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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Western media have not stopped reporting negative news about the performance of the Ukrainian military since the launch of its counteroffensive last summer, in which more than 90,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed or injured. This time, The New York Times described the conditions in which Kiev’s troops operate, which have long suffered from a shortage of soldiers, making it extremely difficult to advance.

The outlet interviewed members of the 117th Separate Mechanized Brigade of Ukraine. One of them said, “Physically we are exhausted.” While they claimed that morale was high, they could not hide the deficiencies in their ranks.

“We are short of people,” said an intelligence commander of the 117th Brigade who uses the call sign, Banderas, supposedly after the actor Antonio Banderas, but this is likely a cover story, and he is instead probably named after Stepan Bandera, a World War II Ukrainian Nazi collaborator. “We have weapons but not enough men,” Banderas added.

Both officers and soldiers admitted to the American newspaper that “Russian attacks were so intense that operating near the frontline has never been so dangerous.”

“Soldiers said that since March they had suffered the additional devastating power of glide bombs, half-ton explosives unleashed from planes that smash through underground bunkers,” noted the newspaper.

“They would send them two by two by two, eight in an hour,” said a 27-year-old soldier of the 14th Chervona Kalyna National Guard Brigade, known as Kit. Like others interviewed, Kit identified himself by his call sign, according to military protocol. “It sounds like a jet coming down on you,” he said, “like hell’s gate.”

Kit told the New York Times that he believes the Kiev regime “should be doing more” to reinforce its arsenal of drones, a weapon that, according to him, Moscow uses effectively. He highlighted that, unlike Russia, Kiev still relies on civilian volunteers and donors for its drone program.

According to the newspaper, Russian forces use a type of “subterfuge” to play tapes of gunfire on drones and, in this way, make Ukrainian soldiers believe they are being attacked, leading them to abandon their bunkers and reveal their positions.

In addition, Ukrainian forces also deal with smoke grenades launched by Russian drones, which “causes a very strong pain in the eyes and a fire, like a piece of coal, in your throat, and you cannot breathe,” according to a Ukrainian soldier identified as Medic.

“The toll is heavy for all units along the front. Almost everyone has been wounded or survived a narrow escape in recent months,” soldiers said to the outlet.

The revelations made to the New York Times match recent reports from the front about the increasingly bleak picture for the Ukrainian military following the failure of last year’s counteroffensive, a new round of Russian missile and drone attacks, concerns that NATO may abandon Ukraine, and fears of the possibility of a Russian advance along the front.

Zelensky himself said that many of Ukrainians were no longer committed to the war. The exhaustion is felt by the soldiers, as revealed in the New York Times, but also by ordinary citizens and the West. Western political and military leaders recognise that there is no hope of regaining Ukraine’s lost territories, but Zelensky maintains the delusion to citizens that even Crimea could be captured.

The Russian and Ukrainian armies strive to stabilise the front and carry out strategic strikes, but this requires the appropriate capabilities. In this context, it is Russia showing its superiority in a war of attrition aimed at exhausting the morale and resources of Ukraine at a time when the country is becoming increasingly dependent on foreign support.

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov told The Wall Street Journal in an article published on January 8, that Kiev has been using FPV drones instead of artillery because it does not have enough ammunition, with Ukrainian forces firing one or two shots for every five or six from the Russians.

The newspaper also completed an analysis of the strategic situation last week, showing that Russia’s military budget and weapons production capabilities have increased dramatically over the past two years. “Ukraine is also investing in domestic military production capabilities, but it is no match for a much larger Russian military-industrial complex running at full steam. Kiev could fall further behind as Western support dries up,” WSJ reported.

US and European officials have repeatedly warned that Ukraine’s military will fail against Russia without further cash injections from NATO allies, confirming Moscow’s characterisation of the Ukrainian crisis as a “proxy war” between Russia and the Western bloc. Whilst soldiers, society and Westerners are tired of fighting, Zelensky insists on continuing the futile war effort against Russia.

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Joining forces: The International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine has enabled thousands of foreign volunteers to join the fight against the Russian invaders. Image: Mil.gov.ua / Wikimedia Commons

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What a show.  As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was promoting a message of calm restraint and firm control in limiting the toxic fallout of Israel’s horrific campaign in Gaza, a decision was made by his government, the United Kingdom and a few other reticent collaborators to strike targets in Yemen, including the capital Sana’a. These were done, purportedly, as retribution for attacks on international commercial shipping in the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

The wording in a White House media release mentions the operation’s purpose and the relevant participants.

“In response to continued illegal, dangerous, and destabilizing Houthi attacks against vessels, including commercial shipping, transiting the Red Sea, the armed forces of the United States and the United Kingdom, with support from the Netherlands, Canada, Bahrain, and Australia, conducted joint strikes in accordance with the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense”.

US Air Forces Central Command further revealed that the “multinational action targeted radar systems, defense systems, and storage and launch sites for one way attack unmanned aerial systems, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles.”

The rationale by the Houthis is that they are targeting shipping with a direct or ancillary Israeli connection, hoping to niggle them over the barbarities taking place in Gaza. As the Israeli Defence Forces are getting away with, quite literally, bloody murder, the task has fallen to other forces to draw attention to that fact. Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdusalam’s post was adamant that

“there was no threat to international navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas, and the targeting was and will continue to affect Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine.”

But that narrative has been less attractive to the supposedly law-minded types in Washington and London, always mindful that commerce trumps all. Preference has been given to such shibboleths as freedom of navigation, the interests of international shipping, all code for the protection of large shipping interests. No mention is made of the justification advanced by the Houthi rebels and the Palestinian plight, a topic currently featuring before the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

Another feature of the strikes is the absence of a Security Council resolution from the United Nations, technically the sole body in the international system able to authorise the use of force under the UN Charter. A White House statement on January 11 attributes authority to the strikes much the same way the administration of George W. Bush did in justifying the warrantless, and illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003. (Ditto those on his same, limited bandwidth, Tony Blair of the UK and John Howard of Australia.) On that occasion, the disappointment and frustrations of weapons inspectors and rebukes from the UN about the conduct of Saddam Hussein, became vulnerable to hideous manipulation by the warring parties.

On this occasion, a “broad consensus as expressed by 44 countries around the world on December 19, 2023” and “the statement by the UN Security Council on December 1, 2023, condemning Houthi attacks against merchant and commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea” is meant to add ballast. Lip service is paid to the self-defence provisions of the UN Charter.

In a separate statement, Biden justified the attack on Houthi positions as necessary punishment for “unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea – including the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time in history.” He also made much of the US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian, “a coalition of more than 20 nations committed to defending international shipping and deterring Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.” No mention of the Israeli dimension here, at all.

In addition to the pregnant questions on the legality of such strikes in international law, the attacks, at least as far as US execution was concerned, was far from satisfactory to some members of Congress. Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashita Tlaib was irked that US lawmakers had not been consulted. “The American people are tired of endless war.” Californian Rep. Barbara Lee warned that,

“Violence only begets more violence. We need a ceasefire now to prevent deadly, costly, catastrophic escalation of violence in the region.”

A number of Republicans also registered their approval of the stance taken by another Californian Democrat, Rep. Ro Khanna, who expressed with certitude the view that Biden had “to come to Congress before launching a strike against the Houthis in Yemen and involving us in another middle eastern conflict.” Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah was in full agreement, as was West Virginia Republican Rep. Thomas Massie 

“Only Congress has the power to declare war,” Massie affirmed.

Unfortunately for these devotees of Article I of the US Constitution, which vests Congress approval powers for making war, the War Powers Act, passed by Congress in November 1973, merely requires the president to inform Congress within 48 hours of military action, and the termination of such action within 60 days of commencement in the absence of a formal declaration of war by Congress or authorisation of military conflict. These days, clipping the wings of the executive when it comes to engaging in conflict is nigh impossible.

There was even less of a debate about the legality or wisdom of the Yemen strikes in Australia.  Scandalously, and with a good deal of cowardice, the government preferred a deafening silence for hours in the aftermath of the operation. The only source confirming that personnel of the Australian Defence Forces were involved came from Biden, the commander-in-chief of another country. There had been no airing of the possibility of such involvement.  Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had, in not sending a warship from the Royal Australian Navy to join Operation Prosperity Guardian, previously insisted that diplomacy might be a better course of action. Evidently, that man is up for turning at a moment’s notice.

In a brief statement made at 4.38 pm on of January 12 (there was no press conference in sight, no opportunity to inquire), Albanese declared with poor conviction that,

“Australia alongside other countries has supported the United States and the United Kingdom to conduct strikes to deal with this threat to global rules and commercial shipping.”

He had waited for the best part of a day to confirm it to the citizenry of his country. He had done so without consulting Parliament.

Striking the Houthis would seem, on virtually all counts, to be a signal failure. Benjamin H. Friedman of Defense Priorities sees error piled upon error:

“The strikes on the Houthis will not work. They are very unlikely to stop Houthi attacks on shipping. The strikes’ probable failure will invite escalation to more violent means that may also fail.”

The result: policymakers will be left “looking feckless and thus tempted to up the ante to more pointless war to solve a problem better left to diplomatic means.” Best forget any assuring notions of taking the sting out of the expanding hostilities. All roads to a widening war continue to lead to Israel.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected]

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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In the worlds of journalism and political activism, John Pilger stands out as one of the greatest and most courageous voices of our time. In a career that reaches as far back as the Vietnam War, John has been a persistent thorn in the side of corrupt political power and, in particular, the West’s belligerent and repressive Imperialism. He went to the places he reported on, often at great risk to himself. He defended the disenfranchised, the weak and the vulnerable against the rapacious colonialist power complexes that preyed upon the sectors of society that could not fight back. He was a champion of truth and many of us have stood on his shoulders to attempt to emulate his courage under fire. The world has lost a powerful force for justice and truth.

It was a deep understanding of how power operates in liberal democracies that marked John out. Unlike so many of his peers, John recognised the powerful constraints that acted upon journalists — the political and corporate pressures, the propensity to self-censor, the unwarranted deference to official sources — and he fought hard against these. At the same time, he was unique among journalists in terms of understanding the role and significance of propaganda. Usually dismissed by corporate/legacy media journalists as a feature of non-democratic ‘enemy’ states, John understood the extent to which propaganda is used in order to manipulate Western populations, especially in times of war.

And it was because of this informed approach to the craft of journalism that he became such an effective voice for marginalised and repressed people around the world, and those of us who have sought to challenge the belligerent and nefarious foreign policies pursued by the US and its allies.

Early in his career he joined the UK’s Daily Mirror, becoming chief foreign correspondent, at a time when the US war of aggression against the Vietnamese people was at its height. His first film, The Quiet Mutiny for ITV’s World in Action in 1970*,* documented the collapse in morale amongst US forces in Vietnam.

Four years later, Vietnam: Still America’s War revealed the ongoing US engagement in Vietnam and its consequences for civilian suffering. He also documented events in Cambodia in Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia, noting the culpability of Nixon and Kissinger in terms of laying the ground work for that disastrous phase in Cambodia’s history. When Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975, with the backing of the US, and unleashed a genocidal campaign that wiped out one third of the population, Pilger shined a spotlight on these crimes.

During the 1990s, when the liberal classes were celebrating the End of History and the West’s purported new found humanitarianism, John maintained his critical gaze. The documentary Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq documented the brutal consequences of the UN sanctions in place against Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War. In this case, the US-led sanctions regime and the resulting deaths of half a million children was infamously justified by the then US Secretary of State Madeline Albright as a ‘price worth paying’. Senior UN officials Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck both resigned over these horrors whilst UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, by highlighting the basic lie underpinning the sanctions regime regarding alleged Iraqi production and possession of chemical and biological weapons, effectively foretold the deceptions that would subsequently be used in 2002/2003 to justify the US-led invasion of Iraq. John was there to help keep the record straight.

When the US invaded Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 event, John was quick to point out the injustice of such actions and the thinly disguised resource interests driving US policy. He also noted the plausibility that 9/11 itself was a case of LIHOP (let it happen on purpose). And when the US turned its guns on Iraq, stage two of their regime-change war plans, he helped convey the lies and hypocrisy. His 2010 documentary The War You Don’t See served as a masterful critique of wartime propaganda and how it works to obscure the scale of death and human misery.

David Miller worked with John on his film, which opens with the now famous horrific footage of a US Apache helicopter attack on Iraqi civilians. He was only able to use that footage because of the heroic efforts of Julian Assange and Wikileaks to get leaked classified material into the public domain. David was in touch with John regularly during the War on Terror, and John provided advice and volunteered four of his pieces to be what became the opening section of the book David edited in 2003 called Tell Me Lies.

Throughout, Pilger was attentive to understanding and giving a voice to the victims of power. For much of his career this meant providing a voice to people who would otherwise be drowned out by the propaganda emanating from Western power centres. He relayed the plight of the Aborigines in his Australian homeland in The Secret Country: the first Australians fight back (1984) and Utopia (2013), and documented the brutal expulsion of the inhabitants of the Chagos Islands by the British so as to enable the construction of the US military base in Diego Garcia.

John had been an early advocate of the Palestinians, producing the film Palestine is Still the Issue in 1977. Twenty-five years later in 2002, he made a companion film with the same name, a pointed reminder that the liberation of Palestine had still not been achieved. There is a scene in the film which John describes as follows. It is worth quoting at length for the strong parallels between then and what is now happening in Gaza.

In Ramallah, following an invasion of the West Bank by the late Ariel Sharon in 2002, I walked through streets of crushed cars and demolished houses, to the Palestinian Cultural Centre. Until that morning, Israeli soldiers had camped there. I was met by the centre’s director, the novelist, Liana Badr, whose original manuscripts lay scattered and torn across the floor. The hard-drive containing her fiction, and a library of plays and poetry had been taken by Israeli soldiers. Almost everything was smashed, and defiled.

Not a single book survived with all its pages; not a single master tape from one of the best collections of Palestinian cinema.

The soldiers had urinated and defecated on the floors, on desks, on embroideries and works of art. They had smeared faeces on children’s paintings and written — in shit — “Born to kill”. Liana Badr had tears in her eyes, but she was unbowed. She said, “We will make it right again.”

What enrages those who colonise and occupy, steal and oppress, vandalise and defile is the victims’ refusal to comply. And this is the tribute we all should pay the Palestinians. They refuse to comply. They go on. They wait — until they fight again. And they do so even when those governing them collaborate with their oppressors.

This passage prefigures, and perhaps in retrospect can be seen as more perceptive than it might then have been, in apprehending the full horror of Zionism. In Gaza, we have seen the systematic extermination of civilians and especially children, attacks on all elements of Palestinian society especially those that keep the society running, bakeries, doctors, journalists, fuel supplies, and of course there are multiple videos emerging of unimaginable abuses including triumphalist representations of humiliation of Palestinians and of naked Jewish supremacism.

As Western governments have become ever more authoritarian and prone to heavy-handed censorship of dissent on the home front, Pilger has stood by those courageous enough to speak out against war and corruption. He viscerally understood what it is to be maligned, persecuted and threatened by the privileged and powerful when it is their agendas you threaten with the truth. Naturally, John was an instinctive and strong supporter of Julian and Wikileaks — and his support never wavered, unlike many on the left who were gulled by propaganda lines about women’s rights, which turned out to fabrications of a sort familiar to astute observers of the CIA and other Western Intelligence agencies.

Indeed, John has become a cornerstone for the now longstanding battle to save Assange from the clutches of the US Security State. John understood that this battle, as well as a personal and very human one for Assange and his wife, Stella Assange, and family, represents the most important case in Western democracies regarding the battle between freedom of expression and nefarious, ill-intentioned, governments.

The British and US governments, soaked in the blood of the countless victims killed by their eternal belligerence, have already succeeded in making an example of Assange in order to create a chilling effect amongst journalists. Extradition and incarceration will seal that. But victory in this critical case will be a powerful blow against US-led imperialism abroad and authoritarianism on the home front. A huge amount is at stake, and that is why the Julian Assange case was such an important battle for John to champion.

John’s support for those pushing back against corrupt power was ubiquitous. When scientists from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) courageously spoke out about the manipulation of an alleged chemical weapons attack investigation in Syria, Pilger gave his support.

He also supported Professors Mark Crispin Miller, David Miller, Piers Robinson and Chris Simpson when they established the Organisation for Propaganda Studies in 2017, and he served on its advisory board. John was always ready to support progressive initiatives and to give sage advice on contemporary issues.

In 2018, he wrote to David about his work on the Novichok and anti-Russian propaganda which he referred to as ‘superb’:

‘I must say the events of the past few weeks have left my jaw permanently ajar. Doesn’t it say so much about media/education that [Theresa] May et al can be so confident that they can get away with their fabrications and manipulations? You rightly call them ‘spectacularly successful’. I’m glad you mentioned that millions of British citizens remain sceptical — as no doubt they are — yet the ‘filter bubble’ remains in control. For the first time in my life, I have to try hard not to be dispirited.’

In March 2019, David and Piers published co-authored work on the UK government funded propaganda project, called the Integrity Initiative, and, in response, the Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan denounced us as “working against democracy”. John was his usual supportive self, writing to us that ‘he’s attacking you … because you’ve been effective. You’ve revealed them. In its way, it’s a compliment. Let me know what happens.’ Later in 2019, he was supportive of the campaign to defend Chris Williamson in what John called ‘his struggle against the Kafkaesque nonsense about anti-semitism’.

In private, John was a quiet, kind and studious man with a lovely sense of humour, and the three of us are honoured to have known him. When Vanessa was going through a difficult phase in the BBC harassment campaign, he replied with the words:

You’ll get through this. My mother, a Latin teacher, used to say to me — in Latin — ‘Don’t let the bastards get you down’. She despaired when I could never remember it …! You threaten them — in the same way Julian threatens them. That’s to be proud of.

Another time Vanessa was discussing an article outlining the 75 years of regime change wars, clandestine operations, and CIA or MI6 meddling in Syria’s internal affairs since their independence from French mandate in 1946. John, as always, gave sage and constructive advice, and he included an excerpt from a 2014 article entitled — From Pol Pot to ISIS: “Anything that flies on everything that moves”

Like Ebola from West Africa, a bacteria called “perpetual war” has crossed the Atlantic. Lord Richards, until recently head of the British military, wants “boots on the ground” now. There is a vapid, almost sociopathic verboseness from Cameron, Obama and their “coalition of the willing” — notably Australia’s aggressively weird Tony Abbott — as they prescribe more violence delivered from 30,000 feet on places where the blood of previous adventures never dried. They have never seen bombing and they apparently love it so much they want it to overthrow their one potentially valuable ally, Syria. This is nothing new, as the following leaked UK-US intelligence file illustrates: 

“In order to facilitate the action of liberative [sic] forces … a special effort should be made to eliminate certain key individuals [and] to proceed with internal disturbancesin Syria. CIA is prepared, and SIS (MI6) will attempt to mount minor sabotage and coup de main [sic] incidents within Syria, working through contacts with individuals … a necessary degree of fear … frontier and [staged] border clashes [will] provide a pretext for intervention … the CIA and SIS should use … capabilities in both psychological and action fields to augment tension.”

That was written in 1957, though it could have been written yesterday. In the imperial world, nothing essentially changes. Last year, the former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas revealed that “two years before the Arab spring”, he was told in London that a war on Syria was planned. “I am going to tell you something,” he said in an interview with the French TV channel LPC, “I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business. I met top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria … Britain was organising an invasion of rebels into Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer Minister for Foreign Affairs, if I would like to participate … This operation goes way back. It was prepared, preconceived and planned.”

The only effective opponents of ISIS are accredited demons of the West — Syria, Iran, Hezbollah. The obstacle is Turkey, an “ally” and a member of NATO, which has conspired with the CIA, MI6 and the Gulf medievalists to channel support to the Syrian “rebels”,  including those now calling themselves ISIS. Supporting Turkey in its long-held ambition for regional dominance by overthrowing the Assad government beckons a major conventional war and the horrific dismemberment of the most ethnically diverse state in the Middle East.

John was a consummate journalist and human being. He was the epitome of effective reporting on the crimes of the ruling elite and their military adventurism. His writing style was unique — compassionate, informative and deeply researched — imbued with his own personal experiences. When the US/UK proxy war in Yemen struck in 2015, and the US-manufactured cluster bombs began to decimate the northern regions literally flaying the skin of children that were being targeted, we were reminded of another John Pilger quote:

If those who support aggressive war had seen a fraction of what I’ve seen, if they’d watched children fry to death from Napalm and bleed to death from a cluster bomb,they might not utter the claptrap they do.

John cared, it was that simple.

He also said ‘It’s only when journalists understand the role they play in this propaganda, it’s only when they realize they can’t be both independent, honest journalists and agents of power, that things will begin to change.’ We hope his legacy will be a new generation of journalists who will take this advice to heart. Thank you John for your lifetime contribution to our enlightenment. You will never be forgotten and you will be hugely missed both personally and professionally.

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Vanessa Beeley is an independent journalist and photographer who has worked extensively in the Middle East – on the ground in Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Palestine, while also covering the conflict in Yemen since 2015. In 2017 Vanessa was a finalist for the prestigious Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism which was won by the much-acclaimed Robert Parry that year. In 2019, Vanessa was among recipients of the Serena Shim Award for uncompromised integrity in journalism. Vanessa contributes regularly to UK Column News, RT, Press TV and many independent media outlets. You can find her work at her Substack and Patreon.

David Miller is an investigative researcher, broadcaster, and academic. He is the founder and co-director of the lobbying watchdog Spinwatch and editor of Powerbase.info. David is also Producer of a weekly show, Palestine Declassified, on PressTV, and he is a regular columnist at al Mayadeen English. David was unjustly sacked by Bristol University at the behest of the Zionist movement.

Dr. Piers Robinson is a co-director of the Organisation for Propaganda Studies, convenor of the Working Group on Syria, Media and Propaganda, associated researcher with the Working Group on Propaganda and the 9/11 Global ‘War on Terror’, member of Panda and BerlinGroup21. He researches and writes on propaganda, conflict and media and was Chair/Professor in Politics, Society ad Political Journalism, University of Sheffield, 2016-2019, Senior Lecturer in International Politics (University of Manchester 2010-2016) and Lecturer in Political Communication (University of Liverpool, 1999-2005).

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday night Israel “has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population,” rebuffing hard-right ministers’ calls to rebuild Israeli settlements in the territory and encourage Palestinian emigration.

The premier’s English-language video posted to social media came on the eve of the International Court of Justice in The Hague hearing a highly charged case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.

“I want to make a few points absolutely clear,” Netanyahu said. “Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population. Israel is fighting Hamas terrorists, not the Palestinian population, and we are doing so in full compliance with international law.”

“Our goal is to rid Gaza of Hamas terrorists and free our hostages. Once this is achieved, Gaza can be demilitarized and deradicalized, thereby creating a possibility for a better future for Israel and Palestinians alike.”

At the same time, a senior Likud member insisted Wednesday that Netanyahu had previously expressed support for the idea of the voluntary resettlement of Palestinians outside Gaza, but took it off the table in the face of pushback from the US.

“The prime minister told me two weeks ago in this room that it’s a good idea,” MK Danny Danon told The Times of Israel, seemingly confirming an earlier report that the prime minister had informed a Likud faction meeting that he was working to facilitate voluntary migration.

"I want to make a few points absolutely clear:
Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population.
Israel is fighting Hamas terrorists, not the Palestinian population, and we are doing so in full compliance with international law. pic.twitter.com/amxFaMnS0P

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) January 10, 2024

Click here to read the full article on The Times of Israel.

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Featured image: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a message on Israel’s war with Hamas, January 10, 2024. (Video screenshot)

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Courtesy of OpenSecrets.org, I saw a chart on AIPAC contributions to U.S. senators that showed that all 100 senators have taken AIPAC money.

Leading the way are senate “giants” like Mitch McConnell (nearly two million dollars) and Chuck Schumer (roughly $1.7 million).

Talk about bipartisanship! I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the U.S. Senate is so strongly pro-Israel. It obviously has nothing to do with the power of AIPAC and all that money.

Bipartisanship and no divisiveness. Who says we have a dysfunctional and divided Congress? Nonsense!

Here’s how AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) describes itself on its own website:

The Largest Pro-Israel PAC in America

WE STAND with those who stand with Israel. The AIPAC PAC is a bipartisan, pro-Israel political action committee. It is the largest pro-Israel PAC in America and contributed more resources directly to candidates than any other PAC. 98% of AIPAC-backed candidates won their general election races in 2022.

That last sentence is a killer. AIPAC is reminding Members of Congress that if you want to be elected, or win reelection, you very much want AIPAC on your side. And if you don’t kowtow to their agenda, they will do everything in their power to defeat you.

Imagine if there was an American Palestine Public Affairs Committee, an APPAC, that contributed hundreds of thousands if not millions to every U.S. senator and that boasted of a 98% success rate in getting APPAC-anointed candidates elected or reelected. Do you think maybe the U.S. Senate would have a different position on Gaza and the West Bank?

Speaking of Gaza, I watched Chris Hedges interview Ilan Pappé, an Israeli historian. Pappé put it simply and clearly: Israel is engaged in “incremental genocide” against the Palestinian people, a genocide in slow motion, a strategy of “displacement and replacement.” The “displacement” of the Palestinians is done by mass bombing, mass destruction, mass death, and (hopefully for the Israelis) mass migration, and the “replacement” will come when Jewish settlers take possession of Gaza (after a lot of munitions cleanup and infrastructure redevelopment, I suppose, probably paid for by the U.S. taxpayer).

There’s an Orwellian term for this. For mass death followed by forced expulsion, Israel is using the term “voluntary migration” (or “voluntary” emigration). But of course there is nothing “voluntary” about any of this.

If U.S. government officials appear clueless about what’s happening in Gaza, they’re not. They’re just bought and paid for.

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“When every country turned to protect its own private interest, the world public interest went down the drain, and with it the private interests of all.“  —Charles Kindleberger (1910-2003), American economic historian, (in his book “The World Depression 1929-1939”, 1973)

“The world is a dangerous place to live—not because of the people who are evil but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” —Albert Einstein (1879-1955), (As quoted in the book by Josep Maria Corredor “Conversations avec Pablo Casals“, 1955)

“I think it is the beginning of a new Cold War… I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else.” —George F. Kennan (1904-2005), American diplomat and historian, (in The New York Times, May 2, 1998, about the U.S. expansion of NATO toward Russia.)

“While defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy—or of a collective death—wish for the world.“ —John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th U.S. President, 1961-1963, (in an important speech on Monday, June 10, 1963)

In 2024, most economies are expected to face economic headwinds. Indeed, that is why in many countries, especially in Europe and in North America, polls indicate that people’s main preoccupations are economic topics, such as the lingering inflation, high personal and public debts and the likelihood of a more or less severe economic recession.

An economic-social issue such as the influx of hordes of illegal immigrants will also be a source of concern, especially in Europe and in North America, especially if the rates of unemployment increase.

Similarly, the ongoing bombing wars in Ukraine and in Palestine, as well as the growing tensions between the United States and China and those between the U.S. and Iran, are foreign policy issues that could raise concerns.

Important Economies According to Their GDP vs. Smaller Rich Economies Per Capita

According to World Bank data, the gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States, at mid-year 2023, was $25,463 billion. This places the U.S. economy number one with 24.3 percent of the world economy.

The economy of the European Union (EU), a bloc of 27 countries, represents 21.7 percent of global GDP and is the second largest in the world. China’s economy follows in third place, with 15.0 percent of global GDP.

However, in terms of living standards (GDP per capita), small economies dominate the list, with Luxembourg ($127,580) in the lead, followed by Norway ($106,328), Ireland ($103,176) and Switzerland ($92,381).

An Overview and Expectations

The economic cycles of the major economies do not coincide perfectly, and vary somewhat depending on their economic structures and the economic policies followed by their governments.

The central question today is whether or not the coming economic year will be one in which major economies will be able to avoid a full-fledged economic recession.

The exuberance in the stock and bond markets seems to indicate that they are anticipating a gentle economic slowdown, driven by a marked decline in inflation and multiple cuts in interest rates to come.

The alternative situation to consider, contrary to the general optimism, could be that of a year characterized by a classic economic recession, more or less severe, a consequence of economic and financial imbalances accumulated in the past. It could be caused also by unexpected economic, financial and geopolitical shocks to come.

Currently, the general economic consensus is that the fight with higher interest rates that the main central banks are waging against inflation, (which was generated by large public deficits and by excessive monetary creation to counter the harmful economic effects of the 2020-2022 pandemic.), will succeed.

Thus, the central question boils down to whether the coming year will witness a very manageable mild economic slowdown or that many countries could rather have to go through a longer and more severe economic recession, with a minimum of two successive quarters of contracting GDP.

The American Economy

Even if the U.S. economy is presently the most resilient of all, being at a virtual full employment level, with an official 3.7 percent unemployment rate, and with a rising consumer confidence, there are nevertheless some cracks appearing.

For example, the Conference Board’s leading economic index is still declining and forecasting a mild economic recession in the United States in 2024. Also, even though U.S. employment still holds steady, job openings are declining. This could be an indication that business investment and production plans in some sectors are being adjusted downwards.

The reason why the U.S. economy is performing better than other economies, besides the contribution of its vibrant technology sector, is partly due to its heavily subsidized arms industry, which is one sector that is prosperous and in constant growth. It comprises more than 200,000 companies, the most prominent being Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX (Raytheon), General Dynamics and Boeing.

Those companies are important contributors to the industrial growth and economic prosperity of states such as Alabama, Connecticut, Virginia, Texas and California.

The European and Canadian Economies

It is even possible that future economic data, to be released next March, will confirm that several European countries and Canada are already into a recession, with two quarters in a row of decline in domestic production.

An energy crisis stemming from the Ukrainian-Russian conflict is adding to the rise in interest rates in slowing down European economies, notably those of the 20 countries of the Eurozone. Presently, the German and Italian economies would seem to be the best candidates for a recession.

In Canada, the unemployment rate is still respectable at 5.8 percent. But job growth is anemic, with only100 new jobs created last December.

Additionally, largely due to an open-door immigration policy, the Canadian population is growing at a record rate, by far the most of all industrialized countries, while employment growth stagnates. This is translating into a decline in living standards, as measured by real GDP per capita.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has even published a study, in March 2023, in which it highlighted that Canada is lagging behind developed economies in terms of the standard of living of its population, which continues to decline. The standard of living in Canada has been deteriorating since 2014, under the effect of unbridled immigration and poor general productivity growth.

Geopolitical Risks

What could turn a mild economic recession into a more serious one would be an expansion of the ruinous and ongoing military conflicts in Ukraine and in the Middle East, or new and wider hegemonic wars to come.

In such a case, as most governments face high debt levels (i.e. total public debts greater than their yearly total domestic product), such developments would be likely to reignite inflation and cause a further surge in interest rates in years to come.

It is rare for economic conditions and geopolitical risks to be linked so closely, but unfortunately, this is the type of world we live in today.

Conclusions

The economic conundrum in 2024 is whether the expected economic slowdown will be mild and not very disruptive to labor and stock markets, or rather, whether unforeseen financial events, such as the failure of a large financial institution, could precipitate a more serious and severe global economic recession.

The geopolitical ball is murkier because the U.S. government of Joe Biden does not seem anxious to end military conflicts, even though the President had initially promised, at the start of his administration, to rely more heavily on diplomacy to resolve international disputes.

Nevertheless, the year 2024 could be an important turning point, both economically and geopolitically.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay.

International economist Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay is the author of the book about morals “The code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles” of the book about geopolitics “The New American Empire“, and the recent book, in French, “La régression tranquille du Québec, 1980-2018“. He was Minister of Trade and Industry (1976-79) in the Lévesque government. He holds a Ph.D. in international finance from Stanford University. Please visit Dr Tremblay’s site or email to a friend here.

Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image source

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The Code for Global Ethics: Ten Humanist Principles

by Rodrigue Tremblay, Preface by Paul Kurtz

Publisher: ‎ Prometheus (April 27, 2010)

Hardcover: ‎ 300 pages

ISBN-10: ‎ 1616141727

ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1616141721

Humanists have long contended that morality is a strictly human concern and should be independent of religious creeds and dogma. This principle was clearly articulated in the two Humanist Manifestos issued in the mid-twentieth century and in Humanist Manifesto 2000, which appeared at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Now this code for global ethics further elaborates ten humanist principles designed for a world community that is growing ever closer together. In the face of the obvious challenges to international stability-from nuclear proliferation, environmental degradation, economic turmoil, and reactionary and sometimes violent religious movements-a code based on the “natural dignity and inherent worth of all human beings” is needed more than ever. In separate chapters the author delves into the issues surrounding these ten humanist principles: preserving individual dignity and equality, respecting life and property, tolerance, sharing, preventing domination of others, eliminating superstition, conserving the natural environment, resolving differences cooperatively without resort to violence or war, political and economic democracy, and providing for universal education. This forward-looking, optimistic, and eminently reasonable discussion of humanist ideals makes an important contribution to laying the foundations for a just and peaceable global community.

Click here to purchase.

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All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

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As more nations continue to find viable solutions to bypass the US dollar for other alternative currencies, the US government’s stranglehold on global finance and trade continues to decline. No one should be surprised at this point since Washington has been using its currency as a weapon of war including the economic sanctions it has imposed on various nations across the globe and its open threats for regime change and so on against those who are unwilling to obey Washington’s Old-World Order. So you can expect major challenges for Washington. Most of the world are currently working to end the reign of the US dollar which has been a reserve currency since 1944. The BRICS+ coalition and the idea for a new multipolar world order is already taking place, it’s inevitable.

