Why It’s Necessary to End NATO Now

March 14th, 2021 by Eric Zuesse

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In a previous article I argued “Why It’s Necessary to End NATO”. However, recent events are making clear that the urgency of this need is increasing, instead of decreasing.

In 2011, the U.S. Government started planning a take-over of Ukraine, which, at that time, was a neutral country that has a 1,625-mile border with Russia. At its nearest point to Moscow, that border is only 5 minutes flight-time away from Moscow, via the fastest missiles. Obviously, that’s far too little time for Russia’s Government to be able to evacuate themselves from Moscow and to launch a retaliation against a U.S. blitz-attack. The U.S. goal is to get Ukraine into NATO, so that America can position its missiles there and really achieve “Nuclear Primacy” (which I discussed in that earlier article as being America’s meta-strategy since at least 2006 — safely to destroy Russia, even though that won’t actually be possible).

On February 1st of 2021, Ukraine’s President, Volodmyr Zelenskyy, made undeniably clear his intention to fulfill on Obama’s plan, for Ukraine to become a NATO member. Whether Joe Biden is going to push for that will be the most important decision of his Presidency, because it would be a commitment to World War III. It would, in effect, be a U.S. declaration of war against Russia. Whether the blitz-invasion would come from the U.S. (presumably assisted by missiles placed in Ukraine), or instead from Russia (in order to wipe out those and all other U.S. missiles), would be the only remaining question. Who will try the blitz-attack first? Either way, the world — at least the biosphere that sustains human life — would end.

Zelenskyy said:

We are grateful for everything, but Ukraine is not just saying in words that it wants to be an equal member of the Alliance, an equal member of NATO, because this is one of the most important security points – the same security that President Biden is speaking about. How should we further state the desire to accede [join], if it is enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine – the movement towards the European Union, European integration, as well as accession to NATO? Therefore, I have a very simple question – why is Ukraine still not in NATO? Putting away these phrases that we will all contemplate and communicate, the first simple question from me would be: “Mr. President, why are we not in NATO yet”?

If Ukraine becomes a NATO-member, then Ukraine will have the right to demand that America join its war to grab back the former Donbass region and also the former region of Crimea. The U.S. Government would then be put into the position of having to either fulfill its NATO commitment to the new NATO member (presuming that restoration of both Crimea and Donbass to Ukraine would be accepted as being a part of that commitment to what then would be a fellow-NATO-member) or else become very embarrassed by not doing so. If such a NATO commitment would be fulfilled, the world as it has always been known would end very fast — less than an hour.

The way that WW III would then start is that Ukraine would become more heavily armed by the U.S. and then would invade both Donbass and Crimea, Russia would then attack Ukraine for doing that, and the U.S. would then launch a blitz-attack against Moscow from Ukraine, and, simultaneously launch against all other command-and-control targets in Russia, so that before those have become hit, Russia would already have been decapitated.

The United States Government is fortunately not obliged to allow Ukraine into NATO and has many ways to prevent it from joining NATO. Some of these ways wouldn’t at all embarrass the U.S. Government, and the reason for this is that if any one NATO-member nation refuses to okay Ukraine as becoming a member, then Ukraine won’t become a member, and the scenario that has been described won’t then happen. The U.S. Government has enormous clout with each existing NATO member-nation, because NATO was created by the North Atlantic Treaty (also called the “Washington Treaty”) in Washington, DC, on 4 April 1949, at a conference that was chaired by U.S. diplomat Theodore Achiles, who subsequently retired to become a Director of the Atlantic Council, which also is in Washington, and which is the PR arm of NATO. The U.S. Government could easily get at least one NATO-member country to say no to Ukraine’s joining. However, if U.S. President Biden announces that the U.S. endorses NATO-membership for Ukraine, then that’s, in itself, virtually a U.S. declaration of war against Russia, and Russia might not wait for it to be made official before responding to it — blitz-invading the U.S. and its allies.

According to Achilles’s account of the creation of NATO:

The NATO spirit was born in that Working Group. Derick Hoyer-Millar, the British Minister, started it. One day he made a proposal which was obviously nonsense. Several of us told him so in no uncertain terms, and a much better formulation emerged from the discussion. Derick said, and I quote, “Those are my instructions. All right, I’ll tell the foreign office I made my pitch, was shot down and try to get them changed.” He did. From then on we all followed the same system. If our instructions were sound, and agreement could be reached, fine. If not, we worked out something we all, or most of us, considered sound, and whoever had the instructions undertook to get them changed. It always worked, although sometimes it took time. That spirit has continued to this day, I believe, although the size to which NATO has grown makes it far less easy. Two years later we began in London to put the “O” on the NAT by creating the organization. Some of the members of the delegations had been members of the Working Group, some had not. 

Was that the beginning of the end of the world? Perhaps Biden will decide whether it is, or not.

However, if he does decide to do it, then I doubt he’d do the attack prior to getting Ukraine into NATO — if he can do that. On March 10th, The Saker headlined “Is the Ukraine on the brink of war (again)?” and speculated whether Biden will provide now the backing that the Obama-installed stooge-regime there wants. Though the stooge-regime might re-invade Donbass (and maybe even attack Crimea), I doubt that Biden will provide the type of assistance that the U.S.-stooge regime in Kiev would need in order to retake that land (and certainly not Crimea). I would expect that Biden is therefore informing Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy not to try. So, I would expect that, instead, the crucial decision will be whether or not the regime in Washington will decide that it really does want Ukraine to become a member of NATO.

On March 10th, Sweden’s Defense Research Agency issued in two different parts, a 300-page report, “Western Military Capability in Northern Europe 2020,” which concluded that Russia would likely win WW III in Europe, and which analyzed only conventional war and virtually totally ignored even the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons in WW III — the presumption was instead that the meta-strategy “MAD” still would prevent that, and they ignored the U.S. regime’s actual abandonment of “MAD” and switch to “Nuclear Primacy”. They also simply presumed that the U.S. is their ally and non-aggressive and that Russia is their enemy and is aggressive. In other words: it is fantasyland, at least in the Swedish Government.

Furthermore: the core strategic question, of whether the loser in a conventional WW III would accept defeat instead of blitz-nuclear-attack the opponent so as to ‘win’ the war, was simply ignored, as if there would be a 100% likelihood that the conventional-war loser would just surrender and not escalate to a blitz nuclear attack against the opposite side in order to ‘win’ and would leave its enormous nuclear stockpile unused. They ignored the fact that NATO, after the Warsaw Pact ended in 1991, is the trip-wire to an all-out nuclear war — the exact opposite of an asset to its participants’ national security. NATO-participation makes all of them inevitably a part of the battlefield, and forces Russia to target them. Sweden’s Defense Research Agency produced there an insanely stupid study, and one which shows that Europeans, at least in Sweden, are being ‘defended’ by a government that is either in the pocket of the U.S., or else is simply idiotic. That study is shockingly stupid; it makes some of the craziest assumptions imaginable — assumptions that are tragically at variance with established facts (facts such as that America is, by far, the world’s most aggressive nation, and perpetrates far more coups, sanctions, and invasions, than does any other nation). At least regarding foreign relations, Sweden’s Government is monstrously disserving its public, and yet Swedes aren’t enraged against it. Are their news-media really that bad, so as for Swedes to tolerate a military alliance with the world’s most aggressive nation?

The only sane path forward for the nations that currently are NATO members (or “Partners” as Sweden is) is to withdraw and to urge other members (and Partners) likewise to withdraw, so that NATO will end — as it should have ended when the Soviet Union’s NATO-mirror organization the Warsaw Pact ended in 1991. End the Cold War, finally. NATO — the American military alliance against Russia — is simply the trip-wire to WW III. End it. Now. Even 30 years after 1991 isn’t, yet, too late to do it. But, maybe, 31 years would  be. That’s why it must be done now, delayed no further. Either NATO will end, or it will end all of us.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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Nanna Skov Høpfner, or as she is known by her friends Nanna Fri (Nanna Freedom), talked at a rally against the Danish Government and their corona restrictions. In her speech she made many good points, but also ended with “lets go smash this town up in a non-violent way. Lets make some noise, so they can hear, we are here”.

