s a plan” to provide unvaccinated workers with “education and counseling,”¹⁴ which sounds an awful lot like sticking people in FEMA reeducation camps. So, the CDC’s quarantine powers may be used yet.

The Founding Father of Lockdowns

In a mid-November 2021 article for Brownstone,¹⁵ Jeffrey Tucker reviews how the idea of nationwide lockdowns in response to an infectious pandemic was born, and whose mind it came from.

The plan to quarantine people in their homes and shutter private businesses as a form of pandemic response was invented by a Dr. Rajeev Venkayya, president of the Global Vaccine Business Unit at Takeda Pharmaceuticals and a former head of pandemic policy for the Gates Foundation.

In his book, “The Premonition,” Michael Lewis identifies Venkayya as the proverbial “father of lockdowns.” In 2005, Venkayya led a bioterrorism study group under then-president George W. Bush, who reportedly demanded a “whole-of-society plan” for dealing with pandemic threats.

Bush wanted something that would encompass borders, travel and commerce, not just the conventional threat assessment, distribution of therapeutics and vaccine development. Venkayya’s answer was wholesale lockdowns. But the basis for this idea is questionable at best.

An Idea Devoid of Science

Tucker explains:¹⁶

“Dr. Venkayya began to fish around for people who could come up with the domestic equivalent of Operation Desert Storm to deal with a new virus. He found no serious epidemiologists to help. They were too smart to buy into it.

He eventually bumped into the real lockdown innovator working at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. His name was Robert Glass, a computer scientist with no medical training, much less knowledge, about viruses. Glass, in turn, was inspired by a science fair project that his 14-year-old daughter was working on.

She theorized (like the cooties game from grade school) that if school kids could space themselves out more or even not be at school at all, they would stop making each other sick.

Glass ran with the idea and banged out a model of disease control based on stay-at-home orders, travel restrictions, business closures, and forced human separation. Crazy, right? No one in public health agreed with him but like any classic crank, this convinced Glass even more …

Glass imagined himself to be smarter than 100 years of experience in public health. One guy with a fancy computer would solve everything! Well, he managed to convince some people, including another person hanging around the White House named Carter Mecher, who became Glass’s apostle.

Please consider the following quotation from Dr. Mecher in Lewis’s book: ‘If you got everyone and locked each of them in their own room and didn’t let them talk to anyone, you would not have any disease.’

At last, an intellectual has a plan to abolish disease — and human life as we know it too! As preposterous and terrifying as this is — a whole society not only in jail but solitary confinement — it sums up the whole of Mecher’s view of disease.

It’s also completely wrong. Pathogens are part of our world; they are not generated by human contact. We pass them onto each other as the price for civilization, but we also evolved immune systems to deal with them. That’s 9th-grade biology, but Mecher didn’t have a clue.”

Hell Unleashed

March 12, 2020, Venkayya’s now 15-year-old plan was put into practice and schools across the U.S. were shut down even though there wasn’t a shred of evidence to suggest educational facilities were hotbeds of viral spread. Indeed, actual science suggested the opposite, that children were not good carriers of infection and didn’t pose a serious threat to adults.

None of that mattered though. The models of Glass and Mecher suggested school closures would cut transmission rates by 80%. As noted by Tucker, what we’re seeing “is not science but ideological fanaticism in play.” He continues:¹⁷

“As with almost every revolution in history, a small minority of crazy people with a cause prevailed over the humane rationality of multitudes. When people catch on, the fires of vengeance will burn very hot. The task now is to rebuild a civilized life that is no longer so fragile as to allow insane people to lay waste to all that humanity has worked so hard to build.”

I couldn’t agree more. At the same time, we must also recognize the prevailing psychological underpinnings of society at large that empowered this minority to step in and attempt to crush us.

Psychological Conditions That Allow for Totalitarianism

As explained by psychology professor Mattias Desmet in the interview above, the reason so many have bought into what are clearly illogical pandemic measures is because enough of us were psychologically weakened to begin with.

This in turn allowed for a psychological condition known as “mass formation” to occur. It can be likened to a form of mass hypnosis, as it eliminates people’s critical thinking ability en masse. This also just so happens to be a prerequisite for totalitarianism. Four base conditions must be met by a large portion of society in order for mass formation to occur:

When these four conditions are fulfilled by a large enough portion of society, they are ripe for mass formation hypnosis — and the rise of totalitarianism. All that’s needed is a story in which the cause of the anxiety is identified, while simultaneously providing a strategy for neutralizing that cause.

By accepting and participating in whatever that strategy is, people with free-floating anxiety feel equipped with the means to control their anxiety and avoid panic. They also suddenly feel reconnected with others, because they’ve all identified the same nemesis.

They’re joined together in a heroic struggle against the mental representation of their anxiety, and this new-found solidarity gives their lives the meaning and purpose they lacked before. This explains why so many have bought into a clearly illogical narrative, and why they are willing to participate in the prescribed strategy — “even if it’s utterly absurd,” Desmet says.

Mass formation is a very dangerous condition, especially for those under its spell, but also for everyone who isn’t. The “mental intoxication” that results makes people willing to do things that are clearly wrong and utterly immoral, up to and including voluntarily killing their own families and themselves, if told it’s for the greater good. In short, masses of people become profoundly gullible and self-destructive, which is not a good combination.

Since self-destructiveness is built into the totalitarian system from the ground up, totalitarian regimes cannot be sustained forever. They fall apart as they’re destroyed from within. But it can be hell while it lasts, as totalitarianism built on mass formation almost always leads to heinous atrocities being committed in the name of doing good.

Action Plan

The good news is that understanding the psychology that led us here also gives us the answer for getting out of it. The key strategy, Desmet insists, is to dissent, and to do so loudly. Not violently, but persistently and frequently. We must join together and speak against totalitarianism for two reasons:

Once we’re free and clear of the totalitarian threat, we need to address the four base conditions for mass formation, to prevent this condition from appearing again. But for now, we need to focus on uniting and speaking out against tyranny and the stripping away of our God-given rights and freedoms.

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Notes

^1, 3, 7 Euronews November 15, 2021

² The Pulse November 13, 2021

⁴ Unherd November 15, 2021

^{5, 6, 8, 9} The Vaccine Reaction November 30, 2021

¹⁰ The Defender November 17, 2021

¹¹ OSHA November 12, 2021

^12, 13 NYT January 23, 2021 (Archived)

¹⁴ Daily Wire October 24, 2021

^15, 16, 17 Brownstone November 15, 2021

Featured image is from Pandemic.news

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And if no measures are taken to rectify this situation, the Walloon region will soon have to pay a penalty of 5000 euros per day until they withdraw the measure, local media reported Wednesday.

An alliance of health workers, scientists, lawyers and citizens – gathered together as the non-profit organization Notre bon Droit – has been fighting the health pass for some time. The pass indicates whether someone has been vaccinated against the Coronavirus, has recently tested negative or has been declared cured and it is used throughout Belgium to, among other things, regulate access to the catering industry.

The court of first instance in Namur has now ruled in favor of the non-profit association in summary proceedings. “Several cases have been established in the Walloon decree that legally contradict European law and the right to the protection of personal data. The verdict also states that it has not been demonstrated that the Corona pass is the only alternative to a new lockdown.

According to the judge, the measure restricts freedom in such a way that it is not proportionate to the objectives pursued.

The lawyers of the association noted that “the court also criticized the discrimination established between the citizens without objective and scientific justification”.

Officials from the Walloon Region must now take measures to rectify the situation until a verdict is reached on the merits of the case. From a period of seven days after the court’s decision has been served, there will be a penalty of 5000 euros per day. The region must also bear the legal costs.

‘Protecting the data’ of the fully vaccinated sick with Covid

Another non-profit association has also instituted summary proceedings before the Brussels court of first instance. There will be a plea hearing on December 8. The association for the defense of freedoms and privacy Charta21 recently brought an urgent action before the Brussels court of first instance to suspend the CovidScan application in order to protect data on sick vaccinated individuals.

“This is a first step which allows our action to be continued,” explained Jacques Folon, an expert in General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and administrator of the association.

Charta21’s action “aims to put an end to multiple breaches of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and in particular to prevent a leak of personal health data from vaccinated people”. Folon pointed out that a flaw in the software indeed disclosed the names of tens of thousands of people both vaccinated and sick with Covid.

When this flaw was exposed, eHealth – the health data exchange platform that is the subject of the complaint – did not report it to the Data Protection Authority (DPA). It also did not warn the people concerned. “eHealth should have immediately warned that there had been a data breach within the realm of the GDPR and warned all those involved, which it did not do,” said Folon.

Walloon officials to scared to show up?

The Walloon government has meanwhile announced in a short response that the Corona pass will remain in force in Wallonia. “The government has taken note of the decision of the court of first instance in Namur. That decision cancels neither the Walloon decree nor the ‘Covid Safe Ticket’ (CST) which continues to apply in Wallonia.”

The Wallonia region announced that they would not only repeal the regulation but immediately appealed against the judgment. Regional governments are responsible for imposing the restrictive measures under the Belgian federal-state system.

According to the ruling however, all citizens are required to show their CST before entering cafés, restaurants, gyms and cultural venues, which are curbing individual freedoms in a disproportionate way that does not serve their alleged objective.

The Belgian daily Le Soir, reported that representatives of the Wallonia government failed to appear at a court hearing on November 16. Officials in the public administration office neglected the file for five days “due to a combination of a weekend and public holidays”.

The summons had been received on November 10, but the day after was Armistice Day commemorating the end of World War I, a public holiday in Belgium. The holiday fell on a Thursday and officials simply extended it to a long weekend.

The following Monday, on November 15 was King’s Day, which grants the public administration a holiday. As a consequence, they claim, nobody dealt with the file and the hearing took place without the Wallonia officials.

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Featured image: The Parliament of Wallonia and la Citadelle de Namur. Wikipedia

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Israel stepped up its opposition to the Iran nuclear deal talks on Thursday and demanded that the US and other world powers put an immediate end to the negotiations.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett delivered the message in a call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “Iran is carrying out nuclear blackmail as a negotiating tactic, and this should be answered by the immediate halt to negotiations and the implementation of tough steps by the world powers,” Bennett said, according to a statement released by his office.

Israel claims that Iran has no intention of reducing its nuclear activity back to JCPOA levels and is only trying to buy time to develop a nuclear bomb. But there’s no evidence to support the claim, and Iran has only taken steps to advance its nuclear program in the face of pressure from the US and Israel, and a JCPOA revival would reverse those steps.

Iran has said Israel is spreading lies about Iran to “poison” the negotiations. When the talks first resumed Monday, Israeli media reported that Israel warned the US Tehran is about to enrich uranium to the 90 percent level needed for weapons-grade. But again, there was no evidence to back up the claim.

With the demands from Israeli officials to halt negotiations come threats. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Thursday that attacking Iran must always be an option for Israel, even if the country has to act alone.

Israel has taken extreme measures to sabotage diplomacy between the US and Iran in the past. In April, when the first rounds of negotiations began, Israel carried out an attack on Iran’s Natanz Nuclear Facility. Tehran responded to the incident by starting to enrich some uranium at 60 percent, which Israel now claims is evidence the Iranians are racing towards a bomb.

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Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

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***

The coercive practices of restricting movement of people and compulsory Covid vaccination are spreading throughout formerly free countries.  Germany has now joined Austria, Italy, and Australia in resurrecting the Third Reich: see this. 

The rush to totalitarianism is inexplicable according to the official narrative.  All health authorities now acknowledge that the mRNA “vaccines” do not prevent infection and do not prevent the vaccinated from spreading the infection.  This is the reason that the vaccinated are told they need booster shots every 6 months and need to continue wearing the ineffective masks.  Why booster shots protect when the previous shots don’t is not explained.

Neither is it explained why the emphasis is on protecting against a virus that has a very low mortality, killing primarily those with existing morbidities who are not effectively treated.  In contrast, the adverse vaccine reporting systems in the US, UK, and EU reveal a larger number of deaths and injuries from the “vaccine” than from Covid.  We also have evidence that the young who are not endangered by Covid are seriously endangered by the vaccine with vaccinated children and young, healthy sports stars dropping dead from heart attacks.  We also have evidence that the “vaccine” attacks the innate human immune system, making the vaccinated less able to ward off all viruses and diseases such as cancer.  

In other words, all evidence is against vaccination.  There is no evidence in favor of it.

So why the coercion to force dangerous vaccination that only does harm?

It is simply not possible that public health agencies in Austria, Italy, Germany, and Australia are unaware of the evidence that the Covid “vaccines” are a total failure and a danger.  

Are all public health officials bought off by bribes from Big Pharma, or is the suspicion that a reduction in world population is underway a fact instead of a conspiracy theory?

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from NVIC

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US diplomat Mark Brzezinski, President Joe Biden’s nominee for ambassador to Poland, has pledged to “deepen and broaden the partnership” between the two countries.

Appearing before the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, Brzezinski said he would “commit to continue and strengthen” the United States’ security cooperation “with our stalwart ally Poland, where the enduring rotational presence of some 4,500 US troops defends NATO’s eastern flank.”

He added:

“I will deepen and broaden the partnership between Poland and the United States to spearhead economic growth in the region, including through the Three Seas Initiative,” a Polish-led regional drive by European countries between the Black, Baltic and Adriatic Seas.

Brzezinski also pledged that, if confirmed, he would “work with Poland to support the government and people of a peaceful and whole Ukraine, as well as the aspirations of the Belarusian people for a democratic Belarus.”

***

He added he would in particular “continue to underscore to Polish authorities the importance of an impartial judiciary, independent media, and respect for the human rights of all, including LGBTQI+ persons and members of other minorities.”

***

Brzezinski previously served in the administration of Barack Obama and was US ambassador to Sweden from 2011 to 2015.

From 1999 to 2001, he served on President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council, first as a director for Russia and Eurasia, and then as a director for the Balkans….

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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).

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***

Recounting some of the “atrocities committed shamefully in the name of our nation” during the ongoing so-called War on Terror, Sen. Dick Durbin on Tuesday said he has introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would close the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba “once and for all.”

“Since the first group of detainees was brought to Guantánamo in January of 2002, four different presidents have presided over the facility,” Durbin (D-Ill.)—a longtime proponent of closing the prison—said during a speech on the Senate floor.

“In that time the Iraq War has begun and ended, the war in Afghanistan—our nation’s longest war—has come to a close,” he continued. “A generation of conflict has come and gone yet the Guantánamo detention facility is still open and every day that it remains open is an affront to our system of justice and the rule of law.”

“In the wake of 9/11 the [George W.] Bush administration tossed aside our constitutional principles as well as the Geneva Conventions,” Durbin contended, calling Gitmo a place “where due process goes to die.”

“Military officials, national security experts, and leaders on both sides of the aisle have demanded its closure for years,” he said. “The facility was virtually designed to be a legal black hole where detainees could be held incommunicado beyond the reach of law and subjected to unspeakable torture and abuse.”

Durbin brought up the testimony last month of Majid Khan, a Pakistani man and former al-Qaeda operative imprisoned at Guantánamo since 2006. Prior to that, he was held at a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) black site in Afghanistan called the “Salt Pit,” where prisoner Gul Rahman was tortured to death in 2002.

Khan told the jury of U.S. officers during his Gitmo military commission trial that he was raped by CIA medics, subjected to the interrupted drowning torture commonly called waterboarding, hung naked from a ceiling beam, and chained to the floors for days on end.

“These high-ranking military leaders did something unheard of,” said Durbin. “Seven of the eight jurors signed a handwritten letter demanding clemency for Majid Khan,” who was subsequently sentenced to 26 years in prison in a formality due to to a superseding plea deal with the U.S. government that grants his release next February.

“Stories about the torture of prisoners have only galvanized American enemies” and have “diminished our international standing,” Durbin argued. “How can we claim credibility as a nation, how can we hold authoritarian dictators accountable, if they can point to our own legacy of cruelty?”

As a former prisoner of the US #Guantanamo and a survivor of 3 yrs of #torture and imprisonment without trial I encourage everyone to listen to this. Once you have, please read our open NYRB letter to Joe Biden on how to #closeGuantanamo https://t.co/1zI7Z4Xz78 https://t.co/uWpWkS4Vdz

— Moazzam Begg (@Moazzam_Begg) November 30, 2021

“This subversion of justice has harmed detainees, it has undermined our moral standing, and it has failed to deliver justice which it promised,” the senator continued. “For two decades the families of Americans who died on 9/11 have waited for the alleged co-conspirators who are being detained in Guantánamo to be brought to justice… but the case still hasn’t come to trial.”

Meanwhile, he added, “Guantánamo has become a symbol for human rights abuse [and] lawlessness.”

Durbin also lamented that “we spend more than $500 million a year to keep Guantánamo open” to detain just 39 prisoners, 13 of whom have been approved for transfer.

“That works out to nearly $14 million a year for each prisoner,” he noted. “That’s enough money to expand Medicaid coverage to 1.5 million Americans for 10 years.”

“Guantánmamo does not reflect who we are or who we should be,” Durbin said. “Indefinite detention without charge or trial is antithetical to American values and yet more than two-thirds of the people detained at Guantánamo today have never been charged with a crime. How can that be any form of justice?”

“We must accelerate the timeline to finally close Guantánamo,” he argued. “America’s failures in Guantánamo must not be passed on to another administration or to another Congress. Can this Senate summon the courage to finally close this detention facility? I’d like to test it on the floor of the Senate.”

Thank you @SenatorDurbin for your words: “Close the detention facility in Guantanamo. Let’s put this dark chapter behind us once and for all.” https://t.co/MHwN0rndkV

— Center for Victims of Torture (@CVTorg) November 30, 2021

Durbin called on President Joe Biden—who has signaled his intention to close Gitmo—to appoint a special envoy on detainee transfers and to pursue a “swift resolution to the remaining cases” in civilian courts.

“The use of torture and military commissions that deny due process have hindered our ability to bring terrorists to justice,” he said. “Our federal courts have proven more than capable of handling even the most serious and complex terrorism cases.”

Durbin quoted the late Maj. Ian Fishback, who exposed murder, torture, and other crimes committed by U.S. forces against prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq: “If we abandon our ideals in the face of adversity and aggression then those ideals were never really in our possession.”

“The families who lost loved ones on [9/11] deserve better. America deserves better,” Durbin insisted. “It’s time at long last to face reality and… close the detention facility at Guantánamo. Let’s put this dark chapter behind us once and for all.”

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

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Trends in Mortality and Morbidity in the Most Vaccinated Countries : Twenty-one Proven Facts

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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 @crg_globalresearch.

***

The preliminary EU report on glyphosate prepared by the Dutch, Hungarian, French and Swedish regulatory agencies fails to take account of the vast majority of recent studies published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, according to a report by the association Générations Futures.

The preliminary EU report (RAR, for “Renewal Assessment Report”) would allow the reauthorisation of the controversial herbicide in Europe at the end of 2022. In an analysis published on 16 November, Générations Futures quantified the failure of the report, prepared by the Dutch, Hungarian, French and Swedish regulatory agencies, to reflect the state of the science on glyphosate.

According to Générations Futures, out of 7,188 studies published in scientific journals, only 30 studies, equivalent to 0.4% of the studies they found, were judged by the RAR to be relevant and reliable without qualification.

None of these 30 studies carried weight in the RAR’s evaluation of the exclusion criteria for glyphosate (properties that could lead to a ban on the pesticide) and none was considered as a key study that could lead to the definition of a safe dose.

In total, 92% of the scientific studies published on the toxicity or ecotoxicity of the world’s most widely used pesticide were judged as irrelevant or unreliable by the RAR.

On the other hand, notes Générations Futures, the studies conducted by the manufacturers were treated with greater leniency and end up forming the basis of the EU report – in spite of the association’s observations that there are “significant methodological flaws” in most of these regulatory tests, which were nevertheless considered reliable by the European evaluators.

The Générations Futures report sheds light on a controversy that has been going on for over five years. In March 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the leading authority on the classification of carcinogens, classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans”. This position is diametrically opposed to that of the EU and US regulatory agencies, which consider the herbicide not to be carcinogenic. Glyphosate was reauthorised in 2017 for five years in the European Union, reduced from the usual 15 years in deference to the huge controversy over the substance.

Differences of opinion

Four years later, the results of the new EU report are identical. According to the conclusions of the RAR, communicated in June, glyphosate is neither carcinogenic, mutagenic, reprotoxic nor an endocrine disruptor. At the same time, the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research (Inserm) expressed a different opinion, concluding that there was a “moderate presumption” of a link between occupational exposure to glyphosate and the occurrence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer of the lymphatic system.

Why such divergent views? The report by Générations Futures explains that the EU experts failed to take into account the overwhelming majority of studies published in the scientific literature. Of the 1,550 studies on the toxicity of glyphosate that Générations Futures found had been published in the literature over the last ten years, only 11 were deemed reliable by the RAR. Of the 1,614 ecotoxicity studies identified, once again only 11 were considered reliable. The rate is even lower for endocrine disruption effects: Out of 4,024 published studies, only 8 are considered reliable by the RAR.

On what objective criteria is the bulk of the published science on glyphosate considered irrelevant or unreliable? “Selecting only studies carried out ‘on a species relevant to the toxicology of mammals’ amounts to excluding all studies carried out on other organisms, such as fish for example,” Générations Futures explains in its report. However, an increasing number of studies show that tests on fish could be relevant and exploitable for a risk assessment for humans. The French food safety agency ANSES recommends that data from fish should be considered in assessments of the ability of a substance to damage DNA.

Similarly, Générations Futures criticises the fact that “mechanistic studies examining the effects of glyphosate at the cellular and molecular level were excluded because they ‘cannot be linked to the risk assessment'”.

Several studies were rejected on the grounds that they were conducted on a mixture of substances, not glyphosate alone. However, closer examination of the studies revealed that in some cases, the study was indeed conducted on glyphosate alone – three studies identified in the RAR fell into this category.

Other academic work is also rejected because it was conducted in a non-European context. Studies from Asia or South America were rejected because the “[experimental] conditions would not be comparable to those in Europe,” the report says. This is contrary to all principles of hazard and risk assessment.

Consultation process on glyphosate “not fair” to civil society

Are the studies provided by pesticide manufacturers in support of the glyphosate re-authorisation application subject to the same scrutiny? According to an article by Stéphane Foucart in Le Monde, the toxicologist Pauline Cervan, the main author of the Générations Futures report, was specifically interested in a specific category of tests (known as “micronucleus tests”) designed to identify the genotoxic properties of a substance. Fourteen such studies were submitted by industry to the regulatory authorities, which excluded four of them as unacceptable.

What about the remaining ten, which were considered valid in the RAR? “All these studies have major flaws that should have led the authorities to consider them with reservations,” Ms Cervan told Le Monde. According to the toxicologist, who formerly prepared regulatory dossiers for the chemical industry, none of these studies complies with the current recommendations of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which they are supposed to respect. Reasons included an insufficient number of cells analysed, no evidence that the substance being evaluated reached the target tissue (bone marrow), and absence of historical data from the laboratory that conducted the tests.

Questioned by Le Monde, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which oversees the EU assessment, pointed out that the RAR is only preliminary for the time being, and was open to comments in the context of a public consultation that ended on 22 November. “We encourage [Générations Futures] to submit its report to EFSA and ECHA [European Chemicals Agency] so that the rapporteur member states responsible for the RAR can consider the specific points raised,” EFSA said. “Certainly, a public consultation has been opened and we will submit our comments, but the process is not fair to civil society,” said Pauline Cervan. “The RAR is several thousand pages long and the consultation only lasts two months. For NGOs, the critical work that needs to be done cannot be done in such a short time!”

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said his country is ready to mediate between Russia and Ukraine in peace talks. Although Erdoğan presents Turkey as a potential mediator, his country will certainly favor Kiev when considering the continued accusations made against Russia for the supposed human rights violations that Crimea’s Tartars experience and the Turkish Military Industrial Complex now heavily relying and placing its hopes on Ukraine to achieve its ambitious aims.

With such an offer to mediate, Erdoğan is attempting to project Ankara’s foreign policy ambition of ​​expanding its influence in the post-Soviet space. Most recently was Turkey’s blatant involvement in Azerbaijan’s invasion of historically Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus in 2020. Today, Azerbaijan is not just an ally of Turkey, but seen as an extension of the Turkish state, especially in the military and economic sectors where Russia was formerly more dominant in.

Erdoğan had set his eyes on Ukraine a long time ago and always aimed to strengthen his position there, especially because the level of Russophobia in the country works in his favor. He said that Turkey is committed to ensuring peace, with an emphasis on the Crimean Tatars, and expressed hope that the region will not turn into a warzone and for peace to prevail.

The Turkish president’s offer for his country to be a mediator between Russia and Ukraine was positively assessed by Kiev as the two countries are essentially allies. Turkey officially refused to recognize the results of the 2014 Crimean status referendum and the reunification of the peninsula with Russia. It is recalled that Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954. Despite this fact, in September Erdoğan reiterated at the UN General Assembly that Ankara attaches importance to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, including Crimea, and again emphasized that Turkey does not recognize the reunification.

In building Turkish-Ukrainian relations, Erdoğan took small but specific steps. He first sent military advisers to Ukraine, then instructors, and then delivered Bayraktar drones and other weapons to the Ukrainian military. Therefore, Kiev believes that Erdoğan is an ally against Russia. Moscow has repeatedly warned that Turkey is encouraging militaristic fever in Ukraine by delivering such weapons to Kiev, and that this could destabilize the situation in Donbass.

Although Erdoğan is now apparently taking the initiative to resolve the conflict in Donbass and ease relations between Kiev and Moscow, when remembering his interests and his attempts to turn Turkey from a regional power into a more global power, he challenges Russia’s interests and traditional sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. In this way, it is obvious that Erdoğan is not interested in peacebuilding in Eastern Europe, especially when considering Turkey’s recent direct and indirect invasions of Nagorno-Karabakh and large areas of Iraq, Syria and Libya, as well as refusing to adhere to UN Security Council resolutions regarding the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus.

Erdoğan does not need peace between Kiev and Moscow, nor does he has the resources or experience to achieve peaceful settlements. Therefore, Erdoğan’s cunning offer to mediate is just a desperate attempt for Ankara to involve itself in issues that it has no business being in.

Turkey has nothing to do with the Minsk agreements, which are the basis for solving the problems in Donbass and was made between Russia, Ukraine, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), France and Germany. These agreements are an international obligation of Ukraine, which Kiev is not fulfilling.

Ukraine adheres to the Minsk agreements only in words and does not respect them as Kiev’s forces continue to fire against Donbass. Although Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky expresses hope that the Donbass issue can be peacefully resolved, it will be a difficult task as he actually has no real authority in the country and rather serves the oligarchs and military leaders as a figurehead.

For this additional reason, it is ridiculous to think that Erdoğan will go to Kiev, meet with Zelensky, and resolve the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine is effectively being shaped by the US and its Eastern European allies like Poland and the Baltic States to be a resource of pressure and conflict against Russia.

Although it appears that Ankara and Moscow have strengthened their relations, especially as Erdoğan boldly announced that he expects Russia to assist Turkey in building nuclear plants, establishing a space program and acquiring new weapons, the geopolitical convergence of the two countries clashes. So long as Turkey continues challenging Russia’s sphere of influence, suspicion and mistrust will remain, and hence why Moscow will never allow Erdoğan to involve Turkey in Eastern European matters concerning Russia.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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VAERS data released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention included a total of 913,268 reports of adverse events from all age groups following COVID vaccines, including 19,249 deaths and 143,395 serious injuries between Dec. 14, 2020, and Nov. 19, 2021.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data late Monday showing a total of 913,268 adverse events following COVID vaccines were reported between Dec. 14, 2020, and Nov. 19, 2021, to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). VAERS is the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S.

The data included a total of 19,249 reports of deaths — an increase of 396 over the previous week — and 143,395 reports of serious injuries, including deaths, during the same time period — up 4,269 compared with the previous week.

Excluding “foreign reports” to VAERS, 664,745 adverse events, including 8,898 deaths and 56,297 serious injuries, were reported in the U.S. between Dec. 14, 2020, and Nov. 19, 2021.

Foreign reports are reports received by U.S. manufacturers from their foreign subsidiaries. Under U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations, if a manufacturer is notified of a foreign case report that describes an event that is both serious and does not appear on the product’s labeling, the manufacturer is required to submit the report to VAERS.

Of the 8,898 U.S. deaths reported as of Nov. 19, 20% occurred within 24 hours of vaccination, 26% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination and 56% occurred in people who experienced an onset of symptoms within 48 hours of being vaccinated.

In the U.S., 447.7 million COVID vaccine doses had been administered as of Nov. 19. This includes: 260 million doses of Pfizer, 171 million doses of Moderna and 16 million doses of Johnson & Johnson (J&J).

Every Friday, VAERS publishes vaccine injury reports received as of a specified date. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed. Historically, VAERS has been shown to report only 1% of actual vaccine adverse events.

U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to Nov. 19, 2021 for 5- to 11-year-olds show:

• 2,093 total adverse events, including 22 rated as serious and 1 reported death that occurred in an 11-year-old girl from Georgia vaccinated Sept. 14, prior to the authorization of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine in the 5 to 11 age group.

• 1,103 adverse events have been reported in the 5 to 11 age group since Nov. 1.

• The rest of the reports in VAERS for children in the 5 to 11 age group occurred prior to the authorization of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine, and are due to ”product administered to patient of inappropriate age.”

U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to Nov. 19, 2021 for 12- to 17-year-olds show:

• 23,484 total adverse events, including 1,439 rated as serious and 31 reported deaths.

The most recent death involves a 16-year-old girl from Georgia (VAERS I.D. 1865389) who died reportedly from a heart condition and multi-organ failure two days after receiving Pfizer’s COVID vaccine.

Other recent deaths include a 16-year-old girl from Missouri (VAERS I.D. 1823671) who died after receiving her second dose of Pfizer, and a 17-year-old female from Washington (VAERS I.D. 1828901) who died Oct. 29 reportedly from a heart condition after receiving her second dose of Pfizer.

• 59 reports of anaphylaxis among 12- to 17-year-olds where the reaction was life-threatening, required treatment or resulted in death — with 96% of cases
  attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
• 560 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis (heart inflammation) with 549 cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
• 139 reports of blood clotting disorders, with all cases attributed to Pfizer.

U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to Nov. 12, 2021, for all age groups combined, show:

• 19% of deaths were related to cardiac disorders.
• 54% of those who died were male, 42% were female and the remaining death reports did not include gender of the deceased.
• The average age of death was 72.7.
• As of Nov. 19, 4,424 pregnant women reported adverse events related to COVID vaccines, including 1,390 reports of miscarriage or premature birth.
• Of the 3,197 cases of Bell’s Palsy reported, 51% were attributed to Pfizer vaccinations, 41% to Moderna and 8% to J&J.
• 760 reports of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), with 41% of cases attributed to Pfizer, 30% to Moderna and 28% to J&J.
• 2,149 reports of anaphylaxis where the reaction was life-threatening, required treatment or resulted in death.
• 11,209 reports of blood clotting disorders. Of those, 4,960 reports were attributed to Pfizer, 4,000 reports to Moderna and 2,195 reports to J&J.
• 3,209 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis with 1,999 cases attributed to Pfizer, 1,067 cases to Moderna and 133 cases to J&J’s COVID vaccine.

Man with natural immunity forced to get vaccinated against COVID to remain on lung transplant list, dies after second dose of Moderna

Bobby Bolin, a 49-year-old Texas man who previously had COVID, was told he would have to get vaccinated against COVID in order to be eligible for a double-lung transplant, even though he had already recovered from the virus.

49-year-old Texas man who recovered from COVID—but was required to be fully vaccinated against virus before being approved for a life-saving lung transplant—died when he developed a pulmonary embolism and heart issues after his second Moderna vaccine.https://t.co/YHCwKb2lIp

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) November 29, 2021

After his second Moderna shot, received on April 17, Bolin developed a pulmonary embolism and atrial fibrillation — a heart condition characterized by an irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath, chest pain and extreme fatigue. His health rapidly deteriorated and he passed away Aug. 20, before receiving new lungs.

In an exclusive interview with The Defender, his wife, Amy Bolin, said there was no reason her husband should have been forced to get the vaccine in order to receive new lungs, but unfortunately, he was desperate and very sick.

Amy said she didn’t know what timeline her husband had with his organs, but she saw a complete change in him over four months’ time and doesn’t want others to face the same things they experienced.

Pfizer, Moderna vaccines ‘dramatically increase’ heart attack risk

In an analysis presented during a meeting of the American Heart Association, Dr. Steven Gundry, a pioneer in infant heart transplant surgery, said mRNA COVID vaccines put many patients at higher risk of a new acute coronary syndrome, such as a heart attack.

The analysis concluded in part that mRNA vaccines “dramatically increase inflammation on the endothelium and T cell infiltration of cardiac muscle and may account for the observations of increased thrombosis, cardiomyopathy and other vascular events following vaccination.”

Thousands of heart-related injuries have been reported following COVID mRNA vaccines, and scientists have established a myriad of heart- and blood-related effects in some patients, including young people.

Among the adverse events linked to the vaccines are thrombosis blood clots and heart inflammation known as myocarditis and pericarditis.

COVID vaccine stocks surge amid fears of new omicron variant

Shares of major COVID vaccine makers surged amid the latest pandemic fears surrounding the new Omicron variant, CNN Business reported.

Moderna climbed more than 20% during Black Friday’s short trading session on Wall Street and increased by an additional 10% on Monday.

Shares of BioNTech, which partners with Pfizer to produce COVID vaccines, soared 14% on Friday and were up 3% Monday, as Pfizer gained 6% Friday.

Investors are hoping the vaccine makers will be able to quickly update their COVID vaccines to offer protection for the Omicron variant.

Moderna said Friday it “will rapidly advance an Omicron-specific booster candidate” while Pfizer said it hoped to have an update of its vaccine ready in 100 days if Omicron shows resistance to its current vaccine.