An analysis from J.P. Morgan, ‘De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? sounded the alarm concerning the risk of the US dollar losing its reserve currency position. According to Alexander Wise, a member of Strategic Research team at J.P. Morgan, a geopolitical shift has taken place,

“However, its hegemony is in question, especially in light of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis. The risk of de-dollarization, which is a periodically recurrent theme throughout post-war history, has returned into focus due to geopolitical and geostrategic shifts.”

It was well-known that US sanctions would backfire at some point in time:

In particular, the U.S. sanctions on Russia have made some countries wary about being too dependent on the greenback. In addition, against a backdrop of rising interest rates, a strong U.S. dollar is becoming more expensive for emerging nations, leading some to trade in other currencies. In July 2023, Bolivia became the latest South American country — after Brazil and Argentina — to pay for imports and exports using the Chinese renminbi

The report asks one important question, “What are the potential implications of de-dollarization, and what could this mean for global markets and trade?” How could the US dollar lose its world reserve status?

There are two scenarios that could erode the dollar’s status. The first includes adverse events that undermine the perceived safety and stability of the greenback — and the U.S.’s overall standing as the world’s leading economic, political and military power. For instance, increased polarization in the U.S. could jeopardize the perceived stability of its governance, which underpins its role as a global safe haven. 

The second factor involves positive developments outside the U.S. that boost the credibility of alternative currencies — economic and political reforms in China, for example. “A candidate reserve currency must be perceived as safe and stable, and must provide a source of liquidity that is sufficient to meet growing global demand,” Wise noted.

These scenarios will undermine the role of the US dollar geopolitically and that would weaken Washington’s position as a global player, “Fundamentally, de-dollarization would shift the balance of power among countries, and this could in turn reshape the global economy and markets.” So, who would it effect the most according to Wise? Obviously, the US consumer:

The impact would be most acutely felt in the U.S., where de-dollarization would likely lead to a broad depreciation and underperformance of U.S. financial assets versus the rest of the world. “For U.S. equities, outright and relative returns would be negatively impacted by divestment or reallocation away from U.S. markets and a severe loss in confidence. There would also likely be upward pressure on real yields due to the partial divestment of U.S. fixed income by investors, or the diversification or reduction of international reserve allocations”

De-dollarization would drastically impact U.S. growth as foreign investments would decline as inflationary pressures would dramatically increase the cost of imported goods and services including food, oil and gas that will create uncertainty among the US population.  Relatively speaking, the US would become an unstable environment for any foreign investment:

De-dollarization could reduce institutional, investor and corporate demand for the dollar over time, and in size could cause its value to fall. If there is a specific catalyst for the move, de-dollarization could also result in heightened exchange rate volatility, especially as over 60 currencies are pegged to the greenback 

Although the use of the dollar has declined, its share of global currencies in use remains slightly higher.  Meera Chandan, Co-Head of the Global FX Strategy research team at J.P. Morgan said, “Overall dollar usage has declined, but it remains within long-run ranges and its share remains elevated compared to other currencies.” She continued, “The dollar’s transactional dominance remains top-of-class despite secular declines in U.S. trade shares. On the other hand, de-dollarization is evident in FX reserves, where the dollar’s share has declined to a record low of 58%.”  The renminbi could replace the dollar, but it will take time according to Alexander Wise who said that “one might naturally expect the renminbi to assume a greater role in the global economy over time, but this transition would likely occur over the course of decades.”  Wise says that China must do several things for the renminbi to become an alternative currency and that includes “Relaxing capital controls, opening markets, implementing measures to promote market liquidity, bolstering the rule of law, reducing appropriation and regulatory risk, and promoting Chinese government bonds as an alternative safe asset — these could all cement China and the renminbi as a credible alternative to the U.S. and the dollar.”  The point is clear, for researchers at J.P. Morgan to ring the alarm on the inevitable demise of the US dollar is a sign of things to come.

BRICS+ and De-Dollarization Is Moving Forward 

According to Al Mayadeen news, Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani implied that Iran “will work on the de-dollarization of trade and economic and financial transactions within the group of major emerging economies, revealing that some efforts in this direction are already underway.” Bagheri Kani said that

“We have planned many missions and joint work with other BRICS members within the framework of this organization,” he continued “one of the most important tasks is the de-dollarization of trade and economic transactions and financial cooperation.”

It was a newsworthy story that the US mainstream media decided to not report on,

“In August, the 15th top-level BRICS summit in Johannesburg extended invitations to Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia to join the bloc. Their full membership, except for Argentina, is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2024.”

Argentina’s new Western puppet, Javier Milei had declined an invitation to join the BRICS coalition and “vowed to dollarize the Argentinian economy and has been compared to former US President Donald Trump and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.”  Le Monde Diplomatique interviewed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and said that

the decision was “one of the clumsiest and stupidest things Milei has done against Argentina” and that “the new president in Buenos Aires has taken his country back to the 19th century and is turning it into a “vassal of the imperial unipolar world.” 

Maduro is hopeful that Venezuela “would be accepted as a permanent member of BRICS+ at the next summit in Russia in October 2024. Caracas expects to acquire full membership in BRICS proper “sooner rather than later.”

The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported that

“the establishment of new financial and banking platforms has opened a “new chapter” in banking relations between Iran and Russia, with the two countries agreeing to ditch the US dollar and instead trade in local currencies.” 

Iran and Russia will be using their own national currencies with new enhanced platforms including “non-SWIFT messaging systems and establishing bilateral brokerage relations.” Western sanctions are one of the main reasons that Iran and Russia decided to bypass US dollars which should not surprise anyone,

“Iran and Russia, both under draconian Western sanctions, have repeatedly criticized the US and its European allies for weaponizing the dollar as a tool to put pressure on other countries.” 

Keep in mind that sanctions are not the only reason to move away from the US dollar as Business Insider suggests

“3 reasons countries around the world want to break up with the dollar” claims that “While the macro-geopolitical environment is spurring countries to seek alternative currencies, there’s long been uneasiness over the dollar’s outsized dominance in global trade and finance.” 

The Global South including China and Russia have many reasons why they want to ditch the dollar, one of them being that the US Federal Reserve’s monetary policy has too much power over the rest of world’s economy. As for the position of the US dollar reserve currency status,

“This position has afforded the US what Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the president of France from 1974 to 1981, called an “exorbitant privilege” and that “one facet of this privilege is that the US might not run into a crisis if it is unable to pay its debt when the value of the dollar falls sharply because Washington could simply issue more money” which has a negative impact on their economies, “some countries, including India, have said that they are sick and tired of US monetary policies holding them hostage — going as far as to say that the US has been an irresponsible issuer of the world’s reserve currencies.” 

And one last reason for most of the world to ditch the dollar is when it gains, the world loses as imports become expensive, especially for emerging nations.

Business Insider mentioned India’s frustration with the US dollar as it attempted to use the rupee to pay for crude oil imports, but it has failed so far according to The Economic Times:

India’s push for rupee to be used to pay for import of crude oil has not found any takers as suppliers have expressed concern on repatriation of funds and high transactional costs, the oil ministry told a parliamentary standing committee. The default payment currency for all contracts for import of crude oil is US dollar as per the international trade practice. However, in a bid to internationalize the Indian currency, the Reserve Bank of India on July 11, 2022, allowed importers to pay with rupees and exporters be paid in rupee.

While there has been some success with non-oil trade with a select few countries, rupee continues to be shunned by oil exporters

Business Insider also reported on India’s failed de-dollarization efforts, ‘India wanted to ditch the US dollar and buy oil in rupees. No seller wanted to get involved’ said that “India’s push to internationalize the rupee has been seen as part of a wider drive among nations from China to Brazil to reduce their reliance on the dollar in international payments and investments” they also mention Indonesia’s moves to bypass the US dollar in efforts to expand the use of the rupiah.

Even in the Caribbean nation of Jamaica, people have taken notice that de-dollarization is a necessary step to break the chains of US dominance according to Deuane Taylor, a business analyst at Tax Administration Jamaica wrote an interesting article in LinkedIn ‘Jamaica and De-dollarization’ that explains why de-dollarization can improve Jamaica’s economy. On the positives of de-dollarization, he said that

“it can help reduce the risks associated with being too dependent on a single currency and may improve economic stability and sovereignty. On the other hand, we may see an increase in transaction costs and a reduction in the efficiency of international trade and finance.” 

Besides the fact that de-dollarization would increase the use of the Jamaican dollar that can “increase in the stability of the Jamaican economy by reducing our vulnerability to fluctuations in the US dollar exchange rate. This stability can help Jamaican businesses better plan and forecast their costs and revenues.” The most beneficial aspect of de-dollarization will be the “reduction of the transaction costs with doing business” since exchange fees, for example, will be much more affordable for both businesses and customers.

Bottom line is that it won’t be easy to transition out of the US dollar. The world will need to ‘adapt’ to local or international currencies while balancing the health of their respective economies. As Taylor concluded to what needs to happen before Jamaica completely de-dollarizes its economy,

“Overall, the impact of de-dollarization on Jamaican businesses depends on various factors, such as the degree of reliance on the US dollar, the level of economic stability, and the level of preparedness of businesses to adapt to changes in currency usage.”

The BRICS coalition for a multipolar world will advance in the next couple of years. Saudi Arabia has just joined BRICS with Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE also becoming new member. BRICS nations will lead the way to de-dollarization no matter what Washington and its European minions do to undermine the coalition with economic sanctions, threats, regime change and any other plans they have up their sleeves to continue their dominance of the world’s economic order. But, like the former heavyweight champion of the world, Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” and that punch is de dollarization,

The world knows that de-dollarization is a solution that will stop US imperialism and its economic order. Sputnik reported that “A third of UN member states have already opted for de-dollarization and decided to rely on national currencies to conduct payments, Sputnik’s analysis has found.” Roughly about 68 countries are on board to de-dollarize their economies:

According to the study, the most decisive calls to scrap the greenback and replace it with national currencies came from politicians whose countries are members of major regional organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and BRICS, which originally сomprised Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – but was expanded to include a host of other nations on January 1

The report also mentioned Kenya’s President, William Ruto, who has told local leaders to stop using dollars and use the pan-African payment system for transactions. 

“Sputnik’s investigation indicated that many countries have already realized the fact that the dollar poses a threat not only as a means of payment, but also as an instrument of savings, so the concept of de-dollarization should be considered more broadly.”

If that’s not bad enough for the US dollar regime, even their closest ally, Israel, is moving away from the US dollar in favor of the yuan according to Sputnik,

“Israel, for instance, earlier announced that it would reduce the dollar’s share in the country’s foreign exchange reserves in favor of the yuan” according to the report.

You know it’s bad when a country like Israel who is dependent on the US government for basically everything including fighting their wars in the Middle East is abandoning the US dollar.

Most of the world is already considering using other alternatives to the US dollar and they are taking the necessary steps to make a transition in a new multipolar world, but unfortunately, that will take some time since a world war is on the way to stop that transition. Maybe that’s why the US government is getting ready to launch a multi-front war in the first place. Remember when Libyan President, Muammar Gaddafi, had an idea to create a gold-backed African dinar to bypass the US dollar and the euro? Gaddafi was overthrown and murdered as Libya was being systematically destroyed.

Washington will do everything in their power to ensure that nothing can challenge the US dollar even if it means starting a world war, but that would only push countries further away from the toxic currency.

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Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his own blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from SCN

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

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Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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Sweden‘s civil defence minister has warned his country could soon face the prospect of war and urged citizens to join voluntary defence organisations in preparation for a potential armed conflict.

In a rousing speech that took note of his country’s hotly anticipated accession to NATO this year and ongoing Russian aggression in Ukraine, Carl-Oskar Bohlin called on ordinary citizens to ask themselves ‘who are you if war comes?’.

Speaking at Sweden’s annual ‘Folk och Försvar’ (Society and Defence) conference in Sälen this past weekend, the minister said:

‘It is human to want to view life as you wish it was, rather than as it actually is.

‘For a nation for whom peace has been a pleasant companion for almost 210 years, the idea that it is an immovable constant is conveniently close at hand. But taking comfort in this conclusion has become more dangerous than it has been for a very long time,’ Bohlin said.

Sweden has not been involved in an armed conflict since a brief war with neighbour Norway in 1814 as the latter sought to establish its own constitution and parliament. it stayed neutral during WW2.

‘There could be war in Sweden… The world is facing a security outlook with greater risks than at any time since the end of the Second World War,’ the civil defence minister continued.

Click here to read the full article on Daily Mail Online.

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“Israel’s political leaders, military commanders, and persons holding official positions have systematically and in explicit terms declared their genocidal intent,” a South African lawyer told the top U.N. court.

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South African representatives argued before the International Court of Justice on Thursday that Israel is engaged in a genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip, subjecting the enclave to “merciless” bombing with the clear intent to wipe out the Palestinian population.

“They have deplored anyone feeling sorry for the uninvolved Gazans, asserting repeatedly that there are no uninvolved, that there are no innocents in Gaza, that the killers of the women and the children should not be separated from the citizens of Gaza, and that the children of Gaza have brought this upon themselves,” South African attorney Tembeka Ngcukaitobi said during his presentation.

Thursday’s hearing also featured remarks from South African Justice Minister Ronald Lamola, South African Ambassador to the Netherlands Vusimuzi Madonsela, lawyer Adila Hassim, and international law professor John Dugard, each of whom laid out an aspect of South Africa’s case against the Israeli government.

Hassim argued that Israel’s “first genocidal act” is the “mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza,” pointing to the U.S.-armed military’s use of 2,000-pound bombs in southern Gaza—the region to which Israeli forces ordered Gazans to move earlier in the war.

“No one is spared. Not even newborns,” said Hassim, displaying photos of mass graves in the Gaza Strip. “U.N. chiefs have described it as a graveyard for children.”

Hassim made the case that Israel is guilty of violating articles 2a, 2b, 2c, and 2d of the Genocide Convention, which defines genocide as harm inflicted “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.”

“Israel has deliberately imposed conditions on Gaza that cannot sustain life and are calculated to bring about its physical destruction,” said Hassim. “Israel has forced—forced—the displacement of about 85% of Palestinians in Gaza. There is nowhere safe for them to flee to.”

South Africa’s presenters sought to demonstrate genocidal intent in part by directly quoting high-ranking Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Ngcukaitobi pointed to Netanyahu’s repeated invocation of biblical passages to paint Gazans as modern-day Amalekites.

The attorney also played footage of Israeli soldiers chanting that they will “wipe off the seed of Amalek” and that there are “no uninvolved civilians” in Gaza.

“Israel’s political leaders, military commanders, and persons holding official positions have systematically and in explicit terms declared their genocidal intent,” said Ngcukaitobi. “These statements are then repeated by soldiers on the ground in Gaza as they engage in the destruction of Palestinians and the physical infrastructure of Gaza.”

South Africa’s legal team decided against sharing highly graphic videos and photos during its presentations, saying it did not want to turn the court’s proceedings “into a theatre for spectacle.”

“South Africa’s application in this court today is built on a foundation of clear legal rights, not images,” the legal team said Thursday.

South Africa is asking the ICJ to adopt “provisional measures” to halt Israel’s mass killing and displacement of Gazans, many of whom are starving and being stalked by disease.

Israel is set to offer its counter to South Africa’s case on Friday, which will mark the first time Israel has defended itself in person at the United Nations’ highest court.

In the days ahead of the ICJ’s public hearings, Israeli officials pressured governments around the world to publicly denounce South Africa’s case. The United States, Israel’s top ally and leading arms supplier, has dismissed South Africa’s arguments as “meritless.”

But a growing number of national governments are backing South Africa, including Brazil, Malaysia, Bolivia, and Pakistan. South Africa’s ICJ effort has also drawn massive support from grassroots organizations across the globe.

“Israel’s killing, injuring, traumatizing, and displacing large numbers of Palestinians and denying water, food, medicine, and fuel to an occupied population meet the criteria for the crime of genocide,” reads an open letter signed by more than 1,000 unions, popular movements, and other groups. “If a majority of the world’s nations call for a cease-fire, yet fail to press for prosecution of Israel—what is to stop Israel from ethnically cleansing all Palestinians?”

[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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Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

Featured image: Public hearings in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel began at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands on January 11, 2024. (Photo: Selman Aksunger/Anadolu via Getty Images)

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Article by Holly Johnston and Sinan Mahmoud

The National News

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Does anybody believe that the ICJ will accuse Israel of committing genocide on Palestinian people, notably in Gaza, as accused by the government of South Africa?

Is there any lawyer, or team of lawyers in the world, that would dare to condemn Israel for crimes against humanity?

And even if there were courageous lawyers and judges to take on Israel for its horrendous and atrocious crimes, does anyone believe Israel – or the Zionists running Israel, the driving force behind the war; protected and supported by almost the entire Western world, or rather the governments of the Western world – would blink an eye and pay attention?

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VIDEO. ICJ Hearings in The Hague

Click Screen to View the ICJ Hearings, January 11, 2024

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They have an agenda – and this agenda is to be fulfilled, come hell or high water.

PM Netanyahu is the perfect “fall guy” for this job. He is inhuman. He has no morals, no ethics. He is ideal. That is why the US and the “system” – or call it the Matrix – pushed him into the PM position for the third time in November 2022.

Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu has previously held the Office of Prime Minister (PM) from 1996 to 1999, and again from 2009 to 2021. He is the chairman of the ultra-conservative, neoliberal Likud party. Netanyahu is the longest tenured PM in the country’s history, having served for a total of over 16 years. He is also the first Prime Minister having been born in Israel after Israel’s establishment.

In November 2019, Netanyahu was officially charged with fraud, breach of trust and for receiving bribes. He would likely be in prison, if he would not have been shoved into his third PM position – compliments of the powerful Zionist lobby in the United States and the support of all those who are doing the Zionists bidding in the US and around the world. “Bibi” serves the Western elite’s interests better as Israel’s PM than as a prisoner.

Why?

Because Netanyahu is ideal – heartless in killing civilians, mostly women and children, eradicating one or more generations of Palestinians – to achieve the multiple-headed agenda, the creation of Greater Israel (see map).

The Zionist’s Greater Israel would become THE Power House of the Middle East, possibly of the world, exactly as predicted by the Talmud which may be called the Israeli equivalent to the Christian Bible.

The power of the Chosen People has no limits and must obey to no-one.

With Palestine gone, more than a trillion cubic feet (probably much more) of natural gas off-shore of Gaza would be absorbed by Israel. This is already the current plan.

Greater Israel would be the second or third largest power in terms of controlling hydrocarbon resources worldwide. And as we know, the world’s energy supply depends on about 85% of petrol and gas.

Who controls the energy, controls food supply. And who controls food, controls the people.

To expand Zionist-Israel’s power even further, the plan for Greater Israel is also to control the shipping lines – thereby controlling the European economy. What is already going on today — Yemeni Houthis pirating Israeli and US ships in the Red Sea and vessels of any other nation attempting to supply Israel, are attacked, and taken over by Houthi warriors in the Red Sea. The Red Sea is linked to the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal.

Aat least 18 European nations have already said they will avoid the Suez Canal for “security reasons”, meaning that the cost for them doing business with their Asian markets is going to skyrocket. And a key income for Arab-Egypt which owns the Suez Canal would be drastically reduced.

But there is an alternative. The so-called Ben-Gurion Canal that has been on the drawing board since the early 1970s, crossing from the Med Sea just outside of the current Gaza border, through Israel and the West Bank into the Red Sea, effectively rendering the Suez Canal obsolete. A massive reduction of shipping traffic might bring the Suez Canal into receivership, potentially ruining Egypt’s economy. Closing the Suez Canal may then become the logical next step.

In other worlds, Greater Israel would potentially also exercise command over the entire shipping routes for Western and Eastern Europe, Russia, Turkey, Syria, from reaching their Asian market destinations. Of course, they could go around Africa, and a third to half of business might be lost, due to high costs and long shipping time.

Alternatively, everybody might use the “future” Ben Gurion Canal.

Does still anybody believe the ICJ would make one iota of difference for the pursuits of Greater Israel, even if Israel were to be accused of genocide and ordered to stop, and pay reparation to Palestine?

It would not stop Israel from pursuing her goal, nor would it stop the Western nations, notably the US, from continuing in supporting all the murderous actions of Israel – already expanding to the West Bank and into Southern Lebanon, soon stepping up to absorb all of Lebanon, as planned.

So, what is this South African initiative of attempting to legally try Israel for her crimes on humanity? A mere fig leaf for Western morals and ethics?

Maybe it is more.

Maybe it is an attempt to show to the world whether international law has still a role to play – or, if not, make the elite’s rules-based order official. For all to see. A wake-up call. One more of them for people and politicians to see that they are just puppets following a lawless small elite of dirty-rich people and foremost, of a corporate controlled worldwide mayhem.

South Africa’s initiative may have an agenda that does not meet the eye of the average politician, nor may it affect the immediate fate of Israel – but it may have repercussions way beyond the Middle East.

It may become a blunt demonstration to the Western civilization that our system is sick, so sick, recklessly lawless, with no common sense; that this matrix must be abandoned and rebuilt by a peoples-run society of the People for the People.

Is this just a dream?

Well, all revolutions, any paradigm shift of such magnitude, where light is to replace the supremacy of darkness has started and will start with a dream. A multifaceted dream. A dream that sparks a fire; a fire burning down the trash and creating fertile ground for new seeds to grow.

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.  

Featured image: The International Court of Justice. Photo credit: ICJ

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I would like to share my opinions on the article entitled, “Canada’s Foreign Student Surge Prompts Changes and Anxiety” written by Vjosa Isai and published in the Canada letter on January 6, 2024.

Excerpt from the article

Recruiting foreign students who pay higher tuition fees — roughly five times as much as Canadians to obtain an undergraduate degree, according to the census agency — has always been attractive to the country’s institutions. It has also become increasingly important for the federal government, which is vying to hit a lofty goal of attracting 1.45 million immigrants between 2023 and 2025.

…

In Canada, the surge of overseas students has fanned concerns about the readiness of university and college communities to adequately host them, and about efforts to ensure that their labor and their finances are not exploited. The immigration minister, Marc Miller, recently announced a handful of measures taking effect this month for foreign students.

For the first time since the early 2000s, the government has increased the savings threshold that foreign students must have to qualify for a study permit to about 20,600 Canadian dollars, up from 10,000 dollars. And it will continue, until at least April, to allow international students to work more than 20 hours per week, a policy it had previously walked back.

Without providing details, Mr. Miller’s ministry said it was also looking into ways that it could ensure colleges and universities, which are provincially regulated, accept only as many students as they can assist in finding housing.

“Ahead of September 2024, we are prepared to take necessary measures, including significantly limiting visas, to ensure that designated learning institutions provide adequate and sufficient student supports,” Mr. Miller said last month at a news conferencein which he announced the changes. He accused some institutions of operating the “diploma equivalent of puppy mills,” depriving those foreign students of a positive academic experience in the face of outsize hardships and a lack of intervention by provincial governments.

–Vjosa Isai, The New York Times, January 6, 2024

First, let me commend the editorial team and author of the article for raising awareness on the paradoxes of the influx of international students’ presence in Canada, their contributions, and a variety of struggles in their living, studying, and working experiences. I like the fact that the article shared the broader context of Canada’s recent immigration policy towards international students that influenced the recent surge. In fact, Canada’s major policy document is outlined in its International Education Strategy (2014-2018) and the recent one (2019-2024) where Canada states its ambitious intent to increase the number of international students and to utilize international education as one of the key drivers to foment national, economic, and social development. 

Despite the ambitious intent outlined in these key policy documents and Canada’s immigration policy, international students do not only contribute five to six times more in tuition fees than domestic students, but they also contribute $22 billion to the Canadian economy, according to Global Affairs Canada. 

The issues of labour exploitation due to precarious citizenship status (study permits/temporary status) should be examined in the longer trajectory of the Canadian project of nationhood. In other words, we should interrogate the ways in which Canada established its nation building project and the premises on which nationhood was predicated. When one does an extensive examination of this topic, there are histories that affect the present-day predicament of international students’ lived experiences of exploitation and precarity that are often not discussed thoroughly in national discussions.

One of such issues that is often not discussed thoroughly is Canadian universities and classrooms, as sites of ongoing racial-colonial and imperial encounters that promulgates multiple racisms/ systems of oppression, repressive institutional structures, subordination, and subjugation as well as indigenous land dispossession. Professor Sunera Thobani (2022) argues about the same issues raised in this article about precarious labour and citizenship status in one of her texts on ‘Coloniality and (in) Justice in the University: Counting for Nothing?’ Thobani (2022) debates that there have been multiple and consistent attempts to de-radicalize insurgent, critical scholarship but also to obscure histories that influence contemporary problems. 

Precarity is not only a matter of temporary resident status or an exploitation of labour. It is also an existential phenomenon whereby international students are socially constructed as “bodies of out of place” and while they are formally invited and integrated into Canadian society and institutions such as university through immigration policies, they continue to experience feelings of isolation, silencing, erasure of multiple histories, cultures and identities, social marginalization and labour exploitation because of the values that underpin Canadian state formation, national identity, and foreign policy coordination, domestically and internationally. I also think this article opens important avenues for international/ transnational dialogue about considerations for Canadian policy makers to engage in transformative public policy on international education. 

For international education to fulfill a sustainable development imperative, policy objectives and actions need to go beyond simply attracting an influx of international students because of Canada’s race in the global competition for international students and instead shift focus on making immigration policy more equitable. Already the Government of Canada has made an important stride in this area by removing limitation of working hours for international students through Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), but more can be done as the years, progress.

I am recommending lowering the threshold of proof of financial status for international students from low-income backgrounds and countries and Canada increasing financial aid for international students in the form of partial, full scholarship and student funding programs for a variety of programs of studies at different levels (undergraduate, Masters and Ph.D.).

I am also aware that the Government of Canada has invested heavily in equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) programming especially at the university level where there are a number of high academic positions that are dedicated to centralized responsibilities but nevertheless problems of underrepresentation of racialized faculty and students persist as well as feelings of isolation and exclusion. Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) needs to have a stronger anti-racism and anti-colonial focus for it to be more effective because equity, diversity inclusion (EDI) currently stands, this regime is a “containment zone” for broader transformational changes.

I also suggest greater collaboration between Canadian employers and Canadian academic institutions along with support from the Government of Canada to enforce stronger labour regulations that protect the rights of international students as student-migrant workers and alleviate labour exploitation in precarious industries such as the services sectors, which they are heavily concentrated in, according to institutional reports and academic journals on Canadian international education. 

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Tina Renier is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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American imperialism is almost as old as the United States itself and one of the first obvious symptoms of this was the infamous Monroe Doctrine. This controversial foreign policy framework was adopted two centuries ago and has since served as the blueprint of Washington DC’s aggression against the world. Under the guise of suppressing European colonialism, the US effectively proclaimed that the “New World” is solely its geopolitical backyard, plunging both Americas into centuries of imperialism, colonialism and oppression. Needless to say, this has had disastrous consequences for Latin America. Washington DC engaged in carving up new states whenever this was in its interest, resulting in the near-constant fragmentation of almost any potential adversary.

Mexico was the first of the Latin American nations to experience the full spectrum of the “blessings” that later became known (or rather infamous) as “freedom and democracy”. Through coercion, blackmail, covert undermining and direct aggression, America occupied the entirety of former northern Mexico, with these territories becoming what today is known as the southern/southwestern US. And while Washington DC’s direct expansionism largely ended with the occupation and annexation of these Mexican territories, its power projection south of the Rio Grande never stopped. The goal was to turn Mexico, once a major power in the Americas, into a failed state that could be destabilized at any given moment, all in order to prevent it from ever becoming a contender to unchecked US power.

One of the unintended (or perhaps intended) results of this was the constant flow of Latino migrants into America, serving as cheap labor for US business interests. In recent decades, the Democratic Party has been using these immigrants, both legal and illegal, for political purposes, aiming to change the demographics of entire counties and even states in order to secure power in these areas. Expectedly, this was always extremely unpopular with the Republicans, as well as the more conservative parts of American society. In recent years, it resulted in absolute chaos on the southern border, with hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of largely undocumented migrants flooding Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent than the previous three.

The border crisis has only exacerbated President Joe Biden’s already atrocious reputation with the voters. However, even his unpopularity can hardly be measured with that of some GOP neocon warmongers such as the infamous Lindsey Graham. In March last year, the bellicose Republican senator from South Carolina threatened Mexico with military action after four US citizens were taken hostage (two of which were later killed) by members of the CDG (short for Gulf Cartel). Graham stated he would “go tough” on the cartels, blaming Mexico for the incident and threatening the US would launch a military intervention in the country.

“I would put Mexico on notice. If you continue to give safe haven to drug dealers, then you are an enemy of the United States,” he stated during an interview with Fox News host Jesse Waters, further adding: “I’m going to introduce legislation … to make certain Mexican drug cartels [are listed as] foreign terrorist organizations under US law and set the stage to use military force if necessary to protect America from being poisoned by things coming out of Mexico.”

Back in January 2023, Republicans Mike Waltz and Dan Crenshaw called for an Authorization for Use of Military Force against Mexican cartels for drug trafficking “that has caused destabilization in the Western Hemisphere.” Graham, along with 16 Republican cosponsors, supported the bill and criticized the Biden administration for the deteriorating situation at the southern border, claiming that “up to 100,000 people have died from fentanyl poisoning coming from Mexico and China, and this administration has done nothing about it.”

“I would tell the Mexican government if you don’t clean up your act, we’re going to clean it up for you,” he threatened.

Such threats certainly didn’t sit well with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who finally got the chance to get back at Washington DC. Namely, the troubled Biden administration is forced to beg for his help to “stem the tsunami of illegal immigrants entering the US”, as the reputable Zero Hedge put it recently. According to their report, in late December, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who has repeatedly maintained that the “border is secure”, traveled to Mexico with Secretary of State Antony Blinken to beg for assistance in what officials called “preliminary” discussions with AMLO. However, this comes with a price.

AMLO laid out the following conditions:

• US approval for a plan to deploy $20 billion to Latin American and Caribbean countries
• Suspend the US blockade of Cuba
• Remove all sanctions against Venezuela
• Grant at least 10 million Hispanics living in the US the right to remain and work legally

The very fact that these demands have more to do with Latin America as a whole rather than Mexico alone shows that they are finally making a united stand against US imperialism. Washington DC would certainly refuse at any other time. However, with less than eleven months left until the 2024 presidential election, the troubled Biden administration needs to act fast. The southern border saw a record 300,000 migrants processed by CBP in December alone, meaning that the GOP stands to win a lot of points if the crisis isn’t averted or at least put under control.

“The two countries are expected to continue talks in Washington DC later this month. Mexico brings significant leverage to the negotiations,” three US and Mexican officials were quoted by NBC News, which also added: “López Obrador’s administration would prefer that President Joe Biden win re-election in November, given Donald Trump’s rhetoric and actions during his time in office. But Biden is quickly running out of options to fix a problem that is driving down his poll numbers without increased support from Mexico.”

It can be argued that the belligerent thalassocracy’s attempts to revive the Monroe Doctrine are failing for the very first time in centuries, as 650 million Latin Americans are finally getting the chance to push back against it as part of an increasingly united front. And while the US might have scored a small victory by having Argentina pull out of its BRICS+ membership bid at the very last moment, the admission of new members on January 1 will certainly encourage Latin America to seek closer ties with either BRICS+ itsel for at least its individual founding members.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

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A member of the Israeli Knesset has doubled down on comments he made in November when he called to “burn Gaza now” and is now claiming there are “no innocents” in areas where the Israeli military ordered evacuations.

“I stand behind what I said. It is better to burn, to take down buildings, than that our soldiers should be harmed,” said MK Nissim Vaturi, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party.

“I said to ‘burn Gaza.’ What does it mean to burn? To go in and rip them apart. There should be no thoughts, no considerations. The soldiers of the IDF should not think for one second and be hurt because we need to be humane,” Vaturi added.

Discussing the areas where the Israeli military ordered evacuations, Vaturi said,

“We evacuated them all – we succeeded in evacuating 1,900,000 in an organized fashion, and there are 100,0000 left. I don’t think that there are any innocents there now – not now, and not when I made my statement.”

Many Palestinian civilians stayed in northern Gaza and other areas following evacuation orders from the Israeli military for a multitude of reasons, including the fact that many of the so-called “safe zones” were still being bombed.

Vaturi’s comments come a day before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will hold its first hearing on South Africa’s genocide case that it has brought against Israel. The 84-page filing submitted by South Africa cites genocidal rhetoric from Israeli officials as evidence of Israel’s intent to commit genocide against Gaza’s Palestinian population.

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

Featured image is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

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Eudravigilance – first teenager death of 2024 – Myocarditis

 

 

• EU-EC-10016565056, Jan.3, 2024, girl age 12-17 years
• “influenza like illness”
• “malaise”
• “myocarditis – fatal – results in death”

According to EudraVigilance, Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine has harmed 39,015 children in Europe ages 0 to 17, 70% of them were girls!

According to WHO VigiAccess – Over 180,000 pediatric adverse events have been reported with COVID-19 vaccines, 65% were girls.

Japanese authorities admit 1st teenage death from COVID-19 Vaccines – it’s a 14 year old girl who had 3rd Pfizer mRNA and died in her sleep 45 hours later.

Read this article from The Asahi Shimbun.

My take on this story: The paper by Nushida et al is well known and was published in July 2023.

Malaysia – Kuala Lumpur – 10 year old Bridget Ho had Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine on Feb. 4, 2022 and died on Nov. 26, 2023 from what appears to be cardiac arrest.

Malaysia, Johor Baru – Oct. 23, 2021 – 14 year old girl Noor Hayati Nabila Abdullah had 1st Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine on Oct. 3, 2021 and 5 days later she was found dead by her mother in their living room.