For this she was sentenced 2 years in jail, because they used an option to double the sentence, when it’s corona related. The law was never meant to be used against activists, but to punish people committing coronary crimes like fraud. Nanna is 30 years old and the mother of 2 small children and has no background of activism or violent behavior.

Activist Per Brændgaard comments on Nannas case. Per is a Cand. Scient. in Human Nutrition, works as a nutrition consultant, author and lecturer on life quality and natural health. He is also one of the strongest public voices against corona restrictions in Denmark, also started a new party to fight political corruption. Per and other important groups in Denmark, such as The People’s Freedom Movement, the JFK21 Party, More Freedom Less Control – have helped to uncover the many incoherencies in the corona pandemic narrative, as well as the frightening tyrannical development in Danish politics during thi period.

Per comments on Nannas case:

It is my impression from here that the police have absolutely no evidence that Nanna Fri has done anything criminal. The police, on the other hand, are trying to set up Nanna Fri on a conspiracy theory that the police themselves have prepared. It is a theory about a conspiracy among protesters to commit violence against the police, which Nanna Fri was supposed to lead.

March 12, 2021 will go down in history as one of the darkest days in Denmark. Nanna Fri was today sentenced by the Copenhagen City Court to 2 years unconditional imprisonment for having said these words from a scene at a demonstration: “let’s smash the city – in a non-violent way”. Nanna was convicted of an undocumented conspiracy theory drawn up by police. I hope the three district court judges are well and truly ashamed now, but unfortunately they probably are not. I especially hope that many more Danes are now starting to wake up and realize what a system corona fascism has introduced in Denmark.

The Nanna Fri case is tragic in many ways. It is also tragic for the Danish police, which many Danes have probably now lost the last remnant of respect for. If the police think, and they obviously do, that a young mother must be punished so severely for uttering those words, yes it’s just WORDS, then it is very difficult to take the police seriously in other areas in the future. It is detrimental to the work of the police against real crime and to the protection of the population. I would urge every single police officer to look at the Nanna Fri verdict and decide for themselves whether it is such a fascist system one wants to work for or whether it is time to move on. If the police can not hire people to carry out the fascist tasks, then the fascists in suits behind the scenes will have to go on the streets themselves, and they probably will not dare, after all. We must have the police on our side, the people’s, by peaceful, lawful means. Let’s hug them over here – over here on Lyste’s page!

Here is a critical review of Per Brændgaard’s opinion of the city court against Nanna Fri.

Per Brændgaard: Nanna Skov Høpfner, who is also known as Nanna Fri, was sentenced by the Copenhagen City Court yesterday, 12 March 2021, to 2 years unconditional imprisonment.

The legal judge in the case was Uffe Habekost Sørensen. In addition, two lay judges participated in the verdict against Nanna. Judge Uffe Habekost Sørensen writes about himself on LinkedIn that he has previously worked for the Ministry of Justice as resp. clerk in 2016 and student in 2005-2007. He thus has a past in the executive branch before switching to the judiciary.

The Copenhagen City Court has published this justification for the verdict, which I assume was written by judge Habekost. Here is a list of points that I wonder about when reviewing the text.

I quote from the text of the judgment:

“It is thus proven that the accused approx. at 18.30 from a podium in front of about 400 demonstrators in the Town Hall Square over a loudspeaker, among other things, stated “Okay, are you ready to walk around and smash the city in a non-violent way? Just to make Copenhagen aware that we are here? ”,“ We ??are here.

We are angry and we are tired and we are going insane ”,

“ Is no one listening to us? There is no one listening to us friends. So what do we do? We get them to listen and how do we do it. Time will tell ”and“ Are you in? Are we done accepting that shit? So let’s smash it, friends! Democracy okay? ” and

“The people into the Folketing. Smash that system. Thank you. Fuck the system. Fuck Mette. Fuck Poli. Fuck it all man. Thank you ”, whereby she helped to light Roman candles, cannon shots and fired fireworks at Copenhagen City Hall during and after her speech.

Per Brændgaard’s comment: I simply do not see where there should be any incitement to violence or other forms of crime. It is a speech given in youth language in the context of a demonstration to mainly other younger people who, in my opinion, feel a completely just resentment over the corona-fascist abuses of national freedom and public health. It may be stupidly worded, but if it is to give two years in prison to make a stupid statement, then half the population should be behind bars now.

How can the judges misunderstand “smashing the city in a non-violent way”?

They can only do so when they choose to judge in favor of the executive, of which they themselves, unfortunately, are a part. How has the communication been between judge Habekost and the police / prosecution in the period up to the trial? Is it possible to gain insight into this with a view to investigating any crime committed by Judge Habekost?

The verdict further states:

“Furthermore, it is proven that shortly after the speech, the defendant participated in a serious disturbance of public order in, among other places, Rådhuspladsen, H.C. Andersens Boulevard and Blegdamsvej, as she repeatedly took the lead in the demonstration and by her presence, shouting, including using a megaphone, and behavior, in conjunction with her previous speech, participated in and encouraged others to attack by throwing objects, including cannon shots, fireworks, cans and stones, against the police officers present, injuring several of them and not less than 16 police officers were hit by objects.

Per Brændgaard’s comment: It is simply too vague! What did Nanna say? What has Nanna done? What is the documentation for this? And what about the video documentation that Nanna Fri was actually trying to calm the agitated protesters? Have the judges chosen to override this in order to instead believe in the police’s undocumented conspiracy theory about Nanna as the great mastermind in a coordinated attack on the police?

I have no doubt that there were police officers who were injured. But what about the evidence that the police themselves contributed to the escalation of the situation? And what about the many protesters who were beaten to death half by the police?

If this judgment sets a precedent, then one will e.g. could also be convicted of speeding if driving on a road where other cars are driving too fast. It is absurd that you can be convicted of the crime that others in a group may commit simply because you join the group yourself. We do not find ourselves being treated inhumanly like sheep that way!

Judge Habekost further writes:

It is also proven that the defendant failed to comply with the authority’s lawfully served order to the crowd to divorce and encouraged others to new gross disturbance of public order and violent behavior of the above-mentioned nature, while playing the police uplift form on HC Andersens Boulevard ca. at 19.35 in a megaphone stated “freedom for Denmark, we have had enough”, “up the ass with the queen” and “get some time in the drum there man”, just as the defendant participated in the run, including at the intersection Blegdamsvej / Tagensvej approx. at 20.50, where objects were also thrown at the police, until the riot was dissolved approx. at 21.00.

Per Brændgaard’s comment: So the police’s evidence is that Nanna has stated “freedom for Denmark, we have had enough” and “up the ass with the queen”, and that she has encouraged a drummer to play her instrument?

Judge Habekost continues to excel:

“The court finds in general that the defendants in the above statements and actions have contributed to gross disturbance of public order as well as the use of violence against the police officers present, including aggravated violence and attacks with objects. In this connection, the accused is found to have acted in association and by prior agreement or by common understanding with a larger group of identified and unidentified accomplices.

Here it is so black and white that the Copenhagen City Court chooses to believe the conspiracy theory that the Copenhagen Police has developed about Nanna Fri.

What is the evidence that Nanna Fri has entered into a “prior agreement” to commit criminal acts? It does not appear that there is any documentation whatsoever. It’s all based on presumptions, and that’s not how a district court should judge in a civilized legal society, in my opinion.

The madness of the city court ruling is further apparent from the text of the judgment in this continuing section: The court notes that the two police commissioners who have given explanations in the case have explained, among other things, that prior to the demonstration on January 9, 2021, organized by Men In Black , were concerns about violence against police. The background for this was, among other things, Men In Black’s previous activities and the storm at the US Congress on January 6, 2021.

So Nanna Fri has been convicted based on not only what other people have done at that demonstration but also what others have done on completely different occasions and in the US?

Judge Habekost continues:

The court finds it proven that the defendant at least had probable intent, as the defendant must have realized that it was overwhelmingly probable that she with her statements and actions contributed to the mentioned offenses. Emphasis has been placed on the information about the circumstances of the defendant’s speech at Rådhuspladsen, including that the defendant knew that arrests had been made and that she perceived that fireworks were being fired. It is also emphasized that it appears from the video recording of a speech that the defendant gave on 11 November 2020 that she was careful to avoid encouraging clashes with the police. Furthermore, it is emphasized that the defendant’s actions and statements took place over a longer period of time and continued after she had seen fellow demonstrators commit the offenses in question.