Moderna CEO predicts reduction in COVID vaccine effectiveness against Omicron variant

Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, said in an interview Tuesday current COVID vaccines will likely be much less effective against the new Omicron variant, compared with previous variants, The Washington Post reported.

“I just don’t know how much, because we need to wait for the data,” Bancel said. “But all the scientists I’ve talked to … are, like, ‘This is not going to be good.’”

Bancel said scientists did not expect such a highly mutative variant to emerge for another year or two, noting 32 of the 50 mutations in Omicron involve the spike protein — the area targeted by existing COVID vaccines.

In early March, Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche, a vaccinologist who worked with GSK Biologicals, Novartis Vaccines, Solvay Biologicals, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Health Discovery team in Seattle and Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization in Geneva, broke down the dangers of mass vaccination for COVID compared to natural infection and concluded:

“There can be no doubt that continued mass vaccination campaigns will enable new, more infectious viral variants to become increasingly dominant and ultimately result in a dramatic incline in new cases despite enhanced vaccine coverage rates. There can be no doubt either that this situation will soon lead to complete resistance of circulating variants to the current vaccines.”

As The Defender reported March 26, a combination of lockdowns and extreme selection pressureon the virus induced by the intense global mass vaccination program, might diminish the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the short-term, but will ultimately induce the creation of more mutants of concern.

This is the result of what Vanden Bossche called “immune escape,” which will in turn trigger vaccine companies to further refine vaccines that will add to, not reduce, the selection pressure, producing ever more transmissible and potentially deadly variants.

Vanden Bossche argued the selection pressure would cause greater convergence in SARS-CoV-2 mutations affecting the spike protein of the virus responsible for breaking through the mucosal surfaces of our airways — the route used by the virus to enter the human body — effectively outsmarting the highly specific antigen-based vaccines that are being used and tweaked, dependent on the circulating variants.

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In September 2021, a group called Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FDA to obtain the documentation used to approve Comirnaty. When, after a month, the FDA had not replied, the PHMPT sued

It took the U.S. Food and Drug Administration 108 days to “thoroughly and completely” review the 329,000 pages of data Pfizer/BioNTech submitted to gain FDA approval for its Comirnaty COVID shot, which was licensed August 3, 2021

The FDA now claims it needs 55 years to release those same pages to the public (at a rate of 500 pages per month), as each page must be reviewed and sensitive information redacted

The FDA has so far only released 91 pages. These documents show that within the first 2.5 months of the Pfizer shot’s rollout, Pfizer received 42,086 reports of adverse events, including 1,223 fatalities

While Pfizer admits it received such a large number of spontaneous adverse event reports that they had to hire a redacted number of additional full-time personnel to handle the additional data entry, they claim that “The findings of these signal detection analyses are consistent with the known safety profile of the vaccine.” If they expected this volume of injuries, why were they short-staffed — and why does the FDA think the number of new hires is proprietary information?

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It took the U.S. Food and Drug Administration 108 days to review all the data Pfizer/BioNTech submitted in order to gain FDA approval for its Comirnaty COVID shot, which was licensed August 3, 2021.

Considering the agency claims there are 329,000 pages of data, the fact that they were able to read, analyze and draw conclusions about its safety and effectiveness in just 108 days — about 80,000 pages a month — is no small miracle. They must employ some very efficient speed readers.

And that is why the FDA’s claim that it now needs half a century to review the documents before they can release them to the public doesn’t seem very credible. Even Reuters has expressed shock, and its former CEO is on the board of Pfizer.¹

Expedited FOIA Request for Comirnaty Data

In September 2021, a group called Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FDA to obtain the documentation used to approve Comirnaty.

This includes safety and effectiveness data, adverse reaction reports and lists of active and inactive ingredients. Approximately 400 additional FOIA requests by other individuals for all or part of this information have also been filed.²

In their FOIA application, the PHMPT asked the agency to expedite release of the documents — a reasonable request, considering we have no raw data and the shots are being pushed on children as young as 5.

FOIA guidelines include two conditions upon which a request may be expedited. One is “if the lack of expedited treatment could reasonably be expected to pose a threat to someone’s life or physical safety,” which one could easily argue is the case here.

“During a time when COVID-19 vaccine mandates are being implemented over the objection of those that have questions about the data and information supporting the safety and efficacy of the Pfizer Vaccine, and individuals with these questions are being expelled from employment, school, transportation, and the military, the public has an urgent and immediate need to have access to this data,” the PHMPT said in its request.³

FDA Now Wants 55 Years to Release COVID Jab Data

When, after a month, the FDA still had not responded to the FOIA request, the PHMPT sued.⁴ The FDA is now asking a federal judge to allow them to delay the full release of all documents until 2076 — 55 years from now.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney who represents the FDA in this case, the agency will be able to “provide more pages to more requesters” if allowed to stick to a rolling schedule of 500 pages per month, “thus avoiding a system where a few large requests monopolize finite processing resources.”

They claim they only have 10 employees assigned to FOIA releases, and before material can be released, an FDA official has to go through them and redact any information that might reveal personal information about clinical trial participants and any confidential business or trade secret information.

The 1967 FOIA law requires federal agencies to respond to FOIAs within 20 days unless “unusual circumstances” exist that prevent a timely release. Circumstances that might warrant an extended release schedule include:

• Instances where response records must be searched for and collected from an entity other than the office processing the request
• Situations involving “voluminous” amounts of records that must be compiled, and
• Instances requiring consultation with another federal agency that has a substantial interest in the information

The DOJ attorney points out that the court has allowed for a 500-page maximum per month release schedule in other cases, and should allow the FDA the same leeway here.

Plaintiffs, on the other hand, argue the agency should be able to release everything by early March 2022, noting the FDA employs 18,000 people and has an annual budget of $6 billion. Between 2008 and 2017, the agency processed 114,938 FOIA requests, of which it granted 72.4%, either fully or partially.

Of those, 39.8% were designated as “complex,” and 81.5% of these complex FOIA requests were granted in 61 days or more. Considering these historical statistics, a backlog of 400 FOIA requests doesn’t appear excessively burdensome.

FDA’s Foot-Dragging Is Suspicious

Then there’s the sticky issue that it has already proven its capacity for rapid review. Aaron Siri of the law firm Siri & Glimstad wrote in the PHMPT’s court filing:^5,6,7,8

“This 108-day period is the same amount of time it took the FDA to review the responsive documents for the far more intricate task of licensing Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine …

It took the FDA precisely 108 days from when Pfizer started producing the records for licensure to when the FDA licensed the Pfizer vaccine. Taking the FDA at its word, it conducted an intense, robust, thorough, and complete review and analysis of those documents in order to assure that the Pfizer vaccine was safe and effective for licensure.

While it can conduct that intense review of Pfizer’s documents in 108 days, it now asks for over 20,000 days to make these documents available to the public …

The entire purpose of the FOIA is to assure government transparency. It is difficult to imagine a greater need for transparency than immediate disclosure of the documents relied upon by the FDA to license a product that is now being mandated to over 100 million Americans under penalty of losing their careers, their income, their military service status, and far worse.”

Shocking Revelations in First Batch of FOIA Docs

Two months after the lawsuit against it was filed, the FDA released a batch of 91 pages,⁹ and if this batch is any indication, it’s not surprising that the FDA wants to slow-walk the release of the rest. In a November 21, 2021, substack article, Kyle Becker cites directly from the released documents:¹⁰

“’It is estimated that approximately [REDACTED] doses of BNT162b2 were shipped worldwide from the receipt of the first temporary authorization for emergency supply on 01 December 2020 through 28 February 2021,’ the document states. ‘Cumulatively, through 28 February 2021, there was a total of 42,086 case reports (25,379 medically confirmed and 16,707 non-medically confirmed) containing 158,893 events …

Most cases (34,762) were received from United States (13,739), United Kingdom (13,404) Italy (2,578), Germany (1913), France (1506), Portugal (866).’ Below is a General Overview of the reported outcomes to the Adverse Events:

The chart lists 1,223 fatal outcomes in the Relevant Cases. Interestingly, the age range with the most relevant cases was 31-50 years old, which is not the age group considered to be at high risk from COVID-19.”

It’s worth noting that by redacting the specified number of doses shipped, it becomes more difficult to assess the potential ratio of injury. Still, even without that, 42,086 reports of injury, including 1,223 fatalities, are a significant signal in and of itself, especially when you consider that the 1976 swine flu vaccine was pulled after 25 deaths.

Glaring Disregard for Life

It’s even more disturbing when you consider that those 42,086 reports were received by Pfizer in just the first 2.5 months of the shot being rolled out. Pfizer even acknowledges the abnormal rate of injuries, but then sweeps it aside as being of no consequence. As noted by Siri, in a November 19, 2021 substack article, in which he discusses this first batch of documents:¹¹

“Pfizer explains, on page 6, that ‘Due to the large numbers of spontaneous adverse event reports received for the product, [Pfizer] has prioritized the processing of serious cases…’

Pfizer ‘has also taken a [sic] multiple actions to help alleviate the large increase of adverse event reports’ including ‘increasing the number of data entry and case processing colleagues’ and ‘has onboarded approximately [REDACTED] additional fulltime employees (FTEs).’

Query why it is proprietary to share how many people Pfizer had to hire to track all of the adverse events being reported shortly after launching its product …

But no cause for alarm since Pfizer explains to the FDA: ‘The findings of these signal detection analyses are consistent with the known safety profile of the vaccine.’ So, if they knew these issues were going to arise, then why didn’t they appear to have enough staff to process this expected volume of reports?

The grand conclusion by Pfizer to the FDA: ‘The data do not reveal any novel safety concerns or risks requiring label changes and support a favorable benefit risk profile of to the BNT162b2 vaccine.’ Nothing to see here.”

Clearly, there’s plenty to be seen in the hundreds of thousands of documents Pfizer/BioNTech submitted to the FDA. The fact that the FDA is stonewalling and wants 55 years to redact them before they’re fit for public view is telling in and of itself.

You don’t need a fanciful imagination to comprehend what they might be hiding. It almost seems they want to make sure the responsible parties are all dead by the time the full data set is out in the open and people can be held to account for their decisions. Let’s hope the judge is more interested in public health than protecting the FDA’s dirty secrets.

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Notes

¹ ZeroHedge November 23, 2021

^2, 7 Daily Mail November 19, 2021, Updated November 20, 2021

^3, 4 The Defender November 19, 2021

⁵ US District Court Northern District of Texas Case 4:21-cv-01058-P

⁶ US District Court Northern District of Texas Case 4:21-cv-01058-P Second Joint Report

⁸ The Vaccine Reaction November 21, 2021

⁹ PHMPT.org Pfizer documents

¹⁰ thekylebecker.substack.com November 21, 2021

¹¹ aaronsiri.substack.com November 19, 2021

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First published June 9, 2021

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“One day fear knocked at the door. Courage got up and opened it, but there was no one outside.”

This originally English proverb was attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe at the beginning of 2020. Endowed with the authority of the German poet prince, it quickly became a popular motivational saying against the fear of the Corona virus. The quotation reflects a wisdom of life, which is psychologically reinforced and deepened in the following. If we humans muster the courage to overcome the fear of fellow human beings acquired in our upbringing, if we associate with them in freedom and elevate public spirit to the guiding idea, then the human species has a chance to survive.

Step outside your own front door and see what is available!

Every human being is called upon to make a contribution to solving the urgent problems of our time. And of course we are able to do so if we are aware that it depends on each and every one of us. Why not muster the courage to use our own intellect, not to suppress the current problems of humanity, but to stand up against injustice – intellectually, emotionally, politically. Overcome the inertia of the heart and act! Against all odds, muster the determination to seek the truth and thereby preserve our dignity as human beings and create a future worth living for ourselves and our children.

The Swiss poet and novelist Gottfried Keller (1819-1890) believed:

“No government and no battalions (…) are able to protect law and freedom where the citizen is unable to step outside the front door himself and see what is available.” (Zurich Novellas)

Romain Rolland (1866 to 1944), French writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, even believed that, if necessary, every man must stand alone within all and think and act for all. In the introduction to his 1920 anti-war novel “Clerambault. History of a Free Conscience in War” he wrote.

“Every man, if he is a true man, must learn to stand alone within all, to think alone for all – if necessary, even against all! To think sincerely is to think for all, even if one thinks against all. Humanity needs those who offer it chess out of love and rebel against it when it is necessary!” (1)

“The Internationale”, the world-famous struggle song of the socialist workers’ movement, also recommends people not to hope for salvation from higher beings, but to take action themselves:

“Wake up, damned of this earth, who are still forced to starve! (…) Army of slaves, wake up! (…) Peoples, hear the signals! To the final battle! (…) No higher being, no god, no emperor, no tribune can save us! To deliver us from misery, that we can only do ourselves!” (2)

Free citizens who stand up against injustice and tyranny have nothing against those in power. They do nothing to them. But neither do they want to live in a system of rule in which they have to remain silent. They fight for a more just order, for their right to life, to freedom, peace and security. Moreover, they have common sense and are autonomous. Autonomy is the state and feeling of life of self-determination, independence and self-government. Philosophically, it is the ability to see oneself as a being of freedom and to act out of this freedom.

Equipped with these abilities, no human being freely hands over to another the power to decide on his or her life and future. Not to another human being or politician, but also not to a supernatural being who is supposed to guide and protect him as a “deity” from earliest childhood to the end of days. After all, we humans are embedded in the community of our fellow species, of whom we do not have to be afraid, but on whose support and solidarity we can build.

Have the courage to associate with our fellow human beings

We just have to muster the courage to face this task and associate ourselves with fellow human beings. This means taking upon ourselves a path that is often arduous, long and not easy to walk, to believe in the goodness in the other person, to empathise with them, to associate with them and to appeal to them without coercion. There is no short, easy and simple path to the goal – no so-called royal road.

The other person, our counterpart, our fellow citizen and conspecific is gladly prepared to accept our offer if he is given the opportunity to decide for it freely and without any coercion. He too wants to live well with his children. He, too, is happy to help the other.

More than 100 years ago, the Russian anarchist, geographer and writer Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842 to 1921) wrote in his book “Mutual Aid in the Animal and Human World” that in nature and society there is by no means only a struggle of all against all (social Darwinism), but that the principle of “mutual aid” also prevails. Those living beings who implement this principle would survive more successfully. Kropotkin observed both nature and natural beings and applied his findings to human beings.

Elevate the sense of community to the guiding idea

This principle of mutual help must be anchored in every possible way in the thoughts and moral principles of action of human beings and in solidarity, in the feeling of belonging together, in brotherhood and in the sense of community of human beings. The teachings of the moral leaders of humanity, the wisdom of Lao Tzu, the commandment to love one’s neighbour and the innumerable forms of social life and behaviour in which public spirit is expressed, grew out of the insight that all those who bear a human face belong together.

For Alfred Adler, the founder of individual psychology, the “deepest idea of all culture (…) consists in the final rejection of the striving for power and in the final elevation of public spirit to the leading idea.” He said this 100 years ago. All our endeavours in the world and in science should have the guiding principle of producing a type of human being in the future for whom – as Alfred Adler put it – a sense of community and interpersonal solidarity are as natural as breathing (3).

It is possible to suppress the exhortations of the human sense of community; they can never be completely eradicated, for the gift of evolution consists in the moral consciousness of the individual, in the insight into the responsibility of all towards all. Our task for the future, therefore, seems to be above all the cultivation and strengthening of communal feelings. No means must be too small for us, no effort too arduous, in order to better integrate man into the social fabric.

Overcoming the fear of fellow human beings acquired in education

For most people, however, this noble goal is opposed by an emotional reaction acquired in childhood that is difficult to overcome: fear of fellow human beings. This fear is not innate. People are born without fear and acquire it only in the course of their development as a result of traditional authoritarian and religious upbringing. That is why almost all adult humans have fear – consciously or even more often unconsciously. It is an expression of irritation and has little to do with the real situation.

Fear permeates the whole of a person’s life, his actions, how he presents himself and moves in life and in the community. It prevents him from thinking and makes him incapable of assessing any situation in a real and reasonable way. He is no longer the doer of his life, but fear drives him.

The image of man of the Christian occidental culture says that man – even the small child – carries bad qualities within himself. With this information – be it conscious or unconscious – the educator of today approaches the child. He always suspects ill will in the child. He does not know that the child is completely oriented towards the relationship persons, that his whole longing and aspiration is to be loved and appreciated by the parents, that he still likes to cooperate so much. The child is good by nature.

In reality, parents and educators instil great fear in the child with every use of force, be it in the form of strictness or also spoiling. The child learns to be afraid; it learns to feel threatened by fellow human beings; it experiences that it is not good to eat with human beings. The emotional reaction of fear becomes part of its character. The image of man that the child acquired from its parents in the earliest years of childhood is unconsciously carried into every relationship.

Even today, the child is brought up with violence and disregard for its personality. As a result, the child begins to turn away from the human being. This results in a negating tendency that influences his later life. It no longer expects much from the human being. The violent treatment deeply shakes his personality and awakens in him aversion to his fellow man. Trust in human beings, which is actually the foundation of the personality and the natural conception of life, cannot develop.

The child also experiences that parental authority is above everything. It experiences that there is only one correct opinion, and that is that of the father, the authority. It learns that certain opinions should not be held. They learn to fear the violence and sanctions that come from their parents to such an extent that they no longer dare to contradict them, neither in thought nor in action. As an adult, man is no longer able to form his own thought because his fear of the consequences – earthly or supernatural – paralyses him. He becomes nervous and indignant when he even hears a different opinion.

On this ground it is not possible for the human being to deal with other opinions. He can only accept something from the other person with difficulty. His fear becomes the dominating problem in relationships. He does not know free discussion, he only knows command and obedience. He is used to accepting the opinion of authority unchecked. He also experienced as a child that he was burdened with many opinions that he could not check in any way. So he comes to terms with the fact that many things cannot be understood and that the incomprehensible must not be doubted.

This intimidation of understanding and reason goes hand in hand in our culture with religious education, with unreal information about spirits, devils and angels.

Man is born neither religious nor believing in God, but the mentally healthy and uncrippled child enters a society in which delusional ideas and illusions prevail. No sooner does the little child show its first mental impulses and learn to speak than it is “taken into care” by society, i.e. by the parents and the church. It is made clear to him that his nature is not allowed to develop freely with regard to his feeling for nature and his world view. If it wants to avoid being punished with general contempt and hellish chastisements, it must press its being into a certain ecclesiastical form.

Outlook 

Thanks to the findings of scientific psychology, we now know how fear of fellow human beings arises. We know exactly what causes it. We also know how people can put fear behind them. Today’s people should therefore no longer be plagued by fears. These fears can be changed or overcome in a trusting therapeutic relationship with a professional. By experiencing compassion and understanding, the person can lose these fears (4).

And pedagogy in the parental home and school has to renounce the authoritarian principle – which for centuries was regarded as the unquestionably valid basis of educational behaviour – and the use of violence. Educators must adapt themselves with true understanding to the child’s soul life, respect the child’s personality and turn to him or her with friendship. Such education will produce a type of human being who does not have a “subject mentality” and will therefore no longer be a docile tool for the rulers in our world.

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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel is an educationalist and graduate psychologist.

Notes

(1) Rolland, Romain (1988). Clerambault. History of a free conscience in war. Reinbek near Hamburg, p. 12

(2) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Internationale

(3) Ansbacher. Heinz L. / Ansbacher, Rowena R. (eds.). (1982). Alfred Adler’s Individual Psychology. A systematic presentation of his teachings in excerpts from his writings. Munich, Basel

(4) Op. cit.

Featured image: Human rights activists, including Canadian Michaela Lavis, before being arrested by Israeli authorities in Khan Al-Ahmar

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The Australian army has begun forcibly removing residents in the Northern Territories to the Howard Springs quarantine camp located in Darwin, after nine new Covid-19 cases were identified in the community of Binjari. The move comes after hard lockdowns were instituted in the communities of both Binjari and nearby Rockhole on Saturday night.

“Residents of Binjari and Rockhole no longer have the five reasons to leave their homes,” said Northern Territory chief minister, Michael Gunner, referring to the country’s five allowable reasons to avoid lockdown (buying food and supplies, exercising for up to two hours, care or caregiving, work or education if it can’t be done from home, and to get vaccinated at the nearest possible location).

“They can only leave for medical treatment, in an emergency, or as required by law.”

“It’s highly likely that more residents will be transferred to Howard Springs today, either as positive cases or close contacts,” he continued, adding “We have already identified 38 close contacts from Binjari but that number will go up. Those 38 are being transferred now.”

“I contacted the Prime Minister last night. We are grateful for the support of about 20 ADF personnel, as well as army trucks to assist with the transfer of positive cases and close contacts – and to support the communities.

Watch:

AUSTRALIA – The army is now transferring positive Covid cases and contacts in the Northern Territories to ‘Quarantine Camps’ by army truck.

So it wasn’t a conspiracy theory then. #COVID19 #Australia pic.twitter.com/NfJzqrO1fz

— Bernie's Tweets (@BernieSpofforth) November 22, 2021

“We’re conscious of the fact that this can have some impacts on people’s mental health as well as their general well being,” Police Commissioner Jamie Chalkner told NT News.

Of note, the Northern Territories are home to a large percentage of indigenous Australians. As the Epoch Times‘ Steve Milne notes:

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, in 2018-19, almost one in five Indigenous Australians lived in overcrowded dwellings (18 percent), compared to 5 percent of non-Indigenous Australians. Although this percentage had decreased from 27 percent in 2004, it still meant an estimated 145,340 Indigenous Australians were living in overcrowded dwellings in 2018-19.

In addition, the more remote an area, the higher the proportion of Indigenous Australians living in overcrowded dwellings (26 percent in remote areas and 51 percent in “very remote” areas), compared to 8 and 22 percent in non-remote areas.

Five days ago, NT Senator Malarndirri McCarthy told ABC that over crowding in Indigenous communities was a “massive problem,” pointing to the region’s second cluster of new infections – which included nine members of McCarthy’s direct family, including her sister who flew from Katherine to Robinson River while unknowingly bringing COVID-19 with her, per the report.

“If we could get housing in there right now, I would be pushing that straight away to the federal government and the NT government to work on that, but we obviously need the resources to do so,” she said.

Of the nine new cases in Binjari, four are women and five are men, including a 78-year-old woman who has been transported to Darwin Hospital.

There were zero new COVID-19 cases reported on Sunday, however Minister Gunner said he was worried about ‘mingling between households’ in Binjari and Rockhole, whose populations are around 220 and 130 respectively.

On Sunday, Gunner said: “Yes, these are strong measures, but the threat to lives is extreme.”

Nice people…

Australia's leaders are dumb and authoritarian. A very bad combo. pic.twitter.com/NfHPVifaVL

— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) November 22, 2021

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A new study touts the power of natural immunity to fight off the worst effects of the coronavirus.

The researchers, who reported their results last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, examined 353,326 COVID-19 patients in the Arabian Peninsula nation of Qatar who were infected anywhere between Feb. 28, 2020, and April 28, 2021.

The research excluded about 87,500 people who were vaccinated over the time span of the study.

Out of the rest of the group studied, only 1,304 contracted COVID-19 again, with none requiring intensive care treatment for the disease, formally known as SARS-CoV-2.

“In earlier studies, we assessed the efficacy of previous natural infection as protection against reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 as being 85 percent or greater,” the researchers, from Qatar’s National Study Group for COVID-19 Epidemiology,  wrote.

“Accordingly, for a person who has already had a primary infection, the risk of having a severe reinfection is only approximately 1 percent of the risk of a previously uninfected person having a severe primary infection.”

We live in a strange world where people who don’t take a medicine for a virus because they already have natural immunity and can’t transmit to other people, are being blamed for not taking a medicine that doesn’t stop those who take it from transmitting the virus to other people.

— James Melville (@JamesMelville) November 28, 2021

The researchers noted that the duration of natural immunity needs to be better understood.

“It needs to be determined whether such protection against severe disease at reinfection lasts for a longer period, analogous to the immunity that develops against other seasonal ‘common cold’ coronaviruses, which elicit short-term immunity against mild reinfection but longer-term immunity against more severe illness with reinfection,” the study said.

Natural immunity works. Not perfectly, but it works. Better than the vaccines work.

Reinfection from Covid-19 is rare, severe disease is even rarer, a study of people in Qatar findshttps://t.co/t9vD6h9O8t

— Robert W Malone, MD (@RWMaloneMD) November 25, 2021

“If this were the case with SARS-CoV-2, the virus (or at least the variants studied to date) could adopt a more benign pattern of infection when it becomes endemic,” the study said.

The study noted that once-infected individuals have “90 percent lower odds of resulting in hospitalization or death than primary infections.”

“Four reinfections were severe enough to lead to acute care hospitalization. None led to hospitalization in an ICU, and none ended in death,” the study reported.

“Reinfections were rare and were generally mild, perhaps because of the primed immune system after primary infection.”

Switzerland just extended the period where post infection immunity is solid proof of immunity from 6 months to one year. They recognise the obvious fact that natural immunity is stronger and longer lasting than that provided by vaccines. Hello @sajidjavid

— Hugh Osmond (@hughosmond) November 25, 2021

“When you have only 1,300 reinfections among that many people, and four cases of severe disease, that’s pretty remarkable,” said John Alcorn, an expert in immunology and professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh, according to CNN.

Alcorn was not part of the team that conducted the study.

One potential weak spot in the study, according to CNN: It was limited to citizens of Qatar, and might not be universally replicable.

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A U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel on Tuesday voted narrowly to recommend Emergency Use Authorization of Merck’s five-day pill to treat COVID, despite the panel expressing a host of concerns about the drug’s safety and efficacy.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee on Tuesday voted narrowly, 13 to 10, to recommend Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of Merck’s five-day pill to treat COVID.

The drug, molnupiravir, sold under the brand name Lagevrio and developed with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, is an antiviral medication that inhibits the replication of certain RNA viruses, including SARS CoV-2.

Potential patients would take an 800-milligram pill every 12 hours for five days after COVID symptoms begin.

The FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must both sign off before the drug is granted EUA and made available to the public.

The FDA panel “recommended Merck’s treatment be authorized for people with COVID who are at high risk of becoming severely ill. That would most likely cover tens of millions of Americans who are older or have medical conditions such as obesity, diabetes or heart disease,” The New York Times reported.

Molnupiravir was given in clinical trials to people allegedly infected with the variants Delta, Mu and Gamma, according to The Times.

Dr. Nicholas Kartsonis, a Merck executive, said that with the newly discovered variant, Omicron, “we expect based on what we know … that molnupiravir would be effective.”

Just a few days prior to the vote, study data was released showing the effectiveness of the treatment declining from earlier data.

According to The Hill:

“The drug manufacturer filed for an Emergency Use Authorization last month after its study suggested molnupiravir reduced the risk of hospitalization by 50%. But updated data from Friday showed a 30% reduction in hospitalizations among more participants.”

The federal government in June signed a $1.2 billion contract with Merck while the experimental treatment was still in clinical trials, according to ABC News. That contract was to purchase treatments for 1.7 million people. But the government has since increased that contract, agreeing to purchase “3.1 million courses of the drug, with the option to purchase more,” The Hill reported.

Panel recommends Merck COVID pill, despite ‘more questions than answers’

A number of FDA panelists, including some who voted to recommend the molnupiravir, expressed hesitation about the drug.

According to CNBC:

“Many members of the advisory committee described the vote as a difficult one, in which they had to carefully weigh the risks and benefits of a drug that could help those most at risk but raised many unanswered questions. Several committee members recommended that Merck’s emergency use authorization be revisited and potentially withdrawn if another treatment becomes available later.”

Dr. David Hardy, who voted to recommend the drug, said there’s a “need for something like this” but admitted the “efficacy of this product is not overwhelmingly good.”

Lindsey Baden, the committee’s chairman, made similar statements calling it “an incredibly difficult decision” with “more questions than answers.”

Dr. Sankar Swaminathan, who voted against recommendation, said more research was needed on how the drug will affect human DNA and the potential for it to cause birth defects.

“The risk of widespread effects on potential birth defects, especially delayed effects on the male, have not been adequately studied,” Swaminathan said.

Dr. James Hildreth expressed concerns with mutant variants escaping, telling the panel:

“Even if the probability is very low, 1 in 10,000 or 100,000, that this drug would induce an escape mutant from which the vaccines we have do not cover, that could be catastrophic for the whole world actually.”

Molnupiravir was already approved in the UK even as similar concerns were expressed.

Dr. William Haseltine, a virologist formerly at Harvard University, told the publication Science:

“You are putting a drug into circulation that is a potent mutagen at a time when we are deeply concerned about new variants. I can’t imagine doing anything more dangerous…. If I were trying to create a new and more dangerous virus in humans, I would feed a subclinical dose [of molnupiravir] to people infected.”

Too many unknowns and potential risks?

As new treatments garner approval despite questionable data, public health officials continue to reject, and in some cases prohibit the use of, older, safe and well-known drugs.

Studies have shown the safety and efficacy of inexpensive drugs, such as oral hydroxychloroquine and povidone-iodine throat spray and ivermectin and doxycycline monotherapy, for treating COVID.

In fact, doctors who have treated COVID patients from the beginning have reported successful results with drugs that have been readily available and in use for years.

Dr. Meryl Nass, a member of Children’s Health Defense (CHD) scientific advisory board, in an email told The Defender:

“We are witnessing another FDA charade, as its Pharma-connected advisory committee members narrowly voted to authorize molnupiravir.

“Plucked from the antiviral boneyard, molnupiravir went through a series of transfers that magically converted it from a failed drug developed at taxpayer expense to a blockbuster drug for Merck and its partner, Ridgeback.”

Molnupiravir reduced hospitalizations by only 30%, is clearly less useful than monoclonal antibodies and works “nowhere near as well as multiple other drugs for COVID,” Nass said.

Nass said molnupiravir’s mechanism of action is inducing mutations — in viruses, but “maybe in us too, as postulated by several FDA committee members.”

“It’s simply another dangerous drug that will help the federal health agencies look like they are doing something, while doing nothing to curtail the pandemic,” Nass said. “And because it is being authorized, instead of being licensed, anyone injured by the drug cannot sue for damages and is unlikely to collect any benefits.”

Mary Holland, CHD president and general counsel, told The Defender:

“There are many problems with Merck’s new cash cow — Merck doesn’t know if it will drive new mutant variants; Merck hasn’t tested the drug on vaccinated people, who will get it; and the drugmaker doesn’t know if it will be effective against new variants.

“The biggest problem, though, is the continued governmental, medical and media suppression of existing, off-patent drugs, including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. These products are known to be safe, effective, affordable and available. Authorizing Merck’s new bonanza while suppressing safer, more effective, less expensive alternatives points up the abject failure of the FDA to protect public health.”

Follow the money?

The answer to why this new drug is being authorized for emergency use may very well come down to the incentives.

Ivermectin is actually produced by Merck, but because of government rules Merck would be unable to profit off the drug.

“Due to generic drug substitution rules at pharmacies, Merck could spend millions of dollars to get a COVID-19 indication for ivermectin and then effectively get zero return,” according to David Henderson and Charles Hooper.  “What company would ever make that investment? Ivermectin is an old, cheap, off-patent drug. Merck will never make much money from ivermectin sales.”

Dr. Pierre Kory, chief medical officer for Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, told LifeSiteNews:

“We plan on giving money to a drug company for a drug that is in no way going to surpass what we already have available right now and can be used. That money should instead be given to supply ivermectin to the country. This is a colossal waste of taxpayer money.”

American taxpayers funded the development of molnupiravir through a $19 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), according to The Intercept.

The cost to produce one molnupiravir treatment is $17.74 to Merck but the purchase contract to the U.S. government is $712 per treatment, The Intercept reported.

Meanwhile, Merck expects to make up to $7 billion in profit from the drug for which U.S. taxpayers funded the development and production.

Similar profit motives were apparent in the approval of remdesivir. Despite concerns addressed by the World Health Organization, the NIAID’s Director Dr. Anthony Fauci was calling it the “standard of care” as drug company Gilead’s initial sales projections from the drug last year were $3 billion.

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The FDA has refused to even explore approval of cheap, safe, and effective repurposed drugs for 20 months, despite mounds of evidence from studies vouching for their efficacy and safety. So, naturally, now that the agency is on track to issue an emergency use authorization to the first outpatient drug for COVID, this one must be the greatest thing since penicillin, right? Wrong! In fact, the drug is so dangerous and has so many known and unknown side effects that the FDA advisory committee members basically admitted this was a “difficult” decision and that they could rescind the authorization later on. This decision makes their rejection of ivermectin, fluvoxamine, nitazoxanide, and hydroxychloroquine all the more indefensible.

If you liked remdesivir, you will surely like Merck’s molnupiravir, which was developed with the help of the same entities guarding its approval based on flawed data produced by the company itself that is making over $1 billion off the federal government. No conflict of interest whatsoever!

Although the fix was in because no drug produced by Merck or Pfizer – no matter how dangerous – will ever be turned down, the approval was as revealing as it was appalling. The fact that the vote even by these compromised hacks was 13-10 demonstrates just how problematic molnupiravir likely is out of the gate.

Yesterday, the FDA’s Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee voted 13-10 to approve molnupiravir at 800 milligrams twice a day for five days of COVID treatment for people in at-risk categories. It still needs official approval from the FDA and the CDC before it can be used, but the fix has long been in.

As CNBC reports, even those who voted for the drug admitted that it was a difficult decision and asked to revisit the authorization down the road. They conceded, as I have warned, that this drug can be mutagenic and cause birth defects, in addition to the fact that Merck’s own manipulated data show the efficacy is very modest.

“Given the large potential population affected, the risk of widespread effects on potential birth defects, especially delayed effects on the male, has not been adequately studied,” warned Dr. Sankar Swaminathan, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Utah School of Medicine, who voted no.