Taoyuan, TAIWAN – Feb. 9, 2023 – Taiwan Government compensates 1st victim of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, a girl 5-11 who died after 2nd Pfizer mRNA dose and myocarditis.

AIPEI (Taiwan News) — The board overseeing the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s (MOHW) Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) made public the rulings on nine cases involving COVID-19 jabs on Sunday (Feb. 26).

Vietnam – 2nd child to die in Vietnam after Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccination was a grade 9 girl (age 14) from Hanoi (Nov. 2021).

• After Vietnam started vaccinating with Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccines on Nov. 23, 2021, within two weeks, 5 children were dead
• Child #1: 16 yo boy (Bac Giang, vaxxed Nov. 24, died Nov. 28, 2021) (click here)
• Child #2: 14 yo girl (Hanoi, vaxxed Nov. 27, died Nov. 28, 2021) (click here)

Vietnam (Jan. 17, 2022) – Grade 9 girl (age 14) died less than half an hour after she received her second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Jan. 17, 2022 (received 1st dose on Dec. 3, 2021).

 

 

Thailand – 16 year old girl (daughter of Thanphit Sakunmat, from Lampang) died as a result of blood clots in lungs three days after taking 2nd Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine on Oct. 27, 2021.

 

 

Brazil – 16 year old Isabelli Borges Valentim, student at a private Christian school had 1st Pfizer mRNA on Aug. 25, 2021, developed blood clots and died 8 days later on Sep. 2, 2021 (click here) (click here).

 

Brazil – 18 year old model Valentina Boscardin developed clots and died suddenly after 2 doses of Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA jab, on Jan. 9, 2022 (click here).

 

 

Ararangua, Brazil – 13 year old Vanessa Martins Figueiredo had Pfizer vaccine on Nov. 9, 2021, symptoms started 5 days later with vomiting, paralysis, she died on Jan. 10, 2022 (click here) (click here).

 

Brazil – 16 year old Anite Vitoria Ribeiro Bentivoglio had 2nd Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine on Oct. 20, 2021, became ill, fatigue, vomiting, died Jan. 20, 2022 (click here).

 

 

Brazil – 5 year old girl Helena DeMarco Lavalle had 1st dose of Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine on Feb. 18, 2022 and died 8 days later in her sleep.

 

 

 

Germany (Hollfeld, Bavaria) – 15 year old Cheyenne Braun had 2nd Pfizer mRNA on Nov. 1, 2021, suffered a massive heart attack on Nov. 4, 2021 and died on Nov. 17, 2021.

 

 

Germany, Cuxhaven: A 12 year old girl died shortly after Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine in Oct. 2021 (click here). 

The preliminary autopsy protocol suggested that the child’s death had occurred as a result of the vaccination.

Due to this temporal connection, the district health department commissioned the body to be autopsied, which was then carried out in the Hamburg University Hospital.

“We are faced with a particularly tragic case here”, said the head of the health department, Kai Dehne.

France – 16 year old Sofia Benharira, student at Lycee Valabre de Luynes-Gardanne, had 2nd Pfizer mRNA jab on Sep. 14, 2021, chest pain on Sep. 20 and died suddenly on Sep. 21, 2021 after 2 cardiac arrests & clots (click here).

France – 16 year old Melanie Macip died of cardiac arrest 5 days after her 2nd Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine she took on Aug. 2, 2021 (click here).

Italy (Rufanno) – 14 year old girl Majda El Azrak got her 2nd Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA on Aug. 17, 2021, was hospitalized & went into a coma on Aug. 19, and died on Sep. 13, 2021 (click here).

 

 

Italy – 16 year old girl Giulia Lucenti died less than 24 hours after 2nd Pfizer mRNA jab on Sep. 8, 2021 (click here).

My Take…

This crime is taking place on a global scale.

Who is protecting these young girls? No one.

It didn’t take long for the first 2024 child death from Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine to be announced, on Jan.3, 2024.

This substack article, written to honor the first child Pfizer mRNA death of 2024, is a reminder that children continue to be killed by these toxic, failed mRNA products.

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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A key aspect of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit and press conference in Israel on Tuesday was to make a strong show of condemning South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, set to start at The Hague this week.

The US top diplomat blasted the case filed at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as “meritless” and described the whole initiative as “galling” – also saying that it will be a distraction while world powers need to be focused on achieving lasting peace in Gaza.

“The charge of genocide is meritless,” he said. But then in the same press conference he admitted that the “daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly children, is far too high.”

The first hearing in the case will be held Thursday, focused on South Africa’s 84-page application to the ICJ , which describes Israel’s military campaign as “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part” of the Palestinian population of Gaza.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby last week said initially, “We find this submission meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact, whatsoever.”

Israel has gone on a full-court diplomatic press pushing back against the case. There’s not much that the court can enforce in terms of action regardless, but a ruling against Israel would be a huge reputational black eye.

Starting last month, Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued a blistering rebuke in response, rejecting the filing “with disgust” and called Pretoria’s accusations a “blood libel” – essentially saying the South African government’s charge is being fueled by antisemitism.

Israel had also blasted Pretoria for sympathizing with terrorists who massacred civilians:

“South Africa’s claim has no factual and judicial basis and is a despicable and cheap exploitation of the court,” the ministry says in a statement. “South Africa is collaborating with a terror group that calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.”

The ministry blames Hamas for the suffering of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by attempting “to carry out genocide” on October 7, when terrorists from the Strip killed some 1,200 people and took around 240 hostages after invading southern Israel.

“We call on the International Court of Justice and the international community to reject the baseless claims of South Africa out of hand,” the response statement said further.

Below: Israel is now tailoring its messaging in response to growing outrage and pressure…

Our war is against Hamas, not against the people of Gaza

IDF Spokesperson explains the steps that we’re taking to help international organizations distribute humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/0T71gRkUQi

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) January 9, 2024

But Global South countries in particular are likely to support the case. Russia and China too have been deeply critical of Israel’s large-scale bombardment of densely populated civilian areas of the Gaza Strip. The death toll has soared past 23,000 killed, according to Palestinian sources.

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Below is a note and review on the ruling African National Congress’ (ANC) long-running ties with the PLO…

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) has deep ties to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), stretching back to its former leader and South Africa’s first post-apartheid president, Nelson Mandela. The ANC aligned itself with the PLO and other revolutionary causes while Mandela was in prison; after his release, Mandela was a vocal supporter of the PLO and its leader Yasser Arafat, saying in 1990 that “we identify with the PLO because, just like ourselves, they are fighting for the right of self-determination.”

Decades later, that sentiment remains in the South African government, and for many ordinary South Africans who see their struggle against colonialism and apartheid in the Palestinians’ plight and decades-long struggle for self-determination. That’s particularly salient in an election year for South Africa as the ANC and its leader, President Cyril Ramaphosa, struggle to stay the dominant power there.

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Featured image: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Oct. 12, 2023. – Secretary Antony Blinken on X

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Prime Minister Albanese, “don’t wait 200 years to apologise for the brutality of a coloniser, be on the right side of history now, today.”

I am not in the habit of publishing or forwarding work by other writers, but in this case I am making an exception. This is not written by a journalist, but from a young, compassionate woman; a wife, a mother and a thorough human being who calls herself ‘ordinary’. I totally disagree. She is anything but ordinary. Every syllable, every word, every paragraph of her despairing cry for help should be read far and wide, in the hope that western politicians will heed her call and find their moral compass. Here it is, totally unedited.

– Jafar Ramini

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Letter from Yasmin Petrucci:

Dear Senator Penny Wong and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese,

The first thing that you should know about me is that I am an ordinary person. I am not a law maker or CEO of a multinational. I am merely a mother, wife, and taxpayer- one of millions in this country. I am also like hundreds of thousands of ordinary people across the globe who, at night, are unable to sleep. I am traumatised and haunted by the brutal images out of Gaza and the West Bank; a country I have never visited and have no blood ties to. First-hand accounts of the depravity and violence inflicted on a people with no means to escape, no weapons to fight back and no shelter to hide. Thousands of men, women and children starved, dehydrated, and braving the cold, the floods, and the unrelenting onslaught of a colonising power bombarding them from all sides in full view of the world and with the complete support of the US and some members of the Australian parliament. Their only crime is to be Palestinian.

Each morning I wake up to tell my husband that I have seen the most disturbing video to only lie awake that same night and see something even worse. Babies with half their bodies blown off, blood-soaked children shell shocked and trembling, fathers wading through waist deep flood waters carrying their dead children, men and young boys dehumanised, blindfolded and semi naked lined up near ditches and the screams of mothers as white phosphorous rained down on them and burned the flesh off their children. When will this end? How much more can we expect them to take? For how long can the Israelis’ act with such impunity? They have committed the most heinous war crimes this generation has seen, fully sanctioned by this government with insurmountable evidence and with full admission from their own officials. They have butchered, lied, and committed open acts of perfidy without consequence. They have massacred entire families at point blank and thrown Palestinians out of their own homes. They have decimated entire neighbourhoods and imprisoned and abused innocent children. Yet there has not been a single sanction. Not a slap on the wrist. Not even a raised eyebrow and a pursed lip. But what is most painful to know is that we support this attack by sending arms, aid and allowing shipping routes to use our ports. Tell me, would you support ISIS like this?

Last night, I saw a video that will be tattooed into my memory. If you are brave, a simple online search will help you find it. It is of a young boy, no more than five, lying on a gurney with a catheter attached. The doctor lifted his legs to show the flesh and skin that had burned away from his body all the way to the bone. He was still alive, and doctors have run out of anaesthetic. This level of suffering is unfathomable. How can we call ourselves a civilised society and yet turn a blind eye to the immeasurable pain innocent children are forced to endure? I will never be able to unsee this image. Nor will this generation of young people with access to social media, who for the first time in history, have a front row seat to genocide in all its ferocity. This generation will remember. They will also remember how we acted and how we reacted. What legacy are we to leave? One that creates more hate or one that is committed to humanity and abides by international law?

Like this boy in the video, my children are five. I see their faces when I see these images and I hold them tighter and closer. But if you don’t see the children of Gaza as humans, how can I trust that you will see my children as humans? How can I trust this government to see my brothers as humans if you don’t see the men of Gaza as humans? How can I believe you care about women’s rights when you don’t care if the women in Gaza are receiving caesareans without anaesthetic? Because of the stain of this government’s slow reaction to the terror and your unwillingness to condemn this ethnic cleansing, all I see when you appear on TV is the video of that child on the gurney. Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong, I only see that child when I hear you speak. That is the memory you have created in the minds of so many of us. I am sick to my stomach knowing that I voted for you in the last election, believing we shared the same values. We do not.

I implore you to take a stronger stance to prevent any further human suffering for the sake of humanity, morality, and common decency. Palestinians are humans like me, like my children, like my husband and my brothers. They deserve to be safe and free with a right to self-governance in the land that has homed them for generations. Don’t wait 200 years this time to apologise for the brutality of a coloniser, be on the right side of history now, today.

Thank you for your time.

Yasmin Petrucci

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza showed a consistent bias against Palestinians, according to an Intercept analysis of major media coverage. 

The print media outlets, which play an influential role in shaping U.S. views of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, paid little attention to the unprecedented impact of Israel’s siege and bombing campaign on both children and journalists in the Gaza Strip. 

Major U.S. newspapers disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict; used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians; and offered lopsided coverage of antisemitic acts in the U.S., while largely ignoring anti-Muslim racism in the wake of October 7. Pro-Palestinian activists have accused major publications of pro-Israel bias, with the New York Times seeing protests Opens in a new tab at its headquarters in Manhattan for its coverage of Gaza –– an accusation supported by our analysis.

The open-source analysis focuses on the first six weeks of the conflict, from the October 7 Hamas-led attacks that killed 1,139 IsraelisOpens in a new tab and foreign workers to November 24, the beginning of the weeklong “humanitarian truce” agreed to by both parties to facilitate hostage exchanges. During this period, 14,800 Palestinians, including more than 6,000 children, were killed by Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Today, the Palestinian death toll is over 22,000.

The Intercept collected more than 1,000 articles from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times about Israel’s war on Gaza and tallied up the usages of certain key terms and the context in which they were used. The tallies reveal a gross imbalance in the way Israelis and pro-Israel figures are covered versus Palestinians and pro-Palestinian voices — with usages that favor Israeli narratives over Palestinian ones.

This anti-Palestinian bias in print media tracks with a similar survey of U.S. cable news that the authors conducted last month for The ColumnOpens in a new tab that found an even wider disparity.

The stakes for this routine devaluing of Palestinian lives couldn’t be higher: As the death toll in Gaza mountsOpens in a new tab, entire cities are leveled and rendered uninhabitable for years, and whole family lines are wiped out, the U.S. government has enormous influence as Israel’s primary patron and weapons supplier. The media’s presentation of the conflict means there are fewer political downsides to lockstep support for Israel. 

Coverage from the first six weeks of the war paints a bleak picture of the Palestinian side, according to the analysis, one that stands to make humanizing Palestinians — and therefore arousing U.S. sympathies — more difficult. 

To obtain this data, we searched for all articles that contained relevant words (such as “Palestinian,” “Gaza,” “Israeli,” etc.) on all three news websites. We then parsed through every sentence in each article and tallied the count of certain terms. For this analysis, we omitted all editorial pieces and letters to the editor. The basic data set is available hereOpens in a new tab, and a full data set can be obtained by emailing [email protected]Opens in a new tab.

Our survey of coverage has four key findings.

Disproportionate Coverage of Deaths

In the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, the words “Israeli” or “Israel” appear more than “Palestinian” or variations thereof, even as Palestinian deaths far outpaced Israeli deaths. For every two Palestinian deaths, Palestinians are mentioned once. For every Israeli death, Israelis are mentioned eight times — or a rate 16 times more per death that of Palestinians. 

Graphic: The Intercept

“Slaughter” of Israelis, Not Palestinians

Highly emotive terms for the killing of civilians like “slaughter,” “massacre,” and “horrific” were reserved almost exclusively for Israelis who were killed by Palestinians, rather than the other way around. (When the terms appeared in quotes rather than the editorial voice of the publication, they were omitted from the analysis.)

The term “slaughter” was used by editors and reporters to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 60 to 1, and “massacre” was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 125 to 2. “Horrific” was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 36 to 4. 

Graphic: The Intercept

One typical headline from the New York Times, in a mid-November story about the October 7 attack, reads, “They Ran Into a Bomb Shelter for Safety. Instead, They Were SlaughteredOpens in a new tab.” Compare this with the Times’s most sympathetic profile of Palestinian deaths in Gaza from November 18: “The War Turns Gaza Into a ‘Graveyard’ for ChildrenOpens in a new tab.” Here “graveyard” is a quote from the United Nations and the killing itself is in passive voice. In its own editorial voice, the Times story on deaths in Gaza uses no emotive terms comparable to the ones in its story about the October 7 attack. 

The Washington Post employed “massacreOpens in a new tab” several times in its reportingOpens in a new tab to describeOpens in a new tab October 7. “President Biden faces growing pressure from lawmakers in both parties to punish Iran after Hamas’s massacre,” one reportOpens in a new tab from the Post says. A November 13 storyOpens in a new tab from the paper about how Israel’s siege and bombing had killed 1 in 200 Palestinians does not use the word “massacre” or “slaughter” once. The Palestinian dead have simply been “killed” or “died” — often in the passive voice. 

Children and Journalists

Only two headlines out of over 1,100 news articles in the study mention the word “children” related to Gazan children. In a notable exception, the New York Times ran a late-November front-page storyOpens in a new tabon the historic pace of killings of Palestinian women and children, though the headline featured neither group. 

Despite Israel’s war on Gaza being perhaps the deadliest war for children — almost entirely Palestinian — in modern history, there is scant mention of the word “children” and related terms in the headlines of articles surveyed by The Intercept. 

Meanwhile, more than 6,000 children were reported killed by authorities in Gaza at the time of the truce, with the number topping 10,000 today.

Despite Israel’s war on Gaza being perhaps the deadliest war for children in modern history, there is scant mention of the word “children” in headlines.

While the war on Gaza has been one of the deadliest in modern history for journalistsOpens in a new tab — overwhelmingly Palestinians — the word “journalists” and its iterations such as “reporters” and “photojournalists” only appears in nine headlines out of over 1,100 articles studied. Roughly 48 Palestinian reportersOpens in a new tab had been killed by Israeli bombardment at the time of the truce; today, the death toll for Palestinian journalists has topped 100. Only 4 of the 9 articles that contained the words journalist/reporter were about Arab reporters.

The lack of coverage for the unprecedented killing of children and journalists, groups that typically elicit sympathy from Western media, is conspicuous. By way of comparison, more Palestinian children died in the first week of the Gaza bombing than during the first year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, yet the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times ranOpens in a new tab multipleOpens in a new tab personalOpens in a new tab, sympatheticOpens in a new tab storiesOpens in a new tabhighlightingOpens in a new tab theOpens in a new tab plightOpens in a new tab ofOpens in a new tab childrenOpens in a new tab during the first six weeks of the Ukraine war. 

The aforementioned front-page New York Times report and a Washington Post columnOpens in a new tab are rare exceptions to the dearth of coverage about Palestinian children.

As with children, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times focused on the risks to journalists in the Ukraine war, runningOpens in a new tab severalOpens in a new tab articlesOpens in a new tab detailingOpens in a new tab theOpens in a new tab hazardsOpens in a new tab ofOpens in a new tab reportingOpens in a new tab onOpens in a new tab theOpens in a new tab warOpens in a new tabin the first six weeks after Russia’s invasion. Six journalistsOpens in a new tab were killed in the early days of the Ukraine war, compared to 48 killed in the first six weeks of Israel’s Gaza bombardment.   

Asymmetry in how children are covered is qualitative as well as quantitative. On October 13, the Los Angeles Times ran an Associated Press report Opens in a new tab that said, “The Gaza Health Ministry said Friday that 1,799 people have been killed in the territory, including more than 580 under the age of 18 and 351 women. Hamas’s assault last Saturday killed more than 1,300 people in Israel, including women, children and young music festivalgoers.” Notice that young Israelis are referred to as children while young Palestinians are described as people under 18. 

During discussions around the prisoner exchanges, this frequent refusal to refer to Palestinians as children was even more stark, with the New York Times referring in one case to “Israeli women and children” being exchanged for “Palestinian women and minors.” (Palestinian children are referred to as “children” later in the report, when summarizing a human rights groups’ findings.) 

A Washington Post reportOpens in a new tab from November 21 announcing the truce deal erased Palestinian women and children altogether: “President Biden said in a statement Tuesday night that a deal to release 50 women and children held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, in exchange for 150 Palestinian prisoners detained by Israel.” The brief did not mention Palestinian women and children at all.

Coverage of Hate in the U.S.

Similarly, when it comes to how the Gaza conflict translates to hate in the U.S., the major papers paid more attention to antisemitic attacks than to ones against Muslims. Overall, there was a disproportionate focus on racism toward Jewish people, versus racism targeting Muslims, Arabs, or those perceived as such. During the period of The Intercept’s study, The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times mentioned antisemitism more than Islamophobia (549 versus 79) — and this was before the “campus antisemitism” meta-controversy that was contrived by Republicans in CongressOpens in a new tab beginning the week of December 5.

Despite many high-profile instances of both antisemitism and anti-Muslim racism during the survey period, 87 percent of mentions of discrimination were about antisemitism, versus 13 percent mentions about Islamophobia, inclusive of related terms. 

When Major Newspapers Fail

Overall, Israel’s killings in Gaza are not given proportionate coverage in either scope or emotional weight as the deaths of Israelis on October 7. These killings are mostly presented as arbitrarily high, abstract figures. Nor are the killings described using emotive language like “massacre,” “slaughter,” or “horrific.” Hamas’s killings of Israeli civilians are consistently portrayed as part of the group’s strategy, whereas Palestinian civilian killings are covered almost as if they were a series of one-off mistakes, made thousands of times, despite numerousOpens in a new tab pointsOpens in a new tab of evidenceOpens in a new tab indicating Israel’s intent to harm civilians and civilian infrastructure.

The result is that the three major papers rarely gave Palestinians humanizing coverage. Despite this asymmetry, polls show shifting sympathy toward Palestinians and away from Israel among DemocratsOpens in a new tab, with massive generational splits driven, in part, by a stark difference in news sources. By and large, young people are being informedOpens in a new tab of the conflict from TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter, and older Americans are getting their news from print media and cable news. 

Biased coverage in major newspapers and mainstream television news is impacting general perceptions of the war and directing viewers toward a warped view of the conflict. This has led to pro-Israel punditsOpens in a new tabandOpens in a new tab politiciansOpens in a new tab blaming pro-Palestinian views on social media “misinformation.” 

Analysis of both print media and cable news, however, make it clear that, if any cohort of media consumers is getting a slanted picture, it’s those who get their news from established mass media in the U.S.   

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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As Secretary of State Antony Blinken jets across West Asia and North Africa holding talks with various government leaders, the threats by the United States, Britain and the State of Israel have accelerated against the people of Palestine and other neighboring territories.

It has never been clear what real objectives the State Department has in West Asia and North Africa other than supporting the State of Israel, undermining the Palestinian liberation struggle and securing western hegemony in these geopolitical regions.

A key component of U.S. foreign policy as it relates to Palestine is to minimize the level of solidarity with the oppressed people who have been occupied since 1948. Even after 75 years, Washington and Wall Street maintain the same position which views Tel Aviv as an outpost of imperialism in West Asia and North Africa.

More than 23,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7 when the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) began a bombing campaign which continues after three months. A ground invasion of more than two months has still not ended the resistance by Hamas and other organizations.

Across Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America, millions are rallying and demonstrating against what is largely perceived as a genocidal war by Israel. The U.S. is the largest contributor to the Zionist state and consequently the administration of President Joe Biden has been blamed for coordinating and enabling the mass slaughter of the Palestinians which also is being extended to Lebanon and Syria.

The Republic of South Africa has launched a legal claim against the State of Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) charging violations of the Genocide Convention. This lawsuit has already won the support of well over a thousand prominent individuals, civil society and mass organizations along with several governments in Africa, Asia and South America as well as regional groupings such as the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

In response to the solidarity measures with the Palestinians taken by the resistance forces in Yemen, the White House has ordered the Pentagon to assemble a “coalition of the willing”, harkening back to the invasion of Iraq, to repel attacks on ships which are linked to Tel Aviv or conducting trade with the settler-colonial state. Despite the repeated claims by Biden and his White House that it is trying to avert a regional war, military and diplomatic activities by Washington are resulting in greater hostilities and instability throughout West Asia.

The Operation Protect Prosperity announced late last year by the now beleaguered Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is ostensibly designed to build a naval force to repel the solidarity actions of the Yemeni Ansar Allah resistance movement. Several imperialist states and their surrogates have given their approval to some form of an alliance aimed at reinforcing the supremacy of the West over the seas and oceans surrounding Africa and West Asia.

In response to ongoing attacks against those business and military interests supporting Israel, the White House stepped up its rhetoric on January 10. The New York Times reported that:

“[T]he Biden administration has said it will hold the Houthis (Ansar Allah) responsible for the attacks, a warning that suggested the government may be considering retaliatory strikes in Yemen. ‘We’re going to do everything we have to do to protect shipping in the Red Sea,’ the U.S. national security spokesman, John Kirby, said at a news conference on Wednesday. Like the secretary of state, Mr. Kirby did not describe what the White House was considering, saying instead that it would coordinate with allies and that ‘the United States does not seek conflict.’” 

Gaza Siege Has Prompted Expanded Military Clashes

However, what the White House does not acknowledge is that the source of the escalating war in the Arabian and Red Sea areas is the genocide taking place in Gaza. If there had been a ceasefire and serious discussions on the need for the creation of a viable Palestinian state, the burgeoning military resistance from the Ansar Allah would not have reached the present level.

Widespread opposition to the Biden administration’s policy towards Palestine and West Asia as a whole, has further devastated the electoral prospects for the president’s reelection. Since October 7, there have been unprecedented Palestine solidarity rallies, demonstrations and other forms of opposition to the White House within the U.S. and internationally.

Media outlets, both private and public, are pressured to walk in lock step with the White House, both Houses of Congress and Tel Aviv while thousands are dying in Gaza and other neighboring states. Targeted assassinations by the IDF and the Pentagon in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Yemen indicates clearly that it is the imperialist states which are escalating the war on a regional level.

Yemen Remains Steadfast in Solidarity with Palestine

On January 10, the U.S. sponsored a resolution in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to halt the Yemeni attacks on vessels in efforts to impose a blockade against Israeli ports. The resolution passed with the abstentions of Russia, China, Mozambique and Algeria. (See this)

However, the passage of such a resolution before the UNSC does not effectively alter any of the objective conditions facing the Palestinians in Gaza, the other occupied territories along with the most severely impacted regional states. Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah have been targeted by the IDF in the assassinations of some of its leadership.

In Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Iran, the threat of IDF and Pentagon strikes are constant while the propaganda in defense of Israel is being consistently streamed by western news agencies in order to prepare people in the imperialist states for an expanded and extended military conflagration. The resistance forces in Yemen are defying the existing threats by the U.S. and Israel by applying military and economic pressure on the world capitalist system.

In a report published by Al Mayadeen, a Yemeni military official Yahya Saree was quoted as saying:

“The spokesperson for the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) announced that the Navy, the Missile Force, and the Drone Air Force in the Yemeni Armed Forces, ‘executed a joint military operation involving a large number of ballistic and naval missiles and drones, targeting an American ship that was providing support to the Zionist entity.’ According to the spokesperson, the operation also marked the ‘initial response’ of the Yemeni Armed Forces following the U.S. attack on Yemeni Forces, earlier, which resulted in the martyrdom of 10 members of the Yemeni Navy.” 

Therefore, the YAF are responding to the already escalating military situation in the region which is being carried out by Washington and Tel Aviv. Britain and the U.S. issued a joint statement on January 10 calling for a halt to the solidarity campaign being waged by the Yemen resistance.

Britain, the former colonial power in South Yemen, has maintained an interest in developments surrounding the Red Sea. The shipping lanes in this area are some of the most lucrative in the world as large-scale vessels transporting energy resources, military hardware and consumer goods rely on the Bab el-Mandeb straits to reach the Suez Canal.

Since the conclusion of World War II, the U.S. has become the undisputed dominant imperialist power in the West Asia, North Africa and Horn of Africa regions. Challenging the flow of trade in the Red Sea has prompted the suspension of several shipping firms from utilizing the waterways. Consequently, the costs for transporting cargo have sharply risen due to the threats of seizure by the Yemen resistance.

In the same Al Mayadeen article quoted above it notes:

“Saree stressed that ‘the Yemeni Armed Forces affirms that they will not hesitate to appropriately deal with all hostile threats under the legitimate right of defending our country, our people, and our nation.’ To conclude the press briefing, he reminded the world that the Yemeni Armed Forces would continue to stand with Palestine and ‘prevent Israeli ships or those headed to the ports of occupied Palestine from navigating in the Arabian and Red Seas until the aggression stops and the siege on our steadfast brothers in the Gaza Strip is lifted.’”

Any aerial attacks by the U.S. and Britain would be met with retaliation by the YAF. The increased insecurity in the Red Sea area is bound to weaken the economic status of the State of Israel along with commercial interest dependent upon the Bab al-Mandeb straits.

Moreover, an expanded U.S. and British military engagement in the Red Sea and its contiguous states would only fuel greater opposition to the foreign policy of imperialism. Undoubtedly, the battle for the liberation of Palestine and the entire West Asia region is far from being resolved.

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

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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In the wake of its invasion of Ukraine, Russia is now the most-sanctioned country in the world, with 16,077 sanctions on Russian individuals and entities currently in place, nearly six times the amount compared to before it recognized the Luhansk and Donetsk regions as independent states on February 22, 2022.

As Statista’s Florian Zandt shows in the chart below, based on data aggregated by Castellum.AI, Putin’s invasion has pushed Russia past one of the United States’ biggest nemeses in Western Asia.

You will find more infographics at Statista.

Before the invasion of Ukraine, Iran was by far the most-sanctioned state in history, with 3,616 active sanctions by the United States, the United Nations, the EU and countries like Australia, Canada, India and Israel. The relationship between the latter and the Islamic Republic has been especially fraught, with disputes surrounding Iran’s atomic arsenal and its general hostile stance towards Israel threatening to escalate regularly.

The majority of the sanctions imposed on Syria, which ranks third on Castellum.AI’s list, stem from the events surrounding the Syrian civil war starting in 2011. Following civil unrest in connection with the Arab Spring movement, clashes between President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and an unlikely coalition of foreign and domestic actors often opposed on critical issues led to a humanitarian crisis and the internal and foreign displacement of more than half of Syria’s 22 million inhabitants over the years.

Leading the current round of sanctions against Russia are the United States, Canada, Switzerland and the United Kingdom with 3,551, 2,765, 2,225 and 1,749 restrictions, respectively.

The majority of those sanctions target individuals (11,462), while entities have 4,344 sanctions against them, vessels have 169 and aircraft 102. Not included in these figures are sectoral sanctions like general trade embargos on gas or oil.

On top of the sanctions put in place by nation-states and governing bodies, over 1,000 companies have in some capacity withdrawn from the Russian market, according to researchers at the Yale School of Management, among them industry heavyweights like Adidas, Google, Disney, Exxon or Volkswagen.

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is set to hold public hearings today and tomorrow on an urgent case submitted by South Africa charging Israel with the crime of genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza. South Africa has called on the ICJ, also known as the World Court, for an emergency order declaring that Israel is violating the terms of the 1945 Genocide Convention to which all members of the United Nations are obliged to subscribe. The court normally takes one or two weeks to decide on provisional measures but does not have the means to enforce its ruling.

South Africa has accused Israel of killing Gazans at a high rate without distinction, of cruel and inhuman treatment, bombing areas meant to be safe zones, deprivation of food and water and health-care, and destruction of homes, infrastructure, schools, and universities which provide Palestinians with life and a decent way of life. Senior Israeli figures have spoken of Palestinians as “human animals” and a nation which is responsible for Hamas’ sudden attack which killed 1,139 on October 7th. Others have expressed the determination to drive Palestinians from Gaza.

South Africa has asked the Court to order an immediate suspension of Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip until the ICJ rules on the substance of the South African case, presented in an 84-page document. A ruling can take years. ICJ final judgements are obligatory but, here also, the Court does not have the means to enforce its rulings unless UN members are prepared to assume this responsibility.

Israel has called the application “blood libel” and plans to be represented at the hearings by at least three lawyers.

South Africa argues Israel’s three-month military operations in Gaza are “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group”. 

The South African document said Israel’s actions include “killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, and inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction”.

The current membership if the Court is interesting: the president is from the US and the vice president from Russia, and there are three justices of Arab background, one each from Morocco, Somalia and Lebanon. The others are From France, Slovakia, China, Uganda, India, Jamaica, Japan, Germany, Australia, and Brazil. Several have served multiple five-year terms.

South Africa has appointed former deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke as its addition to the panel. Under the Court’s rules a state involved in the case can appoint a judge of its nationality. Former Israeli Supreme court president Sharon Barak has also been chosen by Israel as an ad hoc judge on the panel. While Barak is regarded as a liberal on internal Israeli politics, he has a reputation for ruling against Palestinians fighting expulsion from their homes and lands and supporting Israeli Jewish superiority.

John Dugard is one of the senior South African lawyers representing their country. He is a former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and served as an ad hoc ICJ judge during the 2000s. Adlia Hassim and Tembeka Ngcukaitobi have led the anti-corruption drive in South Africa.

British human rights lawyer Malcom Shaw is one of the four lawyers who will defend Israel at the ICJ hearings. He has apparently been selected instead of controversial US Harvard professor and strong Israel supporter, Alan Dershowitz, as he defended the late Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted and imprisoned trafficker of teenage girls.

Jordan, Palestine, Malaysia and Turkey are among the countries backing the South African application. Human rights organisations began calling for action against Israel’s “genocidal policies” almost as long as Israel’s war has lasted. In mid-November, 36 UN experts called upon the international community to “prevent genocide against the Palestinian people”, as Israel’s actions constitute a “genocide in the making.”

Having backed Israel with bombs and shells to kill Gazans, the Biden administration could be charged with complicity in the genocide of which Israel stands accused. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller stated, weakly,

“Those are allegations that should not be made lightly … we are not seeing any acts that constitute genocide. That is a determination by the State Department.”

It would be interesting to know if the accusation of genocide has been raised by regional leaders who met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has contributed to the deadly and destructive policy on Gaza, during his whirlwind tour of the region this week.

Established in 1945 in association with the UN, the Court, which has a panel if 15 judges, has ruled on 91 cases, including five on genocide, between 1947 and 2023. In 2004, the Court issued a non-binding opinion saying that Israel’s West Bank wall violated international law as it was largely built in occupied territory, illegally annexing to Israel areas west of the wall. Israel ignored the opinion.

Israel cannot afford to ignore the Court when charged with genocide. The accusation alone deprives Israel of highly valued impunity for whatever it has done to the Palestinian people now and during the past 75 plus years. Israel has relied on being regarded as a special case, free of accountability and untouchable. The Gaza war has finished off Israeli impunity.

If and when the ICJ issues an emergency order for Israel to ceasefire, pressure should be stepped up on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to tackle Israeli individuals and their US collaborators over their participation in genocide. So far, the ICC prosecutor British judge Kerim Khan has done his utmost to avoid investigating Israel’s current flagrant violations of international law in Gaza, but he could be compelled to stir his stumps.

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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The presence of harmful pesticide mixtures in wine has increased more than threefold since 2016, official statistics analysed by Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN UK) have revealed. 