Per Brændgaard’s comment: In other words: The documentation that Nanna Fri actually tried to put a damper on the tempers is used by the Copenhagen City Court as proof that she is guilty of provoking violence against the police. If we had a Minister of Justice who was interested in people’s freedom, then he would fire Judge Habekost immediately and send him for a mental examination before he is given new tasks as a judge.

The text of the judgment from the Copenhagen City Court contains a large number of other nonsense that confirm to me that Denmark has become an idiocy and not a democracy.

Now this should not be seen as a call for criminal acts against the clearly incompetent judge Habekost. After all, he cannot pretend to be incompetent, or perhaps he has been subjected to pressure or bait, which he has not been able to resist. He is also only a human being. The Folketing, on the other hand, should make a proposal to the Minister of Justice that Habekost be dismissed immediately and that Nanna Fris’ city court ruling be overturned under the leadership of a competent and competent judge. At the same time, Nanna Fri should be set free now so she can go home to her children while she waits for the case to come before a new judge who will judge fairly and not politically.

All of this is merely an expression of my opinion as a politically committed non-lawyer. If the police should decide to arrest me for this, then I remind you of sections 71, 72 and especially 77 of the Constitution.

The Social Democrats and the Danish People’s Party report fascist suit

Per Brændgaard’s comment: S, DF and DR participate in advanced propaganda for continued corona fascism. In a new propaganda article from the state media DR with the headline Corona double punishment against 30-year-old woman arouses tremors at Christiansborg, S and DF state that they believe that double punishment for Nanna Fri is completely in place, as the case was connected to covid- 19.

It does not get behind me with S, who should immediately go to a numerologist and change his name from the Social Democrats to the Social Fascists, but DF you never quite know where you are, unless the case is about Muslims. Now the DF has also shown their true fascist suit with this announcement, and we know that the DF will in future stand for Danish Fascists. The more advanced propaganda in the DR article comes from statements from the Radicals and SF as well as from DR’s organization of the propaganda itself, which is disguised as a journalistic article by Nicolai S. Nielsen and Caroline Clante. The latter I return to at the end of this article.

Both the Socialist People’s Party and the Radicals disagree that the special corona clause should have been used in the Nanna Fri case, but with their statements they are interfering in a pending lawsuit. The Radicals’ legal spokesman Kristian Hegaard says: “- She has done something illegal.” SF’s legal spokesperson Karina Lorentzen-Denhardt says to DR: “- There is no doubt that some very serious things have been committed here. I will not defend that. This woman must also take her judgment for that. ” I assume that none of these politicians have read the reasoning for the verdict, which at least in my and many others’ point of view suggests that it is city court judge Habekost and not Nanna Fri who has done something illegal. She is convicted on a very extremely thin basis, which is not worthy of a society governed by the rule of law.

DR emphasizes this propaganda trick by taking something for granted – “Nanna is guilty” – even though it is definitely not a matter of course!

And then they use another propaganda trick to shift focus from Nanna’s guilt to the corona clause on double punishment, thereby derailing the debate. The case is about a judge in the Copenhagen City Court having made a political and not a legal judgment against a citizen who has had big enough balls (or ovaries) to stand up on a lectern and speak against the occupying power and its followers. Nanna Fri is a freedom fighter, a folk hero who should be praised instead of being subjected to this abuse in a system that gradually reminds a lot more of China than of Denmark.

DR starts the propaganda article as follows:

“It is a most sensational verdict that has been handed down by the Copenhagen City Court this afternoon. Not so much because a 30-year-old woman has been convicted of inciting violence against police during a demonstration against coronary restrictions. But because the punishment is double the normal. ” It is in this way that they make the readers accept that Nanna is guilty, even though that is exactly what the debate should be about now. The case is the worst judicial murder in recent times. Even committed against a young mother of two small children.

May the culprits of the police, the prosecution and the district court be ashamed and punished by the negative karma that their intentions and actions in this case must inevitably have brought!

Translated from Danish

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A controversial attempt to mark Pope Francis‘s March 7 visit to Iraqi Kurdistan with a commemorative postage stamp has stoked regional tensions, prompting irate reactions from Turkey and Iran.

The stamp portrayed Pope Francis partially superimposed on a map of territory claimed by Kurdish nationalists as “Greater Kurdistan” – a contested area that includes Iraqi cities such as Kirkuk and Nineveh, as well as large swathes of southeastern Turkey and western Iran.

The circulation of the design on the Internet was met with condemnation, especially from Turkey and Iran. The Turkish Foreign Ministry called on Kurdish regional authority to rectify the “error”.

“Certain presumptious authorties in KRG [the Kurdistan Regional Government] dared to abuse the mentioned visit to express their unrealistic aspirations against the territorial integrity of Iraq’s neighbouring countries,” a statement from the Turkish foreign ministry said.

“KRG authorities are in the best position to remember the disappointing outcomes of such deceitful aims,” the Turkish statement warned ominously

Iran characterised the publication of the stamp design as an “ unfriendly action.”

“What has been published by the Kurdistan Regional Government is against international laws and principles,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh was quoted by official news agency IRNA as saying.

KRG authorities responded with a statement saying the stamps were unofficial, having been presented by artists and designers rather than by any official body.

Hatem Al-Taie, a spokesman for the Arab Council in Kirkuk, said in a press statement on Friday that the stamps were “separatist”, adding that Kirkuk, a city retaken by Iraqi central government security forces from Kurdish peshmerga fighters in 2017, was not part of Kurdistan.

Kirkuk is a diverse city with an ethnically mixed population of Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, and Assyrians.

However, many Iraqi Kurds consider it the “capital” of the Kurdistan Region, which is currently administered from Erbil.

Al-Taie added that the Kurdistan region was part of the Iraqi state and that the issuing of any postage stamp must be done through the Ministry of Transport.

Niyazi Mimaroglu, the leader of the Turkmen Front and a former member of the Iraqi parliament, accused the Kurdistan Regional Government of having “promoted such a map for years.”

During a televised interview he said that “the publication of the postage stamp was not spontaneous, but planned.”  He called on the Iraqi parliament to investigate and “not be silent about this sensitive issue.”

However, KRG spokesman Gutiar Adel said the stamp designs had not been approved by Kurdish authorities.

“Artists have submitted samples of proposed stamp designs to be printed on the occasion of the Pope’s visit to Iraq,” he said in a statement. “So far, none of these models have been approved.”

A member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the governing party in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, confirmed in a phone call to The New Arab’s Arabic service that the stamps “are usually made as part of a design competition for artists and amateurs and are later approved by the government in Erbil.”

However, he said the stamps had never been made official. “This is just an excuse to persecute the Erbil government,” he said.

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Featured image: The stamp design caused outrage in Iran and Turkey [Getty]

Fresh Focus on a Stale Peace Process for Syria

March 14th, 2021 by Steven Sahiounie

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On March 11, the foreign ministers of Russia, Turkey, and Qatar met in a trilateral effort to push for a political resolution to the 10-year-old conflict in Syria.  They held a joint press conference in Doha and issued a broad statement concerning the future of Syria, and their joint commitment to the UN peace process under resolution 2254. 

The trio emphasized their commitment to preserving the sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity of Syria while stating that the only solution to the conflict was a political settlement, while all agreed on fighting terrorism which is part of the UN charter.

The next meeting will be held in Turkey, and later in Moscow. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s said,

“This is the first meeting at foreign ministers’ level on the Syrian crisis. We emphasized the importance of a political solution to the Syrian crisis, and this meeting is not an alternative to the Astana path.”

The joint statement:

1.  to preserve the sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic under the UN Charter.

2.  no military solution, only a political solution in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 2254 and Geneva Communique of 2012.

3.  to combat terrorism and stand against separatist agendas.

4.  to support the role of the Constitutional Committee without foreign interference.

5.  to support the efforts of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to Syria, Geir Pedersen.

6.  to support the Covax initiative, and prioritize vaccination inside Syria.

7.  to increase humanitarian assistance to all Syrians throughout the country.