As CNBC reports:

The FDA and Merck both recommended against using the drug in kids and pregnant women. Molnupiravir was found to be lethal to embryos in pregnant rats, also causing birth defects and reducing fetal body weight. It also caused other defects that interfered with bone growth in young pups, along with other abnormalities, the data shows.

Just like the vaccines and remdesivir, this drug hits the triple crown – fails on efficacy, causes injury, and also induces mutants and viral escape, possibly making the virus worse. In the FDA’s briefing document on the drug for yesterday’s meeting, it states clearly that “there are potential safety concerns pertaining to MOV, including embryofetal toxicity, bone and cartilage toxicity, and mutagenicity.” They also observe that there is evidence molnupiravir “may increase the rate of changes in the viral spike protein, which, in theory, could enhance SARS-CoV-2 spike protein evolution.”

“Of particular interest, in some participants, MOV treatment was associated with amino acid changes at sites/regions of spike that are likely under immune or other evolutionary pressure,” warns the onetime gatekeeper that has now become a collaborator with Big Pharma. This sounds an awful lot like Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche’s warning about the vaccines placing evolutionary pressure on the virus, which likely resulted in making it more durable this year than in 2020. “Collectively, these analyses indicate MOV treatment may increase the rate of emergence of SARS-CoV-2 populations with amino acid changes in the viral spike protein, consistent with its mutagenic mechanism of action,” warns the FDA.

Nonetheless, Dr. Michael Green, a pediatric transplant specialist at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases, said the lack of available therapies swayed him and others to vote to approve the drug.

The problem is that after incurring such unknown risk for a drug that has never succeeded and has known safety problems, the efficacy is very modest. Even Merck’s own trial shows barely any efficacy for Delta, and we all know by now how reliable the data can be from the manufacturer itself!

The FDA approves Molnupiravir by 13 votes to 10.

If you're hit by Delta, Merck's trial data show with a 95% confidence that your risk of hospitalization or death is:

• reduced by 7.8% or increased by 2.9% (absolute)

• reduced by 57% or increased by 42% (relative), p=0.41 pic.twitter.com/lyLNLVaCv4

— Covid19Crusher (@Covid19Crusher) November 30, 2021

Even more bizarrely, after Merck announced a 50% reduction in hospitalizations from the first phase of its trial announced in October, just last week the company announced that the combined efficacy is down to 30%. As some have pointed out, that raises serious concerns as to what has happened with the drug’s trial, given that the data from just phase 2 would indicate negative efficacy for the drug, with 4.7% hospitalized in the placebo group compared to 6.2% in the molnupiravir group.

Also, remember that it has already bombed out in terms of efficacy for moderate COVID and never had the potential to work in late stages because it is not anti-inflammatory like ivermectin. The FDA concedes up front that there is zero proven benefit after day five of symptoms.

So, we are trading so much risk of injury and making the virus worse for a short window of potentially modest efficacy at a cost of $700 per person. If this is the standard for approval during an emergency, how on earth could the FDA refuse to greenlight drugs that have already established a robust safety profile for decades when independent studies from people who don’t stand to benefit show much greater efficacy and for a broader spectrum of disease at a cheaper price?

COMPARAISON IVERMECTIN (8,53€)-vs-MOLNUPIRAVIR(600€).. pic.twitter.com/shyhoVUNQU

— telephonearabe (@telephonearabe) October 31, 2021

Revision of the previous post. More precise now.

Sources:https://t.co/UHQj2wqvVThttps://t.co/ZSbtONOnUIhttps://t.co/Y4yBVV0YaNhttps://t.co/nT1o75AyHwhttps://t.co/XuQMrqsqXehttps://t.co/0Anj9lNuwkhttps://t.co/IKqkq9igJHhttps://t.co/1UaTENeeV9 pic.twitter.com/KMuNLRuOeU

— Massimaux (@masimaux) November 30, 2021

The FDA and NIH are willing to give a drug known for birth defects with low efficacy to women of childbearing age outpatient but won’t even allow a Nobel Prize-winning drug safer than Tylenol as a last resort to someone dying.

Just rinsing your nose and mouth with Betadine at the onset of symptoms or preventively works better than this drug, according to Merck’s own data.

Povidone-iodine vs. Molnupiravir pic.twitter.com/64fyTJpfGP

— Massimaux (@masimaux) October 23, 2021

Again, why would our government refuse to recommend any of these therapeutics and treatments but continue to support remdesivir and now approve molnupiravir, two dangerous and likely ineffective drugs? And what does that tell us about the process and transparency behind the FDA’s perceived safety and efficacy of the vaccines?

There are no innocuous answers to these questions.

Janet Cragan, a medical officer at the CDC and a panelist on the FDA advisory committee, bizarrely conceded at Tuesday’s meeting that “there are definite concerns about the potential effects of this drug on the embryo and the fetus,” but then said she has problems denying the drug to people! “I don’t think you can ethically say it’s OK to give this drug in pregnancy. [But] I’m not sure you can tell a pregnant women who has Covid-19 that she can’t have the drug if she has decided that’s what she needs.”

Well, how about denying the safest drugs around to everyone with COVID for the past 20 months???!!!

Roy Baynes, the Merck executive at the meeting, even had the nerve to suggest that it’s not for the FDA to tell doctors not to use the drug even in pregnant women! “But I think the idea here is that ultimately the physician is the best position to determine the relative risk-benefit for their patients,” said Baynes.

With its eight mechanisms of action against COVID and award-winning safety profile established for decades, ivermectin trounces molnupiravir in every consideration. As a 2017 article published in Nature’s Journal of Antibiotics observed, “Few, if any, other drugs can rival ivermectin for its beneficial impact on human health and welfare.” The authors noted that “ivermectin is continuing to surprise and excite scientists, offering more and more promise to help improve global public health by treating a diverse range of diseases, with its unexpected potential as an antibacterial, antiviral and anti-cancer agent being particularly extraordinary.” They fortuitously predicted, “Essentially, a unique, multifaceted ‘wonder’ drug of the past and present may yet become an even more exceptional drug of the future.” Sadly, our government is denying that future and that of several other important safe, off-patent drugs.

Anyone who can’t see the conflict of interest in this powerful juxtaposition is willfully blind to the irremediable corruption in the NIH, the CDC, and the FDA.

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We’ve seen this movie before.

Since early 2020, the “new, dangerous, unprecedented COVID strain” playbook has remained the same. It’s now been almost two years since the first “new strain” came on the scene.

Here’s how the hype cycle works:

A random nation-state detects a new coronavirus strain. That information is then introduced to the public by the press through hysterical means, setting off a chaotic few days in global financial markets, and a frenzied churnalism race to get the most eyes locked in on their respective publications. “Is a new plague on the horizon?” the ruling class sycophants ask. Academics in credentialed organizations will present a baseless statistical model or two that are totally detached from reality, igniting more government and press hysteria over the coming “plague.”

South African Dr Angelique Coetzee first raised the alarm over the Omicron variant and says the rest of the world is over-reacting.

"Patients I've seen had mild symptoms and recovered. None were admitted and no oxygen was needed. The hype makes no sense to at all."@JuliaHB1 pic.twitter.com/c14pbzveN6

— talkRADIO (@talkRADIO) November 29, 2021

Next, your local and federal power-drunk politicians comes to the “rescue,” reminding you plebs that they’re here to help! The government first signals that there is nothing major to worry about, at least, for now. They’ll let you know if something changes, and assure you that their best people are monitoring the situation.

Initial government “measures” are restored. This is the first step in the direction of COVID tyranny. It comes in the form of nonsensical edicts like directed travel bans to the region where the new strain surfaced.

Breaking: NANTUCKET, Mass. (AP) — US to ban travel from South Africa, 7 other African nations by non-US citizens beginning Monday due to COVID-19 variant.

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 26, 2021

Three-day COVID travel ban in force in Lisbon as Delta variant spreads https://t.co/9vaWeCzsK8 pic.twitter.com/cS1CEYdU1C

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 18, 2021

BREAKING: UN says, early evidence shows global risk from omicron variant is “very high”; future surges may have “severe consequences.” – AP

— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) November 29, 2021

The ruling elite will then tell you to start acting like the good cattle that you are. Based on the advice of their “expert” Government Health bureaucrats, if you remain well behaved and extra compliant, COVID won’t come to get you. The Faucists will remind you to “trust the science” of masks and other forms of submissive virtue signaling, and ask you to thank the “public health experts” who are working day and night to protect you. You need government. No one is safe without the CDC and FDA. No one. The bureaucrats are the science and they know best. Questioning them is akin to questioning the concept of science itself.

Fauci: "I am the science." https://t.co/vP9utRjUpA

— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) November 29, 2021

As the new strain becomes more dominant and envelops more PCR tests, suddenly, the new strain is no longer mild. It’s the plague! Worse than ever! Government must now spring into action with “measures” (lockdowns, business closures, curfews and the like) that will further steal your basic rights and liberties.

BREAKING: New Covid restrictions could be announced as soon as tomorrow after Boris Johnson was handed alarming new evidence of the virulence of a mutant new strain. PM in a meeting now.

Telegraph exclusive by @amylouisejones and @gordonrayner https://t.co/nE9ceZrynh

— Bill Gardner (@journobill) December 18, 2020

Record deaths. New mutant strain out of control. Banned from travelling to dozens of countries around the world. Billions spaffed up the wall. Months-long lockdown beckoning. Record cases predicted for Christmas Day. pic.twitter.com/yYgVGNiGha

— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) December 24, 2020

New strain of COVID could be 70% more transmissible, Hancock hinting at months of lockdown, not clear if schools will return, British traffic cut off from Europe, No Deal days away – and MPs have broken up for Xmas, which has been cancelled. Make sense of that in a democracy.

— Krishnan Guru-Murthy (@krishgm) December 20, 2020

Are lockdowns off the table? "Yes, for now" Biden says. "Yes." He adds, "if people are vaccinated and wear their masks, there's no need for the lockdown."

— Philip Melanchthon Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) November 29, 2021

The “war on the virus” is now in full bloom, and you better take a side, because you don’t want to be “on the side of the virus.” The new strain is the biggest threat yet. Worse than all the other new strains that caused the “plague of the century.” Academics and Government Health bureaucrats will show you another model or two to hammer home this point.

Biden: "For all of you asking when things will get back to normal, here's the truth: the only way to get our lives back, to get our economy back on track, is to beat the virus…I'm using every power I have as president of the U.S. to put us on a war footing to get the job done." pic.twitter.com/HmyKq8oRNq

— NBC News (@NBCNews) March 12, 2021

We are at war with this virus — and the health care workers on the front lines are our soldiers. It is unacceptable that they don’t have the lifesaving masks, gowns, and protective gear they need. https://t.co/10Z6G7Rb2h

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 5, 2020

They insist that all of the things that didn’t work to stop a virus last time must be employed to stop a virus this time. And the more compliance, the better. Four shots, not three. Three masks, not two. Quarantine camps not only for the infected, but for close contacts too. The government will insist on quadrupling down on “the measures” as the only way forward, because this strain is the worst of them all.

Step back and think about it–
We are 1 year into a global pandemic (with massive loss of life, and total societal disruption) and a mannequin study would lead the CDC to issue guidance about 2 masks instead of 1

Something out of a Kafka novelhttps://t.co/2Dv6d3D9xO

— Vinay Prasad, MD MPH 🎙️📷 (@VPrasadMDMPH) February 16, 2021

Australia is now quarantining positive and close contact Covid cases into camps… https://t.co/XkZDKvut0p

— Kim Iversen (@KimIversenShow) November 22, 2021

The cycle repeats itself every time there is a new variant. And regardless of whether it’s the Alpha variant or any of a possible 100,000 mutations to the coronavirus, every tyrannical measure taken by governments to “slow the spread” or “stop the virus” has only made overall health significantly worse. As evidenced by the last two years, the government can only cause harm in embracing authoritarian coronavirus policies. Omicron is just their latest excuse. Don’t buy into the new variant hype. Don’t take the bait this time.

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U.K. reports on child deaths from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that, in the weeks since the COVID shot has been administered to children between ages 12 and 15, recorded deaths have risen by 44 percent above the 2015-2019 average for the same time period.

According to the ONS’ “five-year average weekly deaths by sex and age group” figures between 2015 and 2019 among children ages 10-14, there were 41 deaths recorded from week 38 (late September) to week 45 (early November). Within the same time period, the weekly figures recorded for the year 2021 show that 59 children died, representing a 43.9 percent rise in deaths over the five-year average.

A report from The Exposé notes that deaths among 10-14-year-olds have been consistently above that of the national five-year average since the shots started being administered to children, save for one week, week 42. Week 38 saw more than double the deaths among the young age group, going from a five-year average of three deaths to eight deaths in 2021.

The single largest weekly death count was observed in week 40, about two weeks after the jab had been rolled out, at which point 11 children died in 2021 compared with the five-year average of four, representing a 175 percent rise in deaths.

Breaking down the data into male and female categories, The Exposé showed that although more boys’ deaths were recorded, 2021 has marked a greater percentage of increase in deaths for girls.

Overall, 24 boys died between weeks 38 and 45 on the five-year average scale, whereas 34 died in 2021, marking a 41.7 percent increase in deaths. The greatest number of boys’ deaths were recorded in Week 40, during which time seven boys died, up 250 percent from the five-year average.

Among girls age 10–14, ONS records show an average increase of 47 percent in weeks 38 to 45 of 2021 over the five-year average, going from 17 deaths to 25. The greatest weekly record was in week 40, in which four girls ages 10-14 died, up 100 percent from the five-year average.

While the quantities might appear low, the sudden change in recorded deaths is stark. For the 16 weeks before the COVID jab rollout, for example, an increase in deaths of only around 3.9 percent is observed, a factor of 10 less than the weeks thereafter. The highest increase in deaths recorded during the prior 16 weeks was in week 28, in which a 200 percent increase from the five-year average occurred, going from two to six deaths.

Unlike the time after the shots started being administered to 12-year-olds, the earlier period saw some large drops in deaths from the five-year average to now, with the largest decrease in deaths observed in week 23, during which time deaths dropped by 55.6 percent, down to four deaths from nine.

Though there is a pattern of increased deaths since the shots began being used in children, the causes of the deaths were not published.

The push to vaccinate young children comes despite the fact that children face extremely low risk from COVID-19. This combined with the thousands of reports of serious adverse events and deaths after the jabs has led numerous experts to criticize the push to inject children with the experimental shots.

This summer, researchers with Johns Hopkins School of Medicine found a “mortality rate of zero among children without a pre-existing medical condition such as leukemia” when they “analyze[d] approximately 48,000 children under 18 diagnosed with COVID in health-insurance data from April to August 2020.”

In response to the finding, lead researcher Dr. Marty Makary accused the CDC of basing its advocacy of school COVID vaccination on “flimsy data.”

On September 13, 2021, England Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty advised that the government roll out its COVID-19 vaccination program to children ages 12 and over, with the National Health Service (NHS) deploying a children’s vaccination scheme nationwide by the following Monday, September 20.

Britain Health Secretary Sajid Javid suggested at the time that parents’ wishes could be overruled regarding jabbing their children against COVID, saying “as long as we believe the child is competent enough to make that decision, then the child will prevail.”

The government quickly acted on Whitty’s advice despite weeks earlier receiving contrary advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which declared against both the necessity and safety of implementing the jabs for children.

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 the any benefit granted by the abortion-tainted shots are 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.”

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Americans live under a governmental regime that openly breaks its own laws. The government not only believes it can do whatever it can get away with politically, not only believes that it can torture its foreign foes and claim the torture is a state secret, not only can bribe and coerce witnesses into saying what the government wants to hear, but it also can authorize criminals to commit crimes.

Here is the backstory.

The inspector general of the Department of Justice recently reported on the excesses of federal law enforcement. The section of his report on the FBI is enough to cause any fair person to realize that the FBI needs radical reforms or even dissolution.

In the George W. Bush-caused-and-inspired war on terror, the CIA has come out as the gang that couldn’t read the Constitution. We have learned as recently as three weeks ago in an American military courtroom in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that CIA agents for years engaged in horrific torture of detainees from the Middle East, only to conclude that they either had been telling the truth before the torture or they genuinely knew nothing about the subject matter of their interrogation under torture.

When this was revealed, the prosecutors — who are both military and civilian — did not challenge any of it. Rather, they pointed out that FBI “clean teams” interrogated the tortured detainees after the CIA had finished with them and did so without torture. Thus, the prosecutors argued, it is the testimony of FBI agents, not that of the CIA torturers, that the government plans to use at trial.

The use of clean teams continued the government’s desired public perception of the FBI as the good guys and the CIA as the bad guys. Some CIA folks have appeared to relish their badness. President Donald Trump’s second CIA director, Gina Haspel, a lifer in the agency, was known as “Bloody Gina.” One can only imagine how that nickname came to her.

FBI agents have revealed that they have stopped torture when they could and not engaged in it when offered. Did they do this because they know torture is profoundly immoral and criminal or because they needed to be able to testify in court that they never abused prisoners? And, by the way, staying away from torture and revealing it furthers the clean reputation of the Bureau.

Unless, that is, FBI agents were transferred to the CIA and thus stopped being FBI agents so that they could engage in dirty deeds without besmirching the Bureau. Sounds absurd, right?

Well, it happened; and it was revealed last week at Guantanamo Bay. There, the government revealed that nine FBI agents became CIA agents in 2002 and 2003 so that they could engage in torture and not discredit the FBI by doing so.

One of the prosecutors intimated in court that the FBI-turned-CIA agents were better interrogators than the real CIA agents and their testimony — what they will claim the tortured detainees “freely” told them — is “the most critical evidence” that the government plans to present.

Does it matter under federal law if the torturers are real CIA agents or temporary ones? Only to the government.

Torture is and has been a felony since the World War II era, and it was outlawed universally by the Geneva Conventions, the U.N. Charter and the Convention Against Torture, all treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory.

Also revealed last week was the involvement of FBI agents in the misuse of informants in domestic law enforcement. We learned that from 2012 to 2018, the FBI paid $294 million to its informants and spent an average of $42 million a year on their expenses.

Even more troubling is the pattern of informant criminality. The inspector general revealed that from 2011 to 2013, FBI agents “authorized” their informants to commit 22,500 federal and state crimes, and none was prosecuted.

Authorized? There is simply no constitutional authority for law enforcement to authorize crimes. The president cannot authorize crimes. Congress cannot authorize crimes. The courts cannot authorize crimes. But the FBI does.

The feds recently charged 12 people for participating in a plot that the FBI created to kidnap the governor of Michigan. It paid 18 informants to entrap the 12 and foment the plot. No informants were charged. We know of two FBI informants in the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol Building, who naturally will never be charged.

Today’s FBI can be as lawless as the folks it pursues. Not all agents fall for this. Many are truly clean men and women, but the crime statistics are staggering. There is no way FBI agents could authorize this level of crimes and pay criminals this much money without approval at the top.

Most informants are themselves criminals. They work for the FBI in a devil’s bargain to get the charges against themselves dropped or reduced in return for tailored testimony or entrapping others.

Informants not only make money working for the FBI, they not only get their charges reduced, but they also get to return to their old ways and commit crimes in the bargain.

What happens when the government breaks its own laws?

It should be against the law to break the law. Unfortunately, it is not. A dirty little secret — known to politicians, public officeholders, lawyers and judges — is that the government and its collaborators break the law every day, with impunity.

When the FBI breaks the law, it becomes the law — a situation the Constitution was enacted to prevent. It establishes precedent that becomes part of government culture. Precedent forms the basis for future lawbreaking, and culture fosters an expectation of entitlement.

How does the FBI decide which laws to break and whose lawbreaking to excuse? What befalls the victims of these authorized crimes? Why do we tolerate this?

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“Errare humanum est, perseverare diabolicum

This means: “To err is human, to persevere (in one’s error) is diabolic”, a sentence attributed to the Greek philosopher Seneca.

When observing the behavior of our governments, especially in Belgium, this sentence immediately comes to mind.

Whether in Belgium, France, Quebec, Canada, the countries most obsessed with the certainty that only an RNA/DNA injection considered as a vaccination can save the population from SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, we always find the same anti-COVID pattern:

• Fear
• Guilt
• Certainty of being right

What is happening here is exactly what is happening in France, in Quebec, in Canada and in all the countries that only have this RNA/DNA injection as a solution to get out of the crisis to propose to their population.

Here, the ministers and specialists are called Frank Vandenbroucke (Minister of Health), Elio Di Rupo (Walloon Minister-President), Marc Van Ranst, Emmanuel André (virologists advising the government), as in Quebec there is François Legault (Prime Minister), in Canada, Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister), or in France, Jean Castex (Prime Minister) and Olivier Véran (Minister of Health).

Only the faces and mimics change, otherwise, it’s the same, the same words, the same behavior, the same instructions:

1. Keep your distance
2. Put on masks
3. Vaccinate yourself
4. Be afraid

In a Belgian newspaper of October 21, Mr. Vandenbroucke invites us to “prepare ourselves to face the fourth wave” [1].

In this editorial they ask: “Is Belgium ready for a fourth wave? [2].

As for Elio Di Rupo, he gets angry and insists on the need to be vaccinated because for him, “to die free is to die” [3].

It must be said that the third dose of vaccine does not attract the crowds in our country [4].

Since April 2020, our “specialists” have been following in the footsteps of those in power, when they have not preceded them, to warn us, to tell us that it is far from over, to keep the fire under the pan and to keep us in fear of these viruses, which are decidedly tenacious.

Other specialists, clinical doctors remind us in a deafening media silence that fear is very deleterious for the immune system.

Fear paralyses our white blood cells and hinders our adaptive immune responses.

These are the ones that the RNA/DNA injections hastily called vaccines are supposed to stimulate.

Stimulate on one side, hinder on the other.

Psycho-neuro-endocrino-immunology or PNEI, a medical specialty in exponential development, has long been studying the interactions between the nervous, endocrine (hormones) and immune systems and emphasizes the profound reciprocal influences between these fundamental systems of the human body [5].

Numerous studies demonstrate that chronic stress can suppress adequate immune responses and/or aggravate inadequate, excessive immune responses [6].

The severe forms of COVID are precisely characterized by an excessive immune response, up to the point of a devastating cytokine storm for our organs.

Since March 2020, for 19 months, our governments and their advisors, relayed by our journalists, have been stressing and have decidedly only these weapons to transmit a message to the populations: fear, threat, warning.

They use and abuse stress, which has become chronic, permanent and endless, and is much more deleterious to our immunity than the virus itself [7-8-9-10].

After 19 months, it is certain that these government officials, scientific advisors and journalists will not change, and that unless they are replaced by more competent and knowledgeable people, we are condemned to endure their distressing forecasts and their compulsive mantra: “vaccinate yourself”, for a long time to come.

Don’t they think, after such a large percentage of the Belgian population has been injected with their products (more than 80%), that they might have been wrong after all?

Can’t they even consider that this compulsion for “vaccination” [11] is the origin of the problem, via the selection of more aggressive variants and the facilitation of infection by antibodies [12]?

The people, the peoples, have a right to something other than these anxious and repetitive speeches today.

After 19 months, other ways must be considered and people have the right to know that there are other ways, as many doctors are saying despite the censorship, despite the dangers, despite the threats of death or of losing their jobs.

The truth is priceless and always finds its way.

The treatment for COVID, even if it is serious, exists and is called ivermectin.

Taking ivermectin would prevent the outbreak of symptomatic forms and would strongly decrease the evolution towards severe forms, which would relieve hospitals and intensive care units.

For some “unknown” reason, it is not “allowed” to be discussed.

“For example, Wikipedia cannot mention the peer-reviewed meta-analyses of Dr. Tess Lawrie or Dr. Pierre Kory published in the American Journal of Therapeutics. Wikipedia is not allowed to publish the recent meta-analysis on ivermectin written by Dr. Andrew Hill. Also, it is not allowed to say anything about ivmmeta showing the 61 studies involving 23,000 patients that show up to 96% reduction in deaths [prophylaxis] with ivermectin.” [13]

We are not allowed to explain to people how ivermectin has contained the COVID pandemic in India or Africa.

The serious scientific literature supports these claims, here is a sample:

The reviewed literature suggests that there seems to be sufficient evidence for the safety of oral ivermectin, as well as the efficacy of the drug in the early treatment and prophylaxis of COVID-19.

(The reviewed literature suggests that there seems to be sufficient evidence about the safety of oral ivermectin, as well as the efficacy of the drug in the early-treatment and the prophylaxis of COVID-19.)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8354804/

Considering the urgency of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, simultaneous detection of various new mutant strains and future potential re-emergence of novel coronaviruses, repurposing of approved drugs such as ivermectin may merit special attention.

(Considering the urgency of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, simultaneous detection of various new mutant strains and future potential re-emergence of novel coronaviruses, repurposing of approved drugs such as Ivermectin could be worthy of attention.)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8203399/

Ivermectin plays a role in several biological mechanisms, therefore it could serve as a potential candidate in the treatment of a wide range of viruses including COVID-19 as well as other types of positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses.

(Ivermectin plays a role in several biological mechanisms, therefore it could serve as a potential candidate in the treatment of a wide range of viruses including COVID-19 as well as other types of positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses.)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32533071/

L’ivermectine comme traitement potentiel contre la COVID-19

(L’ivermectine comme traitement potentiel contre la COVID-19)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34061842/

Breast Cancer:

https://journals.lww.com/…/use_of_the_anti_parasitic…

If we are afraid of ivermectin for some imaginary danger, then we should really be afraid of penicillin and aspirin.

And paracetamol, even more so!

Those who are afraid of ivermectin, then run away from paracetamol!

Since the beginning of its prescription in humans (1980s), with 4 billion human prescriptions to its credit, ivermectin has saved the lives of hundreds of millions of people!

Ivermectin has never killed anyone, unlike penicillin, aspirin, or paracetamol: anaphylactic shock, hemorrhagic shock, and severe liver failure threaten you if you take penicillin, aspirin or paracetamol.

With ivermectin?

Almost nothing, no danger.

Yes, you can be cured in two days of COVID, that’s my clinical experience in the field.

I know a young man who was hospitalized with a 100% oxygen mask. He was about to be intubated and transferred to the ICU.

After two doses of oral ivermectin, he was weaned off the oxygen and could go home.

I know of dozens of cases in which the severe-looking COVID improved without the need for hospitalization after taking 2 to 5 doses of ivermectin (12 mg per oral dose).

What about glutathione?

It is the king of antioxidants [14]. 81,000 scientific articles support its role as a protector of the body, in particular of immunity.

What are our governments waiting for, since they think they are our general practitioners, and these advisors and experts to push us to take glutathione, especially in anticipation of waves and winter?

Especially since researchers have shown that the experimental RNA/DNA products called “anti-COVID vaccines”, which are now being discouraged by the creator of this technology [15], cause major oxidative stress with accelerated cellular aging, especially of immune cells [16].

Boosting our glutathione reserves should be our priority, rather than blocking its production by taking paracetamol!

We should take 1 Gr of glutathione per day, in two doses and in gastro-resistant capsules, or liposomal glutathione in combination with liposomal vitamin C.

It is time to awaken the doctor in all of us [17], like the Greeks of old who worshipped Aeneas, the sister of Panacea and daughter of Aesculapius, the god of medicine.

Aeneas whispered in everyone’s ear the common sense advice to stay healthy: rest, hygiene of life, good food, cleanliness, nature, meditation, use of plants and natural medicine.

However, it is an intensivist doctor, an anesthesiologist specialized in all kinds of techniques and medicines that pushes you in this direction.

Leave the path advised by our governments, their advisors and their journalists: the path of fear, vaccine obsession, social isolation, under-breathing and endless stress.

You deserve better and, above all, you deserve real answers, real solutions:

• Boost your immunity and antioxidant levels: vitamin C, zinc, selenium and most importantly, glutathione.
• Treat COVID with ivermectin possibly combined with azithromycin.
• Avoid paracetamol, which blocks glutathione, and proton pump inhibitors, which alter your microbiota (all the useful bacteria in your intestine).
• Take a walk in living nature and take a deep breath.

Notes :

[1] Frank Vandenbroucke invite à «se préparer à affronter la quatrième vague » : les réactions – Le Soir

[2] La Belgique est-elle prête pour une quatrième vague ? Les mesures prises région par région (msn.com)

[3] L’épidémie repart, Elio Rupo se fâche et insiste sur la nécessité de se faire vacciner : « Mourir libre, c’est mourir » (msn.com)

[4] La troisième dose du vaccin n’attire pas les foules : « Les Belges francophones à risque ne suivent pas encore… » (msn.com)

[5] LA PSYCHO-NEURO-ENDOCRINO-IMMUNOLOGIE (ianeva.fr)

[6] Effects of stress on immune function : the good, the bad, and the beautiful | SpringerLink « Chronic stress can suppress protective immune responses and/or exacerbate pathological immune responses. » 

[7] A neuro-endocrine-immune symphony – PubMed (nih.gov)

[8] Psycho-Neuro-Endocrine-Immunology : A Psychobiological Concept – PubMed (nih.gov)

[9] http://www.gapsante.uottawa.ca/newSite/Articles-PDF/12-Fillion.pdf  Stress and immunity: a review in psychoneuroimmunology

[10] Comment les stress psychologiques nous rendent malades physiquement | LaNutrition.fr

[11] Bientôt des « vaccins » à ARNm dans votre assiette? – Nouveau Monde (nouveau-monde.ca) The global agenda to vaccinate every man, woman and child on its way to your plate.

[12] Les phénomènes de facilitation de l’infection par des anticorps (ADE) et le Covid-19 — Santé et Bien-être — Sott.net Given previous data on multiple attempts to vaccinate against Sars-CoV-1 and Mers-CoV that failed due to an ADE phenomenon in animal models, it is reasonable to assume a similar ADE risk for antibodies and vaccines against Sars-CoV-2.

[13] Silence total sur la façon dont l’ivermectine a éliminé le covid-19 en Inde (lemediaen442.fr)

[14] Le glutathion, roi des anti-oxydants – Alternative Santé (alternativesante.fr) More than 100 years of research and 81,000 scientific articles have established that glutathione is one of the most important protective molecules in the body, including at the immune level, which it indirectly feeds.

[15] Robert Malone, pionnier des « vaccins à ARNm », déclare que « la protéine Spike native est toxique » — Santé et Bien-être — Sott.net In the first part of this video, Robert Malone goes into detail about his career as a scientist and the history of the invention of this messenger RNA technology 30 years ago. On the safety of [these] “vaccines”, he states that it is not the technology of [these] “vaccines” that is the problem, but the native Spike protein that is toxic. He regrets that the benefit/risk ratio has not been calculated for each category of the population and asks for evidence and not opinions from the various regulatory authorities after having been informed of the various toxicities, particularly cardiac.

[16] Walter Chesnut : « Les injections anti-COVID accélèrent le vieillissement et seront encore plus mortelles si répétées » — Santé et Bien-être — Sott.net Experimental products called anti-Covid-19 “vaccines” destroy telomerase in people just as chemotherapy does, accelerating aging in them.

[17] Il est temps de réveiller le médecin qui sommeille en nous – Le blog de Bien-être-soi (tdg.ch) Numerous assessment tests will teach you to diagnose yourself and become your own doctor, in other words, an individual who takes charge of his or her health and not just a victim who suffers from the disease. You are not the disease. It is obvious that we have at our disposal all the resources to get out of this time of confusion. We just have to remember that and aspire to connect with it!

La peur… encore et toujours la peur

Par Dr Pascal Sacré, 21 octobre 2021

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***

The Chinese Communist Party newspaper Global Times has disclosed, citing high-level “source”, that Beijing had no intentions to invite US and Western politicians to the 2022 Winter Olympics on February 4-20. This followed the US President Joe Biden’s innuendo that he’s considering a diplomatic  boycott of the Games. 

The White House apparently sensed that Biden was unlikely to be on Beijing’s guest list. Period. Tass had quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying following a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Dushanbe on September 16 that President Vladimir Putin had accepted “with delight” an invitation to the Games from Chinese President Xi Jinping. 

Biden waited for two more months to arrive at the conclusion that he’s not on Xi’s list of invitees.  The Olympic rules stipulate that for politicians to attend the Games, they must first be invited by the host country while the International Olympic Committee endorses it.

The Global Times report said that “as the host country, China has no plan to invite politicians who hype the “boycott” of the Beijing Games.” It noted wryly that Biden’s talk of boycott was “nothing but self-deception.” 

In an indirect reference to the pandemic conditions in the US, Global Times observed, “Given the grave situation of the COVID-19 pandemic globally, it is not proper to invite foreign guests on a large scale, which can be easily understood by people with common sense.”   

The snub comes hardly a fortnight after Biden’s virtual meeting on November 15 with Xi Jinping. In a larger perspective, though, this extraordinary episode falls in place, given the provocative manner in which the Biden Administration has been taunting Beijing by transgressing over China’s core interests lately. 

On the other hand, Xi’s exceptional gesture toward Putin by personally conveying the invitation to the Games in a phone call in August bears testimony to the high quality of the two countries’ “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era”. 

In a lengthy commentary on the topic on November 30 pinned on the regular bilateral consultation between the heads of governments of China and Russia yesterday, Global Times singled out the rapidly expanding and deepening ties between the two armed forces. It pointedly noted, 

“On military cooperation, the two countries recently signed a roadmap for closer ties, which, according to military experts, indicates that Russia and China have common interests and views on strategic stability and regional security, especially in the Pacific region.

“Such enhancement of cooperation in the defence sector is also viewed as a reaction to the West’s pressure on Russia and to the alarming signals that China received from the US and its allies, experts said. 

“Wu Qian, spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense, said at a press conference on Thursday that the Chinese military expects an even better relationship with its Russian counterpart, and is willing to play a bigger role with it in safeguarding world peace and stability.”  

The above two reports in the Global Times appeared on a day when the Kremlin signalled that Russia-China strategic relations are poised for a historic leap. In separate remarks yesterday, Putin and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin beckoned Moscow’s willingness for a de facto alliance with Beijing. 