Findings from the testing programme conducted by the UK government indicate a significant rise in the percentage of wine with multiple pesticide residues, surging from 14 per cent in 2016 to 50 per cent in 2022.

The analysis of 72 wine samples in PAN UK’s report reveals residues of 19 pesticides, nine of which are linked to cancer. A single wine sample was discovered to contain six different pesticides.

Excessive

Nick Mole, PAN UK’s policy officer, said:

“This massive rise in ‘pesticide cocktails’ should be of grave concern because we know that chemicals can become more harmful when combined, and yet we continue to set safety limits for just one chemical at a time. 

“Wine lovers shouldn’t have to risk exposure to an array of hazardous pesticides when they fancy a tipple. The organic wine sector is flourishing, proving that it is entirely possible to produce wine without relying on toxic chemicals.”

The excessive use of pesticides in the production of wine not only poses a threat to the health of consumers, but also endangers the wellbeing of individuals living and working in wine-producing regions.

In a study conducted in France in October, it was found that children living near vineyards had a higher likelihood of contracting leukemia. Additionally, a Canadian research revealed that individuals employed in the wine industry were at a higher risk of developing illnesses, attributed to their exposure to elevated levels of pesticides.

A French nationwide study published in the Environmental Research journal suggested that agricultural practices and pesticides used in vineyards could have been linked to the occurrence of Parkinson’s disease. 

Dirty Dozen

There seems to be a rising trend in the occurrence of pesticide combinations in the food consumed in Britain, according to PAN UK’s findings. The total percentage of fruit and vegetables with residues from multiple pesticides has consistently stayed below 48 per cent but this year it unexpectedly spiked to an astonishing 53 per cent.

Mole added:

“This year’s results show that, just like our rivers, much of our food is increasingly contaminated with pesticide cocktails. We have no idea what his ongoing exposure to tens – or even hundreds – of different chemicals is doing to our health over the long term.”

In a report by PAN UK and the Soil Association, it is highlighted that despite the prevalence of pesticide cocktails and the evidence pointing to their potentially greater harm compared to individual pesticides, the UK’s regulatory system continues to assess the safety of each chemical independently. Safety evaluations for pesticide residues in our food are conducted based on the analysis of individual chemicals. 

Today, PAN UK launched its yearly ‘Dirty Dozen’ list, identifying the fruit and vegetables with the highest likelihood of being contaminated by multiple pesticides.

Source: data presented based on PAN UK analysis of the UK Government’s Expert Committee on Pesticide Residues in Food (PRiF) four quarterly data spreadsheets for 2022.

Analysis

PAN UK’s analysis revealed that among 134 different pesticide residues found in all produce, 50 per cent fall under the category of ‘highly hazardous pesticides.’ Furthermore, 45 of these are carcinogens, 25 act as endocrine disruptors, impacting hormone systems and leading to birth defects, developmental disorders, and infertility. 

Additionally, 14 are considered developmental or reproductive toxins, affecting sexual function, fertility, and potentially causing miscarriages, while 10 are cholinesterase inhibitors capable of impairing the respiratory system.

“Rates of chronic diseases such as cancer and Parkinson’s are rising”, added Mole. “We urgently need to take a precautionary approach and do everything we can to tackle pesticides in our food chain. But the UK government’s key strategy on pesticides is almost six years late now, and their proposal to introduce pesticide reduction targets never happened.

“Our new environment secretary, Steve Barclay, must do better than his recent predecessors and finally make good on the government’s promise to better protect human health and the environment from pesticides.”

Ambition

Pesticides have to be approved by the Chemicals Regulation Directorate (CRD), and authorised by the Health and Safety Executive before they can be sold, distributed, stored or used in the UK.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) spokesperson said: “In Great Britain, we set strict limits on the pesticides residue levels that are allowed to remain in both food for consumers and feed for animals. 

“These limits are set to protect public health and are set below the level considered to be safe for people to eat. The limits apply to both food produced in the UK and those imported from other countries.” 

In 2018, the UK government committed in its 25 Year Environment Plan to decrease pesticide usage and reassess the UK National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides (NAP) by the year’s end. However, the publication of the NAP is still pending.

“In line with Defra’s 25 Year Environment Plan, the forthcoming National Action Plan on the Sustainable Use of Pesticides (NAP) will see out our ambition to support pesticide users to maximize non-chemical control approaches. The NAP will be published in due course,” added the Defra spokesperson.

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Monica Piccinini is a freelance writer, focused on environmental, health and human rights issues.

Featured image is from UNDP Climate/ Flickr/ Creative Commons 2.0

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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The role of the US State Department regarding Israel’s continued obliteration of Gaza is becoming increasingly clear. As the actions of the Israeli Defence Forces continue, the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, is full of meaningless statements about restraint and control, the protection of civilians, the imperatives of humanitarianism in war. As the war continues, so do those statements.

As the new year began, an official from the White House expressed satisfaction at what appeared “to be the start of the gradual shift to lower-intensity operations in the north that we have been encouraging”. But the revised Israeli approach did not “reflect any changes in the south”. The monstrous death toll, in short, would continue to rise.

As Washington feigns a reproachful attitude to the IDF’s grossly lethal tactics, claiming success in restraining them, another, failing front is also being pursued in the Arab world and beyond. As Israel’s great defender, the US is attempting to hold back fury and consternation as the dirty deeds by their favourite ally in the Middle East are being executed.

Blinken’s latest round of travelling has the flavour of swinging by tetchy neighbours to see how they are faring in the sea of blood and acrimony. The itinerary includes Istanbul, Crete, Amman, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Al-’Ula, Tel Aviv, the West Bank, Manama and Cairo. The State Department’s media release on January 4 outlines the obsolete agenda any sensible diplomat would do best to discard. 

“Throughout his trip, the Secretary will underscore the importance of protecting civilian lives in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza; securing the release of all remaining hostages; our shared commitment to facilitating the increased, sustained delivery of life-saving humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza and the resumption of essential services; and ensuring that Palestinians are not forcibly displaced in Gaza.”

So far, Palestinians are being massacred by the IDF in Gaza, forcibly deprived of life-saving humanitarian assistance and essential services in a sustained act of strangulation while being forcibly displaced. They are being oppressed, harassed and murdered by vigilante Israeli settlers in the West Bank, even as the army looks the other way.

It follows that Blinken is telling tall stories and hoping that legs carry them far. They are also being told as proceedings before the International Court of Justice instituted by South Africa commence to determine whether Israel’s conduct in Gaza satisfies the definition of genocide in international law.

The strategy becomes clearer in the second part of the disingenuous traveller’s agenda. Blinken “will also discuss urgent mechanisms to stem violence, calm rhetoric, and reduce regional tensions, including deterring Houthi attacks on commercial shopping in the Red Sea and avoiding escalation in Lebanon.”

The Houthi attacks and the increasingly violent situation in Lebanon serve as golden distractions for Washington, since they give the Biden administration room to simultaneously claim to be preventing a widening of the conflict while permitting Israel’s butchery to continue.

Corking the conflict, however, is not proving such a success. The war is widening, even if reporting on the subject remains sketchy in the negligently lazy news outlets of the Anglosphere. In addition to the bold moves of the Houthis and escalating violence on the border between Israel and Lebanon come ongoing, harrying efforts from the Islamic Resistance in Iraq. An Al-Mayadeen report on January 7 took note of an announcement from the group, also known as the Iraqi al-Najuba Movement, that it had fired an al-Arqab long-range cruise missile at Haifa “in support of our people in Gaza and in response to the massacres committed by the usurping entity against Palestinian civilians, including children, women, and the elderly.”

A spokesperson for the Iraqi Resistance, Hussein al-Moussawi, was bullish in claiming that the group had the capacity to strike targets beyond Haifa. Conditions to develop the group’s weapons had also been “favourable”.

In a separate statement, the Islamic Resistance also revealed that its fighters had targeted an Israeli base on the occupied Golan Heights, using drones. To this can be added drone attacks on the US army base of Qasrok, located in the countryside of Hasakah in northeastern Syria, and the Ain al-Asad airbase in western Iraq. The base continues to host US forces.

Perhaps the greatest canard of all in this briefest of trips by Blinken is the continued, now absurd claim, that Washington is committed “to working with partners to set the conditions necessary for peace in the Middle East, which includes comprehensive, tangible steps towards the realization of a future Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel, with both living in peace and security.”

In his remarks to President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, Blinken showed the hardened ignorance that will ensure the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will continue in some form. In his mind, a “reformed” Palestinian Authority will take over the reins of a ruined Gaza (“effective responsibility”) whatever the residents of Gaza think.

Palestinians will never, given current conditions, be permitted sovereignty and anything remotely resembling a thriving, viable state. Israel, whose very existence is based on predation, dispossession and war, will never permit a Palestinian entity to be given equal standing at the diplomatic or security table. The US, in the tatty drag of an independent broker, will go along with the pantomime, promoting, as Blinken is, a sham, counterfeit form of autonomy, one forever subject to conditions, demarcations and restraints. And one thing is almost certain about any future rump Palestinian entity: it will be deprived of any right to defend itself.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected] 

Featured image: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meet in Ramallah, West Bank on January 10, 2024. [Palestinian Presidency – Anadolu Agency]

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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By the time I studied broadcasting and journalism in the mid-1960s, newspaper sales were already dropping, even though people were being more, if not better educated. Local newspaper competition had disappeared in most major cities. Between 1965 and 1980, mass media in the US came under greater control by national and multinational corporations. As Ben Bagdikian noted in The Media Monopoly, distant ownership need not have alienated readers. But corporate owners also “changed the form and content, the strategies of operation, and the economics of newspapers.”

Pressure to maximize profits increased as huge parent companies competed for investments and higher dividends in international markets. This hastened the conversion of newspapers into primarily carriers of advertising, and eventually led to deep staff cuts.

In those days, Walter Cronkite was known as the most trusted man in America.

That is, if you believed Reader’s Digest, which provided a glimpse behind the curtain in June 1980. “We have to set ourselves up as judges of the news,” Cronkite proudly told the Digest. “A good journalist doesn’t just know the public, he is the public.” It was a monument of self-righteous entitlement.

His pretense of identification with the masses masked Cronkite’s role as the ultimate “insider” mouthpiece, one who often reflected the consensus of the electronic establishment. In 1980, for example, when he noted every night how many days Americans had been held hostage in Tehran, it wasn’t just because he and The People felt strongly. It was corporate policy at CBS.

At the time CBS was in the top five of about 50 corporations that controlled most daily newspapers, magazines, television stations, publishing houses, and major movie companies; in short, the pre-digital media-scape. By the end of the 1980s, that 50 corporations was reduced by at least half, some of them more dominant in a specific medium. But the highest levels of world finance had become intertwined with the highest levels of media ownership, which produced greater control over the systems on which the public depended for news and information. 

At the top of the list were Capital Cities, which had absorbed ABC; Cox Media, then a newspaper powerhouse; CBS; Disney; Gannett; General Electric; Paramount; Harcourt Brace; and Bertelsmann. Old empires like Hearst and Knight Ridder had begun to fall. New empires like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. were beginning to rise.

By the time Ronald Reagan became president and Bernie Sanders was Burlington’s mayor, the Gannett Corporation owned over 90 daily newspapers and USA Today, plus dozens of TV and radio stations.

One of those newspapers was the Burlington Free Press, Burlington’s only daily, which dominated local print in my hometown until the rise of alternative weeklies. At the time Gannett was positioning itself to combine print, data and the emerging video market. But its vision and influence were dwarfed by News Corp., which not only acquired newspapers, 20th Century Fox and its archives, but also TV Guide and the Annenberg empire. 

An equally awesome merger was that of Time. Inc. and Warner Communications. Then Time-Warner merged with America Online, the leading Internet company at the turn of the century. This $350 billion deal set off speculation that the world’s largest media and entertainment entity could revolutionize communication. The forecasters were at least partly right. 

By the end of the 20th century, consolidation had boiled down major media ownership to less than ten corporations at the top. Legacy giants General Electric, Disney and Bertelsmann maintained their spots, joined by News Corp., Time Warner, Viacom, Sony, AT&T, and Seagram. Together they owned most of the world’s TV stations, newspapers, magazines, and recording and film companies. Broadcast and cable channels were multiplying, but this obscured the increasingly centralized ownership.

Take General Electric, which owned NBC and its cable division. It also had investments in Bravo, AMC and the Independent Film Channel (IFC), and was a partner in the PrimeStar satellite system. 

A prime example of the consolidation process involved CBS, Paramount, Viacom, and MCA, one of the giants purchased during the 1990s by the Japanese and Gulf + Western, which listed Paramount Pictures and Simon & Schuster among its holdings. In 1989, G+W changed its name to Paramount Communications and shed its non-media businesses. The idea was to concentrate on the global communications race. But Viacom stepped in. Already owner of movie houses, Blockbuster, Spelling Entertainment, and networks like Showtime, Comedy Central, MTV, VH-1, USA, Lifetime and Nickelodeon, Viacom bought Paramount for $10.4 billion. In May 2000, it merged with CBS, a $45 billion deal that involved 38 TV stations, 162 radio stations, movie studios, publishers, theme parks, and more. Meanwhile, MCA merged with WorldCom and paid $122 billion for Sprint.

Before the emergence of the Internet, the most dynamic sector of broadcasting was the expansion of cable television. In 1980, less than 15 million homes were “wired.” Within ten years, the number jumped to 54 million subscribers, almost two thirds of all homes with TV sets. But aside from C-SPAN and CNN’s war coverage, the proliferation of channels mainly brought more of the same — TV reruns, home shopping, movie channels, televangelism, and commercials posing as programs.  

By 1998, there were already 120 million Internet users, and it was obvious that digital media would transform mass communications. At first it reached only a few percent of the world’s population, and took about a decade to become truly global. But as the “information superhighway” was built, the same corporations began to vie for access to this enormous new market. 

In 2006, The Nation’s periodic review of what it called “the national entertainment state” listed just six top members — Disney (including ABC), CBS, General Electric (NBC), News Corp. (Fox), Time Warner (CNN), and Viacom (Paramount, MTV, and Dreamworks).

But consolidation still continued. In 2016, Comcast merged with GE.

Two years later, AT&T absorbed Time Warner for more than $85 billion, as Viacom lost ground under the aging mogul Sumner Redstone. In terms of global advertising, the list differed a bit. Google was number one, followed by Comcast, Fox, and Facebook. 

By 2023, the big six movie studios were down to just two — Disney and Netflix. But due to streaming services, combined with the decline of cable and major film studios, these two faced competition in a landscape increasingly dominated by Apple and Amazon. “These behemoths have the corporate muscle to influence not just what gets made but also how it gets distributed and marketed … even how (or whether) it gets reviewed,” The Nation concluded.  

Today information comes to us faster, and at greater volume, than ever before in human history.

But from the telegraph to television, and on to the Internet, mass communication has long been a double-edged sword, especially when it comes to what is true.

In the current era, as facts have been greatly devalued, it has become more difficult to tell the difference between truth and opinion, and also between unintentional errors (misinformation) and purposeful lies (disinformation). 

There are so many possibilities, yet reliable standards of proof are hard to find. Theories evolve, expand and mutate rapidly in unexpected ways as they circulate through cyberspace. Speculation, conjecture or outright falsehoods become accepted as “true” with constant repetition.

Compounding the problem, search engines use algorithms to keep us engaged. Even without the additional manipulation of marketing and consultants who may influence listings, over time our searches are shaped to fit our profiles. Information is prioritized to reinforce previous choices, influenced by suggested assumptions and preferences. As Eli Pariser argued in The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You, environmental activists and energy executives get very different results when they inquire about climate science. It looks and feels “objective,” but they are mainly offered data that fits with their existing view – and not much that conflicts.

One study discussed in Sociological Quarterly looked at this by following attitudes about climate science over a decade. Although a consensus emerged among most scientists over the years, the number of Republicans who accepted their conclusion dropped. Why was that? Because the Republicans were getting different information than the Democrats and others who embraced the basic premise. In other words, their viewpoint was being reflected back at them.

Is reinforcement through search engines leading to inadvertent self-indoctrination? For democracy to function effectively, people need exposure to various viewpoints. “But instead we’re more and more enclosed in our own bubbles,” Pariser warned. Rather than agreeing on a set of shared facts we’re being led deeper into our different worlds.

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Greg Guma is author, historian, and former CEO of Pacifica Radio. He chronicled Vermont history in The People’s Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution and Restless Spirits & Popular Movements. His recent book, Prisoners of the Real, looks at the costs of expedient answers, authoritarian strategies, and a preoccupation with control and toward liberated groups that offer new opportunities and real choice.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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On January 11th, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague is holding its first hearing in South Africa’s case against Israel under the Genocide Convention. The first provisional measure South Africa has asked of the court is to order an immediate end to this carnage, which has already killed more than 23,000 people, most of them women and children. Israel is trying  to bomb Gaza into oblivion and scatter the terrorized survivors across the Earth, meeting the Convention’s definition of genocide to the letter.

Since countries engaged in genocide do not publicly declare their real goal, the greatest legal hurdle for any genocide prosecution is to prove the intention of genocide. But in the extraordinary case of Israel, whose cult of biblically ordained entitlement is backed to the hilt by unconditional U.S. complicity, its leaders have been uniquely brazen about their goal of destroying Gaza as a haven of Palestinian life, culture and resistance.

South Africa’s 84-page application to the ICJ includes ten pages (starting on page 59) of statements by Israeli civilian and military officials that document their genocidal intentions in Gaza. They include statements by Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Herzog, Defense Minister Gallant, five other cabinet ministers, senior military officers and members of parliament.

Reading these statements, it is hard to see how a fair and impartial court could fail to recognize the genocidal intent behind the death and devastation Israeli forces and American weapons are wreaking in Gaza.

The Israeli magazine +972 talked to seven current and former Israeli intelligence officials involved in previous assaults on Gaza. They explained the systematic nature of Israel’s targeting practices and how the range of civilian infrastructure that Israel is targeting has been vastly expanded in the current onslaught. In particular, it has expanded the bombing of civilian infrastructure, or what it euphemistically defines as “power targets,” which have comprised half of its targets from the outset of this war.

Israel’s “power targets” in Gaza include public buildings like hospitals, schools, banks, government offices, and high-rise apartment blocks. The public pretext for destroying Gaza’s civilian infrastructure is that civilians will blame Hamas for its destruction, and that this will undermine its civilian base of support. This kind of brutal logic has been proved wrong in U.S.-backed conflicts all over the world. In Gaza, it is no more than a grotesque fantasy. The Palestinians understand perfectly well who is bombing them – and who is supplying the bombs.

Intelligence officials told +972 that Israel maintains extensive occupancy figures for every building in Gaza, and has precise estimates of how many civilians will be killed in each building it bombs. While Israeli and U.S. officials publicly disparage Palestinian casualty figures, intelligence sources told +972 that the Palestinian death counts are remarkably consistent with Israel’s own estimates of how many civilians it is killing. To make matters worse, Israel has started using artificial intelligence to generate targets with minimal human scrutiny, and is doing so faster than its forces can bomb them.

Israeli officials claim that each of the high-rise apartment buildings it bombs contains some kind of Hamas presence, but an intelligence official explained,

“Hamas is everywhere in Gaza; there is no building that does not have something of Hamas in it, so if you want to find a way to turn a high-rise into a target, you will be able to do so.”

As Yuval Abraham of +972 summarized,

“The sources understood, some explicitly and some implicitly, that damage to civilians is the real purpose of these attacks.”

Two days after South Africa submitted its Genocide Convention application to the ICJ, Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich declared on New Year’s Eve that Israel should substantially empty the Gaza Strip of Palestinians and bring in Israeli settlers.

“If we act in a strategically correct way and encourage emigration,” Smotrich said, “if there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza, and not two million, the whole discourse on “the day after” will be completely different.”

When reporters confronted U.S. State Department spokesman Matt Miller about Smotrich’s statement, and similar ones by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Miller replied that Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have reassured the United States that those statements don’t reflect Israeli government policy.

But Smotrich and Ben-Gvir’s statements followed a meeting of Likud Party leaders on Christmas Day where Netanyahu himself said that his plan was to continue the massacre until the people of Gaza have no choice but to leave or to die.

“Regarding voluntary emigration, I have no problem with that,” he told former Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon. “Our problem is not allowing the exit, but a lack of countries that are ready to take Palestinians in. And we are working on it. This is the direction we are going in.”

We should have learned from America’s lost wars that mass murder and ethnic cleansing rarely lead to political victory or success. More often they only feed deep resentment and desires for justice or revenge that make peace more elusive and conflict endemic.

Although most of the martyrs in Gaza are women and children, Israel and the United States politically justify the massacre as a campaign to destroy Hamas by killing its senior leaders. Andrew Cockburn described in his book Kill Chain: the Rise of the High-Tech Assassins how, in 200 cases studied by U.S. military intelligence, the U.S. campaign to assassinate Iraqi resistance leaders in 2007 led in every single case to increased attacks on U.S. occupation forces. Every resistance leader they killed was replaced within 48 hours, invariably by new, more aggressive leaders determined to prove themselves by killing even more U.S. troops.

But that is just another unlearned lesson, as Israel and the United States kill Islamic Resistance leaders in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Iran, risking a regional war and leaving themselves more isolated than ever.

If the ICJ issues a provisional order for a ceasefire in Gaza, humanity must seize the moment to insist that Israel and the United States must finally end this genocide and accept that the rule of international law applies to all nations, including themselves.

*

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

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

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022.

Featured image: The International Court of Justice. Photo credit: ICJ

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

***

What  everyone with open eyes and a cell phone witnessed  24 x7 for 3 months as Israel massacred  Palestinians of Gaza is now being  adjudicated in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague under the Genocide Convention brought into law by the United Nations in 1948. This case has been brought to this highest Court by South Africa, with a detailed application, where each point is substantiated with recorded and indisputable evidence.[i]

The stakes in this case are high and include:

(i) The right of the Palestinian people to exist as a nation as opposed to the right of a racist colonial state of Israel backed by the great hegemon the United States to exterminate them.

(ii) The legitimacy of the ICJ to fulfill its mandate and therefore the very relevance, fairness, standard of this institution. This is because under the very definitions of the Convention on Genocide of the ICJ, the Palestinian people constitute a national group.

Article II of this Convention outlines specific acts that constitute genocide, which include: the intent to destroy in whole or part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, by killing members of the group; inflicting conditions for the physical destruction of the group; forcible transfers. All of which have been carried out in full public view by Israel in Gaza.

(iii) The legitimacy of the those supporting and aiding Israel to carry and therefore complicit in this genocide by providing arms, bombs and material aid to destroy the people of Gaza; who call themselves the protectors of a ‘rules-based order’; who claim those outside this ‘order’ as barbarians and ‘uncivilized’; who militarily intervene to protect democracy, human rights, and take a high moral ground on their constant interventions with the narrative of protecting universal (Western) values.

The Cause in this case are:

(i) The very existence of the Palestinian nation and its recognition.

(ii) Whether a publicly watched ongoing genocide can be stopped by a legitimate international legal entity versus the right of a sovereign state to indulge in collective punishment to massacre its citizens, kill women and children as ‘collateral damage’, target hospitals, medical professionals, journalists, writers, bomb residential buildings, destroy public institutions at will.

(iii) Whether a state and its regime who officially declare intent to destroy a peoples, as when the Israeli Defense Minister dehumanize Palestinians as ‘human animals be treated as such’, order the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to go for “a full scale response” saying “We will eliminate everything”  and then call it ‘moral’ and a ‘right to self-defense’. When Israel’s Prime Minister declares that they will turn parts of densely populated urban Gaza “into rubble” versus the right of the international community and its legal institutions to uphold that every sovereign state has the responsibility to protect its citizens, treat all its citizens as equal under law and constitution. Ensure human rights, especially the right to life and bodily protection.

(iv) Whether a state in revenge and following a criminal act (by Hamas) against a privileged section (12,000 or so) of its citizens and armed forces match its intent into orders of incessant, indiscriminate, disproportional bombings; deny this minority basic life necessities like water, adequate food, deny medical assistance, any aid, make conditions unlivable, force the transfer to citizens from homes into transit camps miles away and still declare itself as responsible democratic state with all international privileges versus responsibility of the ICJ to activate its Article 41 of the Statute to order provisional measures to protect rights invoked from imminent and irreparable loss.

The parties to this case:

The principle petitioner South Africa as the plaintiff is backed by Turkey, Malaysia, Jordan, Bolivia, the 57 member bloc The Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC), then the Maldives, Namibia, Pakistan, and other countries follow. Moreover thousands of advocacy and civil society groups have joined South Africa’s call, including Physicians against nuclear war, the Asia Europe Peoples Forum, the Transnational Institute, Focus on the Global South, the International Peace Bureau.

The defendants of genocide are obviously Israel and not surprisingly the US whose spokesperson John Kirby calls the South African submission “meritless, counterproductive and completely without basis”. Many Western states have showed their support in different ways but fear the polarization and upsurge in their own societies so remain silent because they generally associate countries outside the West as barbaric and genocidal, like Myanmar against the Rohingyas; the Serbs, the Hutus vs the Tutsis and so on. So their silence here is telling, even as much of the global majority, (many of whom have not spoken out) including Russia and China, hope for a favorable decision from the ICJ.

As far as morals, values, civilizational values are concerned, this is a case for freedom versus colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism; tolerance versus racism and white supremacy; oppression versus resistance; morality versus duplicity, hierocracy, double standards. The ICJ holds the key to these choices.

South Africa stands morally, politically and historically tall, and the real conscience of the international community lies with civil society and the millions who support the resistance and rightful justice for the Palestinian people.

*

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Note

[i] South Africa’s Application to ICC on Genocide At:  https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf

Featured image: Never Again and Again and Again – by Mr. Fish

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

***

If the International Court of Justice, AKA the World Court, convicts Israel of genocide or enjoins it from committing acts that contribute to genocide, it will not be on the basis of evidence or law.

There will be deliberation before the 15 judges announce their decision, but it will have little to do with the reason South Africa is requesting a judgment.  

The 15 judges that will meet in the Hague are eminent jurists, but their role is political, not legal.

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VIDEO. ICJ Hearings in The Hague

Click Screen to View the ICJ Hearings, January 11, 2024

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They will vote the way their country tells them to vote, not upon conclusions drawn from the proceedings. They were selected by their respective countries on that basis, and elected by a majority vote of the UN General Assembly and Security Council.  

That’s an odd combination. In the General Assembly, each member has one vote, and in the Security Council, each member also gets one vote. But since all the countries on the Security Council are already represented in the General Assembly, when they vote for judges in the ICJ, they get two votes. And since five members of the SC are permanent, they permanently have two votes.

In addition, the absolute majority requirement means that only the most powerful and influential nations can cajole, influence, threaten or bribe enough votes to meet the requirement. Generally speaking, this means that the US can command enough votes in the court to control most of the decisions of consequence. The haggling is almost certainly taking place right now, before the court has even heard the case.  

Of course, the US doesn’t control every vote. The judges from China, Russia, Slovakia, Lebanon, Somalia and Morocco, for example, are unlikely to take orders from the US on this issue. But neither are they likely to vote on the basis of law or evidence. They will vote according to what they believe to be in their country’s interest. If it happens to accord with the evidence, so much the better for justice. But, barring one or more renegade votes, justice will be coincidental.  

Following is an analysis of the probable votes of the judges, based in part on the opinion of Norman Finkelstein as well as views expressed directly by government figures in the countries that nominated the judges. 

Judge Joan E. Donoghue of the United States: A no-vote is almost certain to come from Donoghue, given the United States’ long and unwavering support for Israel’s actions. United States officials blame the large numbers of civilian casualties on Hamas’s supposed usage of civilians as “human shields” and have adamantly denied that Israel’s actions constitute genocide.

Judge Kirill Gevorgian of the Russian Federation: While the Russian government has shown sympathy for the Palestinian cause and spoken against excessive civilian casualties, they may be wary of the potential consequences of such a landmark genocide ruling that could be used against them in the future regarding their military actions in Ukraine. Even so, showing support for the Palestinian people and taking a stand against America and its allies could be advantageous to Russia’s image. For this reason, a yes vote from Russia is possible but uncertain.

Judge Peter Tomka of Slovakia: Slovakia has enjoyed friendly relations with Israel and has refrained from criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza. However, Slovakia has voiced concern over illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and supports a two-state solution. Slovakia abstained in a recent UN General Assembly vote calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. For this reason, it is difficult to predict how the Slovakian judge may vote, but constituting Israel’s actions as a genocide would be a leap in Slovakia’s foreign policy regarding the matter. Therefore, such a ruling appears more unlikely than likely to come from Judge Tomka. 

Judge Ronny Abraham of France: France has remained a strong supporter of Israel and its policies throughout the years, and the two enjoy a friendly and cooperative relationship. However, French President Emmanuel Macron has harshly criticized Israel’s recent military actions in Gaza, saying there is “no justification” for the bombing campaign and urged Israel to cease its hostilities. The ruling from Judge Abraham could go either way, with significant evidence backing either possibility. 

Judge Mohammed Bennouna of Morocco: The Moroccan population has shown unwavering support for the Palestinian cause, with tens of thousands of Moroccans marching in the streets to protest Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Although Morocco’s government adopted a policy of normalizing ties with Israel in return for recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara, Moroccan authorities continue to voice support for Palestine’s struggle for human rights and statehood. Hence, a yes vote is highly likely to come from Mohammed Bennouna, and the alternative would cause widespread anger and discontent among Morocco’s population.

Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf of Somalia: The nation of Somalia unwavering supports the Palestinian cause and the liberation of its people. Somalis took to the streets to stand with Gaza and protest Israel’s bombardment of the strip. Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre condemned international silence on the Israeli occupation and praised Hamas for fighting for liberation. A yes vote is highly likely to come from Judge Yusuf. 

Judge Xue Hanqin of China: The Chinese government has been a strong critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza and supports an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. However, China may be hesitant to set a precedent regarding violations of the Genocide Convention for similar reasons as Russia. Some accuse China of committing genocide against the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority in China. For this reason, a yes vote from China is possible but not assured. 

Judge Julia Sebutinde of Uganda: Uganda’s position regarding the situation in Palestine is nuanced and not apparent. Uganda has tentatively friendly relations with Israel and supports a two-state solution. However, during a visit to Uganda from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni repeatedly referred to the land as Palestine, including describing relations between “Palestine and Africa.” Uganda’s Minister of State for International Affairs confirmed that Uganda supports Palestine and its right to an independent State. Uganda’s votes in the UN General Assembly regarding conflicts in Palestine have been inconsistent, with the Ugandan representative voting no on resolutions critical of Israel in several cases. However, Uganda recently voted for a resolution calling for a ceasefire of hostilities in Gaza. Judge Sebutinde’s ruling is somewhat unpredictable, but either decision is possible. 

Judge Dalveer Bhandari of India: While in the past India has shown support for the Palestinian cause, the modern Hindu-majority government has shifted India to a nation described as pro-Israel. India views Israel’s actions in Gaza as a “counterterrorism operation” but called for international humanitarian law to be maintained in the strip. India was one of the first to condemn Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel and banned protests in support of Palestine. Therefore, a no-vote is a probable ruling to come from India.

Judge Patrick Lipton Robinson of Jamaica: Jamaica’s history of oppression at the hands of the British has caused them to be a defender of resistance against unjust governments. They were the first nation to issue sanctions against the apartheid state of South Africa, paving the way for others to follow suit. However, the Jamaican government’s silence on Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has drawn criticism from the Jamaican population, who generally support the Palestinian cause. A yes vote from Jamaica would answer calls to take a clear stance on the conflict, and for that reason, it is the more likely possibility. 

Judge Nawaf Salam of Lebanon: A yes vote is almost certain to come from the Lebanese Judge, as the struggle of the Palestinians is historically intertwined with Lebanon’s struggle against Israel. The Lebanese population staunchly supports the Palestinian cause and views Israel as an occupying and oppressive state. The Lebanese militia Hezbollah has led successful military campaigns against Israeli forces in the past and is currently shelling the northern areas of the territory that Israel controls. Over 270,000 Palestinian refugees reside in Lebanon, and scores took to the streets to protest Israel’s actions in Gaza. Lebanon and Israel have no official diplomatic relations. 

Judge Iwasawa Yuji of Japan: Japan advocates for a two-state solution and maintains a hesitant and tentative foreign policy approach regarding the conflict. Japan unequivocally condemned Hamas’s October 7th attack and voiced support for a cessation of hostilities. Japan is a strong Asian ally of the United States and Western European states, and Japan’s foreign policy often aligns with the positions of those states. Hence, constituting Israel’s actions as genocide would be a large leap from the country’s current position, and a no-vote would be most probable. 

Judge Georg Nolte of Germany: Germany has been a strong supporter of the Israeli government and its actions, and the two maintain a “special relationship” based on Western values and historical perspectives. Some analysts suggest Germany’s unwavering support of the Jewish state is an attempt to make amends for the atrocities committed against the Jewish population by the Nazis during WWII. Following October 7th, German Chancellor Olaf Sholz offered military aid to Israel and dismissed calls for a ceasefire. Germany also banned demonstrations in support of Palestine. As such, a no vote is highly likely to come from Judge Nolte.

Judge Hilary Charlesworth of Australia: Australia supports a two-state solution and often defends Israel’s policies and actions. Australia’s foreign policy is often reflected by its strong relationships with Western states such as the United States. However, the Australian population is split in its stance on the conflict, and large demonstrations have taken place in support of Palestine. Still, a no vote is the most likely ruling to come from Judge Charlesworth.