8.  the safe and voluntary return of refugees and internally displaced persons.

9.  the release of detainees.

Russia

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the three countries were not seeking to replace the Astana process, in which Turkey, Russia, and Iran had jointly been meeting since 2017, to reduce fighting in Syria and discuss a political solution.

Lavrov said the meeting in Doha agreed on fighting terror, the free and peaceful return of Syrian refugees and displaced people to their homes, and called for the release of detainees.

Lavrov began his Middle East tour by paying a working visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on March 9 and later to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Russian President Vladimir Putin maintains consistent contacts with leaders of Arab monarchies.

While in Abu Dhabi, Lavrov met with Crown Prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Qatar

Qatar has supported Radical Islamic terrorists who sought to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.  Qatar’s role in the conflict was based on its support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which Turkey shares.  The former Qatari prime minister publically acknowledged that Qatar had funneled cash and weapons to the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria and that it was done at the behest of the US Obama administration.

Qatar currently supports Hayat Tahir al-Sham, formerly known as Jibhat al-Nusra, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, which holds the civilian population of Idlib under occupation.

Qatar was important to the trio meeting in Doha since they are the only Arab country of the three.

Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the ministers had also discussed mechanisms for delivering humanitarian aid across the whole of Syria.  Presently, only Idlib receives humanitarian aid from international charities, which is seen as a reward for following Radical Islam or living under Sharia law.

Qatar upholds Syria’s suspension from the Arab League in 2011 and does not want Syria to be reinstated. Sheikh Mohammed made it clear that the reasons for the suspension of Syria’s membership remain, and Turkey and Qatar both remain opposed to engaging with Assad.

On March 11, the Permanent Representative of Qatar to the United Nations Office in Geneva, Ambassador Ali Khalfan al-Mansouri, delivered an address at the Human Rights Council with the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic.

Mansouri attacked the Syrian government using all the familiar western media litany of complaints, while accusing Russia of obstructing efforts to reach a political solution based on UN resolution 2254, thwarting the work of the Constitutional Committee, and seeking a military solution to the Syrian conflict.

While the Russian foreign minister was sitting in Doha, the Qatari Ambassador was attacking Russia to the UN concerning the very same points that were being agreed upon by Russia, Turkey, and Qatar on the very same day.

Turkey

Turkey has supported Radical Islamic terrorists who sought ‘regime change’ in Syria under an Obama-directed US-NATO project. The CIA under Obama was directed in a $3 billion program, Timber Sycamore, which funneled cash, training, and weapons to terrorists using Turkey as their transit point into Syria.  In 2017 Trump shut it down.

Turkey made a dramatic shift and began working with Russia in Syria once the US had supported the Syrian Kurds’ separatist terrorists, who Turkey views as aligned with the PKK, which is an internationally recognized terrorist group.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said,

“Today we launched a new trilateral consultation process,” while adding in Doha, “Our goal is to discuss how we can contribute to efforts towards a lasting political solution in Syria.”

Cavusoglu said recent international engagement with Syria’s Assad government hindered efforts for a political solution by giving it more legitimacy, and Ankara remains opposed to engaging with Assad, a point shared by Doha. Cavusoglu said Turkey would host the next round of talks.

Whether Turkey begins normalizing relations with Damascus depends on its relations with Washington, which have been frosty under Biden.  If it does not thaw, Turkey might reach out to Damascus.

UAE

Russia is pushing to end Assad’s isolation, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is ready.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov began a tour of the Gulf region with a meeting with UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan on March 9, who said that Syria’s return to the Arab fold is “inevitable”. Iraq’s Foreign Minister also called to restore Syria’s membership in the Arab League.

“The Caesar Act is the biggest challenge facing joint work with Syria,” the Emirati minister said about a US law that imposes sanctions on anyone dealing with the government of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with Russia’s special envoy for Syrian settlement, Alexander Lavrentiev, in Riyadh on March 9.

USA

Lavrov noted that the unilateral sanctions imposed by the US and EU on the Syrian government are hindering the peace process in Syria.

The message by the three countries meeting in Doha appeared to be targeting the United States, which is defending Syrian Kurdish separatists in the oil-rich northeast of the country, with hundreds of US special forces occupying Syria, and no plans to leave.

“Turkey will continue to defend Syria’s territorial integrity, protect civilians and fight terror groups,” Cavusoglu said in Doha. He was referring to the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which is the US-led coalition’s top partner but is also linked to the PKK, an international terrorist group.

Lavrov concurred that separatism posed a threat to Syria’s neighbors.

“Our common goals — of Russia, Turkey [and] Qatar — are reflected in the joint statement that we have just approved, which confirms our determination to fight terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, to counter separatist plans that undermine the territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic, which threaten the security of neighboring countries,” he said.

The UAE wants to accelerate recognizing President Assad, even though the US is pressuring them to abandon the plan.

Iran

In 2017, the Astana meetings were begun by Turkey, Iran, and Russia to find a solution to the Syrian war. Though ceasefires and de-escalation zones have been agreed to as a result, the process did not produce a solution.

Lavrov said the three countries meeting in Doha were not seeking to replace efforts which Turkey, Russia, and Iran had jointly been making since 2017.

Some experts and officials have tried to pressure President Joe Biden to link a new Iran nuclear deal with a Syrian peace deal.  Lavrov objects to this notion,

“There are growing voices that say more needs to be discussed, that Iran’s missile program needs to stop, that Iran’s regional activities need to stop. The Iran deal needs to be treated separately, we should not incorporate any other elements or concern no matter how grave they may be,” he said.

Russia may see the Doha trilateral group as a way to bring a potential resolution to Syria to the US, without Iranian involvement.

The Syrian government

UAE Foreign Minister joined Russia in its opposition to US sanctions on key Syrian government figures,

“It’s extremely difficult to co-operate with Syria in some issues because of this Act, not just at the state level but for the private sector as well. We expressed our opinion frankly to the US.”

UN, Refugees, and humanitarian aid inside Syria

The Doha meeting discussed providing humanitarian initiatives to deliver aid to all Syrian lands. This is in marked contrast to existing plans which deliver aid only to areas under the control of terrorists following Radical Islam, which is a political ideology.

Qatar Charity continues delivering aid to internally displaced Syrians in camps located in Idlib Province.

They agreed to support the negotiations of the Syrian Constitutional Committee and the safe and voluntary return of refugees, urged UN agencies and the World Health Organization to prioritize COVID-19 vaccinations inside Syria.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is an award-winning journalist. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Mideast Discourse


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***

It is still early to be certain what strategy the new US administration will adopt in the Levant. Yet the recent actions of the US and its allies can give a good indication of what is in store for the region. Especially when those actions reinforce the validity of some intelligence obtained from a well-informed source, and when they fit the facts on the ground.

For the past ten years, the US and its allies have been engaged in a war against Syria. However, this war did not achieve its main strategic objective. On the contrary, Syria has become involved with the Axis of Resistance more than ever. And despite the pitfalls in some places, and slow achievements in others, the Axis of Resistance has gained more influence in the Levant overall. One aspect of this is that the route from Tehran to Beirut, through Baghdad and Damascus, is solidifying every day. Securing this route can greatly facilitate trade and economic collaboration between those four capitals- something that will enhance the living situation of the people of those countries and fortify their resilience.

The US understands the strategic challenge that this poses to its influence in the Levant and indeed in West Asia in general; as it has been expressed in many pro-US-articles.

A vital result of securing this route is the leverage it provides to the Axis of Resistance to overcome

  • the ‘maximum pressure’ policy which the US has been pursuing of late, not just against Iran, but also against Syria using
  • the ‘Caesar Act’. And because the events of the past few years exposed the unreadiness of the US to engage in an all-out war against Iran and its allies, that leaves the ‘maximum pressure’ policy as the only cost-effective card for the US to play against the Axis of Resistance.

Another result of the events of the last ten years in the Levant is that the Iraqi and Syrian arenas have become more interconnected.