Putin positively evaluated China’s “growing defence potential as it (Russia) enjoys the highest level of relations with the country and is itself ramping up its armed forces.” In his characteristic nuanced way, Putin drew a loaded comparison with the existing alliance between the US, UK and France!  

Again, during the consultations between the two prime ministers yesterday, Mishustin proposed to Premier Li Keqiang that in the prevailing “complex external environment” of sanctions, “unfriendly actions”, “unfair competition” and “illegitimate unilateral sanctions as well as political and economic pressure,” Russia and China should also “team up” for their joint development. 

Mishustin pointed at an intertwining of plans between the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union and China’s Belt and Road initiative. “This is important for bolstering the interconnection in Eurasian space, it will help guarantee the economic progress of Russia and China and create a solid foundation for the formation of a Greater Eurasian partnership,” Mishustin told Li, while also reiterating that Putin had earlier presented this idea. 

To be sure, Putin’s visit to Beijing in February holds the promise of a profound elevation of the Sino-Russian partnership from its already high level. A transition is under way from the close cooperation between the two powers to coordination and active pooling of resources to support each other not only for safeguarding their core interests in the face of the growing belligerence in the Biden Administration’s strategies but also at a global level to build network of regional alliances. 

The Pentagon’s 2021 Global Posture Review, which was announced on Monday signals a global posture and the intention to develop a “global response capability” that embraces not only the Indo-Pacific and Europe but also includes “enduring posture requirements” in the Middle East, in Africa and Latin America. This is a far cry from the pacifist agenda Biden had previously espoused and his loud claim at the very inception of his presidency that diplomacy “is back at the centre” of US foreign policy. 

Significantly, Putin’s remarks yesterday also touched on third-country cooperation between Russia and China as a major vector of their partnership. “We have many fields of cooperation with China. One of them concerns our work in third countries. It is well underway but it may be expanded further. Why? Because we share roughly the same approaches and principles, ” Putin said.  

Putin stressed that Moscow supported Beijing’s efforts to create a global infrastructure of trade routes. “We support our Chinese friends’ efforts based on the One Belt One Road strategy,” Putin said. 

Interestingly, Putin singled out West Asia as potentially a theatre of Russia-China coordination. Indeed, Putin spoke in this vein as the Sino-Russian coordination has shifted to a common stance robustly endorsing the Iranian demand on the lifting of US sanctions and the Vienna negotiations getting off to a promising start. 

The bottom line is that by any reckoning of diplomatic practice, the co-authorship of a powerful opinion piece in an influential American magazine last week by the Russian and Chinese ambassadors in Washington Anatoly Antonov and Qin Gang lambasting Biden’s Summit of Democracy proclaims that the Sino-Russian alliance is already sailing on the Potomac River. Alas, the National Interest was ordered to remove the piece from its website! (read it here)

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***

Not to be missed. From the New Atlanticist and the Atlantic Council. Offered by Ian Brzezinski, son of Zbigniew (as he mentions in the article), senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO policy.

His brother Mark is on his way to becoming U.S. ambassador to Poland just in time for the impending catastrophe in northeastern Europe. The two sons are positioning themselves to reprise their father’s role in confronting and defeating Russia (and Belarus) over Poland.

Hence the labored analogy that serves as the theme of the piece.

The writer alludes to the simultaneity of Washington’s 1980 dual crusade/jihad on the Soviet Union’s northwestern and southeastern frontiers – Poland and Afghanistan, to variously degrees religiously motivated – which has been missed for over forty years.

Many of the measures the author recommends the U.S. and NATO employ against Moscow have already been enacted and others are in the process of being implemented; indeed, they resemble the template he’s using as a current model to a remarkable degree.

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NATO thwarted a Russian invasion in 1980. Could its playbook work today?

With some one hundred thousand troops, heavy armor, attack aircraft, missiles, and other offensive capabilities parked along Ukraine’s northern and eastern borders, Russia has positioned itself for another invasion of its neighbor.

[Biden and his handlers] should look to history for clues about how to deter the Kremlin from attacking a non-NATO member within its sphere of influence: In late 1980 then President Jimmy Carter and his national security team stopped an imminent invasion of Poland by the Soviet Union.

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The Carter administration used both overt and covert channels to warn Solidarity’s leadership and the Polish government. [T]he Warsaw-born Brzezinski reached out directly to the movement’s leaders and even to Pope John Paul II, a native Pole….

Meanwhile, the White House informed and mobilized the support of allies in NATO and beyond. Carter engaged his counterparts in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, and Australia, among others.

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Foreign ministers, meanwhile, reviewed a set of firm economic and diplomatic sanctions that were provided to the press. They included:

terminating all large-scale economic projects, including a new natural gas pipeline linking Siberia and Western Europe
recalling Allied ambassadors from Moscow

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To reinforce those economic threats, Brzezinski coordinated with Lane Kirkland, the powerful and staunchly anti-communist head of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), who led the international labor movement’s preparation of a worldwide boycott of the shipment of goods to and from the Soviet Union.

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The credibility of these signals was bolstered by NATO’s significant force posture along its eastern frontier: More than twenty Allied divisions were stationed along the Iron Curtain, with many more prepared to pour in as reinforcements. The more than three hundred thousand US troops deployed to Europe constituted a decisive part of that forward defense.

Meanwhile, the United States had been working to weaken the Soviets in Afghanistan….

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A template for today?

Today, Biden and his own national security team should compare their current context, approach, and next steps to deter Russian aggression to Carter’s management of the 1980 crisis.

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…As the prospects of another Russian invasion mount, NATO must today match the level of resolve it exercised under the far more challenging contingency it faced in 1980.

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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.

Featured image is from New Eastern Outlook

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***

On 13 November 1941 a significant conference was convened in Nazi-occupied Belarus, at the city of Orsha, in order to decide whether the Wehrmacht should resume its advance on Moscow, or go over to the defence for the winter.

The German Army Group North and Army Group South commanders, Ritter von Leeb and Gerd von Rundstedt, both wanted to switch to a solid defensive line, and thereby rest on the territorial gains made against the USSR up until mid-November 1941. Hindsight is useful but their views were undoubtedly correct.

Field Marshal von Leeb, who had no fondness for the Nazis being a staunch monarchist and catholic, was also considered a world authority on defensive warfare, and his opinion should especially have been heeded. Some of von Leeb’s early writings on defensive warfare were translated into Russian, and had even been incorporated into the Soviet Army’s Field Service regulations of 1936, according to Samuel W. Mitcham, the American military historian. Von Leeb himself believed, “Defence is mostly the necessary recourse of distress; the defenders are nearly always in a critical position”.

Already on the night of 11 November, the temperature just west of Moscow had dropped to minus 20 degrees Celsius. Because of Nazi arrogance and negligence, Wehrmacht troops were not furnished with winter clothing, nor did they have basic medical and military supplies. They were in no condition to fight a winter war that could succeed. Some German soldiers resorted to stealing the felt boots, fur caps and long great coats from dead Russian troops. Regardless, more and more Germans were exiting the battlefield due to frostbite, severe cases of which were first recorded on 7 November 1941.

The Army Group Center commander, Fedor von Bock, had a different opinion to von Leeb and von Rundstedt. Army Group Center was tasked with capturing Moscow and bringing the war to a successful conclusion. Driven by personal ambition and his hope that the Russians were almost finished, Field Marshal von Bock, ignoring the fierce weather and weakened state of his army, insisted that the march towards Moscow should continue.

Adolf Hitler supported this stance. As did the Army High Command Chief-of-Staff Franz Halder, who said at the Orsha meeting that “the enemy is worse off than we are; he is on the verge of collapse”.

Hitler, Halder and von Bock were influenced too by recollections of the First World War. Haunting the Orsha conference like a ghost was the German memory of the September 1914 Battle of the Marne which, it is no exaggeration to say, cost the German Empire victory in World War I. During the Battle of the Marne in northern France, possible German success was thrown away due to a lack of resolution. Though the past usually has lessons to teach, they can be misunderstood, and the similarities are few between the Battle of the Marne and the German position in the late stages of Operation Barbarossa.

It was agreed, therefore, that the advance on Moscow would resume, as it did on 15 November 1941. In awful conditions the Germans struggled forward, pushing Soviet forces back to the Volga Reservoir, about 75 miles north of Moscow. On 22 November Panzer Group 3 entered Klin and promptly captured it, 52 miles from Moscow. On 24 November the town of Solnechnogorsk fell, 38 miles north-west of the Russian capital.

On 27 November 1941 the 7th panzer division formed a bridgehead over the Moscow-Volga Canal; and also on 27 November, the 2nd SS panzer division Das Reich captured Istra, a mere 31 miles from Moscow. However, as of 26 November the Germans had suffered 743,122 casualties; taking into account illnesses and those unavailable through frostbite, the number would slightly exceed 750,000 German casualties in early December 1941. This total is obviously high but, in comparison, Red Army casualties amounted to almost 5 million by the end of 1941, more than 6 times greater than German losses.

In late November 1941, it was becoming clear that the possibility of the Germans capturing Moscow was a slim one. During the first two weeks of November, Joseph Stalin had dispatched 21 fresh Soviet divisions from Siberia and Central Asia to the Moscow sector. Before on 5 October 1941, Stalin had decided to create a strategic reserve of 10 armies, most of which were retained for the counter-offensive that was soon to come. The Germans had barely any new divisions to throw into the fighting. The weakened Luftwaffe previously failed to eliminate the Trans-Siberian rail line, across which the fresh reserves of Soviet troops had been transported.

On 28 November 1941, Panzer Group 3 established a foothold over the Moscow-Volga Canal, but it could proceed no further. Over 100 miles to the south of Moscow, the 2nd Panzer Army was unable to capture the city of Tula. This meant that the planned German pincers envelopment of Moscow, from the south-east and the north-west, could not now be implemented. In the first week of December 1941, Panzer Group 4 pushed a division to within 18 miles of Moscow but it was halted by Soviet resistance.

With a last throw of the dice Hitler decided, as Moscow could not be taken by encirclement, that he would wipe the city out by flooding it with water. Hitler compiled an order that was sent to the 33-year-old SS Obersturmfuehrer Otto Skorzeny, who would become one of the most famous – or infamous – soldiers of the war. Hitler’s order expounded that Skorzeny’s unit, belonging to the Das Reich panzer division, should advance to capture the sluices of the reservoir on the Moscow-Volga Canal. They would thereafter open the sluices and “drown” Moscow by turning it into a gigantic artificial lake.

By the start of December 1941 Skorzeny and his men, though they could see the spires of Moscow and the Kremlin in their binoculars, were waist deep in snow and could not advance to carry out Hitler’s order. Skorzeny complained how “in spite of the confusion of our logistics and in spite of the bravery of the Russian soldiers, we would have taken Moscow in the beginning of December 1941 if the Siberian troops had not intervened. In the month of December, our Army Group Center did not receive a single division as reinforcement or replacement”.

Image on the right: Nazi Germany invading the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, June 22, 1941. Contunico © ZDF Enterprises GmbH, Mainz

On the night of 4 December, the temperature near Moscow plunged to minus 31 degrees Celsius and, 24 hours later, the thermometer sank lower still to minus 36. The German soldiers were fighting desperately in the evergreen woods that lay around Moscow, and further progress was impossible. With this halt the truth suddenly hit home.

Army Group Center’s final effort to take Moscow had failed, and the failure left it in a most dangerous position. They were holding a front around 600 miles in breadth, and against an enemy which, though it had suffered unprecedented losses, seemed if anything to be growing stronger. The Soviet counter-attack was launched on 5 December 1941, timed beautifully to strike the Germans at their weakest moment.

For all of the vast extent of front, von Bock’s army had in reserve a single, understrength division. This was military redundancy, the result of German overconfidence along with Hitler and the high command’s willingness to gamble recklessly. Like players who continually doubled their stakes, they faced ruin should the dice fall the wrong way.

With the temperature below minus 30, the panzers and trucks were becoming immobile because the oil in their sumps was freezing solid, and the Germans had very little antifreeze. Their horses were dying from the cold, and the Wehrmacht was still heavily reliant on these animals for transportation. Even the lubricating oil in guns and other weaponry was starting to freeze, rendering them unserviceable. Out of the 26 trains per day, which the German logistics staff calculated were necessary to maintain Army Group Center, only eight to 10 trains were arriving every 24 hours.

So much for the successful eight week campaign envisaged in Barbarossa’s planning. From the German viewpoint, the invasion could only be regarded as a monumental failure. The objective had been to secure a 1,300 mile line from Archangel, in the far north-west of Russia, to the Caspian Sea – running eastwards of Moscow and including nearly all of European Russia. As December 1941 began, the reality was that the depleted German divisions stood outside of Moscow and Leningrad, Soviet Russia’s two largest cities; while to the south, German forces were stopped 300 miles west of the Caspian Sea. Neither had the Caucasus region been penetrated, following the German retirement from Rostov-on-Don on 2 December.

What were the reasons for the inability to accomplish any of these aims? No single cause can be put forward but some are more important than others. Barbarossa’s strategic planning was inadequate and amateurish. It called for an offensive across an extremely broad front, which served to dilute the force of the attack, and give the Soviet Army time to recover from the opening blows. With Hitler’s mark all over it, the German high command had attempted to reach too many targets at the same time (Leningrad, Crimea, Caucasus, Murmansk, Kiev, Moscow, Donbass).

Mitcham observed, “By sending them racing all over Russia, Hitler had contributed greatly to the wear on his panzers. Tank units had less than 50 percent of their authorized strength when Operation Typhoon, the final drive on Moscow, began”.

Moscow ranked as Soviet Russia’s most important city. Apart from being the USSR’s biggest urban area, the capital was its communications, transportation and administrative hub, which enabled each part of the Soviet Army front to be reinforced. Moscow was a vital industrial center and it headquartered the country’s all powerful leader, Stalin.

From the invasion’s outset on 22 June 1941, had Army Group Center been directed towards Moscow in a single great thrust – and protected on the flanks by Army Groups North and South – the capital may well have fallen at the end of August 1941. Such strategic thoughts were beyond the Nazi hierarchy, luckily for the world. Two months into the invasion, on 21 August, previous strategic mistakes could have been rectified by assigning Moscow primary importance on that date; but Hitler compounded the errors by reasserting the plan to capture numerous objectives. The advance on Moscow was postponed for what would be a critical six weeks (until 2 October 1941).

When Hitler’s orders of 21 August were forwarded by telephone on 22 August to Field Marshal von Bock, whose goal had been to capture Moscow, he was very upset. He said it was “unfortunate… All the directives say taking Moscow isn’t important!!… I want to smash the enemy army and the bulk of this army is opposite my front!” On 24 August von Bock continued, “They apparently do not wish to exploit under any circumstances the opportunity decisively to defeat the Russians before winter!”

Note the repeated use of exclamation marks by von Bock, a normally cold and unemotional Prussian not given to hysterics. His views here would prove accurate in every sense. General Halder went so far as to say that Hitler’s 21 August directive “was decisive to the outcome of this campaign”; and in December 1941 von Bock, having seen his prediction come true, again lambasted the 21 August directive, calling it “a terrible mistake”.

There were some other factors, perhaps secondary, behind the German failure. Russian resistance, military capacity, and resources were much greater than the Nazis had anticipated. Overall, the quality of Soviet military hardware was impressive, in particular the T-34 medium tank and KV heavy tank. Yet in 1941 there were, combined, only about 2,000 T-34 and KV tanks available to the Soviets, and most of these had been destroyed before winter by the enemy.

British historian Evan Mawdsley wrote, “In 1941 the Germans were able to cope with the superior number of Soviet tanks, by means of some excellent towed anti-tank guns. The 88mm, which was actually a heavy anti-aircraft gun, gave the Wehrmacht the firepower to knock out even the T-34 and KV”. Consequently, the high standard of Soviet armour, in some instances superior to the German, was not a decisive factor in 1941 when the crucial fighting was unfolding.

The Nazis faced increased resistance, at least in part because of the brutality of their rule in the conquered regions. In the Ukraine, for example, the Wehrmacht had initially been welcomed as liberators by a considerable part of the population. Before long, potential allies would evolve into implacable enemies when the true face of Nazi occupation was revealed, and this certainly did not help the Wehrmacht’s cause.

The size of the Soviet landmass, far larger than western Europe where the Germans were triumphant the year before, is a sometimes overlooked factor in Barbarossa’s failure but it was important. The terrain’s vastness was enhanced by German strategic blunders. The Soviet road network was much inferior when compared to the road system in France. This proved a hindrance to the Germans, especially when the heavy rains arrived in the second half of October 1941, turning the ground into rivers of mud.

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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree and he writes primarily on foreign affairs and historical subjects. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Sources

Niklas Zetterling, Anders Frankson, The Drive on Moscow 1941 (Casemate Publishers; First Edition, 19 Oct. 2012)

Samuel W. Mitcham Jr., Hitler’s Field Marshals and Their Battles (Guild Publishers, 1988)

Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941-1945 (Hodder Arnold, 23 Feb. 2007)

Ian Johnson, “August 2017: Stalingrad at 75, The Turning Point of World War II in Europe”, Origins, Current Events in Historical Perspective

Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin’s General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov (Icon Books, 2 May 2013)

Andrew Roberts, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War (Harper, 17 May 2011)

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

R. Ording, The Churchill Equation (Dorrance Publishing Co., 3 April 2018)

Featured image: Troops of the 158th Rifle Division fighting near the Vitebsk railway station during the assault on the city (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

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

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***

Nijeer Parks knows all too well about the injustices committed by police in the United States. In February 2019, the then 31-year-old Black man from New Jersey had a warrant out for his arrest. His alleged crime: stealing snacks from a hotel gift store and fleeing when confronted by police. Upon hearing about the warrant, Parks went to the police station to (he thought) quickly remedy what was a clear case of mistaken identity. At the time of the alleged crime he was 30 miles away, sending money to his partner at a Western Union. 

Upon reaching the station however, Parks had no opportunity to demonstrate his innocence. He was handcuffed and thrown into the county prison, where he stayed for 10 days before being granted bail. The prosecutor in the case sought a 20-year sentence—taking into account prior drug convictions and trumped-up charges including shoplifting, resisting arrest and aggravated assault. Taking a plea deal, he was told, would only reduce the sentence to six years. Parks and his partner used all their savings to fight the charges, and fortunately the case was dropped in November 2019, after it became clear the police had no real evidence to back up their charges.

It’s disgraceful enough that anyone could be imprisoned for days just for being accused of a petty crime. But Parks’ case had an additional morbid twist: the decision to arrest him was based solely on the workings of a (faulty) computer algorithm. An image from a fake driver’s licence taken from the suspect at the gift store was scanned by facial recognition software, and it identified Parks as a match. This was the only evidence used for the arrest, which is ridiculous when you compare pictures of Parks and the real suspect, showing few similarities apart from them both being Black and having a beard. And this case is far from unique. Parks is one of at least three Black men in the US who have been wrongly arrested after being identified by facial recognition technology.

Today big tech is just as important for policing operations as the companies that manufacture their weapons, with artificial intelligence (AI) being used by police around the world to streamline criminal investigations, engage in mass surveillance, and, supposedly, predict and stop crimes before they occur.

As with the use of AI in the military and workplaces like Amazon, the kind of AI used by police doesn’t actually involve genuinely intelligent machines. Instead, what AI can achieve for policing is the integration and analysis of huge amounts of data—piecing it together like a puzzle to help direct law enforcement operations. The concerning thing for ordinary people is where this data comes from: the many “digital traces” we all leave behind minute by minute, hour by hour as we go about our daily lives. Thanks to a rapidly growing data brokering industry estimated, in 2019, to be worth US$232 billion, our electronic data is mined without our knowledge, packaged and sold to the highest bidder. Police are one of the industry’s main clients.

One of the industry’s major players is facial recognition company Clearview AI. The New York-based company has harvested, without permission, more than 3 billion pictures from Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook. The company’s algorithms match photos from this database to images loaded by clients into their facial recognition software. A report published in Buzzfeed News found that employees from more than 1,100 US police departments have used Clearview AI. And the technology isn’t just restricted to the US. Here in Australia, although police have previously denied using the technology, a leaked list of Clearview AI customers revealed that the Australian Federal Police, as well as state police in Victoria, Queensland and South Australia, have trialled the company’s technology in recent years.

Other AI companies gain access to much more than just our social media profiles. Palantir, a company that was set up with funding from the US Central Intelligence Agency, is an example. The company was named, ominously, after the powerful palantíri seeing stones from The Lord of the Rings and, since its founding in 2003, has been known mostly for assisting with surveillance operations for the US military. It is widely credited (although this hasn’t been officially confirmed) with tracking down Osama Bin Laden.

In more recent times, Palantir has expanded its client base well beyond the military, and chief among them are the police. The company’s software allows cops to connect data from multiple sources to determine relationships between different individuals, locations and objects. Crime data from police can be combined with anything from birth and death data, phone records, automatic licence plate readings and social media posts to stitch together an intricate social web, showing police who is a relative of whom, who is dating whom, the physical and personal details of these individuals as well as what phones and cars they are using.

In her 2020 book Predict and Surveil: Data, Discretion, and the Future of Policing, Sarah Brayne examines the use of AI by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). She finds that the programs used by police can swiftly produce a list of crime suspects even from the vaguest starting information. A Palantir engineer Brayne interviewed presents her with a hypothetical robbery scenario in which the suspect is “male, average build” with a “black 4-door sedan”, and demonstrates how these scanty details, when entered into the company’s software, generate a list of 13 “matches” with corresponding driver’s license numbers within the space of a minute.

Another disturbing technological frontier is the use of “predictive policing”—algorithms that supposedly can help avert future crimes. AI is very far from achieving the “Precog” type visions of the future seen in the film Minority Report. However, its use in this area is highly problematic nonetheless. Police use predictive policing algorithms to attribute a score or rating to individuals that—based on a range of data points—are claimed to indicate their likelihood of committing future crimes. These scores are then used by police to direct where they put their resources.

This technology isn’t new. A 2014 report from the Police Executive Research Forum showed that 38 percent of US police departments surveyed were using some form of predictive policing technology. In her book Brayne examined the LAPD’s Operation LASER (short for “Los Angeles Strategic Extraction and Restoration”), which was launched in 2011. The operation involved the use of Palantir software to generate crime “hot spot maps” and “chronic offender bulletins” (which look like wanted posters for individuals the software has deemed likely to commit ongoing crime), which are given to police for use on their regular patrols.

In Australia, the New South Wales Police’s Suspect Target Management Plan (STMP) has existed in different incarnations since 1999. The STMP assigns risk scores to people with prior convictions to identify who should be subjected to ongoing surveillance. Victoria Police trialled a predictive policing algorithm targeting youth from 2016 to 2018, but have refused to provide any details about the program.

Some have argued that the use of AI technology could be beneficial in policing, possibly helping to reform the criminal justice system. A 2016 report by the Obama administration, for instance, claimed, “When designed and deployed carefully, data-based methodologies can help law enforcement make decisions based on factors and variables that empirically correlate with risk, rather than on flawed human instincts and prejudices”. Accounts of how these technologies work in practice, however, show there is nothing objective or unbiased about them. If anything, the use of computer algorithms to guide police appears only to entrench and exacerbate existing biased policing practices.

This is in part due to weaknesses of the technology itself. The case of Nijeer Parks is just the tip of the iceberg. When the American Civil Liberties Union ran its own test of Amazon’s facial recognition software Rekognition, images of 28 members of the US Congress were falsely matched with photos from a police mugshot database. And just like a racist cop, these algorithms are more likely to get it wrong for certain people already disproportionately targeted by law enforcement. A 2019 study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology—which tested the accuracy of 189 facial recognition algorithms—showed that, depending on the specific algorithm, they were between 10 and 100 times more likely to spit out a false positive match for Asian and African American faces compared to whites.

The predictive policing programs show similar biases. The LAPD’s Operation LASER provides a clear example. According to Sarah Brayne’s research, the scoring system used to produce their chronic offender bulletins lets existing police biases in at the ground floor. Offenders are identified by the system in part based on previous criminal convictions and in part on how many times they have been stopped by police. So someone who the police have—for whatever reason—been harassing, will be identified by the system as a likely future offender, warranting yet more harassment.

Reports on other predictive policing programs show the targeting of communities already subjected to ongoing police harassment and violence. A 2017 Youth Justice Coalition report on STMP in New South Wales, for instance, found 44 percent of those targeted by the program were Aboriginal people, many of whom had no prior convictions. The report details the experience of a young Aboriginal man identified as James. Despite having no prior convictions in the state, James was listed by the program as being a likely offender. Following this, he was stopped by police on a monthly basis, and in one incident was capsicum sprayed after questioning officers as to why they were stopping him.

The AI technologies used by police are now also being rolled out to enhance surveillance by other repressive state agencies. Palantir has expanded into immigration, with one of its more recently acquired clients being the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). The use of Palantir’s technologies to spy on undocumented immigrants has led to some of the biggest ICE raids in the country’s history. This includes raids on a series of chicken-processing plants in Mississippi in 2019, in which 680 people were arrested.

The clear evidence that these technologies offer no solution to the entrenched racism and other problems in policing has resulted in some resistance to the use of AI programs. The LAPD had to abandon Operation LASER in 2019 after ongoing pressure from Stop LAPD Spying Coalition activists. In recent years workers at Amazon, Microsoft and Google have demanded the companies stop supplying AI to the police, ICE and the military. And students at the University of California Berkeley stopped Palantir from coming on to their campus to hold recruiting sessions.

These activists are right to resist the use of AI technology by the police and other repressive agencies. Policing is rotten because it is an essential part of a rotten capitalist system—which uses the ongoing surveillance and repression of the working class and poor communities to ensure that the rich stay rich. AI in policing can only contribute to, not solve, the injustices of modern policing. It doesn’t matter whether a cop is armed with a gun or with a computer, we have to take a stand against them all.

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Sanctions kill. The most notorious example of killer sanctions was imposed by the US and its Western allies on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in August 1990. These sanctions were not restricted to military materiel but severely limited the provision of food and medical supplies for Iraqi civilians who died of malnourishment and preventable diseases.

In a 1996 television interview, Leslie Stahl asked former US-Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who assumed the post in 1997, “We have heard that half a million children have died… is the price worth it?”

She replied, “I think this is a very hard choice. But the price — we think the price is worth it.” At that time, the estimate of fatalities was 575,000.

In December 1996, the UN implemented the oil-for-food programme which alleviated some of the most brutal aspects of the sanctions regime but it remained in place until after the US conquest of Iraq in 2003. Protracted sanctions plus the two US wars on Iraq produced an outflow of millions of Iraqis which continues today with hundreds seeking asylum in Europe along with Syrians, Afghans, Somalis and others from countries suffering from sanctions.

Former UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Denis Halliday, said in 1999.

“We are now… responsible for killing people, destroying their families, allowing their older parents to die for lack of basic medicines…We’re allowing children to die who were not born yet when [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein made the mistake of invading Kuwait.”

Despite widespread high-level criticisms of its use of sanctions, Washington has continued to bludgeon recalcitrant governments to force them to capitulate to US political and economic demands. In a 1998 report for the Brookings Institution, former State Department director of policy planning Richard Haass called sanctions the “policy tool of choice for the United States in the post cold-war world” and pointed out that the US “maintains economic sanctions against dozens of countries”.

Haass warned that sanctions are “blunt instruments that often produce unintended and undesirable consequences”.  He cited the cases of Haiti where sanctions caused “economic distress” that led to an exodus of Haitians to the US and Pakistan where weapons embargoes “increased its reliance on a nuclear option”.

Although sanctions also harm US businesses and farmers exporting their products and produce to embargoed countries, Haass pointed out, “Sanctions tend to be easier to introduce than to lift” as it is “difficult or impossible to build a consensus for rescinding a sanction, even if there has been some progress on the matter of concern, if the sanction has been shown to be feckless or counterproductive, or if other interests can be shown to suffer”.

Haass concluded, “All too often, the economic, humanitarian and foreign policy costs of US sanctions far outweigh any benefits.”

At present, the US imposes sanctions on dozens of countries or their citizens, including Afghanistan, Belarus, Burundi, Central African Republic, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Crimea, Cuba, North Cyprus, North Korea, Veezuela, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Libya, Myanmar, Russia and Iraq. Separate sanctions number in the tens of thousands.

Haass was a critic of the Biden administration’s “withdrawal of choice” from Afghanistan in 2021 as, in his view, the US should have left its troops in that country. The mission had not been accomplished, US military presence was not “untenable” and troops were still “welcomed by the host government”. Therefore, Haass argued, “Withdrawal was a choice, and, as is often true of wars of choice, the results promise to be tragic.” Sanctions contribute heavily to the tragedy.

Afghanistan is the most egregious ongoing example of the use by the West of sanctions to punish 38 million civilians who are now ruled by the Taliban, Pushtun irregulars who defeated the mighty Nato alliance, led by the US.  The flow of hard currency into the country has stopped, the GDP has shrunk by 40 per cent, the economy is broken, banks dole out small amounts of local cash to desperate depositors, salaried workers have not been paid in months, women with jobs are told to stay at home depriving their families of essentials, children are being sold and drought has reduced the annual harvest of food crops.

In October, UN Development Programme chief, Achim Steiner, warned, “We have to step in, we have to stabilise a ‘people’s economy’ and in addition to saving lives, we also have to save livelihoods. Because otherwise, we will indeed confront a scenario through this winter and into next year where millions and millions of Afghans are simply unable to stay on their land, in their homes, in their villages and survive.” He said $660 million will be needed over the next 12 months for a fund to support local communities by providing cash to organisations and Afghan workers in public works programmes. A basic income would be paid to elderly and disabled people and grants given to micro-enterprises. The UN has begun COVID and polio vaccination drives.

Despite UN efforts, Dominik Stillhart, director of operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross, has called the situation in Afghanistan a “catastrophe”. At the end of a six-day visit to that country in late November, he stated, “I am livid. Pictures viewed from afar of bone-thin children tightly elicit gasps of horror.  When you’re standing in the paediatric ward in Kahdahar’s largest hospital, looking into the empty eyes of hungry children and the anguished faces of desperate parents, the situation is absolutely infuriating. It is so infuriating because this suffering is man-made. Economic sanctions meant to punish those in power in Kabul are instead freezing millions of people across Afghanistan out of the basics they need to survive.” He accused the international community of turning its back on Afghanistan.

World Food Programme director, David Beasley described the situation in Afghanistan “as bad as you possibly can imagine”. Afghanistan is becoming the “worse humanitarian crisis we have ever seen“.

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Iranian officials with knowledge of the investigation, meanwhile, tell the NY Times that the hackers also seized control of the ministry’s fuel storage tanks and may have gained access to data on international oil sales, a state secret that could expose how Iran evades international sanctions.

Israel was behind a cyberattack on Iran’s nationwide fuel distribution system in late October that paralyzed the Islamic republic’s 4,300 gas stations, two US defense officials speaking on condition of anonymity told the New York Times over the weekend.

The attack came on the heels of previous cyberattacks in recent months, which shut down vital services and infrastructure in Iran – from disruptions to traffic lights and train services to water and electric supplies.

No one assumed responsibility for disabling the gas stations or for the previous attacks in Iran. In Tehran, too, officials were careful not to point a finger at the “usual suspects,” although Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said that a country with cyber-capabilities wanted to “make people angry by creating disorder and disruption.” The foreign and Israeli press had already attributed the cyberattacks to Israel, saying their objective was to apply pressure on the Iranian regime and stall its nuclear progress.

In response to the alleged Israeli attack, the Iran-affiliated hacker group “BlackShadow” hacked the servers of Israeli internet company Cyberserve. The hackers shuttered the company’s servers and threatened to leak data pertaining to hundreds of thousands of users.

Cyberserve is a web hosting company that provides servers and data storage for companies such as Kan public broadcaster, the Israel Lottery, Birthright, the Dan and Kavim public transportation companies, the Children’s Museum in Holon, LGBTQ dating app “Atraf,” tour booking company Pegasus, the Israeli Children’s Museum, and dozens of other sites.

Israel also accused Iran of carrying out a cyberattack in early April on a minor water facility that sought to poison the water supply delivered to hundreds of thousands of homes in the greater Tel Aviv area.

Meanwhile, to get pumps back online, the NY Times reported, Iran’s Oil Ministry had to send technicians to every gas station in the country. Once the pumps were reset, most stations could still sell only unsubsidized fuel, which is twice the price of subsidized fuel.

It took nearly two weeks to restore the subsidy network, which allots each vehicle 60 liters (about 16 gallons) a month at half price.

The alleged Israeli hack, however, may have been more serious than an inconvenience to motorists, the NY Times report speculated.

A senior manager in the Oil Ministry and an oil dealer with knowledge of the investigation, who spoke to the NYT on the condition of anonymity “to avoid repercussions” said that officials were alarmed that the hackers had also seized control of the ministry’s fuel storage tanks and may have gained access to data on international oil sales – a state secret that could expose how Iran evades international sanctions.

According to the NYT, because the oil ministry’s computer servers contain such sensitive data, the system operates unconnected to the internet, leading to suspicions among Iranian officials that Israel may have had inside help.

Three senior Israeli officials, who asked not to be identified in order to discuss secret cyber issues, told the NY Times that Black Shadow was either part of the Iranian government or freelance hackers working for the government.

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The UK government is considering boycotting China’s winter Olympic Games to be held in Beijing. The British foreign office cites “international efforts to hold China to account for its human rights violations in Xinjiang.”

“It is the longstanding policy of the government that the determination of whether genocide has taken place should be made by a competent court with the jurisdiction to try such cases, rather than by the government or a non-judicial body.”

Setting aside the pathetic allegation of “human rights violations” (vastly downgraded from the absurd allegation of a genocide) in Xinjiang, Britain ought to look in the mirror and submit its own human rights abuses and genocides to the International Criminal Court or International Court of Justice. It will take many years because there are so many abuses and genocides to be tried.