Judge Leonardo Nemer Caldeira Brant of Brazil: Brazil strongly supports a Palestinian state according to its 1967 borders (including the West Bank and Gaza), and the Brazilian population is split in its support for either side. President Lula has attempted to walk the diplomatic line between either side, emphasizing the need for de-escalation. The potential for a cessation of hostilities in the event of a conviction of Israel violating its obligations may sway the Brazilian judge to rule accordingly. Therefore, a yes vote is a more likely possibility. 

Considerations:

Each of the judges on the court has highly esteemed experiences, academics, and careers, and their knowledge and insights should not be ruled out in predicting their decisions. They do not officially represent their nation and are required to be uninfluenced by politics and policies. However, powerful nations have ways of “persuading” weaker nations and individuals to vote as directed. It is therefore unlikely that evidence and law will be more than window dressing in the outcome of the case against Israel.

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Paul Larudee is a retired academic and current administrator of a nonprofit human rights and humanitarian aid organization.

Calvin Larudee, Paul’s grandson, is a high school student in Castro Valley, California. He provides international weekly news summaries and analysis at International Informants, to which subscribers are welcome.

The “Silent Cardiac Killer” Fraud: At Least 20 Young People Age 14-35 Drop Dead Each Week. One in 300 Now Carry an “Undetected Heart Condition”

By Dr. William Makis, January 10, 2024

Statistics Canada tells us about 1 in 800 Canadians died as “excess deaths” in 2022. The vast majority of these will be COVID-19 Vaccine deaths. Suddenly, mainstream media is telling us 1 in 300 young people have an “undiagnosed heart condition” that predisposes them to sudden cardiac death.

Criminality in the White House: The Rise of the Political Psychopath

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, January 10, 2024

Psychopaths and politicians both have a tendency to be selfish, callous, remorseless users of others, irresponsible, pathological liars, glib, con artists, lacking in remorse and shallow.

Widespread Famine, Infectious Diseases: Pressure for UK to Shift its Position on Gaza, Parliament Informed of Soaring Hunger

By Lemma Shehadi, January 10, 2024

Pressure for the UK to shift its position on Gaza and call for a ceasefire is mounting, after MPs were told of a huge rise in malnourishment and infectious diseases. Humanitarian aid agencies told MPs on Tuesday that doctors were seeing more malnourished patients, with the risks of widespread famine growing daily.

Neurological Adverse Reactions to SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines. “Affect the central or peripheral nervous system (CNS, PNS)”

By Josef Finsterer, January 10, 2024

SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are not free of side effects and most commonly affect the central or peripheral nervous system (CNS, PNS). This narrative review aims to summarise recent advances in the nature, frequency, management, and outcome of neurological side effects from SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.

Biden Is Trump’s Poodle on Case of Journalist Julian Assange and Bogus Espionage Charges

By Colonel Ann Wright, January 10, 2024

Under the Obama administration in which you, Biden, were Vice President for eight years, journalist and publisher Julian Assange was NOT prosecuted for publishing the Collateral Damage video of the U.S. Army murder by Hellfire missile of Reuters reporters nor the classified Afghanistan and Iraq war files.

Video: Just Murdering a Few More Journalists in Gaza? With the Support of Private Contractors

By Emanuel Pastreich, January 10, 2024

On Monday, January 8, the total number of journalists killed by the Israeli military, often in coordination with the American military and a host of private contractors, contractors who also run the surveillance systems at your high school or shopping mall, the total number of journalists killed in three months of attacks on Gaza reached 111 with the deaths of journalists Abdullah Breis and Mohammed Abu Dayer.

A Crack in a 75-year-old Wall of Impunity: South Africa Challenges Israeli Genocide in Court

By Craig Mokhiber and Phyllis Bennis, January 10, 2024

The horrors of the original Nakba were met with decades of absolute impunity for Israel, feeding further violence. But this time, three decades since the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa, the post-apartheid “Rainbow Nation” is taking the lead in challenging Israel’s genocidal assault.

Australia Must Support South Africa’s International Court of Justice Case Against Israel

By Prof. Stuart Rees, January 10, 2024

Despite Australia’s supposed enthusiasm for the rule of international law, it has shown no intention to support the South African initiative. The Labor government has ignored requests from the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network to intervene on South Africa’s behalf. If Australia did support South Africa, it would aid legal intervention to cease the slaughter and destruction in Gaza and on the West Bank.

String of US and Israeli Assassinations Further Inflame the Middle East

By Steven Sahiounie, January 10, 2024

The US and “Israel” have been recently carrying out political assassinations in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. ISIS carried out a massive bombing in Iran during the same period, and there is a connection between ISIS and the US.

New Zealand Fudged the Data on How the Kidneys Fare After the COVID Vaccines

By Dr. Colleen Huber, January 10, 2024

In a January 2023 preprint in The Lancet, the New Zealand government released a study showing a 70 percent increased rate of kidney injury following two doses of Pfizer mRNA vaccines. Even more telling of injury was the dose-dependent effect. That is, one dose of Pfizer showed a 60 percent increased rate of injury within three weeks post-injection, while two doses showed a 70 percent increased rate of injury three weeks post-injection.

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Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

***

Channel 4 News presented by Cathy Newman on Nov. 12, 2023: Clarissa Nicholls’ mother talks about the sudden death of her 20 year old daughter.

I reported this sudden death in June 2023 on Twitter:

May 7, 2023 – London, UK – 20 yo Clarissa Nicholls was studying languages at Cambridge University. She went for a trip to France in May 2023. She collapsed & died suddenly from cardiac arrest on May 7, 2023 while hiking in France. It’s virtually a certainty that she was COVID-19 Vaccinated.

They told the mother Clarissa had Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy. She believed them.

However, they lied to her. This is a new fraud that they are now pushing in the UK, Australia as well as the United States (except Canada where doctors insist none of this is happening).

In this Channel 4 Report, they claim at least 1 in 300 young people have this condition. That is also a lie.

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Jan. 4, 2024 (First Coast News) – University of Washington Center for Sports Cardiology Director Dr.Jonathan Drezner (he/him) – “Any child can be potentially at risk”. “He says about 1 in 300 young people have the heart condition that can lead to sudden cardiac arrest”.

Click here to watch the video.

In this propaganda piece, they are combining two tragic deaths from 2009 and 2016, and trying to like those deaths to the new post COVID-19 Vaccine phenomenon of young people “Dying suddenly.”

The lie: “1 in 300 young people have this condition.”

They’re trying to find an excuse to start cardiac screening in young people 12-22.

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From 1 in 5000, according to Boston Children’s Hospital, to 1 in 300. 

According to Boston Children’s Hospital:

 

(2017 Corrado et al) Peer reviewed research in 2017 also suggests a consensus among cardiologists of 1 in 5000.

 

 

1998 Dec (Ahmad et al) – Localization of a Gene Responsible for Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia to Chromosome 3p23 (1 in 5000).

 

 

According to San Diego healthcare provider “SHARP”, there is a large group of conditions that comprise “1 in 300 young people has an undetected heart condition that puts them at risk of sudden cardiac arrest”:

 

 

Of course the list wouldn’t be complete without “commotio cordis”, which they blamed for the sudden cardiac arrest suffered by NFL football player Damar Hamlin on Jan. 3, 2023.

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Canadian doctors insist none of this is real and athletes are not dying.

I now take you over to my McGill colleague Dr.Christopher Labos.

• Dr. Christopher Labos is a cardiologist with a degree in epidemiology. He spends most of his time doing things that he doesn’t get paid for, like doing research, teaching, and podcasting. Occasionally, he finds time to practice as a cardiologist so he can pay his rent. He is a freelance contributor for the Montreal Gazette, CJAD, and has also appeared on CBC Radio and CBC Television.

Athletes, Vaccines and Cardiac Deaths by Dr. Labos:

• “It beggars belief, but I still sometimes hear people claim that waves of young athletes have died suddenly after being vaccinated. It is a pervasive hoax and still repeated by people to express doubts about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines. Fortunately, we don’t have to speculate about whether young athletes are dying or not. We can simply check.”
• “More important, the incidence of sudden cardiac death among athletes has gone down over the past 20 years. It has not been increasing and there was no spike in cases after the introduction of the vaccine.”

Dr. Labos tells us the British and Americans are lying.

“If someone tries to tell you young people are dropping dead during sport events, you should reply that while this has always been true, the rates are going down, not up. Science is on your side with this one.”

Dr. Labos makes no mention of 1 in 300 young people having an “undiagnosed heart condition” that could put them at risk of sudden cardiac death. 

Dr. Labos is a nice guy and a smart individual. But you see, in Canada, there is nothing out of the ordinary. Young people, especially athletes are not dying suddenly, they’re actually healthier than ever before.

Why “Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy”?

It may have to do with the nature of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine injury to heart cells.

Oct. 12, 2023 (Schreckenberg et al) – “Cardiac side effects of RNA-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines: Hidden cardiotoxic effects of mRNA-1273 and BNT162b2 on ventricular myocyte function and structure.”

• Germany/Hungary study of Pfizer & Moderna COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine effects on adult rat heart cells
• within 48 hours, Pfizer and Moderna caused abnormalities in adult rat heart cell function but through different mechanisms

 

 

My Take…

Statistics Canada tells us about 1 in 800 Canadians died as “excess deaths” in 2022. The vast majority of these will be COVID-19 Vaccine deaths

(This is some ugly but simple napkin math: 3 years of similar excess deaths (2021, 2022, 2023) would be 3/800, and from our autopsy paper with Dr.McCullough, about 53% of those are cardiac, so 53% of 3/800 is about 1 in 500 Canadians died as excess cardiac deaths over 3 years).

(More ugly math: over 4 years (2021-2024) it would be 4/800 x 0.53 = 1 in 400 Canadians will have died as excess cardiac deaths over 4 years by end of 2024 and it gets to 1 in 300 by end of 2025).

Suddenly, mainstream media is telling us 1 in 300 young people have an “undiagnosed heart condition” that predisposes them to sudden cardiac death.

It’s almost as if big pharma did some napkin calculations of their own and made sure to have an explanation to cover all those inconvenient sudden cardiac deaths in young people and athletes, since COVID-19 Vaccines rolled out. 

Pfizer & Moderna COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines impair cardiac function and cause cardiomyopathy which increases risk of sudden cardiac events. 

Perhaps it is easier for Clarissa’s mom to believe and accept her daughter died from a cardiomyopathy she was “born with”, rather than a cardiomyopathy and sudden cardiac arrest caused by COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines she was pressured to take by her University and forced to take to be able to do what she loved – travel.

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

Featured image source

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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

***

“When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.”—Richard Nixon

Many years ago, a newspaper headline asked the question: “What’s the difference between a politician and a psychopath?”

The answer, then and now, remains the same: None.

There is no difference between psychopaths and politicians.

Nor is there much of a difference between the havoc wreaked on innocent lives by uncaring, unfeeling, selfish, irresponsible, parasitic criminals and elected officials who lie to their constituents, trade political favors for campaign contributions, turn a blind eye to the wishes of the electorate, cheat taxpayers out of hard-earned dollars, favor the corporate elite, entrench the military industrial complex, and spare little thought for the impact their thoughtless actions and hastily passed legislation might have on defenseless citizens.

Psychopaths and politicians both have a tendency to be selfish, callous, remorseless users of others, irresponsible, pathological liars, glib, con artists, lacking in remorse and shallow.

Charismatic politicians, like criminal psychopaths, exhibit a failure to accept responsibility for their actions, have a high sense of self-worth, are chronically unstable, have socially deviant lifestyles, need constant stimulation, have parasitic lifestyles and possess unrealistic goals.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about Democrats or Republicans.

Political psychopaths are all largely cut from the same pathological cloth, brimming with seemingly easy charm and boasting calculating minds. Such leaders eventually create pathocracies: totalitarian societies bent on power, control, and destruction of both freedom in general and those who exercise their freedoms.

Once psychopaths gain power, the result is usually some form of totalitarian government or a pathocracy. “At that point, the government operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups,” author James G. Long notes. “We are currently witnessing deliberate polarizations of American citizens, illegal actions, and massive and needless acquisition of debt. This is typical of psychopathic systems, and very similar things happened in the Soviet Union as it overextended and collapsed.”

In other words, electing a psychopath to public office is tantamount to national hara-kiri, the ritualized act of self-annihilation, self-destruction and suicide. It signals the demise of democratic government and lays the groundwork for a totalitarian regime that is legalistic, militaristic, inflexible, intolerant and inhuman.

Incredibly, despite clear evidence of the damage that has already been inflicted on our nation and its citizens by a psychopathic government, voters continue to elect psychopaths to positions of power and influence.

Indeed, a study from Southern Methodist University found that Washington, DC—our nation’s capital and the seat of power for our so-called representatives—ranks highest on the list of regions that are populated by psychopaths.

According to investigative journalist Zack Beauchamp,

“In 2012, a group of psychologists evaluated every President from Washington to Bush II using ‘psychopathy trait estimates derived from personality data completed by historical experts on each president.’ They found that presidents tended to have the psychopath’s characteristic fearlessness and low anxiety levels — traits that appear to help Presidents, but also might cause them to make reckless decisions that hurt other people’s lives.”

The willingness to prioritize power above all else, including the welfare of their fellow human beings, ruthlessness, callousness and an utter lack of conscience are among the defining traits of the sociopath.

When our own government no longer sees us as human beings with dignity and worth but as things to be manipulated, maneuvered, mined for data, manhandled by police, conned into believing it has our best interests at heart, mistreated, jailed if we dare step out of line, and then punished unjustly without remorse—all the while refusing to own up to its failings—we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic.

Instead, what we are experiencing is a pathocracy: tyranny at the hands of a psychopathic government, which “operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups.”

Worse, psychopathology is not confined to those in high positions of government. It can spread like a virus among the populace. As an academic study into pathocracy concluded,

“[T]yranny does not flourish because perpetuators are helpless and ignorant of their actions. It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.”

People don’t simply line up and salute. It is through one’s own personal identification with a given leader, party or social order that they become agents of good or evil.

Much depends on how leaders “cultivate a sense of identification with their followers,” says Professor Alex Haslam.

“I mean one pretty obvious thing is that leaders talk about ‘we’ rather than ‘I,’ and actually what leadership is about is cultivating this sense of shared identity about ‘we-ness’ and then getting people to want to act in terms of that ‘we-ness,’ to promote our collective interests. . . . [We] is the single word that has increased in the inaugural addresses over the last century . . . and the other one is ‘America.’”

The goal of the modern corporate state is obvious: to promote, cultivate, and embed a sense of shared identification among its citizens. To this end, “we the people” have become “we the police state.”

We are fast becoming slaves in thrall to a faceless, nameless, bureaucratic totalitarian government machine that relentlessly erodes our freedoms through countless laws, statutes, and prohibitions.

Any resistance to such regimes depends on the strength of opinions in the minds of those who choose to fight back. What this means is that we the citizenry must be very careful that we are not manipulated into marching in lockstep with an oppressive regime.

Writing for ThinkProgress, Beauchamp suggests that “one of the best cures to bad leaders may very well be political democracy.”

But what does this really mean in practical terms?

It means holding politicians accountable for their actions and the actions of their staff using every available means at our disposal: through investigative journalism (what used to be referred to as the Fourth Estate) that enlightens and informs, through whistleblower complaints that expose corruption, through lawsuits that challenge misconduct, and through protests and mass political action that remind the powers-that-be that “we the people” are the ones that call the shots.

Remember, education precedes action. Citizens need to the do the hard work of educating themselves about what the government is doing and how to hold it accountable. Don’t allow yourselves to exist exclusively in an echo chamber that is restricted to views with which you agree. Expose yourself to multiple media sources, independent and mainstream, and think for yourself.

For that matter, no matter what your political leanings might be, don’t allow your partisan bias to trump the principles that serve as the basis for our constitutional republic. As Beauchamp notes, “A system that actually holds people accountable to the broader conscience of society may be one of the best ways to keep conscienceless people in check.”

That said, if we allow the ballot box to become our only means of pushing back against the police state, the battle is already lost.

Resistance will require a citizenry willing to be active at the local level.

Yet if you wait to act until the SWAT team is crashing through your door, until your name is placed on a terror watch list, until you are reported for such outlawed activities as collecting rainwater or letting your children play outside unsupervised, then it will be too late.

This much I know: we are not faceless numbers.

We are not cogs in the machine.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are not slaves.

We are human beings, and for the moment, we have the opportunity to remain free—that is, if we tirelessly advocate for our rights and resist at every turn attempts by the government to place us in chains.

The Founders understood that our freedoms do not flow from the government. They were not given to us only to be taken away by the will of the State. They are inherently ours. In the same way, the government’s appointed purpose is not to threaten or undermine our freedoms, but to safeguard them.

Until we can get back to this way of thinking, until we can remind our fellow Americans what it really means to be free, and until we can stand firm in the face of threats to our freedoms, we will continue to be treated like slaves in thrall to a bureaucratic police state run by political psychopaths.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead 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.

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

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Pressure for the UK to shift its position on Gaza and call for a ceasefire is mounting, after MPs were told of a huge rise in malnourishment and infectious diseases.

Humanitarian aid agencies told MPs on Tuesday that doctors were seeing more malnourished patients, with the risks of widespread famine growing daily.

Infectious diseases such as scabies, typhoid and hepatitis had become widespread, with no services for testing and limited medical supplies.

Labour MP Sarah Champion, who chaired the meeting with aid agencies, said she hoped the government will begin to move on its current position in light of the worsening crisis.

Ms Champion plans to meet UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron privately on Tuesday.

“I know that he is starting to move on the ceasefire and on whether or not Israel is breaching international law, so I hope he moves further on that after our meeting tomorrow,” she told The National.

Ms Champion, who voted for a ceasefire in December, feared Israel’s bombardment and siege of Gaza could leave Palestinians with no hope for the future.

“What I heard today was the psychological warfare going on,” she said.

“People are having their hope taken away from them and the UNRWA [UN Palestinian refugee agency] representative said that she feels like a ghost now.

“That destroys the future for the Palestinian people in Gaza, which I think is a horrific to do.”

Although more aid trucks were entering Gaza, they were subject to extensive delays and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians could not be reached by aid workers, agencies told MPs.

The about 5,600 trucks of aid delivered so far since the conflict began three months ago was the equivalent of 12 days of supplies entering Gaza before the war.

Two thirds of hospitals in Gaza were no longer operational, with supplies needed for field hospitals, and more staff to run them, said Dr Ghada Al Jadba, chief of the health programme at the UNRWA.

Hospitals in Gaza were reporting up to 20 cases of malnourishment a week, with patients initially coming in to treat injuries or infection, said Rohan Talbot, of the British charity Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Mothers were being rolled into maternity wards minutes before giving birth, then ushered out again as soon as possible, owing to a lack of space and services.

Inadequate nourishment meant they struggled to breastfeed, and baby formula was being prepared with unclean water that made the babies ill, Mr Talbot said.

Famine was “months” away, but a significant population were already at critical levels of hunger.

“The food that they do eat is not of sufficient nutritional quality,” Mr Talbot said.

A generation of children would have stunted growth, which could develop into acute malnutrition.

“It won’t be long before this becomes a mortal issue,” Mr Talbot said.

Nine thousand children have lost a limb, with no rehabilitative services, which will take “years and years” to build, he said.

Mr Talbot urged MPs to question whether the UK aid that had entered Gaza had been properly distributed around the territory.

Aid workers were unable to access the 800,000 Palestinians who remain stranded in the north of Gaza, an area designated as a military zone by the Israeli military.

Dr Al Jadba described instances in which shelters marked with a UN flag had become targets for Israeli forces.

The rapid growth of infectious diseases was the result of people overcrowding in shelters, with hundreds sharing a single toilet and shower.

This was compounded by fuel shortages that limited waste disposal and sewerage systems, and the lack of clean water.

“Hygiene is a disaster. The numbers [of infectious disease cases] are increasing dramatically every week,” Dr Al Jadba said.

Medical professionals had lost loved ones and were struggling to keep their own families alive, let alone the scores of patients entering hospitals every day.

“To be a paramedic in Gaza means when you leave emergency services, you will not be sure whether you will be alive to return,” said Nebal Farsakh, spokeswoman for the Palestinian Red Crescent.

“Your mind is exhausted thinking about your family who are under constant bombardment, knowing that they don’t have proper access to food and water,” said Ms Farsakh.

Aid agencies urged the UK government to call for an immediate ceasefire, in addition to relief.

“Stop this madness,” said Dr Al Jadba.

The meeting came as Mr Cameron admitted he was “worried” that Israel had breached international law, when giving his first testimony to the foreign affairs committee on Tuesday.

The UK has called for a “sustainable ceasefire” that could only be implemented once Hamas lays down its arms and hostages are released.

Until then, it is pushing for humanitarian “pauses” that would allow aid into Gaza.

Critics, including the British charity War Child, say the policy supports the “continuation of violence” in Gaza.

Ms Champion echoed the aid agencies’ calls for an immediate ceasefire, deploring the conditions they described in the hearing.

“It is absolutely wicked and immoral that international conventions are not respected. I am disgusted by what I’m hearing in this session,” she told the committee.

“The situation is utterly desperate. It feels totally unnecessary.

“I cannot see why we’re not all calling for a ceasefire. Its deplorable, what’s going on.”

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Featured image: Displaced Palestinians wait to receive free food from a volunteer-run hospice near Nasser Medical Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Tuesday, January 9, 2024. Bloomberg

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The evidence is overwhelming.

Important article, which adds to the detailed analysis of the Covid-19 vaccine by scientists and medical doctors.

Emphasis added by Global Research

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Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are not free of side effects and most commonly affect the central or peripheral nervous system (CNS, PNS). This narrative review aims to summarise recent advances in the nature, frequency, management, and outcome of neurological side effects from SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.

CNS disorders triggered by SARS-CoV-2 vaccines include headache, cerebro-vascular disorders (venous sinus thrombosis [VST], ischemic stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage, subarachnoid bleeding, reversible, cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome, vasculitis, pituitary apoplexy, Susac syndrome), inflammatory diseases (encephalitis, meningitis, demyelinating disorders, transverse myelitis), epilepsy, and a number of other rarely reported CNS conditions.

PNS disorders related to SARS-CoV-2 vaccines include neuropathy of cranial nerves, mono-/polyradiculitis (Guillain–Barre syndrome [GBS]), Parsonage–Turner syndrome (plexitis), small fiber neuropathy, myasthenia, myositis/dermatomyositis, rhabdomyolysis, and a number of other conditions.

The most common neurological side effects are facial palsy, intracerebral hemorrhage, VST, and GBS. The underlying pathophysiology is poorly understood, but several speculations have been generated to explain the development of CNS/PNS disease after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. In conclusion, neurological side effects develop with any type of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine and are diverse, can be serious and even fatal, and should be taken seriously to initiate early treatment and improve outcome and avoid fatalities.

Click here to read the full article.

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Featured image source

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What You Need to Know About South Africa’s Genocide Case Against Israel at the ICJ

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague will hold hearings on Thursday and Friday in response to South Africa’s accusation of genocide against Israel.

More than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed in the ongoing war on Gaza, including more than 9,000 children.

South Africa wants an emergency order calling on Israel to suspend its military campaign, which it launched after an attack by Hamas-led Palestinian fighters on 7 October, which killed 1,140 people, according to Israeli officials.

The state filed the lawsuit at the end of December, citing statements made by Israeli public officials and the actions of its military.

It is the first time Israel is being tried under the United Nations’ Genocide Convention, which was drawn up after the Second World War in light of the atrocities committed against Jews and other persecuted minorities during the Holocaust.

Here Middle East Eye answers some commonly asked questions about the case.

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Israeli Shelling Near Hospital Kills and Wounds 40: Report

The Israeli army has targeted a residential building only a few metres away from Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital, killing and wounding at least 40 people, according to Gaza officials. 

The Gaza government media office say the area had been deemed “safe” by the Israeli army.

“This is a continuation of the deception and fabrications by the Israeli occupation army to mislead public opinion,” the media office said.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the ongoing massacres and crimes of the occupation against our Palestinian people, and we call on the whole world to stop the genocidal war waged against civilians,” the office added.

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Opinion: How South Africa’s Genocide Case Is Challenging the Imperial Order

Amid mounting calls for a comprehensive ceasefire in Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, South Africa has invoked the Genocide Convention and lodged a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague. 

The application, filed last month, delineates the atrocities perpetrated by Israel in Gaza in the wake of the 7 October operation by Hamas.

The application, while acknowledging and unequivocally condemning the actions of Palestinian armed groups on 7 October, emphasises that these acts cannot serve as justification for the crime of genocide. 

The South African document notes that the Genocide Convention states that all parties to the convention have a duty to prevent or punish the crime of genocide, and based on emerging evidence in Gaza, it is South Africa’s view that Israel has contravened the convention both by perpetrating genocide and by not acting to prevent genocide, nor punishing incitement to genocide. 

It argues that Israel’s acts and omissions are genocidal in nature, as it seeks to bring about the destruction of Palestinians as a national, racial or ethnic group. 

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Israeli Raid on Nablus Injures 12

Israeli forces raided the West Bank city of Nablus and besieged the Old City, injuring at least 12 Palestinians, Al Jazeera reports.

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Former Shin Bet Chief Calls for Release of Hostages in Exchange for Palestinian Prisoners

Former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon said in an interview with Haaretz that the release of all Palestinian prisoners, including Palestinian political figure Marwan Barghouti, in exchange for all the hostages held by Hamas may present a proper peace deal.

To Ayalon, the release of all hostages would be the closest thing to a “picture of victory” that Israel could present in its war in Gaza. Additionally, he believes Barghouti is “the only Palestinian leader who can be elected and lead a united and legitimate Palestinian leadership toward a path of mutually agreed separation from Israel.”

Ayalon also criticised the Israeli government’s policy towards Palestinians, most notably prime minister Netanyahu’s policies.

“The misconception was that the Palestinians aren’t a people, and if we allow them to have economic prosperity, they’ll give up the dream of independence,” he said. “In the end, the Palestinians define themselves as a people. They’re willing to kill and be killed for their independence, and the terrorists who are killed turn into martyrs in their eyes.”

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Blinken to Make Surprise Visit to Bahrain: US Official

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Attorney General Merrick Garland Must Tell President Biden that Trump Espionage Charges Against WikiLeaks Journalist Julian Assange Are Without Merit…or Indict New York Times Publisher with Same Charges

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Biden, you defeated Trump, yet your administration has NOT rolled back all of the evil caused by Trump.

Take the case of journalist Julian Assange. 

Under the Obama administration in which you, Biden, were Vice President for eight years, journalist and publisher Julian Assange was NOT prosecuted for publishing the Collateral Damage video of the U.S. Army murder by Hellfire missile of Reuters reporters nor the classified Afghanistan and Iraq war files. 

However, you and the Obama administration did prosecute and won conviction of U.S. Army PFC Bradley Manning for disclosing those classified materials. 

As you well know from being the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, journalists and publishers are protected by the First Amendment which allows them to publish classified materials given to them by whistleblowers. But, the First Amendment does NOT protect those who release classified information to journalists, like Bradley Manning, whom you prosecuted. 

Fifty years ago, no U.S. publisher, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times or any other newspaper in the U.S. or abroad, was prosecuted for publishing the Pentagon Papers, the classified history of the U.S. war on Viet Nam. 

Daniel Ellsberg, who released the sordid 7,000-page classified tale of U.S. military involvement (3,000 pages of narrative and 4,000 pages of appended documents), fully expected to be prosecuted, as he was the one who gave classified information to the media. The Nixon administration’s attempted theft of Ellsberg’s medical records torpedoed Nixon’s attempt at prosecuting Ellsberg. Nixon continued to rail against Ellsberg as, in Henry Kissinger’s words, “the most dangerous man in America” because he, Nixon, was unable to put Ellsberg in jail.

No publisher in the history of the United States has been prosecuted until the Trump administration came into power. After WikiLeaks and other media published in 2017 “Vault 7,” the most CIA materials about CIA hacking capabilities ever to come into the public domain, Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr at the command of CIA Director Mike Pompeo, decided to try a new legal theory, one that had never been used in U.S. history. 

CIA Director Pompeo described WikiLeaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence service” and the Department of Justice charged a non-U.S. citizen, Julian Assange, with espionage against the U.S. and demanded his extradition from England. 

A conviction on U.S. charges of espionage could result in Assange being sentenced to 175 years in prison.

At the time of the U.S. charges, Assange had requested asylum from the Ecuadorian government and had been protected by living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for five years.

With a change in Ecuadorian governments, and under intense pressure from the British and U.S. governments, the new Ecuadorian administration, in April 2019, allowed British police to break the Embassy’s sovereignty and enter the Embassy. London police carried Assange out of the Embassy, put him into a police van and immediately locked him up in the highest security prison in the UK, Belmarsh Prison.

Prior to the police breaching the Ecuadorian Embassy, Assange had been denied his razor for weeks. His haggard appearance as he was carried out of the embassy was part of a negative publicity campaign orchestrated by the British government and, without a doubt, the U.S. government.

Assange Has Been in UK Prison in Solitary Confinement for Almost Five Years with NO CONVICTION on Any Charges

For the past for four years and nine months, Assange has been in Belmarsh Prison, a high security prison for those convicted of violent crimes. He has been in solitary confinement for 22 hours a day, a violation of the right not to be tortured, according to former UN Special Rapporteur Nils Melzer.

Yet, ASSANGE HAS NOT BEEN CONVICTED OF ANY CRIME. Despite no conviction, he has been incarcerated by the British government on behalf of the U.S. government until extradition proceedings to the U.S. are successful. 

Almost three years ago, in January 2021, lower court judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that Assange should be released from Belmarsh Prison. She denied the U.S. request for extradition based on Assange’s mental health, his propensity to commit suicide and conditions in U.S. prisons.

The U.S. appealed her decision, issuing “diplomatic assurances” that Assange would not be mistreated in a U.S. prison. The High Court, after a two-day hearing in March 2022, accepted those “assurances” and rejected Assange’s appeal and his application to the U.K. Supreme Court to hear the case was then denied. Assange then applied for a new appeal of Baraitser’s legal decisions and the Home Secretary’s extradition order. His 150-page argument was rejected in a three-page ruling. The appeal of that decision will now take place on February 20-21, 2024.

Don’t Trust the U.S. Government’s “Diplomatic Assurances”

As a former U.S. diplomat, I can guarantee Julian that U.S. “diplomatic assurances” mean absolutely nothing. The U.S. breaks its word to individuals and countries frequently…and the U.S. Department of State has no jurisdiction over the Bureau of Prisons which makes decisions unilaterally of how prisoners are treated. 

At the Belmarsh Tribunal held in Washington, D.C. on December 9, 2023, former CIA officer John Kiriakou, who spent nearly two years in federal prison for talking about the CIA’s waterboarding program, the existence of which had been in the public domain for years, said that the guarantees that the State Department had made in court documents were meaningless. He said that the Bureau of Prisons makes its own decisions on whether a person will be in solitary confinement and the recommendations of the State Department and Department of Justice are disregarded. 

The United States has more prisoners in solitary confinement than any other country. In May 2023, the watchdog group Solitary Watch and the advocacy coalition Unlock the Box released a groundbreaking joint report showing that at least 122,840 people are locked daily in solitary confinement in U.S. prisons and jails for 22 or more hours a day.

Pressure on Biden from the Australian Government and Members of the U.S. Congress

In October 2023, a bipartisan group of members of the Australian Parliament traveled to the U.S. and lobbied the U.S. government to drop the charges against Assange.

At the end of October, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Washington where he raised the Assange issue in a meeting with Biden and repeated his call for President Biden to bring the matter to a close.

On November 8, 2023, 16 Congresspeople from across the political spectrum signed a letter to President Biden, calling on him to drop all charges and withdraw the extradition request. 

In the letter, the members of the U.S. Congress said “We believe the Department of Justice acted correctly in 2013, during your vice presidency, when it declined to pursue charges against Mr. Assange for publishing the classified documents because it recognized that the prosecution would set a dangerous precedent.”

The letter continued, with the Congresspeople stating that they are “well aware that should the US extradition and prosecution go forward, there is a significant risk that our bilateral relationship with Australia will be badly damaged.”

So Why Hasn’t the Biden Administration Dropped the Trump Charges Against Assange? 

What is so ironic is that the Biden administration could immediately withdraw the request for extradition from the UK. It wasn’t Biden’s administration that cooked up the novel legal theory under which Assange is charged–it was the Trump administration.

The Obama administration, for which Biden served as the Vice President for eight years, never charged Julian Assange with a crime.

Is it that Biden fears that right-wing Republican Party members will call him soft on the cooked-up Trump era “non-state actor” legal theory of espionage? 

Surely, the former Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee can see through that smear attempt.

It is long past time for U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to tell President Biden that the Trump charges against Assange, that are the basis for the extradition request, are without merit.

It is long overdue for the United States to cancel its request for extradition of Julian Assange and for Assange to be able to be free from the bogus charges of the past decade.

Call (Comments: 202-456-1111; Switchboard: 202-456-1414)  or write the White House and the U.S. Department of Justice today and demand that charges be dropped.

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Ann Wright is a retired United States Army colonel and retired U.S. State Department official. She was one of three State Department officials to publicly resign in direct protest of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Since that time Colonel Wright has been a dedicated peace activist. Ann can be reached at [email protected].

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On Monday, January 8, the total number of journalists killed by the Israeli military, often in coordination with the American military and a host of private contractors, contractors who also run the surveillance systems at your high school or shopping mall, the total number of journalists killed in three months of attacks on Gaza reached 111 with the deaths of journalists Abdullah Breis and Mohammed Abu Dayer.

What is happening there? It is most certainly not justified defense of Israel. No one in Israel even believes that any more, now that they are slowly waking up to the deep and painful fraud that was October seventh. It is also not simply the abuse of the much-abused Palestinians, left homeless for generations and subject to the worst restrictions on every aspect of their lives.