Hence, the aftershocks of any change in the political balance in one domain will be felt in the other. And because of the Russian presence in Syria, as well as the strategic alliance between Russia and the Syrian government, the US margin of manoeuvre within Syria is more constrained than it is in Iraq. Thus, it appears that the new strategy of Joe Biden’s administration is to work towards changing the status quo within Iraq to the advantage of the US, through targeted assassinations and special operations. It seems that the end goal is to strengthen the US allies within the Iraqi ruling class, benefiting from the volatile Iraqi political situation, so as to align Iraq with the US stance in the region.

This strategy, if it succeeds, will achieve two objectives for the US: breaking the Baghdad link in the afore-mentioned route chain, and tightening the economic sanctions imposed on Syria. The latter objective can then be used to force the Syrian government to make political concessions in the upcoming presidential elections and in the negotiations with the ‘separatists Kurdish factions’ in the east of the Euphrates, where the Syrian oil and wheat fields lie.

The latest US airstrike on the Iraqi security forces, the ‘Popular Mobilization Forces’ (PMF), is believed to be in this context despite the US pretexted justification. Choosing to bomb a position on the Syrian Iraqi borders and in the vicinity of a vital Syrian Iraqi crossing point cannot be at random.

Another sign of the US intent to change the political balance in Iraq is the recent lengthy interview with Raghad Saddam Hussein on the Saudi-owned news channel Al-Arabiya (the Saudis are a strategic US ally). In this interview, she spoke about internal Iraqi affairs, attacked what she called Iranian influence in Iraq, and refused to rule out a possible future role in Iraqi politics.

A well-informed source confirmed the existence of such a plan:

‘The US has put into action a new plan to shift the balance in Iraq to their advantage through targeted assassinations and inciting strife within Iraq. This plan is to be carried out in collaboration with some top positions in the current Iraqi government, and the Iraqi Ba’ath party’ the source added. On this question, it is worth noting the since-retracted statement by Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby that Iraqi authorities helped the US to carry out ‘successful strikes’ on Syria’s territory in February, and in spite of the Iraqi Defence Ministry denying any knowledge of this airstrike beforehand.”

If the next few weeks prove this analysis to be true, then it would be logical to assume that the Axis of Resistance will take countermeasures, and this would very likely raise the stakes in an already heightened situation in a volatile region.

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Amro Allan ([email protected]), is an independent Palestinian writer and Political researcher. He publishes in various Arabic news outlets, some of which are Al-Akhbar newspaper, Rai Al-Youm, and Arabi 21.

Featured image: A U.S. tank of the type that carried depleted uranium shells fires its main gun into a building in Fallujah, Iraq, in December 2004. A Dutch study found the U.S. used the radioactive shells in civilian areas (Photo: U.S.M.C./Wikimedia Commons).

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***

Reporters without Borders charges Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his accomplices with crimes against humanity for murdering Jamal Khashoggi and persecuting/torturing other Saudi journalists. 

Reporters Without Borders lawyer Paul Coppin talks about the 500-page complaint he has filed with a German court detailing the savage and inhuman treatment of Saudi journalists ordered by Prince Bin Salman and carried out by his close associates and other members of the Saudi Government. Coppin also explains why these activities are legally classified as crimes against humanity.

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***

The battlefield in Yemen is getting more volatile with each passing day.

On March 10th, the Saudi-led coalition released a video claiming to have destroyed an Ansar Allah air defense system.

The video shows a 2P25 transporter erector launcher of the system, a nearby missile depot and an unidentified radar system. All of them had been destroyed in airstrikes.

The Ansar Allah system reportedly comprising a Soviet-made SA-6 “Gainful” was positioned in the province of Marib. More specifically, the defense hardware is a locally upgraded version of the SA-6 air-defense system dubbed “Fater-1”.

In the days leading up to its alleged destruction, a Saudi Vestel Karayel drone was downed, and the air defense system might have been responsible for it. The UAV was downed on March 7th, and the Houthis released a video showing its debris.

The Saudi-led coalition is attempting to push back the Houthis with heavy airstrike activity. The ground offensive by Ansar Allah seems to only be challenged by air raids, and little else.

On March 9th alone, the Saudi-led coalition carried out at least 32 airstrikes, including some on the capital Sana’a.

The frontline is in a state of chaos, and a constant back and forth can be observed with the slight upper hand appearing to be for the Houthis, so far.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, in Syria, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) exchanged heavy fire with the al-Qaeda affiliated “moderate opposition” in Greater Idlib.

It all reportedly began after a joint shelling by Ansar al-Tawhid and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on SAA positions in southern Idlib. The aim was to dismantle positions of the SAA’s 25th Special Forces Division, also known as the Tiger Forces.

Ansar al-Tawhid claimed that 8 Syrian soldiers were killed and more were injured. This was entirely denied. The attacks reportedly failed, as the Russian Aerospace Forces detected them early on and issued a warning.

In response, the SAA rained hell, allegedly killing dozens of militants. Videos of the exchange were released and they show the heavy shelling that took place.

In recent days, the SAA has been steadily carrying out various attacks and small-scale offensives all around Greater Idlib and the Aleppo countryside. A larger-scale operation is in the works, and it is likely a matter of days or weeks before the stage is set for a push to regain further areas, before HTS can be totally rebranded into non-terrorists.

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***

Since March 2011, Washington has led a coalition of NATO countries, Arab monarchies and Israel, in a proxy regime change war, using terrorist mercenaries as foot soldiers. Today, US troops illegally occupy nearly a third of Syria, containing much of Syria’s oil and gas and some of its best farmland. In addition, the US maintains a proxy army of Kurdish separatists in Syria’s north that seeks to dismember the country by carving out a Kurdish state where the population was overwhelmingly Arab prior to US intervention. The February 25th, 2021, US bombing of Syria signaled the Biden government’s intention to continue the US war of attrition on Syria.

Syria has defiantly resisted for ten years, in the face of illegal US attempts to dismember their sovereign state. These included false flag gas attacks by terrorists to blame the Syrian government – with the help of OPCWattempts by the International Criminal Court to indict President Assad; propaganda constructs like the White Helmets to support western military intervention; increasingly severe economic sanctions which devalued Syria’s currency, created widespread unemployment, impoverished millions, and created huge shortages in the midst of a pandemic; spurious propaganda like the “Caesar photos”; and covert operations to buy the support of western mainstream media.

With allies Russia, China, Iran, Hezbollah, and Palestinian militias; support of Venezuela and Cuba to North Korea; and supporters in the global peace movement, the Syrian government has frustrated most of the above schemes, and avoided becoming a Libya-style failed state.

Syria has paid a great price: nearly half a million dead; 6.6 million internally-displaced persons; 5.6 million refugees across the Middle East, Europe, and North America; enormous civilian infrastructure destruction; looting of archeological treasures; physical and psychological trauma to its citizens; and much, much more. All of these cry out for an international accounting with reparations from those responsible.

The wide portrayal of the conflict as a “revolution” or popular uprising ignores Wikileaks revelations that the US has been promoting destabilization and sectarianism inside Syria since 2005. The Syrian people have shown great courage and endured great sacrifices in order to preserve their secular, pluralistic, and Arab socialist state, with universal free education and medical care.

The Syria Solidarity Movement seeks to end the criminal war on Syria, and we call upon others to join this effort. In particular, we ask you to put pressure on your elected officials to

  • Stop the war against Syria;
  • Resume diplomatic relations with Damascus;
  • End the coercive economic measures against Syria and Syrians;
  • Support the reconstruction of SSM International, March 15, 2021.

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***

“We are on a path to a world in which it will be possible to decode people’s mental processes and directly manipulate the brain mechanisms underlying their intentions, emotions and decisions; where individuals could communicate with others simply by thinking“.

Those lines were written by 25 scientists in the article entitled “Four Ethical Priorities for Neurotechnologies and AI“ in the scientific magazine Natur in November 2017.

The scientists noted as well that “powerful computational systems linked directly to people’s brains“ will “aid their interactions with the world such that their mental and physical abilities“ will be “greatly enhanced“.

According to their estimates this situation could materialize already within years, since some of the biggest world investors, “including Elon Musk’s and Kernel start-up firm Neuralink“, launched in 2017, “are investing in the creation of devices that can both ‘read’ human brain activity and ‘write’ neural information into the brain” (it can be done rather easily, since the information in the brain is transmitted by number and frequency of nerve impulses and thus is in principle digital).