How does one think that the Indigenous populations were subdued in the colonies of Australia, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia? Did the Indigenous peoples roll over and say please depopulate us, so you can take the land?

Did the Nepalese, Bhutanese, the peoples of the Indian subcontinent, and Sri Lanka (Ceylon) say please subdue us and rule over us?

No need to be mired too far in the past for British aggression and war crimes. There have been plenty in the 20th and 21st centuries.

In 1912, Britain carried out the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in Amritsar, Punjab. In 1948, Britain ended the Palestine Mandate and facilitated the Jewish ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Near the end of 1946, British troops of the Scots Guards murdered 24 Malays in the Batang Kali Massacre. In 1952, Britain carried out the Mau Mau Massacre in Kenya.

Recently, the Guardian published an article, “Slaughter in Indonesia: Britain’s secret propaganda war,” that described Britain’s role in, according to the CIA, “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century.”

Didn’t British Prime Minister Tony Blair conspire with George W Bush to fix the facts and intelligence around a policy that led to a staggering estimate that “2.4 million Iraqis have been killed since 2003 as a result of our country’s illegal invasion, with a minimum of 1.5 million and a maximum of 3.4 million” posited on the lie of Iraq having weapons-of-mass-destruction (which Britain actually has)?

Were the Brits not also found guilty of war crimes in Afghanistan? Were the Brits not involved in the destruction of Libya and the carnage in Syria?

It leads anyone with a slight insight into history to ask upon what moral basis do Brits claim a right to denounce other countries for alleged crimes?

Yes, there was a violent skirmish between China and India in 2020, but China has not been at war for over 40 years — a 3 weeks and 6 day war with Viet Nam in 1979. And one must not overlook the war crimes Britain committed against China. After all, Britain fought the Opium Wars to force China to open its market to opium in the mid-19th century. The Qing dynasty was weak and China lost. As penance, China had to cede Hong Kong and Kowloon to Britain and pay reparations.

Has Britain ever repaid the ill-gotten reparations along with rent for the colonization of Hong Kong?

What should one conclude about the British politicians who denounce China without irrefutable evidence? Are they dishonest charlatans or are they intellectually inept as far as their own history?

Any human rights abuses or war crimes that China or any nation might commit must be judged, not by bombast but with solid evidence. Such evidence must be presented to a neutral tribunal, not by the scofflaws, but by reputable countries as untarnished and unbiased as possible by great crimes.

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Kim Petersen is a former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be emailed at: kimohp@gmail. Twitter: @kimpetersen. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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“Abortion on demand is the ultimate State tyranny; the State simply declares that certain classes of human beings are not persons, and therefore not entitled to the protection of the law. The State protects the ‘right’ of some people to kill others, just as the courts protected the ‘property rights’ of slave masters in their slaves. Moreover, by this method the State achieves a goal common to all totalitarian regimes: it sets us against each other, so that our energies are spent in the struggle between State-created classes, rather than in freeing all individuals from the State. Unlike Nazi Germany, which forcibly sent millions to the gas chambers (as well as forcing abortion and sterilization upon many more), the new regime has enlisted the assistance of millions of people to act as its agents in carrying out a program of mass murder.”—Ron Paul

Who gets to decide when it comes to bodily autonomy?

Where does one draw the line over whose rights are worthy of protecting? And how do present-day legal debates over bodily autonomy, privacy, vaccine mandates, the death penalty and abortion play into future discussions about singularity, artificial intelligence, cloning, and the privacy rights of the individual in the face of increasingly invasive, intrusive and unavoidable government technologies?

Caught up in the heated debate over the legality of abortion, we’ve failed to think about what’s coming next. Get ready, because it could get scary, ugly and overwhelming really fast.

Thus far, abortion politics have largely revolved around who has the right to decide—the government or the individual—when it comes to bodily autonomy, the right to privacy in one’s body, sexual freedom, and the rights of the unborn.

In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause provides for a “right to privacy” that assures a woman’s right to abort her pregnancy within the first two trimesters.

Since that landmark ruling, abortion has been so politicized, polarized and propagandized as to render it a major frontline in the culture wars.

In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Supreme Court reaffirmed its earlier ruling in Roe  when it prohibited states from imposing an “undue burden” or “substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability.”

Thirty years later, in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court is poised to revisit whether the Constitution—namely, the Fourteenth Amendment—truly provides for the right to an abortion.

At a time when abortion is globally accessible (approximately 73 million abortions are carried out every year), legally expedient form of birth control (it is used to end more than 60% of unplanned pregnancies), and considered a societal norm (according to the Pew Research Center, a majority of Americans continue to believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases), it’s debatable whether it will ever be truly possible to criminalize abortion altogether.

No matter how the Supreme Court rules in Dobbs, it will not resolve the problem of a culture that values life based on a sliding scale. Nor will it help us navigate the moral, ethical and scientific minefields that await us as technology and humanity move ever closer to a point of singularity.

Here’s what I know.

Life is an inalienable right. By allowing the government to decide who or what is deserving of rights, it shifts the entire discussion from one in which we are “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights” (that of life, liberty property and the pursuit of happiness) to one in which only those favored by the government get to enjoy such rights. The abortion debate—a tug-of-war over when an unborn child is considered a human being with rights—lays the groundwork for discussions about who else may or may not be deserving of rights: the disabled, the aged, the infirm, the immoral, the criminal, etc. The death penalty is just one aspect of this debate. As theologian Francis Schaeffer warned early on: “The acceptance of death of human life in babies born or unborn opens the door to the arbitrary taking of any human life. From then on, it’s purely arbitrary.”

If all people are created equal, then all lives should be equally worthy of protection. There’s an idea embraced by both the Right and the Left according to their biases that there is a hierarchy to life, with some lives worthier of protection than others. Out of that mindset is born the seeds of eugenics, genocide, slavery and war.

There is no hierarchy of freedoms. All freedoms hang together. Freedom cannot be a piece-meal venture.My good friend Nat Hentoff (1925-2017), a longtime champion of civil liberties and a staunch pro-lifer, often cited Cardinal Bernardin, who believed that a “consistent ethic of life” viewed all threats to life as immoral: “[N]uclear war threatens life on a previously unimaginable scale. Abortion takes life daily on a horrendous scale. Public executions are fast becoming weekly events in the most advanced technological society in history, and euthanasia is now openly discussed and even advocated. Each of these assaults on life has its own meaning and morality. They cannot be collapsed into one problem, but they must be confronted as pieces of a larger pattern.”

Beware slippery slopes. To suggest that the end justifies the means (for example, that abortion is justified in order to ensure a better quality of life for women and children) is to encourage a slippery slope mindset that could just as reasonably justify ending a life in order for the great good of preventing war, thwarting disease, defeating poverty, preserving national security, etc. Such arguments have been used in the past to justify such dubious propositions as subjecting segments of the population to secret scientific experiments, unleashing nuclear weapons on innocent civilians, and enslaving fellow humans.

Beware double standards. As the furor surrounding COVID-19 vaccine mandates make clear, the debate over bodily autonomy and privacy goes beyond the singular right to abortion. Indeed, as vaccine mandates have been rolled out, long-held positions have been reversed: many of those who historically opposed the government usurping a woman’s right to bodily autonomy and privacy have no qualms about supporting vaccine mandates that trample upon those very same rights. Similarly, those who historically looked to the government to police what a woman does with her body believe the government should have no authority to dictate whether or not one opts to get vaccinated.

What’s next? Up until now, we have largely focused the privacy debate in the physical realm as it relates to abortion rights, physical searches of our persons and property, and our communications. Yet humanity is being propelled at warp speed into a whole new frontier when it comes to privacy, bodily autonomy, and what it means to be a human being.

We haven’t even begun to understand how to talk about these new realms, let alone establish safeguards to protect against abuses.

Humanity itself hangs in the balance.

Remaining singularly human and retaining your individuality and dominion over yourself—mind, body and soul—in the face of corporate and government technologies that aim to invade, intrude, monitor, manipulate and control us may be one of the greatest challenges before us.

These battles over COVID-19 vaccine mandates are merely the tipping point. The groundwork being laid with these mandates is a prologue to what will become the police state’s conquest of a new, relatively uncharted, frontier: inner space, specifically, the inner workings (genetic, biological, biometric, mental, emotional) of the human race.

If you were unnerved by the rapid deterioration of privacy under the Surveillance State, prepare to be terrified by the surveillance matrix that will be ushered in within the next few decades.

Everything we do is increasingly dependent on and, ultimately, controlled by technological devices. For example, in 2007, there were an estimated 10 million sensor devices connecting human utilized electronic devices (cell phones, laptops, etc.) to the Internet. By 2013, it had increased to 3.5 billion. By 2030, there will be an estimated 100 trillion sensor devices connecting us to the internet by way of a neural network that approximates a massive global brain.

The end goal? Population control and the creation of a new “human” species, so to speak, through singularity, a marriage of sorts between machine and human beings in which artificial intelligence and the human brain will merge to form a superhuman mind.

The plan is to develop a computer network that will exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to or indistinguishable from that of human beings by 2029. And this goal is to have computers that will be “a billion times more powerful than all of the human brains on earth.” As former Google executive Mo Gawdat warns, “The reality is, we’re creating God.”

Neuralink, a brain-computer chip interface (BCI), paves the way for AI control of the human brain, at which point the disconnect between humans and AI-controlled computers will become blurred and human minds and computers will essentially become one and the same. “In the most severe scenario, hacking a Neuralink-like device could turn ‘hosts’ into programmable drone armies capable of doing anything their ‘master’ wanted,” writes Jason Lau for Forbes.

Advances in neuroscience indicate that future behavior can be predicted based upon activity in certain portions of the brain, potentially creating a nightmare scenario in which government officials select certain segments of the population for more invasive surveillance or quarantine based solely upon their brain chemistry.

Clearly, we are rapidly moving into the “posthuman era,” one in which humans will become a new type of being. “Technological devices,” writes journalist Marcelo Gleiser, “will be implanted in our heads and bodies, or used peripherally, like Google Glass, extending our senses and cognitive abilities.”

Transhumanism—the fusing of machines and people—is here to stay and will continue to grow.

In fact, as science and technology continue to advance, the ability to control humans will only increase. In 2014, for example, it was revealed that scientists had discovered how to deactivate that part of our brains that controls whether we are conscious or not. Add to this the fact that increasingly humans will be implanted with microchips for such benign purposes as tracking children or as medical devices to assist with our health.

Such devices “point to an uber-surveillance society that is Big Brother on the inside looking out,” warns Dr. Katina Michael. “Governments or large corporations would have the ability to track people’s actions and movements, categorize them into different socio-economic, political, racial, or consumer groups and ultimately even control them.”

All of this indicates a new path forward for large corporations and government entities that want to achieve absolute social control.

It is slavery in another form.

Yet we must never stop working to protect life, preserve our freedoms and maintain some semblance of our humanity.

Abortion, vaccine mandates, transhumanism, etc.: these are all points along the continuum.

Even so, there will be others. For instance, analysts are speculating whether artificial intelligence, which will eventually dominate all emerging technologies, could come to rule the world and enslave humans. How will a world dominated by artificial intelligence redefine what it means to be human and exercise free will?

Scientists say the world’s first living robots can now reproduce. What rights are these “living” organisms entitled to? For that matter, what about clones? At the point that scientists are able to move beyond cloning organs and breeding hybrid animals to breeding full-bodied, living clones in order to harvest body parts, who is to say that clones do not also deserve to have their right to life protected?

These are ethical dilemmas without any clear-cut answers. Yet one thing is certain: as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, putting the power to determine who gets to live or die in the hands of the government is a dangerous place to start.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president The Rutherford Institute. His books Battlefield America: The War on the American People and A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State are available at www.amazon.com. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

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Throughout the various phases of the global pandemic, people’s preferences in terms of epidemiological strategies have tended to overlap closely with their political orientation. Ever since Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro expressed doubts as to the wisdom of a lockdown strategy in March 2020, liberals and those on the Left of the Western political spectrum, including most socialists, have fallen over themselves to adhere in public to the lockdown strategy of pandemic mitigation — and lately to the logic of vaccine passports. Now as countries across Europe experiment with tighter restrictions of the unvaccinated, Left-wing commentators — usually so vocal in the defence of minorities suffering from discrimination — are notable for their silence.

As writers who have always positioned ourselves on the Left, we are disturbed at this turn of events. Is there really no progressive criticism to be made about the quarantining of healthy individuals, when the latest research suggests there is a vanishingly small difference in terms of transmission between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated? The Left’s response to Covid now appears as part of a broader crisis in Left-wing politics and thought — one which has been going on for three decades at least. So it’s important to identify the process through which this has taken shape.

In the first phase of the pandemic — the lockdowns phase — it was those leaning towards the cultural and economic right who were more likely to emphasise the social, economic and psychological damage resulting from lockdowns. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s initial lockdown scepticism made this position untenable for most of those leaning towards the cultural and economic Left. Social media algorithms then further fuelled this polarisation. Very quickly, therefore, Western leftists embraced lockdown, seen as a “pro-life” and “pro-collective” choice — a policy that, in theory, championed public health or the collective right to health. Meanwhile any criticism of the lockdowns was excoriated as a “right-wing”, “pro-economy” and “pro-individual” approach, accused of prioritising “profit” and “business as usual” over people’s lives.

In sum, decades of political polarisation instantly politicised a public health issue, without allowing any discussion as to what a coherent Left response would be. At the same time, the Left’s position distanced it from any kind of working-class base, since low-income workers were the most severely affected by the socio-economic impacts of continued lockdown policies, and were also those most likely to be out working while the laptop class benefitted from Zoom. These same political fault lines emerged during the vaccine roll-out, and now during the Covid passports phase. Resistance associates with the Right, while those on the mainstream Left are generally supportive of both measures. Opposition is demonised as a confused mixture of anti-science irrationalism and individualistic libertarianism.

But why has the mainstream Left ended up supporting practically all Covid measures? How did such a simplistic view of the relationship between health and the economy emerge, one which makes a mockery of decades of (Left-leaning) social science research showing just how closely wealth and health outcomes are connected? Why did the Left ignore the massive increase in inequalities, the attack on the poor, on poor countries, on women and children, the cruel treatment of the elderly, and the huge increase in wealth for the richest individuals and corporations resulting from these policies? How, in relation to the development and roll-out of vaccines, did the Left end up ridiculing the very notion that, given the money at stake, and when BioNTech, Moderna and Pfizer currently make between them over US$1,000 per second from the Covid vaccines, there might be motivations from the vaccine manufacturers other than “the public good” at play? And how is it possible that the Left, often on the receiving end of state repression, today seems oblivious to the worrying ethical and political implications of Covid passports?

While the Cold War coincided with the era of decolonisation and the rise of a global anti-racist politics, the end of the Cold War – alongside the symbolic triumph of decolonisation politics with the end of apartheid – ushered in an existential crisis for Left-wing politics. The rise of neoliberal economic hegemony, globalisation, and corporate trans-nationalism, have all undermined the Left’s historic view of the state as an engine of redistribution. Combined with this is the realisation that, as the Brazilian theorist Roberto Mangabeira Unger has argued, the Left has always prospered most at times of great crisis — the Russian Revolution benefited from the World War One, and welfare capitalism from the aftermath of the World War Two. This history may partly explain the Left’s positioning today: amplifying the crisis and prolonging it through never-ending restrictions may be seen by some as a way to rebuild Left politics after decades of existential crisis.

The Left’s flawed understanding of the nature of neoliberalism may also have affected its response to the crisis. Most people on the Left believe that neoliberalism has involved a “retreat” or “hollowing out” of the state in favour of the market. Thus, they interpreted government activism throughout the pandemic as a welcome “return of the state”, one potentially capable, in their view, of eventually reversing neoliberalism’s allegedly anti-statist project. The problem with this argument, even accepting its dubious logic, is that neoliberalism hasn’t entailed a withering away of the state. On the contrary, the size of the state as a percentage of GDP has continued to rise throughout the neoliberal era.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Neoliberalism relies on extensive state intervention just as much as “Keynesianism” did, except that the state now intervenes almost exclusively to further the interests of big capital – to police the working classes, bail out large banks and firms that would otherwise go bankrupt, etc. Indeed, in many ways, capital today is more dependent on the state than ever. As Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan note: “[A]s capitalism develops, governments and large corporations become increasingly intertwined. … The capitalist mode of power and the dominant-capital coalitions that rule it do not require small governments. In fact, in many respects, they need larger ones”. Neoliberalism today is more akin to a form of state-monopoly capitalism – or corporatocracy – than the kind of small-state free-market capitalism that it often claims to be. This helps explain why it has produced increasingly powerful, interventionist, and even authoritarian state apparatuses.

This in itself makes the Left’s cheering at a non-existent “return of the state” embarrassingly naïve. And the worst part is that it has made this mistake before. Even in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, many on the Left hailed large government deficits as “the return of Keynes” – when, in fact, those measures had very little to do with Keynes, who counselled the use of government spending to reach full employment, and instead were aimed at bolstering the culprits of the crisis, the big banks. They were also followed by an unprecedented attack on welfare systems and workers’ rights across Europe.

Something similar is happening today, as state contracts for Covid tests, PPE, vaccines, and now vaccine passport technologies are parcelled out to transnational corporations (often through shady deals that reek of cronyism). Meanwhile, citizens are having their lives and livelihoods upended by “the new normal”. That the Left seems completely oblivious to this is particularly puzzling. After all, the idea that governments tend to exploit crises to further entrench the neoliberal agenda has been a staple of much recent Left-wing literature. Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval, for example, have argued that under neoliberalism, crisis has become a “method of government”. More famously, in her 2007 book The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein explored the idea of “disaster capitalism”. Her central thesis is that in moments of public fear and disorientation it is easier to re-engineer societies: dramatic changes to the existing economic order, which would normally be politically impossible, are imposed in rapid-fire succession before the public has had time to understand what is happening.

There’s a similar dynamic at play today. Take, for example, the high-tech surveillance measures, digital IDs, crackdown on public demonstrations and fast-tracking of laws introduced by governments to combat the coronavirus outbreak. If recent history is anything to go by, governments will surely find a way to make many of the emergency rules permanent – just as they did with much post-9/11 anti-terrorist legislation. As Edward Snowden noted: “When we see emergency measures passed, particularly today, they tend to be sticky. The emergency tends to be expanded”. This confirms, too, the ideas on the “state of exception” posited by the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, who has nonetheless been vilified by the mainstream Left for his anti-lockdown position.

Ultimately, any form of government action should be judged for what it actually stands for. We support government intervention if it serves to further the rights of workers and minorities, to create full employment, to provide crucial public services, to rein in corporate power, to correct the dysfunctionalities of markets, to take control of crucial industries in the public interest. But in the past 18 months we have witnessed the exact opposite: an unparalleled strengthening of transnational corporate behemoths and their oligarchs at the expense of workers and local businesses. A report last month based on Forbes data showed that America’s billionaires alone have seen their wealth increase by US$2 trillion during the pandemic.

Another Left-wing fantasy that has been shuttered by reality is the notion that the pandemic would usher in a new sense of collective spirit, capable of overcoming decades of neoliberal individualism. On the contrary, the pandemic has fractured societies even more – between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, between those who can reap the benefits of smart working and those who can’t. Moreover, a demos made up of traumatised individuals, torn apart from their loved ones, made to fear one another as a potential vectors of disease, terrified of physical contact – is hardly a good breeding ground for collective solidarity.

But perhaps the Left’s response can be better understood in individual rather than collective terms. Classic psychoanalytic theory has posited a clear connection between pleasure and authority: the experience of great pleasure (satiating the pleasure principle) can often be followed by a desire for renewed authority and control manifested by the ego or “reality principle”. This can indeed produce a subverted form of pleasure. The last two decades of globalisation have seen a huge expansion of the “pleasure of experience”, as shared by the increasingly transnational global liberal class – many of whom, somewhat curiously in historical terms, identified themselves as on the Left (and indeed increasingly usurped this position from the traditional working-class constituencies of the Left). This mass increase in pleasure and experience among the liberal class went with a growing secularism and lack of any recognised moral constraint or authority. From the perspective of psychoanalysis, the support from this class for “Covid measures” is quite readily explained in these terms: as the desired appearance of a coterie of restrictive and authoritarian measures which can be imposed to curtail pleasure, within the strictures of a moral code which steps in where one had previously been lacking.

Another factor explaining the Left’s embrace of “Covid measures” is its blind faith in “science”. This has its roots in the Left’s traditional faith in rationalism. However, one thing is believing in the undeniable virtues of the scientific method – another is being completely oblivious to the way those in power exploit “science” to further their agenda. Being able to appeal to “hard scientific data” to justify one’s policy choices is an incredibly powerful tool in the hands of governments – it is, in fact, the essence of technocracy. However, this means carefully selecting the “science” that is supportive of your agenda – and aggressively marginalising any alternative views, regardless of their scientific value.

This has been happening for years in the realm of economics. Is it really that hard to believe that such a corporate capture is happening today with regard to medical science? Not according to John P. Ioannidis, professor of medicine and epidemiology at Stanford University. Ioannidis made headlines in early 2021 when he published, with some colleagues of his, a paper claiming that there was no practical difference in epidemiological terms between countries that had locked down and those that hadn’t. The backlash against the paper – and against Ioannidis in particular – was fierce, especially among his fellow scientists.

This explains his recent scathing denunciation of his own profession. In an article entitled “How the Pandemic Is Changing the Norms of Science”, Ioannidis notes that most people – especially on the Left — seem to think that science operates based on “the Mertonian norms of communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism”. But, alas, that is not how the scientific community actually operates, Ioannidis explains. With the pandemic, conflicts of corporate interest exploded – and yet talking about them became anathema. He continues: “Consultants who made millions of dollars from corporate and government consultation were given prestigious positions, power, and public praise, while unconflicted scientists who worked pro bono but dared to question dominant narratives were smeared as being conflicted. Organized skepticism was seen as a threat to public health. There was a clash between two schools of thought, authoritarian public health versus science – and science lost”.

Ultimately, the Left’s blatant disregard and mockery of people’s legitimate concerns (over lockdowns, vaccines or Covid passports) is shameful. Not only are these concerns rooted in actual hardship but they also stem from an understandable distrust of governments and institutions that have been undeniably captured by corporate interests. Anyone who favours a truly progressive-interventionist state, as we do, needs to address these concerns – not dismiss them.

But where the Left’s response has been found most wanting is on the world stage, in terms of the relationship of Covid restrictions to deepening poverty in the Global South. Has it really nothing to say about the enormous increase in child marriage, the collapse in schooling, and the destruction of formal employment in Nigeria, where the State Statistics agency suggests 20% of people lost their jobs during the lockdowns? What about the reality that the country with the highest Covid mortality figures and excess death rate for 2020 was Peru – which had one of the world’s strictest lockdowns? On all this, it has been virtually silent. This position must be considered in relation to the pre-eminence of nationalist politics on the world stage: the electoral failure of Left internationalists such as Jeremy Corbyn meant that broader global issues had little traction when considering a broader Western Left response to Covid-19.

It is worth mentioning that there have been outliers on the Left – radical-left and socialist movements that have come out against the prevailing management of the pandemic. These include Black Lives Matter in New York, Left Lockdown Sceptics in the UK, the Chilean urban left, Wu Ming in Italy and not least the Social Democrat-Green alliance which currently governs Sweden. But the full spectrum of Left opinion was ignored, partly due to the small number of Left-wing media outlets, but also due to the marginalisation of dissenting opinions first and foremost by the mainstream Left.

Mainly, though, this has been a historic failure from the Left, which will have disastrous consequences. Any form of popular dissent is likely to be hegemonized once again by the (extreme) Right, poleaxing any chance the Left has of winning round the voters it needs to overturn Right-wing hegemony. Meanwhile, the Left holds on to a technocracy of experts severely undermined by what is proving to be a catastrophic handling of the pandemic in terms of social progressivism. As any kind of viable electable Left fades into the past, the discussion and dissent at the heart of any true democratic process is likely to fade with it.

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Toby Green is a professor of history at Kings College London. His latest book is The Covid Consensus: The New Politics of Global Inequality (Hurst). 

Thomas Fazi is a writer, journalist and translator. His latest book ‘Reclaiming the State’ is published by Pluto Press.

Featured image is from Vaccines.news

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***

If you want to know who is likely to be at war, just look at who is given the Nobel Peace Prize by the Norwegian (NATO) Parliament. Obama got it just days into office before he escalated the war in Afghanistan. Henry Kissinger got it in the 1970’S. And two years ago the Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed got the prize for making “peace” with Eritrea. Within a year, the much-praised peace deal between Abiy Ahmed and Eritrea’s dictator, President Isaias Afwerki, the two had united to wage war against the Ethiopian Tigray people in the province bordering Eritrea. The alliance of the two was clearly about eliminating the powerful formerly-ruling Tigray minority. Who now stands to gain in the growing debacle?

Today the reality is that Abiy Ahmed and his demoralized soldiers are in dire straits as the better-trained Tigray guerilla forces of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), approach Addis Ababa. There is good reason to believe that Biden’s Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, is manipulating events behind the scenes and not for peaceful resolution.

Nominally, the war was launched by Abiy because the Tigray state disobeyed the new government’s covid ban on scheduled elections. Clearly the Tigray, who ruled Ethiopia as a minority ethnic group for almost three decades until 2018–when it was forced by popular protests to yield rule to Abiy– were at a severe disadvantage, as Abiy gave a green light to Eritrea’s brutal dictator, Isaias, to invade the Ethiopian Tigray state from the north while Abiy’s military attacked from the south. Isaias’s soldiers carried out murder of thousands of Tigray civilians and carried out war crimes including rape and pillage in what has been called ethnic cleansing. The Eritrean forces, estimated at some 80,000 occupied a third of the region of Tigray. All communications were cut by the invaders.

Isaias and Nobel Peace Prize awardee Abiy Ahmed launched what can only be called a war of annihilation against the Tigray TPLF. They have imposed a siege of food supplies in the region and some 900,000 are reportedly on verge of starvation. Villages, cities and farms have been destroyed as the Eritrean forces reportedly used drones supplied by the UAE to bomb the land. The Tigray leadership and their trained military, the Tigray Peoples’ Liberation Front, TPLF, fled to the hills to wage guerilla warfare, as Abiy openly called the Tigray TPLF, a “cancer” on Ethiopian society, and to the TPLF as “weeds.”

Tigray Reversal

Now one year into the war to destroy the Tigray, the TPLF has managed to dramatically regain much of Tigray state occupied by Eritrean troops as well as unite with the anti-Abiy Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) to move on the capitol, Addis Ababa. Reportedly Abiy’s army has been devastated by military losses and mass desertions.

On June 28, 2021 seven months after the supposedly powerful Ethiopian National Defense Forces rolled through Tigray, the Tigrayan Defense Force (TDF), the rebranded military force of the TPLF, reconquered the Tigrayan provincial capital Mekelle, marching in with thousands of Ethiopian and Eritrean prisoners. By that point according to Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation of Boston, of 20 Ethiopian NDF federal army divisions, “seven have been completely destroyed, three are in a shambles.”

The situation is now so dire that in late November Abiy announced he was going to the front to lead his troops against the TPLF. And in early November he called on civilians to muster for the defense of the capital. That was not a sign of strength, but of desperation as his military is reportedly in total disarray. Abiy is from the ethnic Amhara group. The Amhara are the largest ethnic group with almost 35% of the 118 million population. Oromo have some 27% and Tigrayan, 6%. The military alliance of Tigray TDF forces with Oromo have reversed the odds in the ill-fated war. As of mid-November they were some 270 km from Addis Ababa.

Chaos to Spread

At this point the most likely outcome of Abiy’s two-year Tigray War is the breakup of Ethiopia into ethnic civil war, and the descent of Eritrea into economic and political disarray. As analyst Gary Brecher described the likely outcome, “What if the TDF/OLA forces go all the way to Addis and take control of ‘what is now Ethiopia’? It’s a pretty safe bet that their alliance would dissolve in a matter of months, and the country would descend to a multi-ethnic war between provinces, then between towns…”

Washington and several EU states are playing a covert role in fanning the war, while posing as “neutral.” The Biden Administration, guided on its Horn of Africa policies by Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, sanctioned Isaias and his Eritrean military for its role in the war on November 12, tilting the odds to advantage potentially of the TPLF.

On November 21, a secret meeting via zoom took place moderated by Ephraim Isaac.

Ephriam Isaac, now at Institute of Semitic Studies, Princeton, is chair of a murky outfit known as The Peace and Development Center based in Washington, which calls itself, “an independent national not-for-profit and non-governmental organization working for conflict prevention, conflict resolution, peace building and development in Ethiopia and the horn of Africa.” Its website lists as sponsors the US National Endowment for Democracy, a self-admitted CIA front which specializes in regime change color revolutions; USAID, which has often been involved in CIA covert operations, and the UN.

Ephriam Isaac was close to the late TPLF Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, and was instrumental in helping to bring the TPLF to power in 1991. Present at the recent zoom meet were also Ambassador Vicki Huddleston, former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs during the Zenawi era, along with Donald Yamamoto, one of the US government’s most senior Africa experts who just retired. And former and present senior diplomats from UK, France, and the EU. They all agreed that as Huddleston said, “Abiy should step down, there should be an all-inclusive transition government.” The secret video conference suggests that NATO countries, led by the US, are going out of their way to favor the TPLF.

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

This Tigray war at some point will bring into question the fate of the controversial Blue Nile River dam, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a huge project about 45 km east of the border with Sudan and close to the Tigray province. Despite the repeated efforts of Egypt, and partially Sudan, to diplomatically get Ethiopia to halt the dam, the Abiy Ahmed regime has refused to cooperate in any way. In July, Abiy proceeded with the second phase of a multi-year filling of the dam ignoring the protests of Sudan and Egypt who are both dependent on water from the Blue Nile for their survival.

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is located in Ethiopia (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

The GERD, with a capacity of 6.5 gigawatts will be Africa’s largest hydroelectric power plant and the world’s seventh-largest dam. It can hold 74 billion cubic meters of water – more than the volume of the entire Blue Nile, originating in the northern Ethiopia highlands, origin of 85% of the Nile’s water flow. The temptation for Egypt to intervene, even covertly, on the side of the Tigray is huge and may in fact according to some reports, be ongoing. Were that intervention to sabotage the dam, the fuse would be lit for a war spanning from the Horn of Africa to Cairo. Among other things that would clearly impact shipping traffic through the Horn of Africa, the only link to the Indian Ocean via the Mediterranean. It is the entrance to the Red Sea which is the world’s second largest shipping lane.

Erdogan’s Turkey is also involved in the Horn of Africa. On November 21, Somalia’s Army Chief Gen. Odawaa Yusuf Rageh met Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar in Anakara, where they reportedly discussed political and military cooperation. Turkey has also been supplying military drone aircraft to Abiy Ahmed’s army. Somalian President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed ‘Farmaajo’, joined the war on Tigray along with Eritrea and Ahmed. Somalia invaded Ethiopia in the 1977 Somali invasion of the Ogaden region of Ethiopia before being defeated by a Soviet-backed Ethiopian army. With Turkish backing, at some point Somalia could decide it opportune to again invade Ethiopia, especially if Tigrayans take Addis Ababa.

With Ethiopia in internal civil war, Sudan’s military could decide it might benefit from a war with Ethiopia as well. Already Ethiopia’s Abiy has accused Sudan of taking advantage of the war by seizing territory in Ethiopia. US Envoy and Color Revolution specialist Jeffrey Feltman was in Khartoum in October meeting with the Sudan military just a day before the military ousted the civilian Prime Minister. Unclear is what role the Machiavellian Feltman played in the military move. Despite a subsequent reinstatement of the civilian Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok, the Sudan military is clearly now in control. Tens of thousands of Tigray war refugees fled across the border to Sudan. Situation highly unstable.

On November 23 US Envoy Jeffrey Feltman made a visit to Ethiopia and after, he commented that Abiy told him he was confident he can push the Tigray forces back to their home region in the north of the country. Feltman said, “I question that confidence.” That’s a strange comment from a US Envoy who claims to demand the Tigray forces withdraw from the territories they have gained. Were the Biden Administration serious about supporting the elected Abiy Ahmed government and preventing disintegration of Ethiopia they would clearly do more to make that happen.

In all this geopolitical spaghetti bowl there is also the case of the growing presence of China in the Horn of Africa where it has welcomed Eritrea into its Belt and Road Initiative and established a military naval base in Djibouti alongside a critical US base Camp Lemonnier, and gained a major share ownership of Djibouti’s container port, Port of Doraleh, via its state-owned China Merchants Group. Djibouti is also a participant in China’s BRI. Djibouti controls access to both the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, and links Europe, the Asia-Pacific, the Horn of Africa, and the Persian Gulf. It lies directly across the Bab el-Mandeb Strait from Yemen and is Ethiopia’s only sea trade link.

China has kept a low profile during the Tigray War but it suggests the potential of a New Great Game for domination of the region from the Horn of Africa to Egypt along the Red Sea. US covert backing for the Tigray TPLF and the role of Feltman in the region suggests that Washington once more is determined to wreak maximum chaos as it did with help of Feltman in Syria and the Arab Spring color revolutions.

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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published.

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

Featured image is from NEO

Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

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This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”

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***

Describing the Italian reality of these days is increasingly something that tears the soul of all those who love Italy, our homeland so beautiful and lost. We live days steeped in sadness and fear and both sadness and fear are administered to us in large doses by a despotic government in which one individual, Mario Draghi, is the third unelected Prime Minister in three consecutive years.

A few days ago, the tyrant who is holding Italy in his hands these days with the complicity of an increasingly weak and deprived Parliament, officially introduced apartheid in our country and called it “Super Green Pass”:

from 6 December 2021 and until 15 January 2022 (at least), all those who are healthy but not vaccinated will no longer be able to attend gyms, theaters, restaurants, public places, they will not be able to use trains and subways. Those who are not vaccinated will be able to work, for the moment, but only with the negative swamp, done every 48 hours, going to work by bike, by car or on foot. For now, unvaccinated can still walk into a store and buy food, they can still get gas.