Click here to watch the video.

What is done to the Palestinians is horrible, for sure. Yet we Americans should not deceive ourselves about the significance of what is being done over there to those people with names that are hard to pronounce. As horrible as the treatment of Palestinians may be, it bears a similarity to how poor Americans are tortured, bitten by trained dogs, and killed in our private prisons. It is the same systematic abuse by a sick society, America and Israel, steeped in hypocrisy and waddling in depravity.

It is unprecedented in history that so many journalists were tracked by sensors and cameras, that fed data to supercomputers which then systematically ordered them murdered by drones, robots, missiles and bombs for the sin of reporting to the world about the cruel slaughter of civilians in Gaza.

No, the killing of journalists is not about obscure things happening over there in a distant land. No, something entirely different is being rolled out before your very eyes, rolled out so slowly and methodically that you must be very focused in order notice it.

Antony Loewenstein explains in great detail in his book “The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World” the process by which Israeli firms develop new technologies for tracking, identifying, intimidating, and killing people in Gaza and the occupied territories, and then export that technology to the rest of the world, to your neighborhood.

The attack on Gaza is not just about Gaza, and it’s not just about Palestinians. It is a test of new technologies for tracking and killing people that will be sold to the highest bidder—and there are many of them.

So, what does it mean that so many journalists were tracked down and killed in such a short time with such brazen impunity?

The answer is as clear as it is horrifying, terrifying. This is an experiment in ending all reporting, ending all journalism, on a blatantly criminal operation by guaranteeing, via facial recognition software that anyone who tells the truth will be murdered in good time.

When the next stage of the conquest of the earth by the billionaires and their lackeys starts, perhaps even in a few months. When money disappears, when water becomes undrinkable, when access to food ends, when drones, robots, and killer Starlink satellites start to murder at random, when things go over the deep end—as we know they will—I ask you, what new knowhow, what new technology and programs, will the billionaires buy from Israel?

What else but systems for killing journalists and any truthteller.

This is the new reality for them because they know that if they do not kill off journalists and truthtellers fast enough, they will not be able to implement the next stage of the plan.

Thus, what is being done in Gaza today is what will be done in Galveston, Texas, in October; what is done in the West Bank next week will be done in West Bend, Wisconsin, next May.

We must stand together, here, there, and everywhere, to stop this trap that has been set for humanity using cold algorithms on supercomputers.

Stand up and take action today, right where you stand, to shut down this plan, before it shuts all of us down.

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This article was originally published on Fear No Evil.

Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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What truly distinguishes the present crisis is that the Arab world is profoundly concerned and feels outraged by the barbaric Israeli behaviour toward hapless Palestinians — ‘animals,’ as Israeli politicians have described them. The Arab psyche is convinced that an enduring final settlement of the Palestine problem cannot be postponed indefinitely. Something has fundamentally changed even for Saudi Arabia which had clandestine dealings with Israel for decades and was inching toward establishing formal relations with it.

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The expectation raised by the United States in allowing a UN Security Council resolution on Gaza pass through on December 22, 2023 without having to exercise its veto — albeit a watered-down one that stopped short of calling for ceasefire — was that the manifest international isolation facing Washington and Tel Aviv would inevitably impact Israel’s options going forward. 

However, there are contrarian trends. Israel started the new year by ordering the withdrawal of part of its military forces from Gaza, but the spokesman of the IDF Daniel Hagari emphasised that the war will continue in 2024 and called this withdrawal in line with the renewal of forces and new organisation of Israeli army. Speaking on New Year’s Eve, Hagari said,

“Tonight, 2024 begins and our goals require a long war, and we are preparing ourselves accordingly. We have a smart plan to manage our deployments, taking into account reserves, the economy, families, and resupply, as well as the continuation of combat and training.”

Hagari’s ambivalent hint that the military has wrapped up major combat in northern Gaza was buttressed with the claim that the forces would “continue to deepen the achievement” in northern Gaza, strengthen defences along the Israel-Gaza border fence and focus on the central and southern parts of the territory.          

On Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant also presented a plan of a shift toward less intense military operations. The minister’s office said in a statement,

“In the northern region of the Gaza strip, we will transition to a new combat approach in accordance with military achievements on the ground.” But Gallant added, “It will continue for as long as is deemed necessary.”

Under Gallant’s plan, the war in Gaza will continue until all of the hostages are released and remaining military threats are neutralised.

Basically, Hagari’s remarks and Gallant’s plan can be seen as a nod to the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken who is expected in Israel later this week after visiting Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia. At the same time, Israel has, typically, also ratcheted up tensions by a series of belligerent acts in the recent days. 

There has been a new escalation of cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. Besides, the targeted killing of a top Hamas political leader Saleh al-Arouri in a Hezbollah stronghold of Beirut last week; the killing of a senior IRGC commander and four others in the suburbs of Damascus; terrorist attacks in Kerman (Iran); killing of the commander of the elite Radwan forces of Hezbollah;  — all these within the space of the past week are attributable to Israeli intelligence one way or another. 

These events in turn have added to the resurgent fears lately that an Israel-Hamas war could erupt into a broader conflict. Earlier today, Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem, said in a televised speech his group did not want to expand the war from Lebanon, “but if Israel expands, the response is inevitable to the maximum extent required to deter Israel.” 

The pattern of Israeli behaviour needs to be understood from different angles. This is an incredibly complicated matrix. First and foremost, the Israeli operation in Gaza so far has been a failure. It turned the world opinion, especially in the Global South, heavily against Israel — South Africa’s petition to the International Criminal Court over war crimes in Gaza being the most telling evidence of it —  while Israeli military came a cropper in terms of its agenda to decimate Hamas. 

Tel Aviv has reached none of its stated goals in the Gaza war, which are annihilation of Hamas or disarming of Hamas and release of captives held by Palestinians in Gaza. That brings the security and military establishment in Tel Aviv, whose reputation has been seriously dented following the October 7 attack, under immense pressure. On the other hand, there has been a cover-up of the heavy casualty suffered by Israeli troops in the Gaza operation. The Kerman terrorist attack and the killing of Saleh al-Arouri actually betray a high level of frustration. 

In political terms, there is a convergence between the security and military establishment and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (whose political future hangs by a thread) and the ultra-rightist fascist forces aligned with him, whose interests lie in an extended war. 

The only external force capable of pressuring Israel is of course the US administration. But it is too much to expect President Biden to draw the ‘red line’ to Israel — that is, even assuming that he has the political will to do so — given the Israel Lobby’s control of the Congress and its seamless capacity for making or destroying the careers of US politicians. 

Washington has not changed the intensity of Israeli  military operation. On the other hand, the US has shipped to Israel 10,000 tons of arms to Israel in the recent period alone. In fact, it cannot be a coincidence that every single Blinken visit to the region since October 7 has witnessed a particularly brutal Israeli attack to up the ante. In effect, the US is broadly in support of the Israeli policy and a commitment to the destruction of Hamas, in particular. 

Therefore, Biden’s interest narrows down to prevent the war from spreading in the region lest direct American military intervention becomes necessary. The US rhetoric and diplomatic posturing largely aims at damage control in Washington’s relations with its erstwhile allies in the region. Quintessentially, Blinken’s mission comes down cheap window dressing — viz., to bringing the regional states to the same page that Israel is facing an existential crisis. But it does not take into account that the region has changed radically. 

What truly distinguishes the present crisis is that the Arab world is profoundly concerned and feels outraged by the barbaric Israeli behaviour toward hapless Palestinians — ‘animals,’ as Israeli politicians have described them. The Arab psyche is convinced that an enduring final settlement of the Palestine problem cannot be postponed indefinitely. Something has fundamentally changed even for Saudi Arabia which had clandestine dealings with Israel for decades and was inching toward establishing formal relations with it.

A Saudi statement said that while receiving Blinken in Al ‘Ula on Monday, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “stressed the importance of stopping military operations, intensifying humanitarian action, and working to create conditions for restoring stability and for a peace process that ensures that the Palestinian people gain their legitimate rights and achieve a just and lasting peace.” The Saudi statement is at sharp variance with the readout by the US state department. 

Interestingly, an article in the Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat focused on Blinken’s forthcoming visit highlighted fundamental differences between Riyadh and Washington on a range of issues — ceasefire in Gaza (“not just a humanitarian truce or exchange of prisoners, but rather a comprehensive halt”); security of the Red Sea (“the responsibility for security in the Red Sea lies with the riparian countries first, and with a UN-international responsibility in the second place”); Israel’s culpability for “expanding the scope of the war”; futility of “talk about post-war phase” at this point. 

The article ended on a sombre note:

“If the American administration wants Blinken’s visit to Saudi Arabia and the region to succeed, and if it wants to maintain its partnerships in the region, and preserve its role as a sponsor of peace in the Middle East at a time when international forces hostile to Washington are searching for a foothold in the region, it must adhere to neutrality, and not use the region’s interests and future as a card in the upcoming American elections. It must deal with the disease and not with the symptom as it is doing now.”   

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Featured image: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (R) met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in AlUla, January 8, 2023 (Source: IP) 

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Vaccination during the third trimester of pregnancy is unprecedented and risky, since a vaccine induced fever could precipitate stillbirth or premature delivery of the baby. The CDC and the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex has told young mothers they should take the risk for theoretical protect of the newborn.

As of August 30, 2023, the CDC recommends: “Vaccination for pregnant people, 1 dose of maternal RSV vaccine during weeks 32 through 36 of pregnancy, administered immediately before or during RSV season. Abrysvo is the only RSV vaccine recommended during pregnancy.” Now the CDC is reporting that only Asian women in the US have topped 10% on the respiratory syncytial virus RSV vaccination rate while African American mothers remain the most conservative with under 5% rates of acceptance. For any mass vaccination campaign, these data would indicate a program failure. The mothers and families have been burned by genetic COVID-19 vaccines and unprecedented rates of injury, disability, and death. There is little appetite for a new vaccine during pregnancy among obstetricians, midwives, and expecting mothers.

CDC.Gov accessed January 3, 2023

These data on the lagging maternal RSV immunization campaign indicate that “vaccine mania” may be cooling in the United States. As a consulting internist and cardiologist, I do not recommend the new RSV vaccine for pregnant women. There are insufficient data on short and longer term safety. Theoretical protection of infants for an easily treatable illness is simply not compelling enough to risk the pregnancy altogether.

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Featured image is from Mercola

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

***

1948 was a year of tragic irony.

That year saw the adoption of both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, together promising a world in which human rights would be protected by the rule of law. That same year, South Africa adopted apartheid and Israeli forces carried out the Nakba, the violent mass dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Both systems relied on western colonial support.

In short, the modern international human rights movement was born into a world of racialized colonial contradictions. Seventy-five years later, the world is watching in horror as Israel has continued the Nakba through its months-long, systematic ethnic purge of Gaza — again with the complicity of powerful western governments led by the United States.

The horrors of the original Nakba were met with decades of absolute impunity for Israel, feeding further violence. But this time, three decades since the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa, the post-apartheid “Rainbow Nation” is taking the lead in challenging Israel’s genocidal assault.

On December 29, South Africa became the first country to file an application to the UN’s high judicial arm, the International Court of Justice, instituting genocide proceedings against Israel for “acts threatened, adopted, condoned, taken, and being taken by the Government and military of the State of Israel against the Palestinian people.”

In wrenching and horrifying detail, South Africa’s 84-page document describes a litany of Israeli actions as “genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent… to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial, and ethnical group.”

A Horrifying Civilian Toll in Gaza and the West Bank

2023 was the bloodiest year in the Palestinian territories since the destruction of historic Palestine and the founding of the state of Israel.

In the first half of the year, Israeli assaults on Palestinians in the West Bank had already reached a fever pitch, with successive waves of mass arrests, settler pogroms, and military attacks against Palestinian towns and refugee camps, including the ethnic cleansing of entire villages. At the same time, millions of civilians in Gaza were suffering unbearable hardship under a 17-year-long Israel-imposed siege.

On October 7, Gaza-based militants launched a devastating attack on Israeli military and civilian targets and seized more than 200 military personnel and civilian hostages. In an appalling act of mass collective punishment, Israel immediately cut off all food, water, medicine, fuel, and electricity to the 2.3 million Palestinian civilians trapped in Gaza. Then it began a relentless campaign of annihilation through massive bombing and missile strikes followed by a ground-level invasion that brought shocking reports of massacres, extrajudicial executions, torture, beatings, and mass civilian detentions.

More than 22,000 civilians and counting have since been killed in Gaza, the overwhelming majority children and women — along with record numbers of journalists and more UN aid workers than in any other conflict situation. Thousands more are still trapped under the rubble, dead or dying from untreated injuries, and now more are dying from rampant diseases caused by Israel’s denial of clean water and medical care, even as the Israeli military assault continues. Eighty-five percent of all Gazans have been forced from their homes. And now Israeli-imposed starvation is taking hold.

The Legal Standard for Genocide

Genocide analysts and human rights lawyers, activists, specialists around the globe — no strangers to human cruelty — have been shocked by both the savagery of Israel’s acts and by the brazen public declarations of genocidal intent by Israeli leaders. Hundreds of these experts have sounded the genocide alarm in Gaza, noting the point-by-point alignment between Israel’s actions and its officials’ stated intent on the one hand, and the prohibitions enumerated in UN Genocide Convention on the other.

The South African application “unequivocally condemns all violations of international law by all parties, including the direct targeting of Israeli civilians and other nationals and hostage-taking by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.” But it reminds the Court: “No armed attack on a State’s territory, no matter how serious — even an attack involving atrocity crimes — can, however, provide any possible justification for, or defense to, breaches of the [Genocide Convention] whether as a matter of law or morality.”

Unlike many aspects of international law, the definition of genocide is quite straightforward. To qualify as genocide or attempted genocide, two things are required. First, the specific intent of the perpetrator to destroy all or part of an identified national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. Second, commission of at least one of five specified acts designed to make that happen.

South Africa’s petition to the ICJ is filled with clear and horrifically compelling examples, identifying Israeli actions that match at least three of the five acts that constitute genocide when linked to specific intent. Those include killing members of the group, causing serious physical or mental harm to members of the group, and, perhaps most indicative of genocidal purpose, creating “conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.” As South Africa documents, Israel has shown the world, at levels unprecedented in the 21^st century, what those conditions look like.

For specific intent, South Africa points to dozens of statements made by Israeli leaders, including the President, Prime Minister, and other cabinet officials, and as well as Knesset members, military commanders, and more.

Accustomed to decades of U.S.-backed impunity, Israeli officials have been emboldened, describing openly their intent to carry out “another Nakba,” to wipe out all of Gaza, to deny any distinction between civilians and combatants, to raze Gaza to the ground, to reduce it to rubble, and to bury Palestinians alive, among many other similar statements.

Their deliberately dehumanizing language includes descriptions of Palestinians as animals, sub-human, Nazis, a cancer, insects, vermin — all language designed to justify wiping out all or part of the group. Prime Minister Netanyahu went so far as to invoke a Biblical verse on the Amalek, commanding that the “entire population be wiped out, that none be spared, men, women, children, suckling babies, and livestock.”

The U.S. May Also be Complicit in Israel’s Genocide

The petition to the ICJ is sharply focused on Israel’s violations of the Genocide Convention. It does not deal with the complicity of other governments, most significantly of course the role of the United States in funding, arming, and shielding Israel as it carries out its genocidal acts.

But the active role of the United States in the Israeli onslaught, while hardly surprising, has been especially shocking. As a State Party to the Genocide Convention, the U.S. is obliged to act to prevent or stop genocide. Instead, we have seen the United States not only failing in its obligations of prevention, but instead actively providing economic, military, intelligence, and diplomatic support to Israel while it is engaged in its mass atrocities in Gaza.

As such, this is not merely a case of U.S. inaction in the face of genocide (itself a breach of its legal obligations) but also a case of direct complicity — which is a distinct crime under the Genocide Convention. The Center for Constitutional Rights, on behalf of Palestinian human rights organizations and individual Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans, has filed a suit in U.S. federal court in California focused on U.S. complicity in Israel’s acts of genocide.

South Africa’s Genocide Complaint Is a Rallying Cry for Civil Society

In a situation such as this, framed by shocking western complicity on one side and a massive failure of international institutions fed by U.S. pressure on the other, South Africa’s initiative at the ICJ may hold significance beyond the Court’s ultimate decision.

This case comes in the context of the extraordinary mobilization of protests, petitions, sit-ins, occupations, civil disobedience, boycotts, and so much more by human rights defenders, Jewish activists, faith-based organizations, labor unions, and broad-based movements across the United States and around the world.

As such, this move puts South Africa, and potentially the ICJ itself, on the side of the global mobilization for a ceasefire, for human rights, and for accountability. One of the most important values of this ICJ petition may therefore be in its use as an instrument for escalating global civil society mobilizations demanding their governments abide by the obligations imposed on all parties to the Genocide Convention.

Predictably, Israel has already rejected the legitimacy of the case before the Court. Confident that the U.S. and its allies will not allow Israel to be held accountable, the Israeli government is defiantly continuing its bloody assault on Gaza (as well as the West Bank). If Israel and its western collaborators are once again successful in blocking justice, the first victims will be the Palestinian people. Then the credibility of international law itself may be lost as collateral damage.

But South Africa’s ICJ action has opened a crack in a 75-year-old wall of impunity through which a light of hope has begun to shine. If global protests can seize the moment to turn that crack into a wider portal towards justice, we may just see the beginnings of real accountability for perpetrators, redress for victims, and attention to the long-neglected root causes of violence: settler-colonialism, occupation, inequality, and apartheid.

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Craig Mokhiber is an International human rights lawyer and former Director of the New York Office of the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, who stepped down from his post in 2023 and penned a now-viral letter on unfolding genocide and the UN’s failures.

Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and serves as international adviser to Jewish Voice for Peace. 

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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The US and “Israel” have been recently carrying out political assassinations in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. ISIS carried out a massive bombing in Iran during the same period, and there is a connection between ISIS and the US.

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On December 25, 2023, Razi Mousavi, a senior officer in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was assassinated by an Israeli airstrike in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Mousavi was close to former IRGC Quds force commander, Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in 2020 by US President Donald Trump in Baghdad. Israeli airstrikes in Syria earlier in December also killed two other Iranian generals.

On January 2, an Israeli drone strike assassinated Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut, Lebanon along with six others.

Al-Arouri was the deputy chief of the Hamas political bureau, and one of the founding members of Hamas’ armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades. On October 31, Israeli forces destroyed al-Arouri’s house in Aroura near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

On January 3, at least 93 people were killed in twin bombings in Kerman, Iran, with 284 wounded, including children. The crowd there was gathered to mark the fourth anniversary of the US assassination of Qassem Soleimani. 

On January 4, ISIS claimed responsibility for the two explosions in a statement posted on its affiliate Telegram channels, and said two ISIS members had detonated explosive belts in the crowd in Kerman.

Experts pointed to the Islamic State branch based in neighboring Afghanistan, known as ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K. Tehran has alleged that ISIS-K has been behind many foiled plots in the last five years. Most of those arrested were Iranians, Central Asians, or Afghans from the Afghanistan-based affiliate’s network. 

On January 4, a US airstrike assassinated Mushtaq Talib al-Saidi in central Baghdad, Iraq. The Iraqi deputy commander was killed on Palestine Street, at the headquarters of an Iraqi military group, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, which has claimed several attacks on US forces.

Hezbollah al-Nujaba falls under the command of the Iraqi army, and had played a vital role in the defeat of ISIS in Iraq. The group immediately condemned the assassination of al-Saidi, and said the US-Iraqi military agreement had been violated.

Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, confirmed that US forces carried out an airstrike in Baghdad, killing a military commander, but excused the killing because al-Saidi was backed by Iran. 

Iraqis in the streets promised revenge against the US after the assassination. “No American soldier shall stay in Iraq!” one man yelled, firing his gun into the air.

Besides the 2,500 US troops in Iraq, which were invited to Iraq initially, there are 900 US troops in Syria illegally occupying the most productive oil wells in the northeast.

Now that the US-supported genocide on Gaza has killed well over 20,000 Palestinians, local groups in Iraq and Syria have been attacking US troops there in an effort to drive them out.

US officials have ordered about 120 attacks since October 17, usually using drones or rockets against groups in Iraq. The Pentagon acknowledged they had killed a number of “militants”.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, had said last year he backed the need for US troops in Iraq, but condemned the US attack in Iraq, which killed an Iraqi service member and injured 18 other people, including civilians.

On December 28, 2023, Al-Sudani announced his government was working to end the US military presence in Iraq. The Iraqi groups have been frequently attacking US troops in Iraq and Syria with drones and missiles. Al Sudani has said the US strikes are an “infringement to Iraqi sovereignty”.

“With the presence of capable Iraqi forces, the Iraqi government is heading towards ending the presence of the international coalition forces,” said Al Sudani.

The Iraqi government had asked the US military to come to Iraq to help in the fight to defeat ISIS, which ended in 2017. Afterwards, the US remained in Iraq as trainers and advisors to the Iraqi military with several thousand troops remaining there. However, the agreement between the US and Iraq excludes military operations by the US troops.

Iraq’s military spokesperson, Yahya Rasool Abdullah, described the US strike as “no different from terrorist acts” and said that the Iraqi army held the US responsible for the attack on a Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, which is under the Iraqi Army’s command.

“We consider this targeting a dangerous escalation and an assault on Iraq, far from the spirit and text of the authorization and the work for which the international coalition exists in Iraq,” Abdullah said in a statement.

On January 3, 2020, US President Donald Trump ordered the assassination of Iran’s most powerful military commander, General Qasem Soleimani, who was killed at Baghdad airport, along with others.

Soleimani was widely seen as the second most powerful figure in Iran after Ayatollah Khamenei. He was instrumental in the attack on, and the defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Despite the US propaganda, ISIS was defeated by Iraq, Iran, Syria, Russia, and the US-led coalition.

Who Is ISIS, and Who Created Them?

In an article published in 2015 in The Guardian, it was reported that the trial in London of a Swedish man, Bherlin Gildo, accused of terrorism in Syria, had been thrown out once the prosecution became aware that UK intelligence had been arming the same terrorists the defendant was charged with supporting.

The defense argued that there was extensive evidence that the UK government was supporting the very same terrorists, the so-called “armed opposition in Syria”. The evidence included UK support of the terrorists with body armor, military vehicles, training, logistical support, and the secret supply of “arms on a massive scale”. MI6 had cooperated with the CIA on a “rat line” of arms transfers from Libyan stockpiles to the Syrian rebels in 2012 after the fall of the Gaddafi regime, which was exposed in 2014 by investigative journalist, Seymour M. Hersh.

The UK ministers and their security officials were found to be supporting terrorists, and couldn’t very well ask the courts to imprison Gildo for doing the same. However, the UK was not alone, and they were only following the orders of US President Barack Obama, who was the architect of the US-NATO attack on Libya and Syria.

The Americans and their British allies used terrorists who were following the political ideology of Radical Islam as their boots on the ground. Obama called them the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and Senator John McCain became their biggest supporter in Congress.

The beginning of ISIS starts with the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Previously, there had been no Al Qaeda presence there, but they came pouring in in response to the invasion for regime change. Al Qaeda took hold in Iraq, and by 2011 they took notice of the FSA in Syria who were getting weaker by the day fighting the Syrian Arab Army. Once the FSA was on the brink of annihilation, they put out a call for their brothers in arms, Al Qaeda. 

Hillary Clinton admitted in an interview that the US had invented Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Army.

In 2012, the Defense Intelligence Agency, at the Pentagon, wrote a report predicting a coming principality following Radical Islam in Syria and Iraq.  The report identifies Al Qaeda as the major force in the opposition fighting in Syria. By contrast, Obama and McCain, at the same time, were selling the American public on the story that it was “freedom fighters” of the FSA who were fighting the Damascus government.

The Pentagon report said that the supporters of the Syrian opposition (US, UK, France and NATO) wanted a principality governed by Radical Islam in order to isolate the Syrian government.  

In 2013 ISIS was formed in Iraq, and their leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi later asked his associate Mohammed al-Julani to go to Syria and open an ISIS branch there. Julani went to Syria and called his group Jabhat al-Nusra, and soon the FSA were gone. Julani is now the man who controls Idlib province in Syria, and his superior, Baghdadi was eventually assassinated in Idlib by Trump. 

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from MD

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Casualties 

• 23,084+ killed* and at least 58,926 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
• 381 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
• Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147.
• 510 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 2,193 injured.

*This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on January 8. Due to breakdowns in communication networks within the Gaza Strip, the Ministry of Health in Gaza has been unable to regularly and accurately update its tolls since mid-November. Some rights groups put the death toll number at more than 30,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.

Key Developments 

• Israeli soldiers shoot dead 4-year-old girl at military checkpoint in occupied West Bank
• Israeli military says the war on Gaza could last more than nine months. 
• Save the Children: Over ten children lose limbs a day in Gaza. 
• The Israeli army forces Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital to evacuate and abandon sick patients. 
• Doctors Without Borders: Israel appears to have directly targeted deceased Al Jazeera journalist Hamza Dahdouh after “a single rocket” hit his car.  
• Palestinian Ministry of Health: 249 Palestinians killed and 510 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza over 24 hours.
• Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor: “Systematic torture and inhumane treatment” of Palestinians detained in Israeli army camps.
• US Senator blames Israel’s ‘political decisions’ for the inadequate amount of aid reaching Gaza.
• Israeli military announces it “dismantled” Hamas’s military framework in northern Gaza, however, reports show that Israeli forces still face resistance from Hamas fighters in northern parts of the Strip.

Gaza’s Children May Never Recover from Israel’s Relentless Attacks

Israel’s attacks on Gaza have surpassed three months, fostering the most dangerous place in the world to be a child as death and destruction fills every corner of the besieged enclave. 

According to Jason Lee, Save the Children’s director for the occupied Palestinian territory, children are much more vulnerable to explosives. They will also need much more time and effort to recover from the injuries they cause. 

“Small children caught up in explosions are particularly vulnerable to major, life-changing injuries. They have weaker necks and torsos, so less force is needed to cause a brain injury,” Lee said in a statement.

“Their skulls are still not fully formed, and their undeveloped muscles offer less protection, so a blast is more likely to tear apart organs in their abdomen, even when there is no visible damage.”

Lee added that over 1,000 children have had one or both legs amputated, citing UNICEF, averaging out to over ten children a day over the last three months. 

To make matters worse, many of the injured children had to endure the painful procedures without anesthetic due to the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip.

As the number of injuries compounds in the Gaza Strip amid the collapsed healthcare system, it is difficult for child amputees to receive the follow-up care they need. 

“When children lose limbs, it’s not the same as when adults lose limbs,” he said. “Crucially, their bones continue to grow, so the amount of operations and surgical interventions that children who have lost arms and legs will… stay with them for many, many years. And there’s a huge amount of pain management as well, which of course, Gaza’s healthcare system currently is not, James Deneslow, head of Save the Children’s Conflict Time, said as reported by Al Jazeera.

Israel Is Picking Off Hospitals in Gaza One by One 

Gaza’s healthcare system is barely functioning as it is, and yet the Israeli army is continuing to attack one hospital after the other. 

Most recently, the military has been targeting the only hospital in central Gaza, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which has already been over-capacity. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the hospital has received 99 new injured patients in the last 24 hours alone.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), said his staff “saw sickening scenes of people of all ages being treated on blood-streaked floors and in chaotic corridors,” on Saturday.

“An unidentified child laid dead, partially covered by a sheet, on a bed. Other injured were prostrate on the floor, being stepped over by the health staff and families. A man’s harrowing groans, either from pain or anguish, cut through the emergency ward’s commotion,” he continued. 

The next day, the hospital’s medical staff were forced to abandon their patients after the army issued them an evacuation notice. 

According to Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), they “dropped leaflets designating areas surrounding the hospital as a ‘red zone.’”

“Given the recent history of attacks on medical staff and facilities in Gaza, the team is unable to return. Many local health workers have also been unable to access the hospital to care for the hundreds of patients that remain due to the conflict,” MAP continued in a statement.

Similarly, Ghebreyesus said on x that he received “troubling” reports from the hospital’s director that “over 600 patients and most health workers” have been “forced to leave” the hospital.

.@WHO has received troubling reports of increasing hostilities and ongoing evacuation orders near the vital Al-Aqsa Hospital in the Middle Area of #Gaza, which according to the facility’s director forced over 600 patients and most health workers to leave. Their locations are not… pic.twitter.com/Vzd9UWThNm

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) January 7, 2024

Ghebreyesus added that the current whereabouts of hundreds of patients and health workers from Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Hospital “are not currently known.”

The lack of information on the medical staff and patients’ marabouts is especially concerning due to the testimonies surfacing of severe human rights violations in Israeli camps. 

Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor has reported “systematic torture and inhumane treatment” of Palestinians detained in Israeli army camps.

Those who spent days in Israeli custody reported to the rights group that the army and Shin Bet members treated them as “non-human animals,” regularly beating them, stripping them naked, subjecting them to electric-shock torture, burning them with cigarettes, and holding them in iron cages.

Meanwhile, in northern Gaza, the Palestinian Red Crescent (PRCS) is continuing to treat those injured by Israeli airstrikes despite fuel and electricity shortages. 

In a video posted on X, PRCS volunteers were shown treating an injured man by torchlight at a medical point in Jabalia, northern Gaza. 

Despite the power outage, our volunteers continue to work in the PRCS medical point in #Jabalia, northern #Gaza to save the lives of patients and the injured, amid a shortage of medical supplies and medications.
📷Filmed by PRCS volunteer: Yusuf Khader, 6/1/2024… pic.twitter.com/ipM5n6kv7F

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) January 7, 2024

Israel’s ‘Political Decisions’ Are at Fault for the Lack of Aid

The Gaza Strip still needs life-saving humanitarian aid, including fuel, medical supplies, food, and water. However, Israel’s ongoing blockade has made it difficult for aid to enter the enclave. 

The United States Senator Chris Van Hollen has blamed Israel’s ‘political decisions’ for the inadequate amount of aid reaching Gaza.

On a visit to the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, Hollen described the screening process as “unnecessarily cumbersome,” which is “the result of political decisions by the Netanyahu coalition” is delaying the delivery of assistance to Gaza.

Hollen told CBS News, “When one item on a truck is rejected, the entire truck is rejected.”

As an example, he said water filtration systems were turned back by Israeli inspectors at the border, with the crossing operating eight hours a day instead of 24-7 to meet the needs of Palestinians.

“According to all the international NGOs that we talked about – who have operated in conflict zones around the world – they’ve never seen a worse process for ensuring the safe delivery of humanitarian assistance,” Hollen added.

Meanwhile, in Israel, Al Jazeera’s Sara Khairat says Israeli media outlets, which are heavily relied on by Israelis for information, are not focusing on the human toll or ruthless destruction of the war.

“The only discussions you’ll see here on Israeli media are related to the war decisions, to the situation in terms of what they’ve managed to achieve, the number of deaths of Hamas fighters. And it’s very much a ‘you’re either with us or against us’ mentality.”

Four Year Old Shot Dead in Occupied West Bank

Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces shot dead three Palestinians, including a four-year-old girl, on Sunday evening at a military checkpoint northwest of occupied Jerusalem, according to Wafa News agency.

The Israeli military claimed that they shot the child during an alleged car-ramming incident. However, the child was not involved in the vehicle.

The other two Palestinians killed were a young couple.

Israeli forces also conducted overnight raids across the occupied territory, an almost daily occurrence since October 7. 

As Israel Makes Plans for the ‘Day After’ in Gaza, Resistance Continues

Israeli military leaders are hinting that their attacks on Gaza could last through 2024.

The army has claimed it “dismantled” Hamas’s military framework in northern Gaza, alleging that it has killed some 8,000 fighters and will now end major combat operations in that area. However, according to reports, Israeli forces are still facing resistance across the North. According to an Al Jazeera report, in the Gaza City neighborhood of al-Shujaiyya, an Israeli commander was speaking to the media about how the area had been cleared, when fighters launched an attack. 

Israel has not addressed the future of the troops still deployed in northern Gaza but has said during a press conference that the military will “continue to deepen the achievement” in the area.

At the start of Israel’s aggression on Gaza, Israel demanded the evacuation of all civilians from the north to the south, claiming it would be temporary. While it is unclear if Israel plans to allow Palestinians to return home as promised initially, the idea of expelling Gazans into Egypt continues to gain traction amongst Israeli politicians and the public. 

Israeli spokesperson Daniel Hagari says that Hamas fighters “without a framework and without commanders” are still present, and scattered fighting is still to be expected. However, he claims Hamas no longer operates in an organized manner. 

Hamas has yet to comment on the Israeli assertion. 

Hagari stressed that Israel still plans to continue their onslaught on the rest of Gaza, including the South, which Israel previously labeled as a safe area.

“We are now focused on dismantling Hamas in the center of and south of the strip,” Hagari continued, adding that it “will take time.”

Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi also said 2024 will be a “challenging year.”

 “We will be fighting in Gaza all year – that’s for sure,” Halevi said during a visit to the occupied West Bank, according to Al Jazeera. 

Omar Ashour, a professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera that it is clear that Israel’s ground forces in southern Gaza are meeting stiff resistance from Palestinian fighters.

“In Khan Younis, based on the statements from the Israeli military, nine brigades are deployed in just one governate of the Gaza Strip. These include paratrooper brigades, a special forces brigade, and armored brigades.

“When you have this number of elite forces in such a small area it tells me the fight has a very long way to go,” Ashour concluded. 