According to the scientists current spending on neurotechnology by for-profit industry in 2017 was “already US$100 million per year, and growing fast“ and the U.S. government has spent “500 millions dollars“ on development of neurotechnology since 2013. The companies Apple and Samsung had in 2017 already neuro gadgets connected to their Iphones, which could read brain activity via brain-computer interfaces based on EEG readings, and they expected that direct connection of brains and computers will gradually replace the use of keyboards, mouses and voice instructions (see this). Scientists from the University of California in 2018 developed a device which can collect the peoples brainwaves, analyze them to find among them vowels and consonants and then put people’ thoughts on display. A para lyzed man could in this way type without using the keyboard. The accuracy of this device in 2018 was 90% and the scientists believed that within the next five years they will develop a smart phone to which this device could be connected. Of course it would display hidden thoughts as well (see this and this).

To transmit thoughts into the brain you only need to transmit there electrical signals in the frequencies of the activity of targeted neurons, which will absorb this energy and thus the new neuronal activity produced from outside will appear in the brain. In this way human emotions, thoughts and decisions can be produced from the outside.

In August 2020 Rafael Yuste, the scientist, who collected the signatures for the article in the magazine Nature, told a journalist from The New York Times that “once the manipulation goes directly into the brain… you will not be able to tell you are being manipulated“ (see this) (Italian scientists in 2013 interconnected two brains of volunteers via electrodes and internet and they achieved extrasensorial communication among several pairs of them, when their brain frequencies synchronized depending on sound stimuli perceived by only one of them.

The scientists believed that in the future it will be possible to connect two brains with the use of the quantum physic’s principle of non local electron and photon connection Brain-to-Brain (Mind-to-Mind) Interaction at Distance: A Pilot Study by Patrizio E. Tressoldi, Luciano Pederzoli, Marco Bilucaglia, Patrizio Caini, Pasquale Fedele, Alessandro Ferrini, Simone Melloni, Agostino Accardo :: SSRN. See this. In such a case it would not be necessary to use any transmitter or energy passing through outside media to connect two brains or brain and computer.).

Connecting his brain to the internet will become a necessity for anybody, who will wish to be recognized for his intellectual activity, since without it he will not be able to compete with others on the labour market. According to scientists this submission to machines will produce the bypassing of the normal sensorimotor function of brains and bodies. The human being will no longer be in natural contact with its immediate environment and derive from this interaction its thoughts, deeds and decisions.

At least during the working hours people will resign on their independence in their decision making and thinking and at least during the working hours they will be losing their identity. But if there are no appropriate legislations they will keep losing their identities even at their leisure time, because the advertising companies will easily find ways how to manipulate their nervous systems and brains to make them buy products, for the marketing of which they are paid. Companies like Google, Disney, CBS and Frito-Lay used already in 2017 services of neuromarketing companies for measurements of customer preferences and impact of their advertisement on customers. Neuromarketing companies EmSense, Neurosense, MindLab International a Nielsen regularly use technics of nervous activity analysis to analyse and predict the customer’s behavior and even to influence it (see this).

If neuromarketing companies are allowed to manipulate the minds of customers, the governments would feel silly to not use it to “convince“ their citizens about the usefulness of their projects. Of course those projects will reflect the needs and opinions of the richest national and international corporations and bankers. If mankind will advance in this direction, it will basically accept the Chinese model of the governing of society and inevitably will abandon democracy, since it will be governed by principles that “someone“ will download on the internet. It is a question of how much the loss of identity, caused in this way, will cause people serious psychological problems resulting in rebellions and in case of their failures to suicides.

There is no doubt that the governments should start to solve this issues in the nearest possible future. But it is good to note, that the same effects as by sending electrical currents into the brain can be achieved by transmission of microwaves, pulsed in brain frequencies, or extra long electromagnetic waves in brain frequencies into the brain, or by any other energy devised by quantum physics transmitted into the brain, which will be converted there into electric currents in brain frequencies.

These technologies were developed by Russian and American and scientists from their allied nations since the fifties of the past century. Last news about the work of those researchers was published in 1974 by accident, when an American scientist published the research of a military scientist, who told him about it in a phone conversation. Ron Justesen wrote in the magazine Psychology Today that Joseph Sharp was transmitting by means of pulsed microwaves into his brain words that he could understand. (see this and this).

In 2007 The Washington Post wrote: “In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed for this article, the Air Force released unclassified documents“ concerning patent for microwave transmission of the sound into the brain and that those documents contained “records that note that the patent was based on human experimentation in October 1994 at the Air Force lab, where scientists were able to transmit phrases into the heads of human subjects, albeit with marginal intelligibility.

Research appeared to continue at least through 2002“ (see this). If those transmitted phrases were converted into ultrasound, people would not hear them and for that matter would not realize them, but the brain would accept them and in this way they would become the “thoughts“ of the targeted person. In 2020 the American Academy of Sciences wrote in the report on attacks on American diplomats in Cuba and China that the most probable cause of their problems were pulsed microwaves (see this). In October, 2020 the CIA employees complained that they were targets of the same attacks in Australia (see this).

Russian politician Vladimir Lopatin, who at the turn of the millenium, strived for the world wide ban of those weapons, wrote a book “Psychotronic War and the Security of Russia“, where he wrote, that “psychotronic war“ is “actually taking place without declaration of war”. In other words those technologies are already being used at the present time, but due to their classification people can not demand their ban. In case that they were used globally in the contest to gain control of the whole mankind, it would most probably provoke a world war with the use of nuclear weapons which would result in the destruction of civilisation and the extinction of mankind.

In 2018 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where every year world politicians and managers of international corporations meet, Israelian historian Juval Noah Harari warned in his speech against the rise of  new totality based on the access to the human brain. He said:

“Once we have algorithms that can understand you better than you understand yourself, they could predict my desires, manipulate my feelings and even take decisions on my behalf. And if we are not careful the outcome can be the rise of digital dictatorships. In the 21st century we may be enslaved under digital dictatorships“ (see this).

The founder of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab wrote a book “Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution“, where he said  that looming technological changes will allow governments to “intrude into the hitherto private space of our minds, reading our thoughts and influencing our behavior.” (see this) Since Klaus Schwab is the founder of the World Economic Forum, it is evident that his ideas are widely discussed among top world entrepreneurs and politicians.

At the present time there exists no legislations banning the use of mind control technologies and  for that matter scientists feel free to work on the development of “nanobots”,- nanoparticles which can penetrate into the blood and connect the brain to internet, where it could collect information without being obliged to learn. Professor of mechanical engineering at the University in San Diego James Friend believed in 2017  that effective use of nanbotes could start in two to five years (see this). In 2018 James Giordano, working for The American Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency,  said in a lecture for military cadets that several weeks ago his agency succeeded in producing nanoparticles which can be aerosolised and when breathed in will penetrate into the brain and control its activity. Watch the video below 00:38.

Since the world media do not inform the populations in their countries about the growing danger that people will be deprived of their freeedom of thought, it is obvious that the governments are at least hesitating whether they prefer this kind of future.   One way to remind them that people care about their freedom of thought would be to form new parties or movements or at least Facebook groups, whose goal would be to defend the freedom of thought of people.

To  guarantee the freedom of human thinking it is necessatry to enact legislations which woudl ban (using harsh sentences) the transmissions in the air or into the  brain of any energy in frequencies corresponding to frequencies of the activity of the human  brain. The only way to connect the human brain to internet or other communication channels could be by voluntary decision of a person to connect  to to them with a cable.

The governments will have to provide for detection of banned transmissions and search for their sources. It must be established in the legislations that the representatives of  human rights organisations will participate in the detection of those transmissions.  Governments should also establish teams, with the particitapation of representatives of human rights organisations, capable of verifying the claims of their citizens about their exposure to energetic attacks at their nervous systems or bodies.

In the international politics the governments should work toward the international agreement banning manipulation of human minds or causing harm to bodies of citizens of foreign states by means of energies corresponding to frequencies of the activity of the human brain or body. It would also be useful if they made an effort to replace, in the world politics, the diluvial struggle for power by politics of good neighborhood.