For the first time in human history, the healthy are considered as plague victims, to be kept separate from the rest of the world.

But thanks to the Super Green Pass, the vaccinated can now do all those things they did even before, when it seemed that it was a normal right for everyone to be able to do them without the need for any particular certificate: they called it “Democracy” and said that for them it was like air. What a bitter irony of fate for those defenders of Freedom!

The government hides its failures in managing the epidemic by placing the blame on Italians who are not vaccinated and who, above all, do not want to get vaccinated because vaccines are experimental, they can invalidate or kill you with their side effects and because it is under the eyes of everybody that the vaccinated become infected and contagious in turn.

It makes no sense to isolate unvaccinated healthy people and torment their existence because they invoke Article 32 of our Constitution for their protection, Constitution written when epidemics and vaccines already existed and which recognizes the right of Italians to refuse any experimental health treatment. The vaccinated infected, even without obvious symptoms, can move freely and becomes a perfect spreader of the disease, as is actually happening.

But the tyrannical government of Mario Draghi and his health minister, the immovable Roberto Speranza, has staked everything on vaccines, deceiving the population about their absolute effectiveness and promising a return to normality that it could not possibly guarantee.

One dose, two doses, a booster as a third dose, but already looking at the fourth. Let’s vaccinate the old and the young, pregnant women (!!!), children and babies. Even the healed.

The treatments that could have saved thousands of human lives, Italian flesh and blood, continue to be prohibited for political principles and not for scientific reality. However, such treatments continue to be used in a semi-clandestine manner by brave doctors and the proof of their effectiveness lies not only in the huge number of healed but in the fact that not even this despotic government has so far had the courage to denounce the doctors who prescribe them. Now a class hatred against the unvaccinated is ruthlessly fomented so as to hide the faults and shortcomings of a government in dire straits.

Last year, in the middle of an epidemic, the government of another non-elected Prime Minister was careful not to upgrade the intensive care units in our hospitals but spent almost a billion euros to buy plastic wheelchair school desks to use in schools so as to maintain the “social distance” between students and reduce infections. They are now in landfills because they are clearly useless. That same government spent another 200 million euros as a tax bonus on the purchase of electric skateboards to reduce pollution in cities.

On the other hand, why upgrade hospitals during a worldwide epidemic due to a mutable virus?

Now we are back to zero. They tell us that intensive care units “are in pain” and that the fault lies with the unvaccinated.

In this climate of pseudo-scientific hysteria, Nobel laureates like Luc Montagnier are still treated like old fools. Scientists like John Ioannidis or Peter Doshi suddenly become fools and the British Medical Journal just “a newspaper”.

No, the fault is not of those who did not want to get vaccinated. The fault lies with those who have ruled us and still rule us.

These are the words of Senator Richard Black, Purple Heart in Vietnam, which show us reality for what it is:

“People who require a Green Pass for daily living are not free.”

And those of Black are accompanied by the words of Vera Sharav:

“I experienced Nazism. I know how to recognize when it shows itself.”

Dear Mrs. Sharav, we believe you. And that’s why we tell you with all our heart not to come to Italy these days.

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***

Honduras’-twelve-year nightmare prompted by a U.S.-backed coup came to an end this week with the election of Xiomara Castro as the country’s new president, with 68 percent voter turnout.

Thousands of Hondurans poured into the streets the day after the vote, shooting fireworks and singing “J.O.H., J.O.H., and away you go,” a reference to the deeply unpopular outgoing President Juan Orlando Hernández.

At the victory celebration. Castro proclaimed:

“for 12 years the people resisted, and those 12 years were not in vain. God takes time but doesn’t forget. Today the people have made justice.”

She continued:

“we’re going to build a new era. Out with death squads, out with corruption, out with drug traffickers, out with organized crime. We’re going to transform the country. No more poverty. No more misery.”

Castro is the wife of José Manuel Zelaya, Honduras’s president from 2006 to 2009, who was overthrown in the 2009 coup, and served as Castro’s campaign manager.

Zelaya had earned the wrath of Honduras’ reigning oligarchy and U.S. by raising the minimum wage, increasing teacher pay, opening the door to restoring the land rights of small farmers, and joining the Hugo Chavez-led Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), which aimed to integrate Latin American economies independent of the U.S.

Miguel Angel, a political activist in his 20s who fled Honduras after the coup, stated that “Zelaya was the best president Honduras had ever had”; one who “followed through on his campaign promises.” The latter proved to be his undoing as the wealthy “didn’t like the fact that a man of power gave a plate of food to the poor.”

Improved Prospects

With Castro now in charge, Honduras’s prospects are suddenly much better—the poor may indeed get a plate.

Castro campaigned on a platform of cleaning up corruption, adopting a new constitution, loosening restrictions on abortion, and adopting more social democratic policies compared to the neoliberal austerity measures that have devastated Honduras since the coup.

Castro has also floated the idea of dropping diplomatic support for Taiwan in favor of China, a policy proposal keenly watched in Washington.

Al Jazeera correspondent Manuel Rapalo reported from Tegucigalpa that Castro had won the election because “many people feel hungry for change after 12 years of single-party rule. Many people see the ruling National Party [PN] as being endemically corrupt, leading to worsening poverty in the country.”

Hondurans protest narco-dictator. [Source: globalexchange.org]

Honduran scholar Suyapa Portillo of Pitzer College said that many voted in the election for the “dead”— those killed in the 2009 coup and subsequent state repression that was financed considerably by the U.S. through security assistance programs and under the War on Drugs.

A Government of Criminals

Honduras’ departing president Juan Orlando Hernández has been accused by a prosecutor in the Federal District Court of Manhattan of protecting Honduras’s drug traffickers and helping them to flood the U.S. with cocaine.

Hernández was nevertheless considered by the Washington establishment as a trusted partner on sensitive issues, including counterterrorism and anti-narcotics efforts, and had won plaudits for privatizing the health-care and education sectors and vowing to help curb immigration from Honduras.

Hernández’ brother Tony, a congressman from 2014 to 2018 and associate of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, was found guilty in 2019 of importing nearly 200,000 kilograms of cocaine into the United States and sentenced to life in prison. A man at the sentencing observed: “Look how these people, who had so much power in Honduras, end up here like rats.”

Many of the drug shipments—which had Tony’s initials emblazoned on his own brand—were overseen by the former Honduran chief of National Police, Juan Carlos Bonilla Valadares (aka “El Tigre”), whom Tony said was “very violent,” and “trusted with special assignments, including murders.”^[1]

“El Tigre” long enjoyed U.S. support even as evidence of human rights atrocities and drug-running mounted against him.

Tainted Candidate

Juan Orlando Hernández’ designated successor, Nasry “Tito” Asfura, conceded defeat late on Tuesday with 34.1% of the vote, compared to Castro’s 53.4%—with 52% of the vote recorded.

Asfura’s candidacy was tainted by his link to influence peddling in Costa Rica in the Panama Papers, and by his being named in a government investigation into embezzlement of more than one million dollars of city funds in Tegucigalpa where he was mayor.

The charges stemmed from an investigation into a complex series of transactions that ended with tax funds shunted to personal accounts, according to court documents.

Reversal of Anti-Historic Counteroffensive

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez characterized the 2009 coup against Zelaya as part of a “retrograde and anti-historic counter-offensive by the U.S. empire,” whose aim was to “roll back the union, sovereignty and democracy of our continent.”

The Center for Economic and Policy Research in 2017 concluded that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) dropped by two percent and unemployment rose from 3 to 7.4 percent in the years after the coup in Honduras, while the women’s underemployment rate more than doubled.

Hondurans complained that the price of beans had risen so much in this period that only the rich could afford to eat them.

The social and environmental cost of the government’s policies was borne most by indigenous groups like the Moskitia, Miskitu and Garifuna, whose waterways and land were threatened by a 2013 agreement granting the BG Oil Group, subsequently bought over by Shell, oil and gas exploration rights off the Honduran coast.

U.S. armed police repress anti-government protests in Tegucigalpa in 2018. [Source: globalexchange.org]

Castro’s election victory could prove chimeric if the Nationalist Party retains control of the Congress and blocks her major legislative initiatives.

The State Department issued a statement on Tuesday expressing optimism about the high voter turnout and asserting its willingness to work with Castro—though could easily turn against her if her policies turn left.

The majority of Hondurans, nevertheless, are feeling better about their future prospects today than they had been before the election.

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

Notes

1. In October, 2019, eight days after Hernández was convicted, his former business partner who had cooperated with the DEA, Nesry López Sanabria was shot and stabbed to death, by assassins who had been allowed to breach an area of the maximum-security Honduran prison where he was being held. Six weeks later, his lawyer was killed. Three days after that, the warden of the prison was killed, too.

Featured image is licensed under CC BY 3.0 br

The “Make Believe Pandemic:” and the Omicron Variant

By Bill Sardi, December 01, 2021

For no good reason, the world is cringing at the news of the OMICRON mutation of the Covid-19 coronavirus even though data on its infectiveness and mortality are as yet unknown.

Video: Graphene Oxide Wireless Network: Bioweapon Shots Contain Wireless Nanosensor

By Dr. Pablo Compra and Stew Peters, December 01, 2021

On this show we’ve repeatedly mentioned the work by “La Quinta Columna” in Spain. That name means “the Fifth Column,” and it’s a group of dissident researchers who have investigated these vaccines. Most importantly, they’re the ones who studied a vaccine sample and found graphene oxide in it.

Introduction to “The Real Anthony Fauci”: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr, December 01, 2021

I wrote this book to help Americans—and citizens across the globe—understand the historical underpinnings of the bewildering cataclysm that began in 2020. In that single annus horribilis, liberal democracy effectively collapsed worldwide.

Out of Africa on Black Friday: A Boost for Omicron Booster Shots?

By Prof. Anthony J. Hall, December 01, 2021

On Black Friday, alarmist media commentaries on rising COVID “cases” converged with dire reports of falling prices on the New York Stock Exchange. The plunge was attributed to claims that a new COVID “variant” was emerging in Southern Africa.

Hard Data Shows the COVID Vaccines Don’t Work

By Vasko Kohlmayer, November 30, 2021

As we know, the objective of vaccination is to eliminate or significantly reduce the incidence of the targeted disease. If a vaccine works, then in a highly vaccinated population we will see either complete elimination of the disease or a significant decrease of its incidence.

Doctor Who First Discovered Omicron Variant Says It’s “Mild,” Hasn’t Caused Uptick in Hospitalizations

By Paul Joseph Watson, December 01, 2021

Countering global alarmism about the omicron variant of COVID-19, the doctor who first discovered it says the strain is “mild” and hasn’t caused an uptick in hospitalizations.

The 2020-21 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d’État and the “Great Reset”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, December 01, 2021

It’s the powerful financiers and billionaires who are behind this project which has contributed to the destabilization (Worldwide) of the real economy. And there is ample evidence that the decision to close down a national economy (resulting in poverty and unemployment) will inevitably have an impact on patterns of morbidity and mortality.

On Doorstep of Belarus, Russia: NATO Chief Speaks of Article 5, Nuclear Policy, Military Buildup Along Eastern Flank, Three Potential Casus Belli

By Rick Rozoff, December 01, 2021

While in a nation that borders both Belarus and Russia, Stoltenberg twice mentions NATO’s Article 5 in his brief remarks and responses to questions by journalists.

“New Normalize Europe”: Pathologized Totalitarianism 101

By CJ Hopkins, December 01, 2021

So, GloboCap has crossed the Rubicon. The final phase of its transformation of society into a pathologized-totalitarian dystopia, where mandatory genetic-therapy injections and digital compliance papers are commonplace, is now officially underway.

Pentagon: U.S. Military Footprint Staying Right Where It Is

By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, December 01, 2021

An unclassified summary of the Defense Department’s Global Posture review was released Monday and in the words of the indomitable Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, the song of American military primacy worldwide pretty much “remains the same.”

NATO Summit in Riga Unlikely to Bring Unity to Increasingly Divided Atlantic Bloc

By Paul Antonopoulos, December 01, 2021

NATO has consistently spread hysteria about the alleged strengthening of Russian military personnel near Ukraine, and has once again escalated this narrative. The NATO summit in Riga on Tuesday and Wednesday served as another round of aggressive and provocative posturing against Russia, but it is unlikely to unify the Atlantic bloc that is becoming increasingly divided.

What Determines a Limit to Growth? “Planet Earth Next 100 Years”

By Cynthia Chung, December 01, 2021

All resources that are essential to life, including human life, are naturally renewable. There is a natural cycle that causes these resources to be regenerated, this includes the natural cycles of water, oxygen, vegetation (including food) and so forth. Thus, everything that is essential for life is already naturally renewable on Earth.

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

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Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

***

Another fault line has opened in the mining wars.  In Serbia, resistance is gathering steam against various deals made between Belgrade and companies that risk environmental degradation and lingering spoliation.

In this regard, the globe’s second largest metals and mining corporation, features prominently.  Rio Tinto, bruised in reputation but determined in business, finds itself in a hunting mood in the Balkans, hoping to establish a lithium mine and processing plant in the valley of Jadar.

As the infamous destroyer of the Juukan Gorge Caves outlines in a statement, the Jadar site is intended to “produce battery-grade lithium carbonate, a critical mineral used in large scale batteries for electric vehicles and storing renewable energy”.  This greening shift – because all canny mining entities are doing it –  promises to “position Rio Tinto as the largest source of lithium supply in Europe for at least the next 15 years.”  In an effort to make matters sound even more impressive, Jadar will also “produce borates, which are used in solar panels and wind turbines.”

The company has been extensively involved in cultivating relations with the government of Aleksandar Vučić.  As far back as 2018, Prime Minister Ana Brnabić was already convinced what the future lithium borate project might hold.  “As Jadar can significantly influence the development of the whole region, the government has established an inter-ministerial working group to cooperate with the investor on all aspects of the project.”  Capitulation, rather than cooperation, would be the more accurate description.

How the Anglo-Australian mining giant finds itself in this position has been troubling to local activists and the citizenry of Jadar for years.  The Ne damo Jadar (We won’t let anyone take Jadar) group is particularly concerned by the clandestine memoranda of understanding signed between the company and the Serbian government.  Zlatko Kokanović, vice president of the group, states the position with irrefutable clarity.

“Rio Tinto’s proposed jadarite mine will not only threaten one of Serbia’s oldest and most important archaeological sites, it will also endanger several protected bird species, pond terrapins, and fire salamander, which would otherwise be protected by EU directives.”

An online petition against the mine, which has garnered 283,364 signatures to date, also notes the risk posed to “thousands of sustainable multi-generational farms” through the poisoning of water sources.  This was bound to occur given generous use of sulphuric acid in separating the lithium from the jadarite ore.

Rio has countered this by vague promises that it will conduct sound environmental assessments and neutralise any risks arising from sulfuric acid, arsenic and the inevitable tailings that will follow.  In the words of the CEO Jakob Stausholm,

“We are committed to upholding the highest environmental standards and building sustainable futures for the communities where we operate.”  Stausholm promised, “that in progressing this project, we must listen to and respect the views of all stakeholders.”

Ever since Rio Tinto began sniffing around in Serbia, evidence of such listening and respect has been in short supply.  Requests and concerns by locals go unaddressed.  Its use of private security goons has also been a point of some nastiness. Marijana Petković, a member of Ne damo Jadar, insists that they have been harassing and conducting surveillance of villages which are proximate to the mine. One has to keep the local tribes in check.

In June, the company claimed that the security contractors were “engaged to carry out activities in full compliance with the Law on Private Security, which provides for both the way of securing private property and moving at a certain time between several mutually separated places/facilities”.

The company also countered with its own claims that, as a law-abiding entity, it has been unjustly attacked by fractious thugs intent on disrupting the prospects for local improvement.  After a protest that same month, Rio Tinto stated that “employees working on the Jadar project were examined for injuries at the Loznica Emergency Centre, where they were provided with assistance.”

Serbian lawmakers have certainly been facing a mouthful from the Alliance of Environmental Organisations of Serbia (SEOS) and the Kreni-promeni organisation.  The latter has produced a video to counter Rio Tinto’s own glossy narrative of the lithium project which has saturated much of the media.  Hearty efforts by Kreni-promeni to convince the Serbian public broadcaster RTS to broadcast its rebuttals have so far failed.

The eternally calculating Vučić has decided to put the issue of Rio Tinto’s lithium mining effort to a referendum, enabling the mining giant to further step up its campaign to convince voters.   The protestors are in no doubt that the measure is designed to secure approval in order to outmanoeuvre the contrarians.

A large protest movement is taking shape in Serbia, centred on the importance of clean water, air, soil and observance of sound environmental regulations.  The month of November saw protesting efforts that involved blocking roads in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Užice, Loznica and Kruševac, amongst others.

Rio Tinto, environmental vandal par excellence, has shown, along with other mining giants, a marked tendency to ignore local grievances and fears while flattering gullible authorities with promises of a glittering future.  The future for the Jadar valley, outlined by one sceptical ecologist, Mirjana Lukić Anđelković is suitably dark.  The company, she told the morning program TV Nova S “Wake Up” in March this year, promises to mine for six decades and “make a mountain of tailings.”  Where there are tailings, “there is no grass, nothing grows.”

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

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 @crg_globalresearch.

***

There are now over half a million Israeli citizens who have settled illegally on Palestinian land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in an attempt to ethnically cleanse the whole of former Palestine, in blatant violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 that has declared all such settlements illegal under international law and a violation of Article 4 of the Geneva Conventions on Human Rights. That resolution was passed 14-0 on 23 December 2016 by permanent members, China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom (together with non-permanent members: Angola, Egypt, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Senegal, Spain, Ukraine, Uruguay and Venezuela).

The resolution states that Israel’s settlement activity constitutes a “flagrant violation” of international law and has “no legal validity”. It demands that Israel stop such activity and fulfill its obligations as an occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

For the 14th consecutive year, Israel also continues its illegal air, land and sea blockade of the Gaza Strip, restricting the movement of people and goods in and out of the area, which continued to have a devastating impact on the human rights of Gaza’s 2 million inhabitants. Israel stopped the entry of construction materials and fuel into Gaza repeatedly. This shut down the only power plant in Gaza, leading to a further reduction in the supply of electricity, which had already been available for only about four hours a day. Israel also imposed a full maritime closure and repeatedly limited entry of goods to food and medicine only. The measures amounted to collective punishment at a time of increasing COVID-19 infections in Gaza.

Population statistics for Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, show c.400,000 exclusively Jewish citizens of Israel plus more than 20,000 Israeli citizens still living illegally in settlements on the Golan Heights.

The state of Israel is the only undeclared nuclear weapon state in the world, today, and is estimated to have built between 100-400 nuclear warheads, enough to destroy the whole of the Middle East and Europe. It’s underground nuclear silos in the Negev Desert are undeclared to and uninspected by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

This is the state that is heavily supported by the government of Boris Johnson which grants export licenses to it for military equipment and which now proudly declares increased bilateral trade and political cooperation with a foreign occupation force that is armed to the teeth with undeclared weapons of mass destruction. It is too far-fetched even for a film script – yet, tragically, it is true!

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Featured image is from St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee

***

Starting in May-June 2021 extending into October, the alleged dangers of the Delta Variant were used to speed up the vaccination program. “A Fourth Wave” had already been announced for Fall -Winter 2021.

Is a lockdown (comparable to March 2020) on the drawing board, requiring stay at home confinement, social distancing and the closure of economic activity?

As we recall, Dr. Neil Ferguson of Imperial College, London recommended the adoption of the March 11, 2020 lockdown at a time when there were 44,279 “Confirmed Covid-19 Cases” worldwide outside of China. According to his “mathematical model”, (generously funded by the Gates Foundation) the lockdown was intended to save an estimated 600,000 British lives.

“The March 11, 2020 lockdown was heralded as a means to containing the alleged “pandemic”. Nonsense.”

In June 2021, a second authoritative “mathematical model” was put forth by Dr. Ferguson to “justify” a “Fourth Wave Lockdown”. The erroneous “assumption” behind the modelling exercise was that the Delta Variant was “deadly”.

According to Prof Neil Ferguson: “the Delta variant of coronavirus is 30% to 100% more transmissible than the previously dominant variant”. (quoted by the Guardian). What he fails to mention is that virus variants are always “less vigilant” and “less dangerous” in comparison to the original virus.

Detecting Covid-19 Variants

So if we do a PCR corona test on an immune person, it is not a virus that is detected, but a small shattered part of the viral genome. The test comes back positive for as long as there are tiny shattered parts of the virus left.

Moreover, there is no isolate of the novel coronavirus on record.

The substantive issue, however, does not solely pertain to the identity of the virus. What is at stake is that the original 2019 novel coronavirus was never isolated and purified by the WHO, which was responsible for the configuration of the PCR test.

In view of the absence of an isolate of the original 2019- nCoV (subsequently renamed CoV-SARS-2), the WHO decided  from the outset in January 2020 to use as “point of reference” (in terms of genetic sequences) the “similar” 2003 SARS-CoV virus, which no doubt has mutated extensively over the last 19 years.

Is this 2003 SARS-CoV-1  “point of reference” being used to detect and identify (using the RT-PCR test) the Omicron and Delta Variants of the “original” 2019 novel corona virus (SARS-CoV-2)? Sounds absurd.

The answer to this question is examined below.

Erroneous Assessment by the WHO Technical Advisory Group

The WHO’s “technical advisory group confirmed in a report dated November 26, 2021 that the PCR test had been used to identify the Omicron Variant of SARS-CoV-2 despite the fact that the WHO does not possess an isolate of the original 2019 novel coronavirus, nor is the PCR technique in a position to detect the variants of the original virus (as outlined above):

…In recent weeks, infections have increased steeply, coinciding with the detection of B.1.1.529 variant. The first known confirmed B.1.1.529 infection was from a specimen collected on 9 November 2021.

This variant [omicron] has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning. Preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant, as compared to other VOCs. The number of cases of this variant appears to be increasing in almost all provinces in South Africa. Current SARS-CoV-2 PCR diagnostics continue to detect this variant. Several labs have indicated that for one widely used PCR test, one of the three target genes is not detected (called S gene dropout or S gene target failure) and this test can therefore be used as marker for this variant, pending sequencing confirmation. Using this approach, this variant has been detected at faster rates than previous surges in infection, suggesting that this variant may have a growth advantage.

emphasis added

The Validity of the PCR Test

In January 2021, the WHO admitted that the PCR-RT test is Invalid as a means to detect / identify both the original virus as well as the variants.

The contentious issue pertains to the Ct enlargement threshold:

“If the test is conducted at a 35 Ct threshold or above (which was recommended by the WHO), genetic segments of the SARS-CoV-2 virus cannot be detected, which means that ALL the so-called confirmed “positive cases” tabulated in the course of the last 18 months are invalid.

According to Pieter Borger, Bobby Rajesh Malhotra, Michael Yeadon, et al, the Ct > 35 has been the norm “in most laboratories in Europe & the US”.

“Invalid Positives” is the Underlying Concept. What is at stake is a “Flawed Methodology” which leads to invalid estimates of “Confirmed Covid-19 Cases”.  

The WHO Confirms that the Covid-19 PCR Test is Flawed: Estimates of “Positive Cases” are Meaningless. The Lockdown Has No Scientific Basis

To consult the Full text of the WHO directive dated January 20, 2021

Omicron Reports

Of significance, the country-level reports quoted below confirm that the Invalid PCR test is being used to detect /identify cases of Covid-19 omicron infection among arriving airline passengers. “The UK requires that travelers must take a PCR test and quarantine on arrival until a negative result is returned”.

Health officials in New South Wales, Australia, have begun urgent testing after two people who arrived on a flight from southern Africa overnight tested positive to the coronavirus, [PCR test] Reuters reports.

… Urgent genomic sequencing is underway to determine if they have been infected by the new omicron … variant of concern,” the health department of New South Wales said in a release.

Guardian, November 27, 2021

Switzerland has widened quarantine requirements to stem the spread of the new Omicron coronavirus variant to travellers arriving from Britain, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Egypt and Malawi, where cases have been detected, its health ministry said.

On Friday, Switzerland banned direct flights from South Africa and the surrounding region due to the detection of the new variant while also imposing restrictions on travel from other countries including Hong Kong, Israel and Belgium.

Israel is to ban the entry of visitors from all countries due to the Omicron variant, Reuters reports.

 “The decision by the government to reimplement the need for a PCR test from all individuals arriving in the UK from abroad on day two, with self-isolation until a negative [PCR] test is reported, while frustrating for those travelling, is essential in order to rapidly identify cases of infection with the Omicron variant and implement prompt isolation and targeted contact tracing to limit the spread of the variant in the UK.

emphasis added

Guardian, November 27, 2021

Concluding Remarks 

Draw you own conclusions.

The deceptive political statements regarding  the Omicron Variant are totally meaningless, they have no scientific basis.

The unspoken objective is to justify new repressive policy measures including the vaccine passport as well as the destabilization of the airline industry Worldwide, which since March 2020 is already in a state of bankruptcy.

It is worth noting that the WHO’s report on the Covid Omicron Variant, described as “deadly” was released on Friday November 26, two days prior to Switzerland nationwide referendum on Vaccine Passport (November 28, 2021).

Update: Barely three days after the release of the WHO’s report, the Boris Johnson government announced that:

“The UK’s minimum gap for Covid booster jabs will be halved from six months to three, after the government accepted advice from its vaccines watchdog to speed up the programme to limit the spread of the Omicron variant”.

Timely panic and propaganda in favour of tyranny.

***

About the Author

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research.

He has undertaken field research in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific and has written extensively on the economies of developing countries with a focus on poverty and social inequality. He has also undertaken research in Health Economics (UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC),  UNFPA, CIDA, WHO, Government of Venezuela, John Hopkins International Journal of Health Services (1979, 1983)

He is the author of twelve books including The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003), America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005),  The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015).

He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica.  His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. In 2014, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit of the Republic of Serbia for his writings on NATO’s war of aggression against Yugoslavia. He can be reached at [email protected]

See Michel Chossudovsky, Biographical Note

Michel Chossudovsky’s Articles on 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 @crg_globalresearch.

***

For no good reason, the world is cringing at the news of the OMICRON mutation of the Covid-19 coronavirus even though data on its infectiveness and mortality are as yet unknown.

The Director of the National Institute For Infectious Diseases says the dreaded OMICRON variant of Covid-19, which was first detected in South Africa, is likely (but not actually confirmed) in the US.  The White House, protecting against political criticism for failure to take action, restricted entry of non-citizens from eight south African nations.

A report in Nature Magazine says the OMICRON variant exhibits a large number of mutations found in other variants and “it seems to be spreading quickly.”  (“Seems to be.”  “Seems to be…” (Author’s repetition for emphasis.)

The White House recommends booster shots which it claims are “safe, free and convenient, and approved,” but maybe not effective, at least not over time.  In fact, booster shots have not been proven safe or effective.  The White House appears to be doing an informercial for the vaccine makers.

How does temporary protection end up being efficacious?

CNBC, reporting on the waning immunity of Covid-19 vaccines, cites a study published in Science that immunity from one RNA-spike protein vaccine dropped from 86% to 43% from February to October and another RNA-spike protein vaccine from 89% to 58%, while an Adenovirus vector vaccine fell from 86% to 13%.  Booster shots are said to be 95% effective, but that is only early after vaccination.  That is because the vaccines only address spike protein, not the virus itself.   (“Not the virus itself.”  “Not the virus itself.”  Author’s repetition, so readers don’t miss this point.)

Preventive measures are a farce

The World Health Organization states: “Individuals are reminded to take measures to reduce their risk of COVID-19, including proven public health and social measures such as wearing well-fitting masks, hand hygiene, physical distancing, improving ventilation of indoor spaces, avoiding crowded spaces, and getting vaccinated.”  What do you call a President who orders people around without authority or substantiation?  (I’ll answer that for you: a tyrannist.)

Futility, not prevention

Florida, which does not mandate face masks nor vaccination, reports the lowest Covid-19 cases per capita in the nation.

A scientific review of face masks reveals it is a totally unreliable method of slowing or preventing the spread of disease.  Even when face masks were not used in the operating room with open wounds, no increase in infections were noted.

Pandemics usually mutate out of existence

Mutations are not new nor unexpected.  Coronaviruses, like influenza viruses, mutate rapidly and often these mutations don’t result in any developing pandemic and fizzle out.

A Reuters report says: “the new variant has over 30 mutations in the part of the virus that current vaccines target” and that Omicron’s mutations “are likely to render certain Covid-19 treatments, including some manufactured antibodies, ineffective.”  Oh, so the vaccines and booster shots are/aren’t effective, which is it?

Wait for the anti-Covid drugs

As a set up for new anti-Covid-19 drugs, the Reuters report says: “experimental antiviral pills (Paxlovid and Molnupiravir) target parts of the virus that are not changed in Omicron.”

If the drugs are effective there will be no reason to continue with mass vaccination.  So few people actually end up with severe infections or have fatal infection, it would be better to just treat the seriously ill with these new drugs and skip problematic vaccines altogether.  Right?

But there is more hidden behind the curtains

Dr. Mike Hansen says in an online report, says these “mutations are in the spike protein.”  According to a report in Genomics, such mutations “imply” they are more pathogenic.

As of November of 2020, there were 83,475 gene sequences available on Sharing All Influenza Data, 29,903 which were “complete whole genome of the earliest-sequenced Covid-19 from Wuhan, China, which were used for comparison with later strains.  However, researchers say: “there is an unrelenting generation of genomic variants for ANY RNA virus.”  However, these were laboratory-made sequences, not the mother or sister virus.

Couldn’t identify a single mutation that correlated with increased transmission

Near the end of 2020 researchers in Britain published a report in Nature Communications concerning “speculations Covid-19 may be evolving towards higher transmissibility.”  Yet among the 46,723 mutations identified from worldwide samples, this research team said it could “not identify a single recurrent mutation that convincingly associated with increase transmission.”

Incongruently, in 2005 researchers reported that coronaviruses exhibit “stable genomes which change very little over time.”  What happened since 2005?  Somebody or some thing is now causing them to mutate rapidly.

Do mutations even matter?

Frightening news reports abound about severity and fatality rates associated with newly mutated Covid-19 virus in circulation.

However, a report in Nature Magazine asks: “Do Covid-19 Mutations Even Matter?”  The report went on to say: “Scientists have this crazy fascination with these mutations.”

Reporter Ewen Callaway writes: “Different Covid-19 strains haven’t yet had a major impact on the court of the pandemic, but they might in the future.”  (“Might in the future.”  “Might in the future.”  Repeated so readers don’t overlook this point.)

OK, we’re going to mandate lockdowns, face masks, etc., etc. over a maybe/maybe-not deadly mutation.

Callaway quotes another scientist to say: “What’s irritating are people taking their results in very controlled settings, and saying this means something for the pandemic. That, we are so far away from knowing.”  In other words, interpreting these mutations is a crap shoot in the real world.

About those pseudo-viruses

And get this, no one is monitoring mutations in the virus itself because it is potentially too dangerous to experiment with.  So, researchers are using made up pseudo-viruses.  Hey, maybe medical writer Jon Rapoport and Dr. Andrew Kaufman, who keep banging their pie tins about the non-existent virus, are right?!

Nature Magazine report: “The pseudo-viruses carry only the coronavirus spike protein, in most cases, and so the experiments measure only the ability of these particles to enter cells, not aspects of their effects inside cells, let alone on an organism. They also lack the other three mutations that almost all D614G viruses carry. “The bottom line is, they’re not the virus!” says the report. (Exclamation point added.)

The dreaded D614G mutation

The chart below marks the spread of the dreaded D614G mutation.

However, many scientists say there remains no solid proof that D614G has a significant effect on the spread of the virus, and researchers still have more questions than answers about coronavirus mutations, and no one has yet found any change in SARS-CoV-2 that should raise public-health concerns!  Has it all been propaganda for the vaccine makers?

Meaningless mutations

Other genome data have emphasized this stability — more than 90,000 isolates have been sequenced and made public (see www.gisaid.org). Two Covid-19 viruses collected from anywhere in the world differ by an average of just 10 RNA letters out of 29,903!

Despite the virus’s sluggish mutation rate, researchers have catalogued more than 12,000 mutations in SARS-CoV-2 genomes. But the report in Nature Magazine says: “scientists can spot mutations faster than they can make sense of them. Many mutations will have no consequence for the virus’s ability to spread or cause disease, because they DO NOT ALTER THE SHAPE OF A PROTEIN.”

Mutations could be beneficial

But a report published at Technology Networks states: “The D614G mutation causes a flap on the tip of one spike to pop open, allowing the virus to infect cells more efficiently but also creating a pathway to the virus’ vulnerable core.  So, is that mutation beneficial or deleterious?

The report goes on to say: “With one flap open, it’s easier for antibodies — like the ones in the vaccines currently being tested — to infiltrate and disable the virus.”

Unauthentic virus

But there’s more. The report says “earlier work, however, relied on a pseudo-typed virus that included the receptor-binding protein but was not authentic.  (“Not authentic.”  “Not authentic.”  Author’s repetitive emphasis.).

Researchers were using reverse genetics.  Researchers caution that the pathology results may not hold true in human studies.”  They didn’t use a real virus in the lab, only a manipulated virus.  Did you get that?

Many researchers suspect that if a mutation did help the virus to spread faster, it probably happened earlier, when the virus first jumped into humans or acquired the ability to move efficiently from one person to another.

There were obviously more people who were susceptible when the pandemic began in early 2020.