Esmat Mansour, a researcher on Israeli affairs, told Al Jazeera that according to Israeli estimates, the war will take at least nine months to a year to conclude, and that will only happen after the army “combs through the Gaza Strip and rids it of rockets and tunnels.”

“They will also aim to find the captives and reach the Hamas leadership. All of this makes 2024 a year of fighting and puts Israel in a continuous state of emergency,” Mansour continued.

“This means that the existing situation – the state of emergency, the emergency government, and all that those entail – will continue, and it is also possible that the captives may not return during this year,” he added.

US ‘Dissonance’ Over Israeli Crimes 

The Biden administration has continued to financially back Israel in the face of mounting war crimes, death and destruction in north Gaza and the occupied West Bank. 

Following Israel’s murder of Al Jazeera journalist Hamza Dahdouh, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was “deeply sorry” about the “unimaginable loss” of Wael Dahdouh, whose son was killed in an Israeli attack.

In response, Middle East expert Khaled Elgindy wrote on x: “The total dissonance of being sorry about an outcome that you have actively enabled at every stage.”

The total dissonance of being sorry about an outcome that you have actively enabled at every stage. https://t.co/8KRJoYGpfu

— Khaled Elgindy (@elgindy_) January 7, 2024

Similarly, political analyst Hafsa Halawa told Al Jazeera,

“Nothing in the US’s policy actions – beyond certain doublespeak that we see or tweets that are written by the teams of everybody from the secretary of state to the president of the United States and other members of the government – seems to signal that there is any material pressure on Israel.”

“At the end of the day, nothing that we’ve seen since October 7 from anyone in this administration signals that the US is anything but supportive of this war.”

“And this is why Israel is pushing for a deal with Hamas without a halt to the fighting. Israel wants the fighting to continue because it is looking for a clear victory in the form of changing the entire situation in the Gaza Strip, and this requires a lot of time.”

During a press conference in Doha, Qatar, US Secretary of State Blinken said that the United Nations (UN) can play a crucial role in allowing Gaza’s displaced civilians to return home as Israel moves to a “lower-intensity phase” of its military campaign.

“Palestinian civilians must be able to return home as soon as conditions allow,” Blinken said. “They cannot – they must not – be pressed to leave Gaza.”

However, it is unclear if the US will put any material pressure on Israel to follow through with allowing Palestinians in Gaza to return to their homes

Blinken is set to visit Israel and the West Bank on Tuesday and Wednesday this week before wrapping up the trip in Egypt, in his fourth visit to the Middle East since October 2023. According to AP, Blinken’s priorities are “protecting civilians….getting more humanitarian aid into Gaza, ensuring Hamas cannot strike again and developing a framework for Palestinian-led governance in the territory and ‘a Palestinian state with security assurances or Israel’.”

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Featured image: Wounded Palestinian children, are taken to hospital after Israeli attacks in Khan Yunis, Gaza on December 23, 2023 [Belal Khaled/Anadolu Agency]

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Advanced human development in democratic institutions of industrialized societies is highly dependent on the total participation, empowerment and inclusion of women and ethnic minorities in parliaments and legislative assemblies to influence decision making and implementation processes through high impact policy frameworks and equal opportunities. Consequently, there is a dire need for greater political participation and empowerment of women and ethnic minorities to contribute to socio-cultural development by fomenting economic growth that is inclusive of diverse groups within specific demographic populations.

Women and ethnic minority representation in parliaments in respective societies will effectively and efficiently ensure that there are stronger, more responsive yet relevant policy and legislative frameworks that encompasses critical issues of national and international importance such as: child care, welfare and protection, gender equality in the workplace which actively advocates for and promotes equal income and promotion for women, gender based violence, civil rights and anti-discrimination laws. In addition, it also must be emphasized that the concept of the political participation of women and ethnic minorities goes beyond exercising political rights through ballots or grassroots activism, political participation accentuates the empowerment of women and ethnic minorities to vie for and win public offices to represent the perceived ‘voiceless’ and other marginalized groups in societies through rigorous debates and actions that can improve the well-being of the specific demographic populations. Women and ethnic minorities are also pivotal to the political landscape of their countries because they are astute in lobbying for and promoting greater accountability and transparency systems in government’s decision and actions to reduce perceived and actual corruption.

Despite the increasing roles of women and ethnic minorities in political participation and representation in industrialized societies, women and ethnic minorities are still underrepresented in parliaments and legislative assemblies due to political, socio-cultural, economic and psychological factors that can be explained by theories and other reliable, qualitative and quantitative evidence to substantiate the discussion of the thematic concern. Hence, before one can critically explore and discuss the crucial importance of the representation of women and ethnic monitories in parliaments as well as the measures used by industrialized counties to increase their representation in legislative assemblies, one has to first, carefully evaluate and analyse the contributing factors to the underrepresentation of these minority groups in parliaments as well as to properly define ethnic minorities in the context of demographic and political representation and participation.

Firstly, women are underrepresented in parliaments due to an institutionalized patriarchal system in political parties where gender is extremely critical to the selection process of candidates and women are less favourable in the selection process, due to their perceived traditional roles and responsibilities. This argument is reinforced in the commentary of Peter Northouse (2013) in his textbook, ‘Introduction to Leadership:  Theory and Practice’ where he posits: “although the phenomena of female leaders have significantly increased globally, there is still an invisible barrier that is present that prevent women from rising to elite leadership positions within the political arena and this is called the glass ceiling.. domestic and child rearing burdens further prevent women from achieving elite leadership positions” (p. 354-355).

To further exacerbate this ‘glass ceiling’ phenomena that prevents women from rising to elite leadership positions, which eventually leads to their underrepresentation in parliaments, can be attributed to the fact that the political party system has been dominated and controlled by men who are motivated by evident gender biases and negative stereotypes to execute candidate selection or display support for particular candidates running for public office. To validate the following statement, evidence can be cited from a Senior Honours Research Thesis entitled, ‘A Socio-cultural Analysis of Underrepresentation of Women in US State Legislatures’ in which Meena Visvanathan (2012) argues:

“political ambitions embody the ethos of masculinity where state legislatures have taken a long time to include women and the policies that they typically support. Political parties have not fully integrated women.. fundraising networks for campaigns and other political institutions are operated by men and continued by controlled by men. These political institutions facilitates men’s emergence into politics while suppressing women’s emergence” (p.6-7).

Therefore, women’s underrepresentation in parliaments can be attributed to institutional and socio-cultural factors in which women’s roles in society are still viewed from traditionalist perspectives in which they are expected to relegate themselves to supporting roles of caring, nurturing and carrying out other domestic duties as well as the fact that leadership is has been perpetuated as a man’s role because the political field demands fierce assertiveness and independence. As a result, parliamentary representation is still viewed as a man’s social place in society and due to the consistent negative stereotypes of women’s leadership styles, traditionalist perspectives and institutionalized patriarchy, women tend to a display a low level of political ambitions. Women’s low political ambitions are best explained by Peter and Simon (2001) where they postulate if the social and political conditions are not right, women will only display static ambitions whereby there will either not run for public office or remain in a state of complacency in a leadership position that is already held.

Moreover, the issue of underrepresentation of ethnic minorities should also be thoroughly explored and discussed by first, properly defining ethnic minorities in the context of demographics in industrialized countries. The United Nations Human Rights website (2015) defines:

“minorities as individuals with distinct national, ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity under the United Nations Declaration for Minorities, Article I. There is no internationally agreed definition of which groups constitute minorities. However, minorities can be described as a group of persons who are numerically inferior to the rest of a population in a state or it can be a group of persons in a numerical majority but have a non-dominant social position in a state and also minorities are marginalized social groups that are generally susceptible to limited access to opportunities that will enhance their well-being, discrimination and stigma. These include: people living with HIV/AIDS and other pandemic diseases, persons living with disabilities, persons from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual community (LGBT), persons belonging to political groups and persons with a particular ethnicity that is not dominant.”

Although there is no internationally agreed standard on defining and describing minorities, the US Census Bureau (2010) defines and categorizes ethnic minorities as people who are Blacks/persons of African heritage, Hispanics, Asians, Hawaiian, American Indian, Alaska Natives and other Pacific Islanders.

Henceforth, based on the definition and description of ethnic minorities in the context of demographics in industrialized countries and international law, it is safe to propose the argument that ethnic minorities are underrepresented in parliaments because there is an inherent bias or discrimination against these social groups rooted in the fact they might be the numerical minority and or the numerical majority but not the dominant social group within their respective states. The inherent bias or discrimination towards ethnic minorities is most evident in the case of France which is considered to be an industrialized country and is ranked as one of the permanent five (5) countries that is most powerful in terms of decision making and actions in the United Nations. In ‘The Washington Journal of Law and Policy: Volume 46- Emerging Ideas in Law’, Leland Ware (2015) deftly looks at ‘Colour Blind Racism in France’ where he states,

“For the past decades, discriminatory practices treat ethnic immigrants especially young men as second class citizens and impinge on their human rights, freedoms of movement and privacy. Racial and ethnic categories are not officially recognized in France. The French census does not disaggregate data by race or ethnicity, because French laws prohibit officials from doing so.”

The academic journal’s report and findings illustrated the irony of an industrialized country that is expected to uphold and maintain the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights in relation to rights and freedoms of ethnic minorities. The mere fact that they are unofficially acknowledged in the census of the country means that their representation in parliament, which is a symbol of decision making, policy and governance, will eventually be undermined or seriously jeopardized based on the grounds that the legislative and executive branches of the government in France pass laws and effect policies that are not friendly and or open towards ethnic minorities. In addition, this serious undermining of their representation through discriminative laws and policies also infringes on their freedoms and rights especially the right to participate in public or civic life (voting, running for public office and increasing visibility through activism etc).

Since, there has been a meticulous evaluation of possible reasons for underrepresentation from women and ethnic minorities in parliaments, properly defining ethnic minorities and the many disadvantageous policies and laws meted out against them in the illustration of France, one can now clearly assess the crucial importance of having women and ethnic minorities being represented in parliaments. Women’s representation in parliaments are greatly needed in parliaments because they will work more assiduously in allowing their voices to be heard on matters that have been otherwise ‘pushed aside’ out of the governance and decision making processes of a country and these matters are important because they are affecting the majority of social groups residing in a population.

Feminist writer and web blogger, Soraya Chemaly (2012) argues in her Huffington Post Blog entitled ‘Women in Politics: Why We Need More Women in Office’ that promoting an increase in women’s political participation through running for public office will eventually lead to more women being actively involved in advocacy for gender-salient issues, women’s health, reproductive rights, child rights, welfare, the economy. In addition, Chemaly argues that women are more responsive to their constituents because they are more focussed on co-operation than hierarchy. Chemaly also urges that more women should vote because the best way to speak out is through voting to push for policies, laws, initiatives and programmes that will be more favourable to their well-being. Chemaly’s argument on the women’s political participation and its benefits are further reinforced in the Guardian’s article, ‘Gender and Unity in the Labour Movement’ (2015) where Deborah Orr comments:

“no modern day labour movement, political party or trade union cannot survive without women’s support and representation. Women are apart of the largest public service union in the England and work with Jeremy Corbyn and his team on issues facing public service workers. Heather Wakefield has campaigned in the trade union and women’s labour movement for over twenty-five (25) years for fair and equal pay, parental rights, women’s representation and for public service workers to be properly valued.”

Orr’s commentary on women’s activism in trade unions prove how important they would be to the political representation of their countries whereby policies would be responsive and relevant to the social groups that they are actively advocating for in parliaments.

Furthermore, women’s representation in parliaments would be crucially important because they would demand more accountable and transparent systems of government’s actions and decisions to reduce perceived and actual corruption that can hinder a country’s development. Justin Esarey (2015) debates in his research paper entitled, ‘Women’s Representation, Accountability and Corruption in Democracies’ that greater women’s representation in politics is linked to lower levels of perceived corruption in government, according to a study conducted by (Dollar, Fishman and Gatti, 2001). He also noted that findings from a 2001 World Bank Study suggested that the policy world is zealous about including more women in political offices and bureaucratic offices because they act as an anti-corruption measure. These arguments corroborated by reliable evidence validates that greater political participation by women in parliaments can effectively drive the development of a country socially where marginalized groups are included in the policy making, decision making and consultation processes, economically whereby policies are aimed at promoting equal income, promotion and employment for women and other disadvantaged social groups such as public service workers and politically whereby women do not only limit themselves to voting for candidates or relegate themselves to supporting roles of men but also they are empowered to run for public offices to create and effect various social changes and reforms to their respective countries.

On the other hand, it is also crucially important for ethnic minorities to be represented in parliaments because they will help to draft and effect efficient policy frameworks that will promote culturally diverse groups and other ethnic minorities’ participation in public and civic life as well as a greater access to resources and opportunities that will enhance their self-efficacies, sustainable livelihoods and productivity. This statement can be substantiated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 2010 publication entitled, ‘Promoting Inclusive Parliaments: The Representation of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples in Parliament in which Dr. Oleh Protsyk states that minority representation in parliaments have helped to lobby for affirmative action towards indigenous peoples whereby more than twenty-seven per cent (27%) of countries being surveyed have introduced provisions that respect the customs and culture of indigenous peoples and minorities in respective countries such as New Zealand in which asides from English, the indigenous language Maori was given official recognition in the House of Representatives in 1985 and also, thirty-two per cent (32%) of countries involved minority groups and indigenous people in their consultations for decision making and policy implementation. The publication demonstrated that with the representation of ethnic minorities in parliaments issues such as affirmative action, cultural diversity, protection and upholding of human rights for minorities and integration of minorities in public and civic life. This will in turn help to empower the indigenous or ethnic minority population to achieve through advocacy for equal opportunities to be more productive individuals in their countries.

Lastly, although it has been agreed upon that women and ethnic minorities are underrepresented in parliaments, progress has also been made to include more women and ethnic minorities in legislative assemblies in industrialized countries through specific measures. Special measures for the inclusion of women in legislative assemblies include the use of gender quotas meanwhile special measures for the inclusion of ethnic minorities in legislative assemblies in industrialized countries include the use of reserved seats. Before one can look at the workability of gender quota to increase women’s political participation in a selected industrialized country, the term gender quota has to be clearly defined.

According to the website, ‘Quota Project: Global Database of Quotas for Women’ (2014),

“quotas are systems in which are designed for women to constitute a certain number or percentage of a candidate’s list, a parliamentary assembly, a committee or government. The core idea behind this system is that women are recruited into political positions and are not only the ‘token few’ in political life.” 

The gender quota system has had a significant impact on the political landscape of industrialized, European countries in which more women hold public offices in their legislative assemblies. To prove this argument, statistical evidence can be presented from the journal article, ‘Increasing Women’s Political Participation: New Trends in Gender Quotas in which Drude Dahlerup (2005) shows “women’s political participation have increased by thirty-five point three per cent (35.3%) in Belgium by the year 2003 and thirty-seven per cent (37%) in Denmark between the consecutive years 2001-2005”. He also notes some of the advantages of gender quotas in these industrialized countries whereby gender quotas corroborate with the internationally recognized conventions on gender equality which recognize women’s political representation and quotas also help to compensate women for the actual barriers that prevent them from having political seats. On the other hand, the disadvantages of gender quotas are that they are against gender equality, since women are given preference and women should not be elected by virtue of the fact of their gender but should be elected based on competence, skills and experiences.

However, special measures are also used to integrate ethnic minorities into legislative assemblies by industrialized countries. One of such special measures is reserved seats. Reserved seats have ethnic minorities to develop broad-based policies in legislative assemblies to reduce inter-cultural challenges and fuel the momentum of developmental potential of indigenous peoples and other ethnic minorities. In the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP’s) publication (2010) entitled, ‘Diversity in Legislative Assemblies: Listening to the Voices of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples’, Elizabeth Prowley discusses that mechanisms in parliaments and legislative assemblies such as reserved seats, special elections and appointments guarantee the “voices of minorities” or participation on critical policy issues such as the recognition of public affairs as universal rights, affirmative action and inter-cultural dialogue as a means of mediating conflict.

In addition, personal interviews with Member of Parliaments from ethnic minority backgrounds have also been conducted in the publication to show the enormous impact that they have made through politics, and the presence of reserved seats, on other persons who are from ethnic minority groups including indigenous peoples. Congress woman in the United States, Mazie Hirono expressed “being a woman who is from an ethnic minority background has allowed me to champion the rights of ethnic minorities in the United States and to give back to my community.” Meanwhile, Hone Harawira who is Member of Parliament in New Zealand who got his position through special measures for ethnic minorities also explained, “my identity as Maori and years of activism for Maori rights was a primary motivation for entering politics.”

In concluding, despite women’s and ethnic minorities’ underrepresentation in parliaments, significant efforts and improvements have been made by industrialized countries to introduce special measures to increase the political participation of both women and ethnic minorities in their legislative assemblies. Women and ethnic minorities have contributed immensely to governance, decision making, relevant policy and legislative frameworks and responsive social programs and reforms that have promoted the economic and cultural development of their societies.

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Tina Renier is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Sources

Chemaly, S. (2012). Women in Politics: Why We Need More Women in Office. Retrieved from http/www.huffingtonpost/womeninpolitics.

Dahlerup, D. (2005).  Increasing Women’s Political Participation: New Trends in Gender Quotas. International Feminist Journal of Politics. Vol, 7. No.1. pp.26-48.

Esarey, J. (2015). Women’s Representation, Accountability and Corruption in Democracies. Rice University.

Northouse, P. (2013). Introduction to Leadership: Theory and Practices. Sixth Edition. Sage Publications Inc. pp.354-355.

Orr, D. (2015). Gender and Unity in the Labour Movement. The Guardian. Retrieved from http/www.gender and unity/labourmovement/uk.

Protsyk, O. (2010). Promoting Inclusive: The Representation of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples in Parliaments. Global Overview. United Nations Development Programme. Bureau for Policy Development. New York, USA.

Prowley, E. (2010). Interviews with Parliamentarians. Diversity in Legislative Assemblies: Listening to the Voices of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples. United Nations Development Programme. Bureau for Policy Development. New York, USA.

Quota Project: Global Database for Quotas for Women. (2014). Retrieved from http/www.quotaproject/database/quotasforwomen.org

United Nations Human Rights. (2015). Rights for Minorities Under International Law. Retrieved from http/www.unhumanrights.org.

US Census Bureau (2010). Ethnic Minorities. Retrieved from http/www.uscensusbureau.org

Visvanathan, M. (2012). A Socio-cultural Analysis of Underrepresentation of Women in US State Legislatures. University of California, San Diego. pp. 6-7.

Ware, L. (2015). Colour Blind Racism in France. Washington University Journal of Law and Policy. Emerging Ideas of Law. 46 (11), pp. 2-6.

Featured image is from Shutterstock/rudall30

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Israel is urging western states to rally to its side as the International Court of Justice prepares to hear this week South Africa’s case that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The court is being asked by Pretoria to issue an immediate injunction ordering Israel to halt its military assault on the tiny enclave, to avoid further casualties.

Some 23,000 Palestinians are known to have been killed by Israel so far, a majority of them women and children, and many thousands more are believed to be lying under the rubble. Tens of thousands are seriously wounded. A majority of the population have lost their homes to the three-month bombing campaign.

Israel has intensively and repeatedly targeted the supposedly “safe zones” to which it has ordered Palestinian civilians to flee.

It has destroyed almost all of Gaza’s infrastructure and is blocking most aid from reaching the enclave. Famine and disease are likely to rapidly increase the death toll.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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In a January 2023 preprint in The Lancet, the New Zealand government released a study showing a 70 percent increased rate of kidney injury following two doses of Pfizer mRNA vaccines. Even more telling of injury was the dose-dependent effect. That is, one dose of Pfizer showed a 60 percent increased rate of injury within three weeks post-injection, while two doses showed a 70 percent increased rate of injury three weeks post-injection. “Acute kidney injury” was not defined by the authors but is understood in a clinical setting to include measurable changes in lab results and/or serious signs and symptoms such as bleeding, pain with urination, kidney stones, nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, or other renal dysfunction.

The data were drawn from a national database of over 4 million people over the age of 5 who had received the Pfizer vaccines. This number represented 95 percent of New Zealand adults and teenagers.

Compared to historical background rates of kidney injury, the following changes in acute kidney injuries were found in the original article, as shown in this screenshot.

 

These alarming results of vastly increased kidney injury were published in the abstract of the original article, and here are two screenshots from the January 2023 version of the abstract of that article:  [1]

 

Now let’s zoom in on the last two sentences:

 

None of the above is now available online anymore, except through web archives.

The full paper does not seem to be available anymore anywhere, just the abstract, and the following is what appears when you click on the link that worked back in January:

The original full article seems to no longer be available on the internet, but I still have the above screenshots. Journalist Alex Berenson wrote a summary of the original article. [2]

Hiding the Data in New Zealand

Then a strange thing happened to the New Zealand data. Not only did the above paper disappear, but the numbers of reported acute kidney injuries were cut nearly in half. Here is what the same table now shows, from the same-titled paper, by the same authors, since August 2023, [3] at this link:

Suddenly, from January to August 2023, the observed acute kidney injury (AKI) events now are only 57 percent and 58 percent, respectively, of the originally reported AKI events. As a result, the data shown in August look like the Pfizer vaccine made no difference or even implied a slight benefit, whereas the data published seven months earlier had shown an alarming increase in acute kidney injuries postvaccine.

Also, in the August 2023 revision, the reported number of those who had received the first dose was reduced by about 100,000, and the number of those receiving the second dose was reduced by over 200,000.

During the time period of the study, Feb. 19, 2021, to Feb. 10, 2022, New Zealand had relatively low rates of COVID-19, as seen in the chart below. [4] The curve below took a vertical turn on Feb. 11, 2022, which was the day after the New Zealand government authors of the paper stopped collecting data. Until that dramatic turn, daily new confirmed COVID cases in New Zealand remained near zero.

 

The authors found that 22.5 percent of vaccinated patients experienced new-onset or relapse of glomerulonephritis or other renal events following COVID vaccination. Additionally, 10.8 percent had increased proteinuria, 12.6 percent had worsening hematuria, and 0.9 percent had creatinine values 150 times what is normal or worse.

No difference was found between the Pfizer-vaccinated and Moderna-vaccinated with respect to renal events.

The study found the following:

Graph: Y Ota, et al. Association between COVID-19 vaccination and relapse of glomerulonephritis. Source

That study did not discuss the time elapsed from vaccination to glomerulonephritis pathology. This smaller study of 13 patients found that the median time of onset was one week after the first dose and four weeks after the second dose. [7] The patients typically presented with acute kidney injury, edema, and visible blood in the urine.

Several reports of minimal change disease appear in the peer-reviewed literature. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] Most of those cases occurred within several days of receiving a mRNA COVID vaccine, usually after the second dose, sometimes after the third dose. [15] It has also been seen following the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine. [16]

Minimal change disease is not one of the conditions noted in the Pfizer adverse events list. It is an insidious kidney disorder that is so named for the very subtle changes in the glomeruli filtration, which leaves gaps in filtration. Nephrotic syndrome results, in which proteins leak through the gaps from the blood into the urine, and then systemic effects of hypoproteinemia result.

Source

Future vaccines must be screened thoroughly for risk to kidneys and other organs before use in adults, and then only with fully detailed and uncoerced informed consent. Clearly, such toxic products as mRNA injections must never be used in children at all and must never be made a condition of work or study for anyone.

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Dr. Colleen Huber is an Author, The Defeat Of COVID, Manifesto for a Cancer Patient, and Choose Your Foods Like Your Life Depends On Them, all on Amazon. Naturopathic Medical Doctor (NMD) x 15 years.

Notes

[1] M Walton, V Pletzer, et al.  Adverse events following the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech) in Aotearoa New Zealand. Jan 20 2023.  The Lancet.  https://web.archive.org/web/20230124011347/https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4329970

[2] A Berenson.  URGENT:  A big New Zealand study reveals high rates of kidney injury after the Pfizer jab.  Jan 26 2023.  Unreported Truths.

[3] M Walton, V Pletzer, et al.  Adverse events following the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech) in Aotearoa New Zealand.  Aug 9 2023.  Drug Saf.  46 (9): 867-879.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10442303/

[4] University of Oxford.Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people: New Zealand.  Our World In Data.  https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?region=Oceania&facet=none&country=~NZL&Metric=Confirmed+cases&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Color+by+test+positivity=false

[5]  Pfizer Worldwide Safety.  5.3.6 Cumulative analysis of post-authorization adverse event reports of PF-07302048 (BNT162B2) received through 28 Feb 2021.  P 7.   https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf

[6] Y Ota, R Kuroki, et al. Association between COVID-19 vaccination and relapse of glomerulonephritis.  Nov 23 2022.  Clin Exp Nephrol.  27 (3).  236-242.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9686234/

[7] N Klomjit, M Alexander, et al.  COVID-19 vaccination and glomerulonephritis.  Dec 2021.  Kidney Int Rep.  6 (12).  2969-2978.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8493782/

[8] V D’Agati, S Kudose, et al.  Minimal change disease and acute kidney injury following the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Kidney Int. May 15 2021. 100 (2). 461–463. doi: 10.1016/j.kint.2021.04.035.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8123374/

[9] A Holzworth, P Couchot, et al.  Minimal change disease following the Moderna mRNA-1273 SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.  Aug 2021.  100 (2).  463-464.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8149162/

[10] H Tan, R Tan, et al.  Is COVID-19 vaccination unmasking glomerulonephritis?  Aug 2021.  Kidney Int.  100 (2).  469-471. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8141343/

[11] D Kervella, L Jacquemont, et al.  Minimal change disease relapse following SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine.  Aug 2021.  Kidney Int.  100 (2).  457-458.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8098029/

[12] L Lebedev, M Sapojnikov, et al.  Minimal change disease following the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.  Jul 2021.  Am J Kidney Dis.  78 (1).  142-145.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8028833/

[13] S Rahim, J Lin, et al.  A case of gross hematuria and IgA nephropathy flare-up following SARS-CoV-2 vaccination.  Jul 2021.  Kidney Int.  100 (1).  238.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8079938/

[14] H Komaba, T Wada, et al. Relapse of minimal change disease following the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.  Sep 2021.  Am J Kidney Dis.  78 (3).  469-470.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8137360/

[15] A Pirzadeh, S Emami, et al.  Exacerbation of minimal change disease following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination.  Nov 9 2023.  Am J Case Rep.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10643885/

[16] C Morlidge, S El-Kateb, et al.  Relapse of minimal change disease following the Astra Zeneca COVID-19 vaccine.  Aug 2021.  Kidney Int.  100 (2).  459.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8191285/

[17] L Negrea, B Rovin.  Gross hematuria following vaccination for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in 2 patients with IgA nephropathy.  Jun 2021.  Kidney Int.  99 (6).  1487.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7987498/

[18] N Chavarot, M Padden, et al.  De novo posttransplant membranous nephropathy following BNT 162b2 COVID-19 vaccine in a kidney transplant recipient.  Dec 2022.  22 (12).  3188-3189.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9537991/

[19] N Morimoto, T Mori, et al.  Rapidly progressive IgA nephropathy with membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis-like lesions in an elderly man following the third dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine: a case report.  Apr 24 2023.  BMC Nephrol..  24 (1).  108.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37095451/

[20] A Sekar, R Campbell, et al.  ANCA glomerulonephritis after the Moderna COVID-19 vaccination.  Aug 2021.  Kidney Int.  100 (2)  473-474.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8166044/

[21] M Shakoor, M Birkenbach, et al.  ANCA-Associated vasculitis following Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.  Oct 2021.  Am J Kidney Dis.  78 (4).  611-613.   https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34280507/

[22] C Hanna, L Herrera Hernandez, et al.  IgA nephropathy presenting as macroscopic hematuria in 2 pediatric patients after receiving the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.  Sep 2021.  Kidney Int.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8256683/

[23] C Huber.  Heart damage from the COVID vaccines: Is it avoidable?  Jul 14 2021.  PDMJ.  https://pdmj.org/papers/myocarditis_paper

[24] C. Huber.  Brain injuries after COVID vaccination.  Apr 10 2023.  The Defeat of COVID, Substack.  https://colleenhuber.substack.com/p/brain-injuries-after-covid-vaccination 

Featured image source

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Australia Is Building World’s Largest Sudden Cardiac Arrest Registry to Solve the “Mystery” of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Sudden Cardiac Deaths

By Dr. William Makis, January 09, 2024

Starting with Victoria, the work, supported by the Heart Foundation and led by Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute’s Dr Elizabeth Paratz, will combine and examine cardiac arrest data from two large and existing databases.

Tony Blinken Is a Cold-Blooded Sociopath

By Caitlin Johnstone, January 10, 2024

Speaking at a press conference in Qatar on Sunday, Blinken was asked to comment on the murder of Al Jazeera journalist Hamza Dahdouh, who was killed in Gaza by an Israeli airstrike on a car has was traveling in with two other journalists, one of whom also died. Hamza Dahdouh was the eldest son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, whose wife, son, daughter and baby grandson were murdered in another Israeli airstrike in late October.

‘Unimaginable Situation’ in Gaza as 600 Patients and Staff Expelled from Al-Aqsa Hospital

By Oliver Mizzi, January 10, 2024

The orders, which were reported by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, came amid an influx of injured people arriving at the medical centre. Al-Aqsa Hospital is the last remaining hospital in operation in Central Gaza, with recent evacuation notices by Israeli forces seeing an exodus of medical staff from.

BRICS: An “Informal Association” of Ten Countries? Now Under the Chairmanship of The Russian Federation

By Kester Kenn Klomegah, January 09, 2024

While the geopolitics intensifies, it has become necessary to explain whether BRICS be referred to as a formal or an informal association. Russia has already outlined a wide-range of dynamic steps of BRICS+ activities, culminating with October summit in Kazan, capital of the Republic of Tatarstan (within the Russian Federation).

Ukraine’s “Shooting Down Narrative”: Kiev Regime Claims ‘Proof’ It Can Shoot Down Russian Hypersonic Missiles

By Drago Bosnic, January 09, 2024

For nearly two years now, the Kiev regime has been making unsubstantiated claims about allegedly “shooting down” Russian hypersonic missiles. Obviously, it was never able to produce any credible evidence that it actually accomplished such a feat.

Holstering a Career: Wayne LaPierre Resigns from the National Rifle Association (NRA) of America Executive

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, January 09, 2024

Wayne LaPierre’s time had come to resemble a dictatorship in a hurry, pinching the silver and stomping on the dissenters on its way out. Allegations were already being made at the NRA’s annual meeting in Indianapolis in 2019, many barbed with the question as to where money from donors was actually going.

America’s Economy in 2024: Soft Landing or Hard Crash? Ron Paul

By Rep. Ron Paul, January 09, 2024

Even though the federal government will soon spend more on interest on the federal debt than on the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex, few in DC are serious about cutting spending. Federal debt increased by one trillion dollars from mid-September to the beginning of the new year.

F-16 Transfer to Ukraine Delayed Another Six Months. Battlefield Against Russia Postponed. Multi-Billion Bonanza for the Military Industrial Complex.

By Kyle Anzalone, January 09, 2024

The Western plan to transfer advanced American-made fighter jets to Ukraine has hit another delay and is now expected to reach the battlefield during the second quarter of this year. Washington has said it does not expect the warplanes to alter the course of the war. However, Russia views the F-16s as a national security threat as the aircraft are capable of carrying nuclear weapons. 

Balls of Steel: Today’s Most Despised Knesset Member

By Mike Whitney, January 09, 2024

There are 120 members in the Israeli Knesset, but one man towers above them all. His name is Ofer Cassif, and he is, perhaps, the most despised man in Israel. His crime—if you can call it that—is that he put his moral convictions into practice by signing a petition in support of “the upcoming hearing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague”… “accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.”

Pathologist Arne Burkhardt Revealing the Grave Dangers of MRNA Vaccines

By Dr. Arne Burkhardt and Taylor Hudak, January 09, 2024

Many cases of sudden death and severe disease are being reported since the rollout of the COVID-19 gene-based vaccines. Early on, several doctors and scientists warned that the COVID vaccines would lead to several complications including autoimmune disease, blood clots, strokes, and more.

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken just referred to the US-sponsored assassination of yet another journalist in Gaza as a “terrible tragedy”, as though the reporter was struck by lightning or died in a car crash or something.

Speaking at a press conference in Qatar on Sunday, Blinken was asked to comment on the murder of Al Jazeera journalist Hamza Dahdouh, who was killed in Gaza by an Israeli airstrike on a car has was traveling in with two other journalists, one of whom also died. Hamza Dahdouh was the eldest son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, whose wife, son, daughter and baby grandson were murdered in another Israeli airstrike in late October.

In response to an Al Jazeera reporter’s question about whether the United States condemns the murder of innocent journalists, Blinken replied as follows:

“I am deeply, deeply sorry for the almost unimaginable loss suffered by your colleague Wael al-Dahdouh. I am a parent myself. I can’t begin to imagine the horror that he’s experienced, not once, but now twice. This is an unimaginable tragedy, and that’s also been the case for, as I said, far too many innocent Palestinian men, women, and children — civilians, also journalists, Palestinian and other.”

Crocodile tears from Blinken the butcher.

Blinken just called the killing of the son of Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief an "unimaginable tragedy."

No, it's a crime: one that Blinken perpetrated. When asked directly, Blinken didn't condemn Israel's targeted murder of journalists. pic.twitter.com/yJAzePImCr

— Andre Damon (WSWS) (@Andre__Damon) January 7, 2024

Blinken went on to acknowledge the scores of journalists who have been killed in Gaza, saying that this shows the need to get humanitarian aid into the enclave and achieve a lasting peace. What Blinken did not do is issue anything resembling a condemnation of Israel and the clear and demonstrable fact that it has been highly focused on the task of murdering journalists in Gaza. He just offered his deepest condolences for Dahdouh’s death, framed it as a passive “tragedy” instead of an active assassination using highly sophisticated military technology under the sponsorship and support of the United States, and moved on.