Mojmir Babacek is the founder of the International Movement for the Ban of the Manipulation of the Human Nervous System by Technical Means,  He is the author of numerous articles on the issue of mind manipulation.

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research

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Europe Call to Arms Against China and Russia

March 14th, 2021 by Manlio Dinucci

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The EU-China Investment Agreement, signed on December 30 by the European Commission, may not be ratified by MEPs on the grounds that Beijing violated human rights. It is the screen behind which the real reason is hidden: the growing pressure exerted on Europe by the United States to create a coalition against China. Washington’s strategy – from Obama to Trump and now Biden – is that of the “containment” of China, whose growth calls into question the world economic order, so far dominated by the United States and the major Western powers.

The multinationals and other US and European companies have relocated much of their production to China for decades, making huge profits. However, China did not remain simply the “factory of the world” where people go and produce because labor costs less. It has implemented its own production and technological development and, on this basis, projects such as the New Silk Road. At an advanced stage of construction, it consists of a road and rail network between China and Europe through Central Asia, the Middle East, and Russia, combined with a sea route through the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean. Investments of over $ 1 trillion are planned for road, rail, and port infrastructures in over 60 countries. 

In this context, China has become Russia’s main trading partner. Economic relations between the two countries have strengthened with an exchange that has exceeded 100 billion dollars a year and is growing, especially after the sanctions imposed by the United States and the EU on Russia.

Trade between the United States and China is six times greater. But, given that many products on the US market are manufactured in China by the US multinationals or supplied by Chinese companies, the US has a deficit of over $ 300 billion annually in bilateral trade. There was also a collapse in Chinese investments in the US for production purposes, which fell by 90% in three years (from 46.5 to 4.8 billion dollars), while US investments in China remained at around 13 billion. 

At the same time, China’s share of US debt $ 27 trillion or more  fell from 14% in 2011 to 5% in 2020. Even more serious for Washington is the fact that the dollar share of Chinese foreign exchange reserves has dropped from 79% to 59% in four years and that China is looking for alternative currencies to the dollar to be used in international trade. 

Unable to stop this process that can put an end to the economic dominance of the United States, Washington forced the situation. Economic “containment” becomes military “containment.”

Admiral Phil Davidson, who heads the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (its area of responsibility covers China and 35 other countries), has requested of Congress over $ 27 billion in five years to build a curtain of missile bases and satellite systems around China, including a space-platform radar constellation. “We have to start facing China from a position of strength,” Antony Blinken, the Biden Administration Secretary of State, told the Senate.

At the Munich Security Conference, on February 19, NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg reiterated:

“Europe and North America must defend the international order that China and Russia challenge by trying to rewrite its rules for the benefit of their own interests. ” After accusing Russia of “destabilizing behavior,” he declared that “the rise of China is a crucial issue for the transatlantic community.” He then announced an upcoming “update of NATO’s strategic concept” because “we need to strengthen ourselves militarily” together with “close partners like Australia and Japan.”

Therefore: a call to arms for US allies, not only against Russia in Europe but against China in Asia. As a result, Russia and China are also strengthening their alliance on the military level.

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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

You Know “We’ll Never Know,” Don’t You?

March 14th, 2021 by Edward Curtin

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***

In his new, six-part, seven hours plus documentary – “Can’t Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World” – the celebrated English documentary filmmaker, Adam Curtis, who has worked for the BBC for decades, tells us that nothing makes sense anymore and it is “pointless to try to understand the meaning of why things happen.” A profound shift in our understanding has occurred, he tells us early on, and he then proceeds to replicate this fragmented, unknowing modern mind by showing us an endless stream of video images from the BBC archives that jump from one seemingly disconnected subject to another to reinforce his point.

As the reviewer Lucy Mangan of The Guardian approvingly writes, the film is “a dazzling, overwhelming experience.”  This is true, but not in the way she thinks with her five-star rating. The film does dazzle, and fascinate, but in the sense of bewildering or casting a spell.  But to what end?

For Curtis maintains that there is no meaning anywhere (not even in a review); we are all living as if we are on “an acid trip”;  and we will never know what the hell is going on in the world because…well, because there is no logic to anything and our brains are scrambled with fragmented memories, fleeting images, and paranoid thoughts just like the movie Curtis narrates in his unemotional, matter-of-fact voice. He doesn’t have to say that he’s cool and everyone else is nuts. The style is the man when the authoritative voice calmly speaks above the din. Quite BBCish.

“Everything is relative,” is the underlying message, except that Curtis fails to spell out the contradiction in this post-modern meme: Everything is relative but the statement that everything is relative.  It is absolute. Some people know and others don’t.  Next video clip please.

After watching his pastiche film that is filled with his compulsively fragmented skepticism about “a world where anything could be anything because there was no meaning anywhere,” I was reminded of what a famous philosopher once wrote in his “Critique of Pure Dread”:

In formulating any philosophy, the first consideration must always be: What can we know?  That is, what can we be sure we know, or sure that we know we knew it, if indeed it is at all knowable.  Or have we simply forgotten it and are too embarrassed to say anything?  Descartes hinted at the problem when he wrote, ‘My mind can never know my body, although it has become quite friendly with my legs.’  By ‘knowable,’ incidentally, I do not mean that which can be known by perception of the senses, or that which can be grasped by the mind, but more that which can be said to be Known or to possess a Knownness or Knowability, or at least something you can mention to a friend.

Like Curtis’s title, I have never been able to get those profound words out of my head because they have always seemed in their own way to have captured the underlying zeitgeist of the past half-century and more – the unspoken message that has come to inform the neurotic skepticism of our times. And unlike Curtis’s  solemnity, at least Woody Allen makes me laugh.

Curtis is a serious man, and when he very seriously tells us in Part 1 that Jim Garrison, the New Orleans district attorney, who was the only person to ever bring a trial in the assassination of President John Kennedy, was a man devoid of logic who once wrote a memo to his staff urging them to think illogically and just look for patterns based on “time and propinquity,” he wishes us to consider Garrison a crazy conspiratorial thinker who saw strange patterns when there were none.  To see Garrison as a deranged man who used a pastiche method of cutting and pasting disparate unconnected facts to form a conspiracy theory to convince you that there were hidden forces operating behind the façade of American society.

Echoing the CIA’s famous memo to its agents and accomplices in the media to use the phrase conspiracy theory/theorist to ridicule its critics, Curtis so solemnly tells the viewer that such crazy conspiracy theories and the method for arriving at them and their claims that there were hidden forces operating behind the scenes are paranoid nonsense and that they would come to infect the modern mind.  Most of Garrison’s thinking, he says, was pure fantasy and he could produce no evidence for his claims.  In other words, Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy, not the CIA.

This claim is factually false, but it becomes the basis for the next five parts of the documentary.  And perversely, the entire documentary is constructed using the same method of cutting-and-pasting, “time and propinquity,” pastiche/collage so beloved of postmodernists, that Curtis accuses Garrison of using, a method devoid of logic or meaning.

This is not a Woody Allen joke.

There is no doubt that Curtis has found and presents very interesting historical film footage that ranges back and forth across the world and time.  He knows how to engage an audience and to draw them into emotive and dreamy experiences of fear and paranoia. As one watches, one feels the walls closing in and terrible disasters lurking in the shadows because no one is in control, for control is an illusion. You’ll never know.  You’ll never know. Everything is relative.

Yet there is much to learn and consider from his footage.  But context is all, and the hours one spends watching lead to part six when Curtis circles back to part one to tie the knot on his “emotional history” within what the writer George Trow once called “the context of no context.”  We learn about chaos and complexity theories, artificial intelligence, multiple selves, drugs, how neuroscientists and psychiatrists have claimed that consciousness does not exist, and that even though people think they are individuals in the age of individualism, they are deluded.  In the digital age people are now doing exactly what Garrison did fifty years ago; now they are creating conspiracy theories from patterns of data on the internet and it’s all a form of madness.

Thrown in as an aside, Curtis says of the attacks of September 11, 2001, that “no one had seen them coming.”  This, of course, is blatantly false, since the U.S. government was not surprised, as is very well known and confirmed, but Curtis’s claim reinforces the idea no one knew or knows what’s going to happen, that incompetence is the norm, that “nothing makes sense anymore,” and that the official narrative on 9/11 is correct, just as it is regarding the assassination of JFK, for Jim Garrison, the man who bravely and brilliantly explored the case early on, was just a nut case who believed in strange coincidences. And his crazy way of connecting the dots has infected our world today.  We can’t get him out of our heads.