Economist Jon Sanders says it this way:

“At present, based on the most recent government data, only about three Americans in a thousand could conceivably transmit Covid-19 to someone. In other words, nearly 99.7 percent of people in the United States are currently no threat to anyone of spreading the virus. And despite the large case count, 24 out of every 25 cases are recovered, meaning not only that those people are no longer threats, but also that they now have the strongest form of immunity against Covid-19.”

“From the outset, media reports on Covid-19 have been calculated to stoke fear. Whether out of sensationalism for clicks, desire to shape political outcomes, or panic in the pressrooms, media have offered an unrelenting diet of terror about the pandemic with little to no context.

The idea that nearly everyone recovers from this virus, as from other illnesses, rarely entered the news stories, let alone the minds of the terrified populace. As the total case numbers rose, quietly so did the number of those who had recovered and now were immune. Case numbers were also never placed in the context of an even much larger number: the population.”

Here is Sanders’ the threat-free index estimates as of November 15:

• Presumed recovered: 45,265,569
• Active cases: 1,118,866
• Percent of total cases presumed recovered: 96.0%
• Percent of total cases that are active: 2.4%
• Percent of the total U.S. population with active cases of Covid: over 0.3%
• Percent of the U.S. population to have died with or from Covid-19: over 0.2%
• Percent of the U.S. population posing no threat of passing along COVID-19: nearly 99.7%z.

This means, if you enter a COSTCO store and it has 300 shoppers in it, or a church with 500 worshipers, or even a football stadium with thousands of fans, given only a small number you actually come in contact with, the chance you would be exposed to the virus, let alone infected, is nil.

I get the distinct idea all these restrictions and mandates without legal authority are just drills to train Americans to comply, much like dogs get trained.  Then the poison is slipped into the Kool-Aid.

And now for more make-believe terror from Orson Welles and the War Of The Worlds.

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Bill Sardi, writing from La Verne, California.

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I just got my copy of RFK Jr.’s The Real Anthony Fauci. Flipping through the first couple of chapters, one thing really stood out — that Fauci dispenses some $7 billion in research grants to “public health” researchers all over the world.  He has held that position for 30 years.  This means that for thirty years there has been one-man monopoly control over virtually all public health-related “peer review.” 

This proves in spades what a clownish, lying, incompetent, corrupt stooge Fauci is when he responds to criticism with statements like “everyone I know agrees with me on this.”  Yeah, everyone who works for him and is paid by him, or wishes to work for him and be paid by him (with taxpayers’ money).  This means that “public health” peer review is a joke and a fraud.  No other profession in the world would be taken seriously if one single government bureaucrat was effectively in charge of all the professional publications in the entire field.

And what Fauci doesn’t control through government funding, other government bureaucrats at NIH and elsewhere do.  They are Fauci wannabes in this corrupt, stinking, fraudulent field of “public” health.  No wonder Dr. Scott Atlas, a real doctor and medical researcher, was so shocked at the immense incompetence he was exposed to while serving on President Trump’s COVID task force and sitting through meetings with dopey Fauci and that goofy scarf woman.  He told Tucker Carlson that the two of them seemed 100% detached from and unaware of the relevant science and did nothing but repeat leftist lockdown/masking/you-must-obey/jab-every-child/shut-down-all-the-schools-and-churches talking points without even discussing any scientific basis for any of it.

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Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo [send him mail] is a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. His latest book is The Problem with Lincoln.

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NATO has consistently spread hysteria about the alleged strengthening of Russian military personnel near Ukraine, and has once again escalated this narrative. The NATO summit in Riga on Tuesday and Wednesday served as another round of aggressive and provocative posturing against Russia, but it is unlikely to unify the Atlantic bloc that is becoming increasingly divided.

The Atlantic bloc continues to accuse Moscow of non-existent threats in order to justify their own strengthening of troops near Russia’s borders and to carry out various military manoeuvres. The foreign ministers of NATO also discussed in Riga other important current affairs, such as the migration crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border.

Ahead of the meeting in Riga, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced that tens of thousands of NATO soldiers were at his country’s border and that the West was using migrants to restrain the Belarusian army in the event of a conflict with Russia. He warned that the Belarusian army will not be idle if there is a conflict on the Russian-Ukrainian border or in Donbass.

Lukashenko’s argument is curious though as it was Belarus, and not the West, that brought tens of thousands of migrants to the borders of Poland and the Baltic countries. This was Lukashenko’s response to the West’s pressure and sanction campaign against his government following the 2020 presidential election. He now complains though that the migration weapon that he himself aimed against the European Union is now being used to restrain the Belarusian military.

NATO countries are also using the migration crisis for its own purposes by accusing Moscow, without evidence, of being involved in Minsk’s actions against Poland and the Baltic countries. In this way, NATO attempts to create a justification to deploy its troops near Russia’s borders, which of course will not be for the purpose of confronting the migration crisis.

Ahead of the meeting in Riga, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also stated that the proposal to hold a Russia-NATO Council meeting remains in force since the Alliance is supposedly committed to maintaining a dialogue with Moscow. At the same time, he called on Moscow to be more transparent in its actions and stressed that there are NATO battle groups in the Baltic states and Poland, noting their readiness to resist any “aggression.”

However, despite Stoltenberg’s claims, Moscow has previously stated that it has no information about NATO’s plans to establish a dialogue. In this way, NATO maintains a pressure campaign against Moscow, but at the same time claims that it wants to build a dialogue.

This is further complicated because of the fact that NATO members do not have the same position and policies towards Russia. It is evident that the Anglosphere in NATO, along with their Polish and Baltic proxies, are the most enthusiastic for confrontation with Russia when the rest of Europe is becoming increasingly indifferent or opposed.

Take for example that only on Tuesday, the Greece-Russia Cooperation Protocol was signed and will see the two countries strengthen cooperation in tourism, energy, transport, science and technology, cultural matters and issues relating to tax administration. It also comes as France, which is still critical of Russia in some regards, continually calls for “strategic autonomy” from Washington and improved relations with Moscow.

None-the-less, as the US and UK are the most influential and powerful countries in NATO, the Atlantic alliance’s course towards Russia remains largely the same as during the Cold War era. Due to this, NATO are promoting anti-Russian hysteria to create an appropriate atmosphere so that all responsibility for a possible escalation can be blamed on Moscow. This is despite the fact that Moscow repeatedly calls for de-escalation and stresses that it has no interest in military confrontations.

As NATO is becoming increasingly divided into two blocs, prominently the Anglosphere and its Baltic-Polish partners against the rest of continental Europe, which also does not account for a rogue Turkey, the bloc is constantly looking for enemies, real and imagined, to justify its existence. As the alliance was created to oppose the Soviet Union, it has struggled to find a justification for its existence after European communism fell in 1991.

In the context of competing interests within NATO, attempting to remain relevant, and a general disinterest amongst most of NATO to confront Moscow, the chances of the alliance making a united front against Russia are weak. In fact, many continental European countries fear that a sustained policy of so-called deterrence could further undermine regional stability, which will of course negatively affect the security of some NATO members.

In this way, it is unlikely that NATO achieved much during the two-day meeting in Riga as state interests among the members are being prioritized over Washington’s anti-Russia interests being enacted under the NATO platform.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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I was in Athens, Greece earlier this month and I had the chance to participate for the very first time in the annual 17 November march on the U.S. Embassy.

When I was working as a CIA officer in Athens between 1998 and 2000, we used to evacuate the Embassy every year on 17 November, lest we be the subjects of violence from the crowd, which always numbered in the tens of thousands and would sometimes smash windows and throw balloons filled with red paint at the Embassy.

The annual event commemorates the date in 1973 when Greece’s far-right military dictatorship, the Junta, attacked unarmed, peaceful students at the Athens Polytechnic University demonstrating for a return to democracy.

Students demonstrating for return to democracy at Athens Polytechnic University in 1973. [Source: greekcitytimes.com]

Dozens of students were killed, the Junta was universally condemned, and the event led to the dictatorship’s slow collapse the following summer.

So why demonstrate at the U.S. Embassy?

It’s because the U.S. government was singlehandedly responsible for installing the dictatorship in 1967. The coup led to a seven-year period of official violence, torture, and grief that is still so much at the front of most Greeks’ minds, that a Greek need say only “the seven years,” την επταετία, for literally everyone to know about what he is speaking.

The cause of the coup was not at all complicated. It was a U.S. obsession with communism.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, the father and grandfather of future prime ministers, made an official visit to Washington in 1967, during which President Lyndon Johnson reportedly told him, “If you don’t get a handle on your communism problem, we’ll do it for you.”

Papandreou was a centrist politician. There was no problem with communism in Greece at the time. The Greek civil war between leftist and rightist forces had ended 15 years earlier, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) was formally banned, and public opinion strongly favored the right-of-center king.

That wasn’t good enough for Washington, though. A former CIA colleague of mine, Gust Avrakotos, who was later portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the film Charlie Wilson’s War and who was a major figure in Junta-era Greece, told me that he caught wind of a planned coup the night before tanks took to the streets on April 21, 1967.

Despite the fact that he was a strident anti-communist, Gust called a meeting with a senior colonel to warn him not to overthrow Papandreou’s government. The colonel denied any knowledge of a coup, but hours later, he was one of the senior officers commanding those tanks in the streets.

What Gust didn’t know was that the White House, the National Security Council, and the State Department had already made the decision to overthrow the government and install the colonels. Democracy was dead in the place where it had been born.

Since the fall of the Junta in 1974, the KKE was legalized in 1981 and Greece has been governed by socialists for 21 years, conservatives for 20 years, and even communists for four years.

Relations between Greece and the United States today are close. Greece is an active member of NATO and a member of the European Union. The economy is strong after years of economic deprivation, and Greeks are known to be friendly, hospitable, and generous.

Every Greek, though, is taught in school that it was the United States that killed the country’s democracy. It was the United States, ostensibly the country’s “protector,” that did away with Greece’s freely-elected government and installed a brutal military dictatorship. Greek children are taught about similar experiences among Chileans, Vietnamese, Kenyans, and others.

Greek Colonels on trial in “Greeks Nuremburg” in 1975. [Source: wikipedia.org]

U.S. covert actions are not lost on most Greeks. They are a forgiving people, but they don’t want to be like the United States. They learned some lessons from oppression, and they want to make sure that their experiences won’t be repeated.

For example, because of police excesses during the Junta, the police are not permitted to search people’s homes or to carry out arrests during nighttime hours. The Junta used to send police to people’s homes in the middle of the night to break down the door and make arrests. No more. If there’s going to be an arrest—or even a legal search—it must be done during daylight hours.

Police also are not allowed on the campus of any college or university for any reason. Ever.

They caused so much grief with their violence against peaceful, unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators on 17 November 1973 that Greeks are determined to never let that happen again.

Universities occasionally become safe havens for arch-criminals like graffiti artists and jaywalkers, of course, but society has accepted that. And the military has been permanently banned from any domestic role whatsoever. There will never be tanks in the streets again, unless it’s to defend the country from a Turkish invasion.

We can all learn from the Greeks’ experiences. Foreign meddling is wrong. It never ends well. It’s never something to be proud of. It never engenders thanks.

On the contrary, it’s a miracle that the U.S. and Greece now have close relations. It’s taken three generations to get over the anger. But every Greek knows what Washington did to them, and nobody will ever forget, especially on the 17^th of November.

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John Kiriakou was a CIA analyst and case officer from 1990 to 2004. In December 2007, John was the first U.S. government official to confirm that waterboarding was used to interrogate al-Qaeda prisoners, a practice he described as torture.

Kiriakou was a former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a former counter-terrorism consultant. While employed with the CIA, he was involved in critical counter-terrorism missions following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but refused to be trained in so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques,” nor did he ever authorize or engage in such crimes.

After leaving the CIA, Kiriakou appeared on ABC News in an interview with Brian Ross, during which he became the first former CIA officer to confirm the existence of the CIA’s torture program. Kiriakou’s interview revealed that this practice was not just the result of a few rogue agents, but was official U.S. policy approved at the highest levels of the government.

Kiriakou is the sole CIA agent to go to jail in connection with the U.S. torture program, despite the fact that he never tortured anyone. Rather, he blew the whistle on this horrific wrongdoing.

John can be reached at: [email protected].

Featured image: Greeks march in front of U.S. embassy on November 17, 2006, to commemorate 1973 massacre by U.S.-backed military junta. [Source: commons.wikimedia.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).

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Boosting the Boosters

On Black Friday, alarmist media commentaries on rising COVID “cases” converged with dire reports of falling prices on the New York Stock Exchange. The plunge was attributed to claims that a new COVID “variant” was emerging in Southern Africa. Building on this news, the televised talking heads covering stock markets were suddenly pressed into duty as number-rattling promoters of the latest stage in the ongoing COVID Reset. The large amount of ink and airtime devoted to explanations of the investment implications of the new African variant add more evidence to the contention that the COVID Reset is mostly about banking, finance and debt manipulation rather than health care.

Crucial to the success of the emerging scheme to keep the COVID Reset in overdrive is the growing boosterism to promote booster injections. Boost the boosters seems to be the new advertising mantra of the vaccine obsessives.

Injection manufacturers are already lining up sequences of booster shots being designed to meet misguided expectations that yet more rounds of injection will protect humans from the incursions of one variant after the next of COVID-19. It seems so-called COVID variants are now being presented to the public by Covid Officialdom as receptacles for bundles of mutations.

Coronaviruses have long been deemed valuable for medical and military research because they evolve quickly through inevitable and rapid mutations. Patent lawyer David E. Martin has highlighted the commercial value of this fast-evolving category of viruses by pointing to at least 4000 patents claiming monopoly rights to corona-related products and procedures.

For at least two decades, bioweapons and vaccine manufacturers have built up a thriving coronavirus industry which is now becoming a core feature of the ascendant pharmaceutical industry. As carefully detailed and documented in Robert F. Kennedy’s new blockbuster, The Real Anthony: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, the pharmaceutical industry also has close ties to the intelligence agencies and to Pentagon programs for “biodefense.”

A fresh surge of fear mongering is being launched by the vast media apparatus channelling the pronouncements of Covid Officialdom. The new twist in the old false narrative comes once again from the operatives of the World Economic Forum who mostly take their orders from the Wall Street and Geneva Lords overseeing the manufactured COVID crisis.

Geneva is the global headquarters of the WHO, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and of Bill Gates’ Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, GAVI. According to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, “GAVI is the new NATO.” Like NATO, GAVI sometimes governs governments. GAVI’s founder and primary moving force has been granted diplomatic immunity by the Swiss government. Indeed, it seems that Gates and his close partner, Anthony Fauci, also have immunity from the criminal laws of the United States. See this.

Wall Street’s home stock exchange is being manipulated to keep the viral hysteria alive. One spinoff is to transform the latest iteration of the celebrity virus into a speculative platform for small investors. When COVID patients die, some stock speculators will benefit while others will lose in the zone where short and long bets compete for traction. The one constant in this gambling process is that those running the rigged stock market casinos always come out ahead.

On November 26, “Black Friday,” the Dow Jones average lost almost 1000 points. The public was told a tall tale that this dramatic drop came about because a new and particularly “concerning” variant of the celebrity virus was poised to renew the spread of infection throughout the world.

The stock market plunge was timed to coincide with a day known for conspicuous consumption on steroids. Market Watch hinted at the manipulation when it reported  “Black Friday is Fertile Grounds for Scams.” Indeed, the sudden materialization of a new variant on Black Friday could well be part of a scam timed to coincide strategically with the run up to Christmas, 2021. Many large and small businesses depend on robust Christmas sales to survive economically. Apparently the economic survival of small business is no longer seen as beneficial in some elite circles. See this.

Hours before Wall Street introduced the newest COVID hysteria on the New York Stock Exchange, the World Health Organization highlighted the new variant by giving it a simple name. That name is Omicron, a word that identifies the fifteenth letter in the Greek alphabet. Caught up in the initial burst of Omicron hysteria, the Prime Minister of Belgium proposed that the change in nomenclature should extend to christening the new variant as COVID-21. See this.

Up until the eve of Black Friday, the new variant was named B.1.1.529. The former B.1.1.529 is said to emanate from the southern portion of the African continent. Generally speaking, Africa south of the Sahara is not a region where large sectors of the population have been snared into the frenzy of the media-generated COVID panic. Nor have most people been lured into the false apprehension that COVID injections represent some sort of “safe and effective” health panacea. See this.

It is being reported by the media minions of Planet COVID that the Omicron variant has its origins in the region of Botswana and Johannesburg. On Black Friday there were many reports that the supposed COVID variant is spreading from throughout South Africa and to neighbouring countries. The initial rationale for pushing the panic button on Black Friday was that single cases said to be infected with the B.1.1.529 variant were identified in each of Hong Kong, Belgium and Tel Aviv.

What is never discussed in mainstream media is how the different variants are identified in a system of COVID “testing” that has yet to earn any points for honesty and reliability, let alone for scientific rigor. There is nothing in the current round of reports to suggest that anything has changed. The makers of the Omicron scare seem not to have transcended the appalling record of Covid Officialdom. The resort of the Team Covid to fraud and fakery has from its inception been an essential strategy in manufacturing the crisis in public health.

Once again extravagant conclusions are announced without the provision of any supporting proofs. Once again the COVID media minions are pointing their cameras at TV doctors whose ignorance and/or dishonesty is invariably well rewarded. For almost two years these TV doctors and the government health officials beside them have been integral agents in driving the hideous unfolding scandal. This scandal purposefully involves deceiving the public in many ways to persuade or bully them into taking COVID jabs. The evidence is now incontrovertible that the clot shots are having lethal or horribly injurious effects on millions of jab recipients.

The supposed discovery of individual cases of Omicron in Europe, the Orient and the Middle East was deemed to be sufficiently grave to shut down a number of international air connections. The news of many grounded flights led to a particularly precipitous fall in the stock prices of already bankrupted airlines. Are plans underway to crash the airline industry even deeper into debt so that the remnants can be picked up by members of the multi-billionaires club for a few cents on the dollar?

Against the advice of the WHO, the governments of UK, Canada, France, and Israel shut down flights to and from a long and growing list of counties mostly in the southern region of the African continent. Switzerland widened the net, imposing new quarantine requirements for air travellers coming in from Britain, the Czech Republic, Egypt, the Netherlands, and Malawi.

Omicron is said to emanate from South Africa and also from Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Angola and Mozambique. Hence the plandemic is being reconfigured yet again to present Africa south of the Sahara as a major new source of novel infection. Are the plandemic’s planners and operatives playing the race card yet again, this time on a global scale? In announcing the transformed situation, the BBC pronounced from the lead bully pulpit of Covid Officialdom, “World Races to Contain Omicron.” See this.

Reporting on a Possible New Plague Emanating from Africa

On November 25 in the British journal Nature, Ewen Callaway introduced B.1.1.529 and the investigation of it in South Africa. He wrote,

“Researchers in South Africa are racing to track the concerning rise of a new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The variant harbours a large number of the mutations found in other variants, including Delta, and it seems to be spreading quickly across South Africa.

A top priority is to follow the variant more closely as it spreads: it was first identified in Botswana earlier this month and has since turned up in a traveller arriving in Hong Kong from South Africa. Scientists are also trying to understand the variant’s properties, such as whether it can evade immune responses triggered by vaccines and whether it causes more or less severe disease than other variants do.”

Many of the early reports in mainstream media emphasized the concentration of mutations in the notorious spike proteins of the Omicron variant. The effort to alter and manipulate spike proteins is a major facet of the coronavirus industry including in its bioweapons branch. For instance at the end of January 2020 the University of New Delhi’s Kusuma School of Biological Sciences identified a genetically engineered spike protein with HIV-related inserts in what was then described in the scientific literature as 2019nCOV. See this.

The Kusma School’s report was widely condemned at the time. This important pioneering study was dismissed because it was declared to be out of step with the now-discredited theory that the celebrity virus had its origins in a chance transfer of the viral pathogen from an animal to humans in a Wuhan wet market. See this.

In 2021 much of the controversy swirling around the inadequately tested COVID jabs highlights the genetic inducements to produce proliferations of pathogenic spike proteins throughout the vascular systems of injection recipients. This pathogenic feature of the clot shots is causing some to see them as bioweapons instigating, for starters, heart attacks, strokes, myocarditis, infertility and hemorrhaging.

Most of the reports of Omicron emphasize that the South African variant hosts many mutations, most of them concentrated in spike proteins. Accordingly, NBC News may be laying the groundwork for many new panic-inducing stories to come when it cites the words of, for instance, Pasi Penttinen. Penttinen is the public health emergency response manager at the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. He told reporters, “It looks like this particular [Omicron] variant has a very concerning set of mutations especially in the spike protein.” See this.

On 27 November the Daily Express reported, “South African scientist Tulio de Oliveira said at a media briefing the Omicron Variant contains a collection of 50 mutations. More than 30 of these, he emphasized, are in the spike protein that interacts with human cells upon entry [including through injection].”

ABC’s News’ spin was introduced with the pronouncement that “Experts peg Omicron as the ‘worst variant that we have come across.’” As if to address the growing constituency of skeptics who well understand that Junk Science is regularly deployed to generate viral hysteria, the headline writers added, “Scientists say Omicron has 50 mutations. To put that into perspective, the highly transmissible Delta variant has 19.”

See the video of Anthony Fauci on CNN in a classic presentation of his slippery deceptiveness disguised as science.

The Omicron commentaries include a statement by Prof. Willem Hanekom. Prof. Hanekom is a compliant alumnus of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. One of Prof. Hanekom’s custom-made titles just happens to announce he is “co-chair of the South African COVID Variant Research Consortium.” See this.

This Gates-funded vaccine promoter declared,

“The variant is mostly in Gauteng province, the Johannesburg area of South Africa. But we’ve got clues from diagnostic tests [please explain]… that suggest the variant is all over South Africa [scientific conclusion?]… This is a unique opportunity. There’s still time for people who did not get vaccinated to go and get the vaccine, and that will provide some protection, we believe, against this infection, especially protection against severe infection, severe disease and death,” he said. “So I would call on people to vaccinate if they can.” See this.

Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, BlackRock and COVID-19

It would be perfectly in character for the corrupt leadership of many Wall Street institutions to deploy the New York Stock Exchange as a launching pad for the Omicron variant scare. As chronicled by Pam Martens and Russ Martens in their daily missives appearing in Wall Street on Parade, the Federal Reserve has blamed many financial woes for which it was responsible on the Covid-19 pandemic.

Slowly, however, the credibility is breaking down of all those who justify their actions by dependence on the official COVID narrative. This narrative initially presented the rise of COVID-19 as the outcome of an act of God that could not have been predicted or planned for. Thankfully this fairy tale is now being more widely exposed as the misleading myth it is.  This process of widened critical thinking is being helped by the startling revelations emerging from Robert F. Kennedy’s magnum opus.

In May of 2020 the Federal Reserve reported it had entered the year “in a healthy financial condition.” This characterization covered over the fact that the Federal Reserve “for the second time in 12 years, had to engage in trillions of dollars in Wall Street bank bailouts after assuring Congress for years that the financial system was fine.” The Fed needed to adopt the narrative of the COVID pandemic as a random act of nature  “in order to cover up its own negligent supervision of the behemoth banks.” See this.

The May 2020 article in Wall Street on Parade draws on an earlier article dated March 20. The earlier article highlight the stock market crash where the New York Stock Exchange lost more than a fifth of its value. The headline reads “The Fed Has Pumped $9 Trillion into Wall Street Over the Past Six Months.” This money was secretly dispersed to big banks at near zero interest. One of the biggest of these, JP Morgan Chase, gave Jamie Dimon, its Chairman and CEO, a $30 million pay package after he oversaw the guilty pleas to three of four federal felony charges against his bank. See this.

The Federal Reserve, like the Bank of Canada, operates under a shroud of veiled obfuscation. Especially in the era of the manufactured COVID crisis, the public is kept mostly in the dark of how much new money is being created in the name of helping people to ride out the COVID crisis. What is being mostly kept from public view is how much of the new money is secretly going into slush funds, many of them to reward friends cronies for political services rendered.

Accordingly, the claims of emergency measures are being malevolently deployed so that we are left largely in the dark about where the new debt-laden money is going.  As the Martens co-authors explained on 20 March, 2020

“Since the Fed turned on its latest money spigot to Wall Street [in September of 2019], it has refused to provide the public with the dollar amounts going to any specific banks. This has denied the public the ability to know which financial institutions are in trouble. The Fed, exactly as it did in 2008, has drawn a dark curtain around troubled banks and the public’s right to know, while aiding and abetting a financial coverup of just how bad things are on Wall Street.”

A new financial crisis broke out on Wall Street in September of 2019, months before the celebrity virus began to monopolize headlines in the winter and spring of 2020. This crisis resembled the first indication in late 2007 that something was drastically wrong on Wall Street prior to the deep stock market crash that came subsequently.

The crisis in 2007 was a freezing of credit in the so-called Repo market where big Wall Street institutions borrow and lend money over short periods like one or two days. This freeze in the viability of the Repo market signalled a breakdown of trust between financial institutions. As I described it in August of 2020 in an article entitled, “Lockdowns, Coronavirus and Banks: Following the Money,”

“It was in this atmosphere that the Repo Market became problematic in December of 2007 just as it showed similar signs of breakdown in September of 2019.

In both instances the level of trust between those in charge of financial institutions began to falter because they all had good reason to believe that their fellow bankers were overextended. All had reason to believe their counterparts were mired by too much speculative activity enabled by all sorts of novel experiments including in various forms of derivative dealing.

In December of 2007 as in the autumn of 2019, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was forced to enter the picture to keep the financial pumps on Wall Street primed. The New York Fed kept the liquidity cycles flowing by invoking its power to create new money with the interest charged to tax payers.

As the financial crisis unfolded in 2008 and 2009 the privately-owned Federal Reserve Bank of New York stepped forward to bail out many financial institutions that had become insolvent or near insolvent. In the process precedents and patterns were established that are being re-enacted with some modifications in 2020.

One of the innovations that took place in 2008 was the decision by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to hire a large Wall Street financial institution, BlackRock, to administer the bailouts. These transfers of money went through three specially created companies called Maiden Lane. Replicas of these companies are now referred to as Special Purpose Vehicles in the course of the payouts of 2020.”

In August of 2019 BlackRock organized a meeting of central bankers and their advisers in Jackson Hole in Wyoming. This meeting was planned and implemented well before the Covid crisis reared its head. In retrospect, the timing and content of the meeting signifies the current crisis began with a plan to reorganize global banking and finance, not attend to a public health problem. Pam Martens and Russ Martens introduce their article on the Jackson Hole meeting with the headline that “BlackRock Authored the Bailout Plan Before There Was a [Health] Crisis.” See this.

One way to see this meeting is as an introduction to some of the core concepts of the so-called “Great Reset” that were later promoted most zealously by the likes of Karl Schwab, Justin Trudeau and the officers of the International Monetary Fund. The BlackRock plan was entitled Dealing With the Next Downturn. 

The report was authored and presented at Jackson Hole by Stanley Fischer, former Governor of the Central Bank of Israel, Philipp Hildebrande, former Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, Jean Boivin, former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada, and Elga Bartsch, Economist at Morgan Stanley.

The plan called for a further merger of monetary policy and fiscal policy, in other words a further merger of private central banks and governments. Monetary policy determines the size of the money supply and debt rates. These powers are exercised by private central bankers who were well represented at the Jackson Hole event. Fiscal policy involves spending decisions and such. This area of jurisdiction is usually retained as the formal domain of government authority. Reflecting on the animosity generated in 2007-2010 by the $16 trillions of so-called “bailout” money that went to “too-big-to-fail” financial institutions, the bankers proposed “going direct” with government payouts of “helicopter money” to small businesses and to members of the general public.

BlackRock Investment Institute distributed copies of Dealing With the Next Downturn to the VIPs assembled at Jackson Hole. The subtext of the document’s title called for a transition From Unconventional Monetary Policy to Unprecedented Policy Coordination.

One of the core themes of the essay was the importance of learning from the Bailouts of 2007-10 to keep to a minimum the public animosity against the reset being planned. The authors wrote

There is growing political discontent across major economies – and central banks are one of the targets. Widening inequality has fostered a backlash against elites. There are many drivers of inequality, including at its root technology, winner-take-all dynamics and globalisation. The global financial crisis and the resulting forced bailout of financial institutions deemed too big too fail has added fuel to this backlash.

Not acting during the global financial crisis would have almost certainly led to a Great Depression-like outcome – much higher unemployment and even worse inequality. Yet that counterfactual provides no solace to those feeling left behind. And the monetary policy tools themselves might have increased inequality – and are certainly perceived to have done so – by pushing up the prices of assets owned by only a fraction of the population. Governments, not central banks, are ultimately accountable for issues of inequality and redistribution. And a greater use of fiscal policy tools is needed to offset the impact of central bank policies on inequality, including the impact of monetary policy. See this. 

Once the anticipated economic downturn came in 2020 BlackRock was hired by the Federal Reserve in the US as well as by the Bank of Canada and the Swedish Riksbank. The financial devastation was caused primarily by the ruination of many small businesses and supply chains through the forced subversion of “lockdowns.”

BlackRock took on government-like powers as a powerful participant in several financial resets. Generally speaking, BlackRock was in demand to valuate and oversee the purchase of corporate bonds. Many varieties of corporate bonds are often prominently included among so-called Junk Bonds.

In a column originally published in the Prince George Daily News, Peter Ewart observed that the remnants of free-market capitalism are now being eliminated altogether. As it stands now, governments take their signals more and more from the likes of BlackRock whose executives decide what businesses should or should not be bolstered with government backing. The government financial favours extended to the largely unregulated manufacturers of the COVID injections offer a telling example of monopoly capitalism at work. Ewart writes,

The situation also shows how the economic system in both Canada and the U.S. is not classical capitalism but rather state monopoly capitalism, where giant enterprises are regularly backstopped with public funds and the boundaries between the state and the financial oligarchy are virtually non-existent.

Ewart cited here.

Another preparatory assembly that occurred in 2019 is Event 201. This meeting of insiders in and around the orbits of Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci, Johns Hopkins University, and the intelligence agencies was organized as a simulation exercise. It just happened that the simulation exercise basically went live in the weeks ahead. The simulation turned out to be very much like the manufactured COVID crisis that gathered momentum in winter and spring of 2020.

Less well known is the pandemic simulation, Crimson Contagion, organized by Robert Kadlec. Spanning a period from January to August of 2019, Kadlec invited many officials to join in a scenario where a contagious disease spread from China to much of the rest of the world. See this.

As Robert F. Kennedy documents, Kadlec long worked closely with Anthony Fauci who has derived much of his budget and clout in government from his role in processes resulting in the US design and development of bioweapons. This military research and development often proceeds with the development of vaccines as antidotes to the illnesses caused by bioweapons.

Kennedy’s disdain for Fauci is palpable. He writes in his new book, “Tony Fauci does not do public health; he is a businessman, who has his office to enrich his pharmaceutical partners and expand the reach of influence that has made him the most powerful—and despotic—doctor in human history.”

Cited here.

Another indicator of prior knowledge of the coming pandemic was evident in the actions of many at the upper end of the US business community. As reflected in the surge of 1500 resignations of prominent American CEOs, many corporate executives may have been well aware in 2019 and that something very disruptive was being planned to begin in 2020.  Many of the resigning executives also cashed out their stock portfolios. See this and this.

Vaccine Passports and the Growth of Tyranny

The engineered stock market plunge on Black Friday was part of a long saga that is coming to constitute the most elaborate instance of psychological warfare ever mounted. This psychological warfare is inflicting enormous damage on the mental health of large swaths of the population, but especially on children. The frequency throughout the plandemic of many forms of child abuse, including injections and forced masking, is not be taken lightly.

This hybrid war on humanity is at once psychological, biological and financial. One aim is to depopulate the planet and plunge the survivors of this atrocity into new forms of transhuman enslavement. The opening stages of this new form of enslavement involve inserting bio-digital nanotechnology into our persons so we can be better monitored and controlled. Looking to the future of society where much more of the work will be done by robots, some are trying to bring humans into conformity with the rhythms and demands of far-reaching robotization.

The current round of injections reflects a desire on the part of Bill Gates and others of his ilk to reconstitute humans as a new variety of GMOs. The creation of genetically modified humans will make them more susceptible to monitoring and external manipulation through advances in the techniques and technologies of Artificial Intelligence, AI.

The creation of so-called vaccine passports should be seen for what it portends in terms of integrating humans more deeply into expanding networks of increasingly powerful Artificial Intelligence.

The introduction of vaccine passports opens the door to the creation of a standardized system of collecting and instrumentalizing data to increase the means of tyrannizing humanity under private and central authority. Such a development would take the private and central control of banks one giant step further.

See this.

The advancement of this scheme requires the collection and organization of great masses of data on every human on the planet. By combining financial data, medical data, human genome data, police data, travel data, contact data, and much much more, the private owners of this hugely valuable information resource would acquire many new and unprecedented levers of power. They would be well situated to achieve mastery over the survivors of the depopulation scheme.

Even from the distance of their remote locations, the future masters of the world’s primary data cache would be in a powerful position to reward us, penalize us, torture us, impoverish us, or even shut down our lives altogether. One way of picturing their power is to imagine the implementation of a cashless money transfer system, an outcome already being associated with the elaboration of vaccine passports. This kind of system could be deployed to deny to individuals displaying attributes of disobedience and non-compliance, the capacity to, for instance, purchase food. Humans would become subject to determinations made on the basis of digitalized social credit scores potentially far more ruthless in their intent than anything that now exists in China.

This effort to universalize and standardize a single worldwide system of data passports creates in the twenty-first century a movement that draws on precedents established in the history of banking during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There is much potential for continuity in the transition from control by centralized and privatized banks to full-blown tyranny through the provision of private and centralized health care. This continuity is reflected in the current genesis of a world where huge masses of data are coming to be seen as the new universal currency, the new gold.