It’s hard to say who’s worse, the far-right Israelis who openly revel in the butchery they are inflicting in Gaza, or the liberal Americans who directly sponsor that butchery and then look you dead in the eye and tell you how deeply, sincerely sorry they are to hear that another person in Gaza has died in a tragic accident.

Blinken is always doing sociopathic stuff like this. Late last month he tweeted,

“This has been an extraordinarily dangerous year for press around the world. Many killed, many more wounded, hundreds detained, attacked, threatened, injured — simply for doing their jobs. I am profoundly grateful to the press for getting accurate, timely information to people.”

This has been an extraordinarily dangerous year for press around the world. Many killed, many more wounded, hundreds detained, attacked, threatened, injured – simply for doing their jobs. I am profoundly grateful to the press for getting accurate, timely information to people.

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) December 28, 2023

I mean, can you believe the gall of this freak? As though his own administration wasn’t responsible for most of those killings. As though Israel has not spent the last three months directing wildly disproportionate firepower at the places it knows journalists are hiding. 

He’s standing there on top of a pile of corpses while mournfully shaking his head about their tragic unfortunate deaths.

https://t.co/cKcI9Mji74 pic.twitter.com/QVr4dxRbWd

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) December 28, 2023

There’s something about the job of US secretary of state that appears to require a significant level of sociopathy. From war criminal Henry Kissinger to Madeleine “We think the price was worth it” Albright to Mike “We lied, we cheated, we stole” Pompeo, the absolute worst person in any given presidential administration is very often the head of the State Department. A severe personality disorder is practically in the job description.

This is because while the secretary of state is officially the head of US diplomacy, “diplomacy” for the US empire looks a whole lot different from what it looks like for normal countries. US “diplomacy”, in practice, typically looks like going from country to country negotiating for international alignment behind wars, starvation sanctions, proxy conflicts and western-backed uprisings. In theory the State Department should be the department of peace, but in practice it’s just a subtler, sneakier military department.

Nothing epitomizes the depraved manipulations of the US empire better than Antony Blinken. There is no better representation of that empire than Tony standing there on his mountain of corpses, covered in blood, telling you how sorry he is to learn of the unfortunate accidental deaths of the people he just murdered, staring at you with his cold dead eyes, playing remarkably soulless blues guitar under the light of a bright red moon.

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Israeli officials will tell Secretary of State Tony Blinken on Tuesday that Israel won’t allow Palestinians to return to northern Gaza if Hamas doesn’t agree to release more hostages, according to two senior Israeli officials.

The big picture: Making progress toward the return of Palestinians to their homes and ensuring they are not forcibly displaced from Gaza is one of the goals of Blinken’s talks in Israel this week.

• The Biden administration has expressed concerns over recent statements from some radical right-wing Israeli ministers who have called for Palestinians to be driven out of the Strip.

What they’re saying: “Palestinian civilians must be able to return home as soon as conditions allow,” Blinken said on Sunday in a press conference with the Qatari prime minister in Doha.

• “They cannot and they must not be pressed to leave Gaza,” he stressed.

Behind the scenes: The Israeli sources told Axios that while Israel doesn’t in principle oppose allowing Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, officials will tell Blinken such a move needs to be part of a new hostage deal.

• “We are not going to allow Palestinians to go back to their homes in northern Gaza if there is no progress with the release of hostages,” one senior Israeli official said.
• Israeli negotiators who are working on the issue believe the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza is significant leverage that Israel doesn’t want to give up as it tries to secure a new hostage deal, a second Israeli official said.
• “There are Israeli and American hostages that are still held in Gaza. We think we will know within a few weeks whether a new deal to release them is possible or not,” the second official said.
• The Israeli Ministry of Defense declined to comment.

Driving the news: IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Monday that the Israeli military is in the process of transitioning from high-intensity operations in most of the Gaza Strip to low-intensity operations. This means there will be fewer ground forces inside the enclave and fewer air strikes, especially in Gaza City and in the northern Gaza Strip.

• High-intensity fighting is expected to continue in the southern city of Khan Younes where the IDF is still searching for Hamas leaders who Israel believes are hiding in the tunnels.

Zoom out: Blinken said on Sunday that the IDF’s transition to a lower-intensity phase of its military operation will allow the UN to evaluate what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return to the north.

• A senior Israeli official said both Israel and the U.S. understand that a return to the north will not happen in the short term because fighting continues in some areas and due to the conditions.
• But Israeli officials are expected to tell Blinken they are ready to start the planning process with the U.S. and the UN for a future return of Palestinians to their homes, if possible, or to shelters established by international organizations, the official said.

Zoom in: Up to 1.9 Palestinians — 85% of the population — in the tiny enclave have been displaced by the Israeli military campaign that began after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, according to the UN Palestinian refugee agency, which stresses that many have been forced to move multiple times.

• Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled northern Gaza after repeated evacuation orders by Israel and the start of the military’s ground offensive. Many will have no physical homes to return to, as destruction from Israel’s bombardment is widespread.
• Between 70% and 80% of buildings in northern Gaza have been destroyed in the war, according to an analysis of satellite data conducted by Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University and Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center. Much of northern Gaza’s water, sanitation electricity infrastructure has also been destroyed.

State of play: Blinken met with Emirati President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, before traveling to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

• Blinken’s talks with regional leaders are aimed at preventing the spread of the Gaza war to Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East, the State Department said.
• But on Monday, the situation along the Israel-Lebanon border escalated further with the killing of senior Hezbollah field commander Wissam al-Tawil, who helped lead the group’s elite Radwan force. Israel didn’t claim responsibility for the strike but Israeli officials said they are preparing for a significant retaliation by Hezbollah.

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Featured image: Hamas hostage release (Source)

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Far-right lawmaker Tzvi Succot had only 30 seconds to speak at the Caucus to Strengthen the Awareness of Israeli Victory at the Knesset last week. If you’re a hard-liner, he didn’t disappoint.

“This event must end in a way that resounds everywhere in the Arab world,” he said, adding that in the West Bank, “among the Arabs of Israel, in Syria, in Lebanon, everyone must see what has happened to Gaza and understand that this is the last thing he wants to happen in his life.”

Succot added:

“At least in the northern Gaza Strip we first have to conquer, annex, destroy all the houses, build neighborhoods – large and expansive neighborhoods, large settlements in that place that will be named after our heroes, after the nation’s heroes who fought there. We will distribute free plots there to the soldiers who fought, to the wounded who fought.

“This image, and this is the most important thing, of the destroyed Gaza, of Palestine Square that will become Israeli Heroism Square, this image will echo in every home around the world so that everyone will see what happens to those who mess with the people of Israel.”

The caucus, which was established even before Israel’s most right-wing Knesset took over in November 2022, debated the topic “How Israel’s Victory Will Look at the End of the War.” Among the few women around the table were legendary settler leader Daniella Weiss and right-wing commentator Nave Dromi.

While the members of the narrow war cabinet seem to weigh every word – both about the war and the 129 hostages still being held by Hamas – at the caucus meeting Israel’s hard right let loose.

Every time someone mentioned the resettlement of Gaza, loud applause erupted in the audience. Moderates were at a premium. 

Zvi Hauser, a former center-right lawmaker, said that if Hamas’ military leaders remain in Gaza they must be expelled as the heads of the Palestine Liberation Organization were expelled from Lebanon in 1982.

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Featured image: The Caucus to Strengthen the Awareness of Israeli Victory at the Knesset, last week. Credit: Noam Revkin Fenton

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Six hundred patients and medical staff have been forced to leave the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and UN, following an Israeli evacuation order.

The orders, which were reported by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, came amid an influx of injured people arriving at the medical centre.

Al-Aqsa Hospital is the last remaining hospital in operation in Central Gaza, with recent evacuation notices by Israeli forces seeing an exodus of medical staff from.

According to WHO official Sean Casey who had visited the hospital on Sunday, the hospital was operating with “30 percent of the staff that it had just a few days ago”.

Casey added that the hospital was receiving “hundreds of casualties every day in a small emergency department”.

International NGOs operating in the hospital, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the International Rescue Committee (IRC), and Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) have also been forced to leave.

Nick Maynard, MAP’s emergency team’s clinical lead who worked at Al-Aqsa Hospital, told The New Arab that the Israeli military informed him that “there will be increased attacks around the hospital are and it is not safe for us to go there”.

“Looking at the direction of the hospital we can see huge smoke clouds above the area… we can hear the incessant bombing,” Maynard said.

“We fear greatly for the safety and the lives of our friends and colleagues, the national staff, who are still in Al-Aqsa Hospital.”

.@WHO has received troubling reports of increasing hostilities and ongoing evacuation orders near the vital Al-Aqsa Hospital in the Middle Area of #Gaza, which according to the facility’s director forced over 600 patients and most health workers to leave. Their locations are not… pic.twitter.com/Vzd9UWThNm

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) January 7, 2024

In the days before the eviction, the hospital was already struggling to cope with an influx of injured people and at a reduced capacity due to staff shortages.

“Patients are clearly dying in the emergency department who could be saved if there were enough staff to run the operating theatres to full capacity,” Maynard said.

Enrico Vallaperta, MSF Project Medical Referent in Gaza, who also had been working at the Al-Aqsa hospital told The New Arab that “the situation in Gaza is unimaginable”.

“Primary health care has collapsed, people are dying of diarrhea, people are dying of simple bronchitis,” Vallaperta said, adding that the overcrowding of displaced people in Gaza means “we don’t know where we can set up a clinic”.

Elsewhere, the WHO said on Sunday it was forced to cancel a planned aid mission to the Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza after Israel did not give offer safety assurances.

“Heavy bombardment, movement restriction, and interrupted communications are making it nearly impossible to deliver medical supplies regularly and safely across Gaza, particularly in the north,” a post from the account said.

Northern Gaza has been cut off from the south since the beginning of November, following an Israeli military operation that focused on Gaza City and its surrounding areas.

Before that, the Israeli military forcibly expelled around 1 million Palestinians to southern and central Gaza, areas that are now the focus of Israeli operations.

Israel has killed 23,084 Palestinians since the start of its renewed war on Gaza, according to data released from Gaza’s health ministry. At least 58,926 have also been injured. 

Israel’s conduct has led to accusations of genocide, resulting in a case filed to the International Court of Juistice (ICJ) by South Africa.

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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From January 2024, Russia took over the baton of BRICS chairmanship dealing first with the appropriate description of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), whether as an association, a group or an organization. While the geopolitics intensifies, it has become necessary to explain whether BRICS be referred to as a formal or an informal association. Russia has already outlined a wide-range of dynamic steps of BRICS+ activities, culminating with October summit in Kazan, capital of the Republic of Tatarstan (within the Russian Federation).

As a matter of fact, in linguistics the words – an association, a group and an organization – simply are nouns meaning the act of identifying with, and working together for a particular common purpose in socio-cultural, economic or business relationships.

These three: association, group and organization, however, have some detailed meanings and implications and interpretations. Reading through media reports, to delve further into the complexity of the meanings and usages, popularly indicated that BRICS is an intergovernmental organization comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Most Chinese used an alliance, while western media prefers to use a group and organization.

As stipulated, January 2024 marks another new stage in BRICS development, Russia’s chairmanship has to deal with the letters in the acronym and possibly the structure, the degree of euphoria relating to various interpretations that BRICS portraying itself as an association of the global majority with primary goals of counteracting rules-based order and western hegemony. Ultimately, this constitutes Russia’s challenge, to engage in an innovative facelifting process under its chairmanship.

Now the Kremlin administration, the Foreign Ministry, Russian politicians, academic researchers and analysts say the most acceptable descriptive word/term should be an informal “association” rather than a group and an organization. In the article text posted to Kremlin website, President Vladimir Putin referred to BRICS as “an informal association” and further underscored 2024 expectations, itemized BRICS partnership in three key areas: politics and security, economy and finance, and cultural and humanitarian contacts.

Putin, earlier in an October 2023 interview, categorically emphasized that BRICS expansion aligns with the global multipolarity principle, providing a platform for countries to interact as equals, avoiding dependency on any single sovereign power. Under Russia’s chairmanship this 2024, integrating more new members into BRICS would be an explicit testament to the association’s remarkable growing attraction and its commitment to reshaping the global economic landscape. And further to that, BRICS brings diverse strengths and perspectives to the association, each dimensions augmenting its capability to influence global trade, economics and politics.

“Of course, we will consider the degree to which many other countries, about 30 of them, are prepared to join the BRICS multidimensional agenda in one form or another. To this end, we will start working on the modalities of a new category of BRICS partner country,” according the text.

In the realm of BRICS 2024, Russia fixes its motto as “Strengthening Multilateralism for Equitable Global Development and Security” which precisely points to the current challenges facing the world today. The association now includes 10 countries. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates joined BRICS as new full members which is a strong indication of the growing authority of the association and its role in international affairs. It portrays its strength in the evolutionary multipolar processes of the century.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has also outlined comprehensive future vision for BRICS, emphasizing that “it should remain an association rather than evolving into a full-fledged organization with a secretariat.” Lavrov stated in an interview with the Russian channel NTV that BRICS is not an organization but an association, describing it as a “future umbrella” symbolizing the aspirations and considerations of the world’s majority of developing countries.

Lavrov expressed extraordinary skepticism about transforming BRICS into a formal organization at this stage, emphasizing that it may not be necessary for a relatively long time. He underscored the importance of BRICS as a platform where countries collaborate based on mutual interests and equality, contrasting it with Western organizations lacking fair rules and genuine consensus.

The association, consisting of Russia, Brazil, India, China, and South Africa, and now welcomed new members, including Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia from January 2024. That however, Argentina has decided not to join as planned, citing concerns about economic ties with China and Brazil, opting instead to pursue economic rapprochement with the United States and Israel under President Javier Milei, who for over 20 years, has been a professor of macroeconomics, economics of growth, microeconomics, and mathematics for economists in Argentine universities and abroad. Milei took office as the new president on 10 December 2023.

With more than 40 countries are still expressing high interest in joining BRICS, the association aims to expand its circle of friends, particularly focusing on Latin American countries. Some experts say the expansion will raise significantly its status and could further amplify association’s declared ambition to become a champion of the Global South. According to historical records, the first meeting of the association began in St. Petersburg in 2005. It was called RIC, which stood for Russia, India and China. Then, Brazil and subsequently South Africa joined later, which is why it is referred to as BRICS.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), Weekly Blitz and InDepthNews, is now a regular contributor to Global Research. He researches Eurasia, Russia, Africa and BRICS. His focused interest areas include geopolitical changes, foreign relations and economic development questions relating to Africa. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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For nearly two years now, the Kiev regime has been making unsubstantiated claims about allegedly “shooting down” Russian hypersonic missiles. Obviously, it was never able to produce any credible evidence that it actually accomplished such a feat.

And yet, here we are. As Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu once said, the Neo-Nazi junta usually “shoots down” three times more missiles than the Russian military actually fires.

And indeed, when one reads the press releases of the Kiev regime’s air defense forces, not a single Russian missile or drone is able to penetrate their airspace. On the other hand, the mainstream media and the Neo-Nazi junta keep complaining about “evil Russians destroying Ukrainian civilian infrastructure“. The question is, who’s not telling the truth in this case?

Speaking of not telling the truth, it should be noted that the Kiev regime and the mainstream propaganda machine already tried pushing the narrative about the failed US-made “Patriot” SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems supposedly “shooting down” the Russian 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal” air-launched hypersonic missile. Namely, on May 4, 2023, air defense units deployed in and around Kiev “shot down” one of the “Kinzhals” allegedly fired by Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS). Various local sources published images supposedly “proving” the incident took place. Initially, the news went largely unreported by non-Ukrainian sources, but on May 6, CNN, the infamous neoliberal mouthpiece and the flagship of the mainstream propaganda machine among news networks, broke the story in the political West.

However, no military analyst worth his salt has ever taken these claims even remotely seriously.

The images presented by the Neo-Nazi junta showed an object that doesn’t remotely resemble the “Kinzhal” missile. While it remains uncertain what sort of weapon the Kiev regime forces shot down, images show what looks like a KAB-1500L or perhaps a BetAB-500 ShP, both of which are laser-guided bombs. It’s also unclear which of “Patriot’s” several versions were used. The Kiev regime is known to have received one of the PAC-2 variants (MiM-104C, D and F), all of which have proven unable to shoot down even the old Iraqi “Scud” ballistic missiles during the First Gulf War in 1991. What’s more, even the newer PAC-3 variant has had an atrocious track record against much less high-tech opponents.

On the other hand, even basic knowledge of how physics works makes the Western and Kiev regime’s claims ridiculous. The images show that the Russian weapon was allegedly struck by the “Patriot’s” kinetic kill vehicle, which in the PAC-2 variant flies at approximately 4000 km per hour. The 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal’s” speed ranges from over 12,000 km per hour to almost 16,000 km per hour. If we were to imagine an interceptor missile flying at 4000 km per hour hitting another missile flying three or four times faster than that, can anyone really believe there would be anything more than a bunch of sparks, let alone a wreckage of any kind? Worse yet, the alleged “Russian ‘Kinzhal’ hypersonic missile” fell to the ground in a relatively good condition and was then even photographed and presented as supposed “evidence”.

Even some Kiev regime media, such as The Kyiv Independent, almost immediately refuted the claims. Only a day after the incident, this outlet published that the Kiev regime forces denied the reports because there were neither MiG-31K/I strike fighters nor 9-A-7660 “Kinzhals” in the air that night. However, this didn’t stop mainstream propaganda outlets from parroting the story. Although it has been debunked repeatedly since then, as previously mentioned, this sort of narrative continues unabated. On January 8, Business Insider published footage once again showing the alleged “hypersonic missile” that was “shot down” by the Neo-Nazi junta forces. This time, they were a bit more careful, claiming that they only found the missile’s warhead, not the entire missile, as they did the last time.

The “Kinzhal” was supposedly “shot down” on January 2, when the VKS launched a massive all-out strike that included hundreds of drones of various types, as well as ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles. To make matters even more laughable, the Kiev regime forces claim to have “shot down” all ten “Kinzhals” that night. I’ve already explained the sheer illogic of these claims. However, in order to further reinforce the debunking of this ludicrous narrative, we can use the previous admissions of the Neo-Nazi junta itself. Namely, according to their own account, even older weapons, such as the P-800 “Oniks” and the Soviet-era Kh-22, both supersonic anti-ship missiles, are impossible to shoot down. This is so obvious that not even the mainstream propaganda machine is bothering to deny it.

It’s important to note that both of these missiles are much less capable than the “Kinzhal”. The Kh-22, although nearly hypersonic at Mach 4.6, is still some 2.5 to 3 times slower. At Mach 2.6, the P-800 is over 5 times slower than the “Kinzhal”. What’s more, both of these missiles are also less maneuverable than the “Kinzhal”. The obvious question arises, if such undeniably capable weapons are impossible to shoot down, how is it possible for the Kiev regime to “shoot down” the orders of magnitude more dangerous “Kinzhal”, much less ten? Considering the fact that the political West and its Neo-Nazi puppets are primarily fighting an infowar, precisely this is the only viable explanation as to why they keep insisting that Russian hypersonic missiles can be “shot down” on a regular basis.

The “Patriot” SAM system has had an atrocious track record against all sorts of targets, be it the Iraqi “Scuds” over 30 years ago or Houthi/Iranian drones nowadays. On the other hand, the political West is decades behind Russia in hypersonic weapons development, meaning that this propaganda narrative accomplishes at least two objectives – promotes US-made air defenses after decades of humiliating failures and “tarnishes” the reputation of Russian hypersonic missiles. The previous is also aimed to help the sales of US systems, just like the hype over the alleged successes of the HIMARS and other US/NATO weapons that have been showered with praise in the last nearly two years. It can only be expected these laughable claims will be recycled from time to time.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. 

The now departed chief executive of the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) should know. Wayne LaPierre’s time had come to resemble a dictatorship in a hurry, pinching the silver and stomping on the dissenters on its way out. Allegations were already being made at the NRA’s annual meeting in Indianapolis in 2019, many barbed with the question as to where money from donors was actually going.

There were, for instance, LaPierre’s said suit purchases from the Zegna store in Beverly Hills between 2004 and 2017 amounting to a head shaking $274,695.03, for which Ackerman McQueen, the NRA’s former PR firm, was billed for. The NRA also reimbursed LaPierre for gifts sent to the organisation’s vendors, donors and special recipients, far exceeding federal tax limits.

The NRA’s 2019 tax filing disclosed that the body’s executives (former and current) had received somewhere up to $1.4 million in violation of non-profit regulations. The 2020 tax filing revealed a continuing trend. That year, LaPierre received 1.7 million in compensation, including a $455,000 bonus.

Things have been messy at the world’s most famous gun lobby charity for some time. The New York Attorney General Letitia James has busied herself with pursuing LaPierre and various top-placed individuals in the organisation on grounds of corruption. A lawsuit stretching back to August 2020 seeking the NRA’s dissolution asserts that millions of dollars funded a whole slew of personal benefits, including private jet travel, exorbitantly priced meals and family trips to the Bahamas. In doing so, it alleged that the NRA’s funds were mismanaged, a number of state and federal laws breached, including the body’s own bylaws and policies, and some $64 million lost over the course of three years.

With mulish determination, the NRA fought back, attempting, without success, to dismiss the complaint or change the court venue from Manhattan to more convivial surroundings in Albany. Daringly, it even tried to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a federal bankruptcy court in Texas, hoping to reconstitute the body in that state. In May 2021, the court dismissed the claims, finding “that the NRA did not file the bankruptcy petition in good faith.”

In March 2022, LaPierre and the NRA Corporate Secretary and General Counsel John Frazer, ran the second act in trying to dismiss the lawsuit. Inventively, arguments about constitutionality and jurisdiction were advanced. Justice Joel Cohen of the New York County State Supreme Court was unimpressed, though accepted the NRA’s arguments against its dissolution by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG). But in June 2022, Justice Cohen rejected claims by the organisation that “the Attorney General’s investigation was unconstitutionally retaliatory or selective.” The AG’s investigation had been instigated following “reports of serious misconduct and it uncovered additional evidence that, at a bare minimum, undermines any suggestion that was a mere pretext to penalize the NRA for its constitutionally protected activities.”

Two further assaults on the AG’s case were mounted, one in September 2022, which found that James could appoint an independent monitor to oversee the NRA’s accounts as part of the lawsuit, and a last ditch effort in January this year, which was swatted by the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department. The trial date of January 8 was secure.

A few days before the trial’s opening, a $100,000 settlement between the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) and Joshua Powell, the body’s former Executive Director of Operations and Chief of Staff, left James crowing. “Joshua Powell’s admission of wrongdoing and Wayne LaPierre’s resignation confirm what we have alleged for years: the NRA and its senior leaders are financially corrupt.”

In the opening stages of the civil trial, Monica Connell, New York’s Assistant Attorney-General, explained to a six-member jury that, “The NRA allowed Wayne LaPierre and his group of insiders … to operate the NRA as ‘Wayne’s World’ for decades.” (Connell could have surely done better than refer to the Mike Myers-Dana Carvey comedy dating from 1992.)

Connell went on to describe tyrant overlords turned kleptomaniacs. “This case is about corruption in a charity. It’s about breaches of trust, it’s about power. People taking their hard-earned money and donate it to charities they believe in. It doesn’t matter what the cause is. They should be able to trust that the hard-earned money they donate is going to advance the mission of that charity.”

Where, when, for the NRA?  For decades, it has fetishised, moralised, and upheld the purest virtues of carrying heavy weaponry in civilian life. To be sovereign is to be armed; any laws regulating the use of weapons best reserved for the military is an affront to the Second Amendment’s constitutional decency and the rugged principles of Frontier Man and Woman. Massacres at nightclubs, schools and universities were simply the product of ill minds, not the ease with which one could get a weapon. Better still, give everyone a weapon. Even now, the departing LaPierre declares that “the NRA’s mission, programming, and fight for freedom have never been more secure.”

That said, financial probity and a good nose for accounts matter. To that end, there is something richly fitting, if ironic, that economics and a concern about the use of finances should be the telling factor in the fall of numbers in the NRA. Gun-control lobbies and regulators may scream themselves hoarse about stalled reforms, but they could have hardly hoped for better news than that reported by Stephen Gutowski in February last year.

At the time, LaPierre told attendees of the NRA’s most recent board meeting that the organisation had shrunk to 4.3 million numbers. Such a membership still seems impressive, till you realise that the fall in numbers approximates to about one million subscribers since the tide of corruption began battering the organisation. Between 2021 and 2022, revenue fell by almost $24 million, or 11 percent.  But expenses ballooned by 5.5 percent, or $11.5 million.

The carefully chosen, if typically anodyne words in a presentation prepared for the group’s finance committee in January 2023 noted that “Membership/Contribution performance has continued to experience softness through 2022.” James, through her office, is ensuring the experience is also going to be a hard one.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected]

Featured image is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Apart from the obvious, also sending to demonstrate again that even for the most unlikely, this massacre is proving a desert too far.

That Reuters and US News should be openly critical of the shimmering “democracy” is surely quite something.

—Felicity Arbuthnot, Global Research, January 9, 2024

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Eleven-year-old Noor’s left leg was almost entirely torn off when her home in Jabalia, Gaza was hit by an explosion in October. Now her right leg, fitted with a heavy metal bar and four screws drilled into the bone, may have to be amputated.

“It hurts me a lot … I’m afraid that they’ll have to cut off my other leg,” she said from her hospital bed, staring at her clunky fixation device.

“I used to run and play, I was so happy with my life, but now when I lost my leg, my life became ugly and I got sad. I hope I can get an artificial limb.”

In bombed-out Gaza, a generation of child amputees is emerging as Israel’s retaliatory blitz after Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attacks has led to blast and crush injuries as explosive weapons tear through densely-packed high-rise housing blocks.

Israeli authorities have previously said they work to minimise harm to civilians. Israel’s military spokesperson’s unit pointed to what it called Hamas’ strategy of the “exploitation of civilian structures for terror purposes” but provided no specific comment on child amputees.

Doctors and aid workers say Gaza’s collapsed medical system is ill-placed to give children the intricate follow-up care they need to salvage their still-growing, truncated bones. Only 30% of pre-conflict medics are working due to killings, detentions and displacements, according to the World Health Organization.

More than 1,000 children had undergone leg amputations, sometimes more than once or on both legs, by end-November, according to U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, in a conflict where Gaza health authorities say nearly a quarter of injuries are among children.

Click here to read the full article.

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Featured image: Palestinian girl Eman Al-Kholi, whose limb was amputated after being wounded in an Israeli strike that killed her parents, looks on as she sits in a wheelchair at the European Hospital, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, December 28, 2023. REUTERS/Arafat Barbakh

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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A clip from the 1990 movie Home Alone where the lead character purchases groceries, household goods, and toys recently went viral because he paid a total of $19.83 whereas today the same purchase would cost over three times as much. Ironically, while this evidence of the Federal Reserve’s failure to maintain the dollar’s value was going viral, stocks rose because investors believed the Fed had successfully engineered a “soft landing” by bringing down price inflation without causing a recession and would soon begin reducing interest rates.

Then, stocks fell at the beginning of the year when the release of the notes of the Federal Reserve Board’s last meeting suggested the Fed would not hurry rate cuts. The likelihood of a delay in cutting rates was further increased by a “positive” December Jobs report.

The jobs report did show unemployment remaining low and wages slightly increasing, but the news was not all positive. One of the report’s most troubling items is that a top source of increased wages is government. An increase in the salaries of government employees also increases government debt, which will have to be paid for by taxes. Since tax increases are unpopular, the government relies on the Federal Reserve to do the dirty work by purchasing federal debt instruments and thus creating more inflation. This inflation tax is the worst of all taxes because it is regressive and hidden.

If the Fed allowed interest rates to increase to anywhere near what they would likely be in a free market, interest rate payments on the federal debt would rise to a level causing a financial crisis.

Even though the federal government will soon spend more on interest on the federal debt than on the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex, few in DC are serious about cutting spending. Federal debt increased by one trillion dollars from mid-September to the beginning of the new year. It is expected to increase by around another trillion dollars by the end of March! To put this in perspective, consider that the federal debt did not reach a trillion dollars until 1981 — almost two hundred years after the Constitution was ratified.

Continuing increases in federal debt and Federal Reserve created inflation will lead to economic crisis caused by a rejection of the dollar’s world reserve currency status. There is already resentment over the US government’s use of the dollar’s reserve status to support US sanctions This is why Russia and Iran recently signed a deal to trade in their own currencies rather than in dollars and Russia is no longer accepting dollars for its oil.

President Biden has kept his promise to refrain from criticizing the Fed’s conduct of monetary policy. In contrast, his predecessor regularly took to Twitter to lambaste the central bank. This means the Fed will likely try to help President Biden by trying to keep interest rates low enough to not increase unemployment yet high enough to not increase price inflation.

While Donald Trump is more likely than Joe Biden to challenge the deep state and neoconservative foreign policy, the truth is neither Biden nor Trump will seek to reduce spending. Unless a critical mass of Americans demand an end to the welfare-warfare state and the fiat money system, the soft landing sought by the Fed and the politicians will turn into a hard crash.

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Chinese state-supported shipping giant COSCO Shipping has stopped visiting Israeli ports, “Globes” has learned. The company, the fourth largest container shipping line in the world, with about 11% of world trade, decided on this step even though it is not much threatened in the Red Sea, because of the very fact that it is Chinese, and because of China’s ties with Iran, the patron of the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Besides the effect on trade between the Far East and Israel, COSCO’s decision is significant because it cooperates with Israeli shipping line ZIM, which will have to operate more ships on the Far East routes, which is liable to will lead to higher shipping costs, since XIM will be short of ships.

The second direct effect will be on the Haifa Bayport, which is operated by another state-owned Chinese company, SIPG. The port is dependent on the many COSCO ships that visit it.

The Houthis are threatening to attack vessels of any company that sails to Israel, but China is the customer for 90% of the oil exported by Iran. The chances of the Houthis firing on ships of a state-owned Chinese company are therefore very low, raising questions about the reasons for COSCO’s decision, of which international shippers have yet to be notified.

A pointer to COSCO’s step was the recent announcement by its Hong Kong-based subsidiary OOCL that it was ceasing to sail to Israel because of “operational problems”. That announcement, intended to enable it to sail in the Red Sea without interference by the Houthis, led to wide criticism. In the end, the company caved in, like Singapore-based shipping line ONE (Ocean Network Express).

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Featured image: COSCO ship credit: Shutterstock

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

***

Introductory Note

The unspoken objective is “crystal clear”.

The Battlefield Against Russia is postponed. It’s an ongoing multi-billion dollar bonanza for the Military-Industrial-Complex.

The Pentagon (on behalf of NATO) is sustaining the multibillion dollar revenues of America’s “defense contractors”, while announcing once more the postponement of “Ukraine’s Counter-Offensive”. The training program for the pilots will stretch into 2025.

Ukraine has lost the war. That battlefield is highly unlikely.

Will those F-16 fighters be deployed?

“Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov explained Moscow’s objection is based on the American-made warplane’s ability to carry nuclear weapons. Meanwhile resulting from multibillion dollar military expenses”

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s external debt has gone fly high. Western creditors are there to pick up the pieces.

The entire Ukrainian economy will be handed over to “Big Money” including BlackRock. It has all the features of a “Neo-Colonial Project”.

 

Photo of Zelensky meeting with Fink (Image courtesy of the President of Ukraine’s Official Website)

 

—Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, January 9, 2024

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The Western plan to transfer advanced American-made fighter jets to Ukraine has hit another delay and is now expected to reach the battlefield during the second quarter of this year. Washington has said it does not expect the warplanes to alter the course of the war. However, Russia views the F-16s as a national security threat as the aircraft are capable of carrying nuclear weapons. 

Danish newspaper Berlingske reported that the six F-16s Denmark was scheduled to transfer at the start of 2024 are being delayed by at least six months. The report was confirmed to Newsweek by the Danish Defense Ministry. The F-16 transfer is “now expected to happen during the second quarter of 2024,” while noting that “the timeline of the donation is subject to change,” the statement said. 

Colonel Yurii Ihnat, Spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force, recently explained that some of the pilots training on the F-16 are expected to complete the course this year, but it is possible for that instruction to stretch into 2025.

“As far as Denmark is concerned, this is an advanced group. Both fighters and pilots will be the fastest from there. When will they be the fastest? Well, we are still counting on the spring.”

He explained that some pilots training in the US are expected to be prepared for the battlefield by late 2024. A third group of Ukrainians drilling on F-16s in the UK are not expected to complete the training until next year. 

After President Joe Biden gave approval for a NATO plan to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16s and then transfer the advanced aircraft to Ukraine in the Spring of 2023, officials in Kiev hoped the warplanes would arrive by the end of the year. The timeline has been pushed back several times. 

Last Summer, Spokesperson for the National Security Council, John Kirby, told Fox News that the F-16s will not alter the course of the war.

“But it’s not our assessment that the F-16s alone would be enough to turn the tide here.” He continues, Kiev needs “the four As: artillery, ammunition, air defense and armor – tanks.”

Still, the Kremlin views the NATO plan to transfer F-16s to Ukraine as highly provocative. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov explained Moscow’s objection is based on the American-made warplane’s ability to carry nuclear weapons. 

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Kyle Anzalone is news editor of the Libertarian Institute, opinion editor of Antiwar.com and co-host of Conflicts of Interest with Will Porter and Connor Freeman.

Featured image is from TLI