It seems that those who have emerged victorious from this banking history have seized on the exploitation of so-called public health as a new means of making themselves even richer and more omnipotent. They are engaged in removing the few remaining checks and balances on which the fragile viability of our imperfect democracies and recognitions of human rights have depended. By bringing human survivors of depopulation under the authority of private and central systems of “public health,” the process continues of privatizing and centralizing power. The greatest mass of humanity would be placed under the iron grip of a tiny minority.

The move to subject humans to cradle-to-grave programs of mandatory vaccines would destroy the autonomy available to those with healthy systems of natural immunity. The imposition of extortion, like the crimes being expressed in jobs-for-jabs ultimatums, is forcing many segments of the work force towards new forms of coerced submission. The resulting demoralization of many is one of many factors pushing skyrocketing rates of suicide, domestic violence and addictions.

New forms of oppression are coming into existence by treating immunity to disease into a commodity. Our oppressors are implicitly telling us that this commercialized immunity is henceforth to derive exclusively from the spout of injected needles. The cost of industrially narrowing the spectrum and vitality of natural immunity comes at a very high human price. Natural immunity would be destroyed from endless rounds of required vaccines as administered through the control device of so-called vaccine passports.

Fingers Crossed

Quite clearly stock markets have long since ceased to be some sort of self-sustaining instrument of free market capitalism. Stock markets, like the economic structures that contain them, are notoriously subject to manipulation by those that control large concentrations of wealth.

Indeed, in the fast-moving course of the gruesome COVID Reset, the extent of the power invested in private central bankers is being illustrated with greater clarity every day.  Governments of first world countries are going the way of third world countries. Canada, the United States, UK and Europe increasingly face the same kind of unscrupulous creditors’ tactics described by John Perkins in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. See this.

Throughout the world our governments are falling more deeply under the self-interested sway of private central bankers. These private central bankers are more than happy to use their ill-gotten powers over the creation of money to facilitate the fast growth of national debts. These national debts are of course payable with compound interest charged ultimately to increasingly rare middle class taxpayers. Such taxpayers generally lack the access that rich people enjoy to tax havens and high end accountants.

As governments fall more deeply under the control of the private central bankers whose core institution is the Swiss-based Bank of International Settlements, they become more and more subject to external control over what they can and cannot do in the name of their citizens. Everywhere this process is unfolding it is average citizens who are losing out as the bankers gain more and more new ground. Thus it is that the little that remains of free market capitalism is diminishing every day along with the dwindling middle class.

Given this background it is not a stretch to posit that the New York Stock Exchange runs largely as a scripted spectacle serving the interests of wealth and power. The stock market crash of Black Friday supposedly on account of Omicron hysteria was quite likely a classic display of show biz razzle dazzle meant to keep in business the COVID machinery of fear mongering.

The Wall Street leviathan, BlackRock is a proxy of the money-creating Federal Reserve and a go-between with the US Treasury branch. BlackRock is also a major facilitator of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s wish to run up the national debt as quickly as possible as he rushes towards the phantom oasis of the Great Reset.

BlackRock’s silent partner is Vanguard. Together these monopolistic enterprises have a significant stake in almost every major company on earth. BlackRock emerged from the Wall Street giant, Blackstone, the firm that financed much of Lucky Larry Silverstein’s lucrative bets that reaped for him huge insurance payoffs from the events of 9/11. See this.

Meanwhile many small investors were left sitting in front of their TVs on Black Friday wondering what to make of the banner headline proclaiming, “Stocks Sink Amid Fears of New South African Covid Variant.”

How would this statement affect the modest retirement savings of TV viewers feeling cast adrift by this news that a new wave of COVID pandemonium might be on its way from Africa?

Those tuned in to Yahoo finance commentator, Simeon Hyman, might have found some assurance in his advice. Hyman began his commentary by advising his viewers that in spite of the dip in stock prices, he would stick with investments in corporate shares, equities, rather than purchase government bonds.

Hyman continued, “You have to look to the equity market and you just have to cross your fingers and hope that this variant isn’t another wave.” Perhaps crossing one’s fingers as an investment strategy makes about as much sense as heralding a new Omicron variant said to host a big bundle of mutations.

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Dr. Hall is editor in chief of the American Herald Tribune. He is currently Professor of Globalization Studies at University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada. He has been a teacher in the Canadian university system since 1982. Dr. Hall, has recently finished a big two-volume publishing project at McGill-Queen’s University Press entitled “The Bowl with One Spoon”.

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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Countering global alarmism about the omicron variant of COVID-19, the doctor who first discovered it says the strain is “mild” and hasn’t caused an uptick in hospitalizations.

Governments across the world are imposing new travel bans and other virus restrictions in response to claims the new strain is more transmissible and could prove more deadly than delta.

However, those with the most expertise on the ground in South Africa are all saying the opposite.

Barry Schoub, chairman of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Vaccines, told Sky News that the panic had been misplaced.

“The cases that have occurred so far have all been mild cases, mild-to-moderate cases, and that’s a good sign,” said Schoub.

Again contradicting claims that the new strain is likely to be more dangerous than delta, Schoub also pointed out that the omicron variant having a large number of mutations and therefore makes it less “fit” than the dominant delta strain.

“At the same time, one could make the point that while Omicron could soon become the dominant strain due to its higher R-nought (or pace of transmission), that could be a blessing in disguise as it pushes out the much more dangerous (and more stable) delta strain,” notes Zero Hedge.

Angelique Coetzee, chair of the South African Medical Association, echoed Schoub’s sentiments, noting that the patients infected with omicron had “symptoms (that) were so different and so mild from those I had treated before.”

Coetzee asserted that she hadn’t observed any “prominent symptoms” and that the variant doesn’t appear to be putting pressure on hospitals.

“What we are seeing clinically in South Africa and remember, I’m at the epicenter, that’s where I’m practicing, is extremely mild,” she stressed.

Responding “definitely” when asked if authorities were panicking unnecessarily, Coetzee attempted to dispel alarmist fearmongering.

“We haven’t admitted anyone” to the hospital with the new variant, she said. “I spoke to other colleagues of mine, the same picture.”

"Round about the 18 November, I all of a sudden encountered unusual symptoms" in a patient who was "extremely tired for the past two days"

Dr Angelique Coetzee explains how she became aware of the Omicron coronavirus variant
https://t.co/RsskjmFkLd #Marr pic.twitter.com/pXtyYsQxxR

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) November 28, 2021

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On this show we’ve repeatedly mentioned the work by “La Quinta Columna” in Spain. That name means “the Fifth Column,” and it’s a group of dissident researchers who have investigated these vaccines.

Most importantly, they’re the ones who studied a vaccine sample and found graphene oxide in it.

Dr. Pablo Compra joins us.

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Sudan literally cannot afford to militarily provoke Ethiopia even if Egypt partially bankrolls this campaign. This simple pragmatism might be the only thing stopping the scenario that was warned about in this analysis. Sudan’s false claims against Ethiopia over the weekend could have been a way of showing deference to its Egyptian patron even if Khartoum isn’t serious about attacking its neighbor like Cairo might want.

Sudan alleged over the weekend that the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) and its allies killed six of its soldiers during an attack in a disputed border region. Ethiopian government spokesman Legesse Tulu denied the claims the day after and clarified that “A large group of insurgents, bandits and terrorists had entered [from Sudan]. The Ethiopian National Defence Force and the local militia have destroyed them.” Khartoum’s information provocation occurred right around the time that the ENDF liberated the town of Chiffra in northern Afar Region. This suggests that the two events might be connected, in particular, that Sudan sought to establish the pretext for possibly militarily provoking Ethiopia sometime in the coming future in order to save the TPLF on its Egyptian patron’s behalf.

To explain this theory, the foreign-backed regime change terrorists are on the backfoot despite prior Western propaganda to the contrary, which was confirmed by the liberation of Chiffra. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who’s leading the war effort from the front lines, also just called on the TPLF to peacefully surrender. It’s therefore clear that the dynamics have completely changed since early November when the TPLF was on the offensive after Ethiopia’s state of emergency inspired thousands of its citizens to volunteer with the ENDF in order to help their country survive its existential crisis. For this reason, it makes sense why the TPLF’s Egyptian backers might push their Sudanese proxy to consider provoking military tensions with Ethiopia in order to save this terrorist group from its impending defeat.

Sudan, in its present form, cannot really be regarded as an independent country. Although the recent coup was partially reversed per the latest power-sharing deal that was agreed to in late November, that state still remains largely under its Egyptian neighbor’s influence. Khartoum also supports Cairo against Addis Ababa when it comes to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) issue. Mr. Legesse’s claim that the TPLF invaded Ethiopia from Sudan suggests some level of support from the latter. This in turn lends credence to the scenario that this country might be pushed into militarily provoking Ethiopia under the false pretext of “defending” itself from the ENDF’s debunked “invasion”. That could serve to dramatically internationalize the conflict and buy the TPLF some time to reconsolidate its fleeing forces.

Of course, it should go without saying that no such scenario might ultimately materialize, but it nevertheless can’t be dismissed at this point considering Sudan’s latest information provocation of falsely alleging an attack against its forces by the ENDF and its allies. This dangerous claim advances the scenario of wider conventional clashes between these neighboring nations against the context of Ethiopia’s ongoing domestic conflict. Addis Ababa’s debunking of Khartoum’s twisted interpretation of events also suggests that Sudan is playing a key role in supporting the TPLF’s terrorist-driven regime change war. Cairo has been banking on that group remaining a powerful force for internally partitioning Ethiopia and didn’t expect the ENDF to make such rapid gains against it so soon.

Faced with the predicament of its proxies being defeated in the coming future contrary to Egypt’s prior predictions that they’d at least be able to hold their ground in the Afar and Amhara Regions that they invaded over the summer, it’s indeed possible that Cairo could ask Khartoum to provoke military tensions with Addis Ababa. This could even be pushed through by a false flag attack or another twisted interpretation of the ENDF’s defensive anti-terrorist operations against the Sudanese-backed TPLF. From Egypt’s strategic standpoint, that might be the best option for saving its proxies, but it of course would require Sudan’s compliance. It remains unclear though whether its largely Egyptian-influenced government would risk sacrificing itself for its two allies’ sake, Egypt’s and the TPLF’s.

Sudan is among the poorest countries in the world and sharply divided with internal contradictions that threatened to spiral into civil war prior to the recent power-sharing agreement per the restored Prime Minister’s own words in an interview that he gave to the Financial Times earlier this week. It literally cannot afford to militarily provoke Ethiopia even if Egypt partially bankrolls this campaign. This simple pragmatism might be the only thing stopping the scenario that was warned about in this analysis. Sudan’s false claims against Ethiopia over the weekend could have been a way of showing deference to its Egyptian patron even if Khartoum isn’t serious about attacking its neighbor like Cairo might want.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

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

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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An unclassified summary of the Defense Department’s Global Posture review was released Monday and in the words of the indomitable Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, the song of American military primacy worldwide pretty much “remains the same.”

Of course the summary of the GPR, which has been long anticipated, doesn’t offer much detail, but the bottom line is this: China remains a key “pacing threat” and it will be met. There seems to be no plan, however, for reshuffling U.S. military forces from other theaters to grow the foot print in East Asia. Instead, Washington aims to build upon its strategic partnerships in the region. Where there is actual growth in the footprint, mentioned below, much of that had already been announced previously:

(The GPR) directs additional cooperation with allies and partners to advance initiatives that contribute to regional stability and deter potential Chinese military aggression and threats from North Korea.  These initiatives include seeking greater regional access for military partnership activities; enhancing infrastructure in Australia and the Pacific Islands; and planning rotational aircraft deployments in Australia, as announced in September.  The GPR also informed Secretary Austin’s approval of the permanent stationing of a previously-rotational attack helicopter squadron and artillery division headquarters in the Republic of Korea, announced earlier this year.

Most of the hullabaloo over the Australia-UK-U.S. (AUKUS) agreement in September had been over the transfer of nuclear submarine technology to Australia. But as David Vine pointed out in this RS article, AUKUS is also allowing the U.S. to station more assets and personnel Down Under, including, “combined logistics, sustainment, and capability for maintenance to support our enhanced activities, including…for our submarines and surface combatants” and “rotational deployments of all types of U.S. military aircraft to Australia.”

As the Wall Street Journal noted Monday in its summary of the summary, the Biden administration’s goal of meeting “China’s military buildup and more assertive use of power” doesn’t seem to be coming at the expense of U.S. force posture in other parts of the world. Those forces are largely staying put.

According to the DoD summary, in Europe, the GPR “strengthens the U.S. combat-credible deterrent against Russian aggression and enables NATO forces to operate more effectively.” This includes leaving the 25,000 troops President Trump wanted to take out of Germany right where they are in the region (which we already knew about). There is no further detail on how Washington plans to “strengthen the deterrent” against Russia, though we know there have been plenty of efforts on Capitol Hill to send more troops to Europe.

Those hoping to see the Biden administration begin to extricate from the Middle East won’t find much solace in this summary either. Without committing either way, the DoD says “the GPR assessed the department’s approach toward Iran and the evolving counterterrorism requirements following the end of DoD operations in Afghanistan. In Iraq and Syria, DoD posture will continue to support the Defeat-ISIS campaign and building the capacity of partner forces.  Looking ahead, the review directs DoD to conduct additional analysis on enduring posture requirements in the Middle East.”

The big news here is that Washington is not even considering leaving Iraq and Syria, which many smart analysts deem essential not only for American interests, but for the security of the region. On the greater question of whether there will be a major shift toward reducing the U.S.-led security obligations in the Middle East, the summary, at least, seems to punt. On Africa and the Americas, as indicated by the release yesterday, no discernible change in posture.

This shouldn’t come as any surprise, as the signs of status quo are all around us — just read the RS piece by Nick Turse on U.S. commando presence in Africa, and then in Europe. Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, National Guard units from Virginia and Kentucky sent 1,000 troops to Africa for “Task Force Red Dragon.” As Page/Plant wrote, “everything that’s small has got to grow,” and this footprint isn’t going anywhere, at least not yet.

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Featured image: President Joe Biden greets members of the military at a FEMA COVID-19 vaccination site Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, at NRG Stadium in Houston. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

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Washington is talking itself into war again. The signs are unmistakable.

Admirals are warning of China’s preparations to invade Taiwan and defense hawks on the Hill point to Taiwan as simply the first step in China’s long-term strategic bid for global military hegemony. Nervous European allies see a Russian troop concentration in Eastern Ukraine as evidence for an impending Russian invasion and the Biden administration responds by saying that America’s support for Ukraine is “ironclad.”

When U.S. politicians and senior military leaders invoke the threat of war, Americans must treat their comments seriously. With this in mind, it’s important to understand what did and what did not happen 80 years ago.

From 1920 until the outbreak of war with Imperial Japan, the Navy’s Pacific Fleet practiced fighting the Imperial Japanese Navy on an annual basis. These exercises informed extensive, detailed war plans that were developed in the 1930s.

Normally, after concluding the exercises, the fleet returned to its bases on the West Coast. In 1940, however, the fleet was ordered to remain at Pearl Harbor. Admiral James Richardson, commander-in-chief, U.S. Fleet, regarded the decision with grave concern.

Admiral Harold Stark, chief of naval operations, explained the decision to his subordinate commanders in a letter dated May 27, 1940, in which he said, “You are there because of the deterrent effect which it is thought your presence may have on the Japs going into the East Indies.”

Today, there is little doubt that the decision to retain the fleet in Hawaii was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s, not Stark’s. Admiral Stark repeatedly warned FDR of the potential danger of being drawn into a two-front war with Japan and Germany. General George Marshall, Army chief of staff, agreed with Stark.

On June 17, 1940, Marshall convened a meeting with Army planners to specifically examine the worst-case scenario: a Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Marshall knew the Philippines could not be defended for long without reinforcement against a determined Japanese attack. If the fleet were destroyed in Pearl Harbor, an operation to relieve the beleaguered American garrison in the Philippines would be impossible. As they often do, policy decisions in Washington outpaced U.S. military preparations.

On July 26, 1941 FDR issued an executive order freezing Japanese assets in the U.S. and halting all trade with Japan. Army and Navy strategic planners understood Japan’s strategic dilemma: Either Tokyo meets FDR’s conditions for lifting the oil embargo—the complete evacuation of Japanese forces from China—or Tokyo secures oil, rubber and other critical war materials by striking south to conquer the resource-rich Dutch East Indies.

Retaining the fleet in Hawaii did nothing to deter Japan. The war plans developed in the 1930s were shelved. Neither the U.S. armed forces nor the resources to implement the plans existed in December 1941.

After Pearl Harbor, 30,000 U.S. Soldiers tasked to relieve the American garrison in the Philippines were diverted to Australia. The U.S. Navy could fight its way across 8,000 miles of ocean and deliver them safely. The humiliating surrender of American forces on Corregidor followed in May 1942.

Is now the time for President Biden to take inflexible policy positions on Eastern Ukraine or Taiwan from which it is extremely difficult to retreat? Resorting to the use of military power against continental opponents like China or Russia—nations that fight in their own “near abroad”—demands the persistent employment of powerful U.S. and allied ground, air, and naval forces. America’s armed forces today are no more ready for this mission than were our forces in December 1941.

Moreover, the great powers that once stood between Washington and its opponents in 1941 no longer exist. With few exceptions, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a collection of U.S. military protectorates that bring modest capability to a U.S.-led fight. Germany is an economic superpower, but a military pygmy.

To date, only Japan has rebuilt a fraction of its former military power, but the notion that Japan would join the U.S. in a war against China or Russia is fanciful. In nearly all but Washington’s eyes, China is not Imperial Japan and Russia is not the Soviet Union. If anything, everyone in Asia wants to do business with China, not fight a destructive regional war.

For the moment, Washington and its NATO allies are discovering that the most dangerous threat is not a handful of Russian soldiers in green uniforms without insignias, nor is it a coordinated cyber-attack: It is a high-end conventional offensive launched by Russian ground forces from Russian soil that could prove impossible to halt.

Will Moscow’s patience with Ukrainian attacks on Russian-held territory in the Donbass finally end? The answer is unclear.

It is known that all of the nuclear armed submarines in Russia’s Pacific fleet recently put to sea on high alert. Moscow’s move does not indicate a readiness to employ nuclear weapons. Rather, the action is a signal to Washington that if U.S. and allied forces should falter in a future collision with Russian forces in the Black Sea or Eastern Ukraine, Moscow possesses a secure second-strike nuclear weapons capability that the U.S. armed forces cannot defeat.

Pearl Harbor is a grim reminder that threats without the ability to carry them out do not constitute deterrence. The thought is certainly worthy of President Biden’s consideration.

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Douglas Macgregor, Col. (ret.) is a senior fellow with The American Conservative, the former advisor to the Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, a decorated combat veteran, and the author of five books.

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I’m a voracious reader of Covid books but nothing could have prepared me for Scott Atlas’s A Plague Upon Our House, a full and mind-blowing account of the famed scientist’s personal experience with the Covid era and a luridly detailed account of his time at the White House. The book is hot fire, from page one to the last, and will permanently affect your view of not only this pandemic and the policy response but also the workings of public health in general. 

Atlas’s book has exposed a scandal for the ages. It is enormously valuable because it fully blows up what seems to be an emerging fake story involving a supposedly Covid-denying president who did nothing vs. heroic scientists in the White House who urged compulsory mitigating measures consistent with prevailing scientific opinion. Not one word of that is true. Atlas’s book, I hope, makes it impossible to tell such tall tales without embarrassment.

Anyone who tells you this fictional story (including Deborah Birx) deserves to have this highly credible treatise tossed in his direction. The book is about the war between real science (and genuine public health), with Atlas as the voice for reason both before and during his time in the White House, vs. the enactment of brutal policies that never stood any chance of controlling the virus while causing tremendous damage to the people, to human liberty, to children in particular, but also to billions of people around the world.

For the reader, the author is our proxy, a reasonable and blunt man trapped in a world of lies, duplicity, backstabbing, opportunism, and fake science. He did his best but could not prevail against a powerful machine that cares nothing for facts, much less outcomes.

If you have heretofore believed that science drives pandemic public policy, this book will shock you. Atlas’s recounting of the unbearably poor thinking on the part of government-based “infectious disease experts” will make your jaw drop (thinking, for example, of Birx’s off-the-cuff theorizing about the relationship between masking and controlling case spreads).

Throughout the book, Atlas points to the enormous cost of the machinery of lockdowns, the preferred method of Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx: missed cancer screenings, missed surgeries, nearly two years of educational losses, bankrupted small business, depression and drug overdoses, overall citizen demoralization, violations of religious freedom, all while public health massively neglected the actual at-risk population in long-term care facilities. Essentially, they were willing to dismantle everything we called civilization in the name of bludgeoning one pathogen without regard to the consequences.

The fake science of population-wide “models” drove policy instead of following the known information about risk profiles.

“The one unusual feature of this virus was the fact that children had an extraordinarily low risk,” writes Atlas. “Yet this positive and reassuring news was never emphasized. Instead, with total disregard of the evidence of selective risk consistent with other respiratory viruses, public health officials recommended draconian isolation of everyone.”

“Restrictions on liberty were also destructive by inflaming class distinctions with their differential impact,” he writes, “exposing essential workers, sacrificing low-income families and kids, destroying single-parent homes, and eviscerating small businesses, while at the same time large companies were bailed out, elites worked from home with barely an interruption, and the ultra-rich got richer, leveraging their bully pulpit to demonize and cancel those who challenged their preferred policy options.”

In the midst of continued chaos, in August 2020, Atlas was called by Trump to help, not as a political appointee, not as a PR man for Trump, not as a DC fixer but as the only person who in nearly a year of unfolding catastrophe had a health-policy focus. He made it clear from the outset that he would only say what he believed to be true; Trump agreed that this was precisely what he wanted and needed. Trump got an earful and gradually came around to a more rational view than that which caused him to wreck the American economy and society with his own hands and against his own instincts.

In Task Force meetings, Atlas was the only person who showed up with studies and on-the-ground information as opposed to mere charts of infections easily downloadable from popular websites.

“A bigger surprise was that Fauci did not present scientific research on the pandemic to the group that I witnessed. Likewise, I never heard him speak about his own critical analysis of any published research studies. This was stunning to me. Aside from intermittent status updates about clinical trial enrollments, Fauci served the Task Force by offering an occasional comment or update on vaccine trial participant totals, mostly when the VP would turn to him and ask.”

When Atlas spoke up, it was almost always to contradict Fauci/Birx but he received no backing during meetings, only to have many people in attendance later congratulate him for speaking out. Still, he did, by virtue of private meetings, have a convert in Trump himself, but by then it was too late: not even Trump could prevail against the wicked machine he had permissioned into operation.

It’s a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington story but applied to matters of public health. From the outset of this disease panic, policy came to be dictated by two government bureaucrats (Fauci and Birx) who, for some reason, were confident in their control over media, bureaucracies, and White House messaging, despite every attempt by the president, Atlas, and a few others to get them to pay attention to the actual science about which Fauci/Birx knew and care little.

When Atlas would raise doubts about Birx, Jared Kushner would repeatedly assure him that “she is 100% MAGA.” Yet we know for certain that this is not true. We know from a different book on the subject that she only took the position with the anticipation that Trump would lose the presidency in the November election. That’s hardly a surprise; it’s the bias expected from a career bureaucrat working for a deep-state institution.

Fortunately, we now have this book to set the record straight. It gives every reader an inside look at the workings of a system that wrecked our lives. If the book finally declines to offer an explanation for the hell that was visited upon us – every day we still ask the question why? – it does provide an accounting of the who, when, where, and what. Tragically, too many scientists, media figures, and intellectuals in general went along. Atlas’s account shows exactly what they signed up to defend, and it’s not pretty.

The cliche that kept coming to mind as I read is “breath of fresh air.” That metaphor describes the book perfectly: blessed relief from relentless propaganda. Imagine yourself trapped in an elevator with stultifying air in a building that is on fire and the smoke gradually seeps in from above. Someone is in there with you and he keeps assuring you that everything is fine, when it is obviously not.

That’s a pretty good description of how I felt from March 12, 2020 and onward. That was the day that President Trump spoke to the nation and announced that there would be no more travel from Europe. The tone in his voice was spooky. It was obvious that more was coming. He had clearly fallen sway to extremely bad advice, perhaps he was willing to push lockdowns as a plan to deal with a respiratory virus that was already widespread in the US from perhaps 5 to 6 months earlier.

It was the day that the darkness descended. A day later (March 13), the HHS distributed its lockdown plans for the nation. That weekend, Trump met for many hours with Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx, son-in-law Jared Kushner, and only a few others. He came around to the idea of shutting down the American economy for two weeks. He presided over the calamitous March 16, 2020, press conference, at which Trump promised to beat the virus through general lockdowns.

Of course he had no power to do that directly but he could urge it to happen, all under the completely delusional promise that doing so would solve the virus problem. Two weeks later, the same gang persuaded him to extend the lockdowns.

Trump went along with the advice because it was the only advice he was fed at the time. They made it appear that the only choice that Trump had – if he wanted to beat the virus – was to wage war on his own policies that were pushing for a stronger, healthier economy. After surviving two impeachment attempts, and beating back years of hate from a nearly united media afflicted by severe derangement syndrome, Trump was finally hornswoggled.

Atlas writes: “On this highly important criterion of presidential management—taking responsibility to fully take charge of policy coming from the White House—I believe the president made a massive error in judgment. Against his own gut feeling, he delegated authority to medical bureaucrats, and then he failed to correct that mistake.”

The truly tragic fact that both Republicans and Democrats do not want spoken about is that this whole calamity is that did indeed begin with Trump’s decision. On this point, Atlas writes:

Yes, the president initially had gone along with the lockdowns proposed by Fauci and Birx, the “fifteen days to slow the spread,” even though he had serious misgivings. But I still believe the reason that he kept repeating his one question—“Do you agree with the initial shutdown?”—whenever he asked questions about the pandemic was precisely because he still had misgivings about it.

Large parts of the narrative are devoted to explaining precisely how and to what extent Trump had been betrayed. “They had convinced him to do exactly the opposite of what he would naturally do in any other circumstance,” Atlas writes, that is

“to disregard his own common sense and allow grossly incorrect policy advice to prevail…. This president, widely known for his signature “You’re fired!” declaration, was misled by his closest political intimates. All for fear of what was inevitable anyway—skewering from an already hostile media. And on top of that tragic misjudgment, the election was lost anyway. So much for political strategists.”

There are so many valuable parts to the story that I cannot possibly recount them all. The language is brilliant, e.g. he calls the media “the most despicable group of unprincipled liars one could ever imagine.” He proves that assertion in page after page of shocking lies and distortions, mostly driven by political goals.

I was particularly struck by his chapter on testing, mainly because that whole racket mystified me throughout. From the outset, the CDC bungled the testing part of the pandemic story, attempting to keep the tests and process centralized in DC at the very time when the entire nation was in panic. Once that was finally fixed, months too late, mass and indiscriminate PCR testing became the desiderata of success within the White House. The problem was not just with the testing method:

“Fragments of dead virus hang around and can generate a positive test for many weeks or months, even though one is not generally contagious after two weeks. Moreover, PCR is extremely sensitive. It detects minute quantities of virus that do not transmit infection…. Even the New York Times wrote in August that 90 percent or more of positive PCR tests falsely implied that someone was contagious. Sadly, during my entire time at the White House, this crucial fact would never even be addressed by anyone other than me at the Task Force meetings, let alone because for any public recommendation, even after I distributed data proving this critical point.”

The other problem is the wide assumption that more testing (however inaccurate) of whomever, whenever was always better. This model of maximizing tests seemed like a leftover from the HIV/AIDS crisis in which tracing was mostly useless in practice but at least made some sense in theory. For a widespread and mostly wild respiratory disease transmitted the way a cold virus is transmitted, this method was hopeless from the beginning. It became nothing but make work for tracing bureaucrats and testing enterprises that in the end only provided a fake metric of “success” that served to spread public panic.

Early on, Fauci had clearly said that there was no reason to get tested if you had no symptoms. Later, that common-sense outlook was thrown out the window and replaced with an agenda to test as many people as possible regardless of risk and regardless of symptoms. The resulting data enabled Fauci/Birx to keep everyone in a constant state of alarm. More test positivity to them implied only one thing: more lockdowns. Businesses needed to close harder, we all needed to mask harder, schools needed to stay closed longer, and travel needed to be ever more restricted. That assumption became so entrenched that not even the president’s own wishes (which had changed from Spring to Summer) made any difference.

Atlas’s first job, then, was to challenge this whole indiscriminate testing agenda. To his mind, testing needed to be about more than accumulating endless amounts of data, much of it without meaning; instead, testing should be directed toward a public-health goal. The people who needed tests were the vulnerable populations, particularly those in nursing homes, with the goal of saving lives among those who were actually threatened with severe outcomes. This push to test, contact trace, and quarantine anyone and everyone regardless of known risk was a huge distraction, and also caused huge disruption in schooling and enterprise.

To fix it meant changing the CDC guidelines. Atlas’s story of attempting to do that is eye-opening. He wrestled with every manner of bureaucrat and managed to get new guidelines written, only to find that they had been mysteriously reverted to the old guidelines one week later. He caught the “error” and insisted that his version prevail. Once they were issued by the CDC, the national press was all over it, with the story that the White House was pressuring the scientists at the CDC in terrible ways. After a week-long media storm, the guidelines changed yet again. All of Atlas’s work was made null.

Talk about discouraging! It was also Atlas’s first full experience in dealing with deep-state machinations. It was this way throughout the lockdown period, a machinery in place to implement, encourage, and enforce endless restrictions but no one person in particular was there to take responsibility for the policies or the outcomes, even as the ostensible head of state (Trump) was on record both publicly and privately opposing the policies that no one could seem to stop.

As an example of this, Atlas tells the story of bringing some massively important scientists to the White House to speak with Trump: Martin Kulldorff, Jay Bhattacharya, Joseph Ladapo, and Cody Meissner. People around the president thought the idea was great. But somehow the meeting kept being delayed. Again and again. When it finally went ahead, the schedulers only allowed for 5 minutes. But once they met with Trump himself, the president had other ideas and prolonged the meeting for an hour and a half, asking the scientists all kinds of questions about viruses, policy, the initial lockdowns, the risks to individuals, and so on.

The president was so impressed with their views and knowledge – what a dramatic change that must have been for him – that he invited filming to be done plus pictures to be taken. He wanted to make it a big public splash. It never happened. Literally. White House press somehow got the message that this meeting never happened. The first anyone will have known about it other than White House employees is from Atlas’s book.

Two months later, Atlas was instrumental in bringing in not only two of those scientists but also the famed Sunetra Gupta of Oxford. They met with the HHS secretary but this meeting too was buried in the press. No dissent was allowed. The bureaucrats were in charge, regardless of the wishes of the president.

Another case in point was during Trump’s own bout with Covid in early October. Atlas was nearly sure that he would be fine but he was forbidden from talking to the press. The entire White House communications office was frozen for four days, with no one speaking to the press. This was against Trump’s own wishes. This left the media to speculate that he was on his deathbed, so when he came back to the White House and announced that Covid is not to be feared, it was a shock to the nation. From my own point of view, this was truly Trump’s finest moment. To learn of the internal machinations happening behind the scenes is pretty shocking.

I can’t possibly cover the wealth of material in this book, and I expect this brief review to be one of several that I write. I do have a few disagreements. First, I think the author is too uncritical toward Operation Warp Speed and doesn’t really address how the vaccines were wildly oversold, to say nothing of growing concerns about safety, which were not addressed in the trials. Second, he seems to approve of Trump’s March 12th travel restrictions, which struck me as brutal and pointless, and the real beginning of the unfolding disaster. Third, Atlas inadvertently seems to perpetuate the distortion that Trump recommended ingesting bleach during a press conference. I know that this was all over the papers. But I’ve read the transcript of that press conference several times and find nothing like this. Trump actually makes clear that he was speaking about cleaning surfaces. This might be yet another case of outright media lies.

All that aside, this book reveals everything about the insanity of 2020 and 2021, years in which good sense, good science, historical precedent, human rights, and concerns for human liberty were all thrown into the trash, not just in the US but all over the world.

Atlas summarizes the big picture:

“in considering all the surprising events that unfolded in this past year, two in particular stand out. I have been shocked at the enormous power of government officials to unilaterally decree a sudden and severe shutdown of society—to simply close businesses and schools by edict, restrict personal movements, mandate behavior, regulate interactions with our family members, and eliminate our most basic freedoms, without any defined end and with little accountability.”

Atlas is correct that “the management of this pandemic has left a stain on many of America’s once noble institutions, including our elite universities, research institutes and journals, and public health agencies. Earning it back will not be easy.”

Internationally, we have Sweden as an example of a country that (mostly) kept its sanity. Domestically, we have South Dakota as an example of a place that stayed open, preserving freedom throughout. And thanks in large part to Atlas’s behind-the-scenes work, we have the example of Florida, whose governor did care about the actual science and ended up preserving freedom in the state even as the elderly population there experienced the greatest possible protection from the virus.

We all owe Atlas an enormous debt of gratitude, for it was he who persuaded the Florida governor to choose the path of focussed protection as advocated by the Great Barrington Declaration, which Atlas cites as the “single document that will go down as one of the most important publications in the pandemic, as it lent undeniable credibility to focused protection and provided courage to thousands of additional medical scientists and public health leaders to come forward.”

Atlas experienced the slings, arrows, and worse. The media and the bureaucrats tried to shut him up, shut him down, and body bag him professionally and personally. Cancelled, meaning removed from the roster of functional, dignified human beings. Even colleagues at Stanford University joined in the lynch mob, much to their disgrace. And yet this book is that of a man who has prevailed against them.

In that sense, this book is easily the most crucial first-person account we have so far. It is gripping, revealing, devastating for the lockdowners and their vaccine-mandating successors, and a true classic that will stand the test of time. It’s simply not possible to write the history of this disaster without a close examination of this erudite first-hand account.

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Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press and ten books in 5 languages, most recently Liberty or Lockdown. He is also the editor of The Best of Mises. He speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture. [email protected]

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