When he finally brings us into the present, Curtis tells us that COVID-19 “was a force that came from completely outside the systems of power.”  Of course!  Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, we are living in a world where the ruling elites are at the mercy of chance and we think they are in control.  No, that is our illusion.  Shit happens. After spending hours showing us how the world’s elites are corrupt and do all kinds of devious things to maintain their power – conspire to do so – we are also told there are no conspiracies.  There are and there aren’t.  We are trapped in an insane world of double-binds, “a world where anything could be anything because there was no meaning anywhere.”

I suppose this might apply to this film.  But no, it is very meaningful – in the way exquisite propaganda is.

Woody Allen can be hilarious, but Curtis is quite funny himself.  After seven plus hours of telling us we live in the world of nightmares where we are trapped and this sense of imprisonment is something we can’t get out of our heads and we’re all going bonkers, he ends by repeating his opening caption, which are the words of the anthropologist David Graeber:

The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make.  And could just as easily make differently.

Really?  I never knew that.  Did you?

*

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Behind the Curtain.

Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He is the author of the new book: https://www.claritypress.com/product/seeking-truth-in-a-country-of-lies/

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***

Is Israel heading for mandatory covid jabbing or the equivalent through draconian policies?

Last month, energy minister Yuval Steinitz called for legislation to require Israelis to be jabbed for covid or face unspecified punitive measures.

Israeli health minister Yuri Edelstein warned that “(w)hoever does not get (jabbed for covid) will be left behind.”

While not mandated so far, refusniks may be denied access to workplaces, schools, air travel, retail shops and other public places.

Guidelines under consideration suggest that policies will be instituted to punish individuals who refuse to jeopardize their health on the phony pretext of public health protection.

Some employers said unjabbed workers will be denied access to their office, but allowed to work at home if their jobs permit operating this way.

In late February, Knesset lawmakers approved legislation to collect information on individuals unwilling to be jabbed for seasonal flu-renamed covid.

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I) denounced what it called passing “a draconian law which crushes medical ethics and patient rights.”

Collected information will be shared with national and local authorities, the equivalent of a yellow Star of David mandated for Jews by Nazi Germany.

Is this where things are heading in Israel, perhaps to be followed by the US and other Western countries?

Is the Nuremberg Code heading for what GW Bush once called the US Constitution: “Just a goddamned piece of paper.”

Medical ethicist Ezelyne Shuster earlier stressed the “significance of the Nuremberg Code,” as follows, saying:

Voluntary consent to all things medical “is absolutely essential…without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion.”

Consent “is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.”

If mass-jabbing is mandated (directly or indirectly) by any nations for any reasons, the policy will be an unparalleled threat to health and well-being of their people.

If inoculation passports are required for unrestricted access to public places ahead, refusniks unwilling to jeopardize their health will be ostracized from society.

Individuals will be damned if they do or don’t go along with being jabbed by experimental, unapproved, high-risk, DNA altering drugs — what no one valuing their health should permit being jabbed into their bodies.

The Association for Civil Rights (ACRI) in Israel addressed the issue as follows, saying:

“Israel is not, and should not, enforce vaccinations.”

“We are following the situation closely, with an eye to the populations who cannot (or will not) get (jabbed).”

This includes individuals “16 years old and under, people with allergies or certain health conditions – as well as populations which, for institutional lack of trust in the government or lack of access to information and resources, are generally less likely to get the vaccination, mainly the Ultra-Orthodox and Arab communities.”

Along with PHR-I, ACRI “petitioned (Israel’s) High Court of Justice against the (now adopted Knesset) law (discussed above) on March 1, 2021.

“The law is dangerous and constitutes a violation of citizens’ privacy and a precedent of violating medical confidentiality,” said ACRI.

“We fear the likely misuse of information by local authorities.”

“The violation of privacy and medical confidentiality is grave, and the precedent of transferring medical information without consent to other authorities is a dangerous one.”

Israel’s largest labor union Histadrut proposed a way around the Knesset law.

It suggested that inoculation refusniks who cannot or won’t be allowed to work at home present negative PCR tests to employers every 72 hours.

Ignored was that nearly always when these tests are positive, they’re false.

Member of Israel’s Rappeh human rights group transformed into a political movement Ilana Rachel Daniel denounced the new reality in the country, saying:

Get jabbed for covid or “your life is basically over,” adding:

“No entrance to shopping malls. No more theater visits.”

“Children about 16 who did not take the injection are not allowed to take their exams.”

“Protesting parties in the Knesset are brought to silence and threatened by the military.”

“City council receives medical dossiers to check if you” were jabbed.

“Israel became the hell on earth because of the covid lie.”

“The rest of the world will follow if we do nothing.”

Is that where things are heading? Will Western and other nations go the draconian way of Israel?

Will our choice ahead be between risking our health and well-being or being ostracized from society?

What amounts to no choice at all requires mass resistance as the only viable alternative, pushing back against what no one should tolerate.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

“How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/

“Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/

Featured image is from Viacheslav Lopatin | Credit: scaliger – stock.adobe.com

Origins of the 2011 War on Syria. It Was a Conspiracy

March 13th, 2021 by Felicity Arbuthnot

Ten Years since the onslaught of the War on Syria, mid-March 2011.

The following article by Felicity Arbuthnot was first published in March 2012

***

We have met the enemy and he is us.” (Walt Kelly, 1913-1973.)

It was political analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, in November 2006, who wrote in detail(1) of US plans for the Middle East:

“The term ‘New Middle East’, was introduced to the world in June 2006, in Tel Aviv, by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (who was credited by the Western media for coining the term) in replacement of the older and more imposing term, the “Greater Middle East’ “, he wrote.

Sanity dictated that this would be a U.S. fantasy rampage too far and vast – until realization hit that the author of the map of this New World, planned in the New World’s “New World Order”, was Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters, who, in one of the most terrifying articles ever published, wrote in 1997:

“There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines …The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.”(2) (My emphasis.)

At the time, Peters was assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, where he was responsible: “for future warfare.” His plans for Iraq worked out just fine – unless you are an Iraqi.

Peter’s Map of the New Middle East

Ralph Peters Map: The Project for the New Middle East

 

A month after Nazemroaya’s article was published, William Roebuck, Director for the Office of the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, was composing an end of year strategy for Syria(3) from his study in the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, where he had been based between 2004-2007, rising to Deputy Chief of Mission.

The subject title was: “Influencing the SARG (Syrian Arab Regime Government) in the end of 2006.”

“The SARG ends 2006 in a much stronger position domestically and internationally (than in) 2005.” Talking of President Assad’s: “growing self-confidence”, he felt that this might lead to: “mistakes and ill-judged  … decisions … providing us with new opportunities.” Whilst: “additional bilateral or multilateral pressure can impact on Syria”, clearly he had even more ambitious plans:

“This cable summarizes our assessment of … vulnerabilities, and suggests that there may be actions, statements and signals, that the USG (US Government) can send that will improve the likelihood of such opportunities arising .”

The proposals would need to be: “fleshed out and converted into real actions and we need to be ready to move quickly to take advantage of such opportunities.” (no, not a Le Carré, Forsyth, or Fleming, “diplomat” in Damascus.)

“As the end of 2006 approaches” wrote Roebuck, “Bashar appears … stronger than he has done in two years. The country is economically stable …regional issues seem to be going Syria’s way.”

However: “vulnerabilities and looming issues may provide opportunities to up the pressure on Bashar … some of these vulnerabilities “(including the complexities with Lebanon)”… “can be exploited to put pressure on the regime. Actions that cause Bashar to lose balance, and increase his insecurity, are in our interest.”

The President’s: “ mistakes are hard to predict and benefits may vary, if we are prepared to move quickly and take advantage of opportunities …”

A “vulnerability”, wrote Roebuck, was Bashar al Assad’s protection of: “Syria’s dignity and international reputation.” Pride and “protection”, clearly a shocking concept.

In the light of the proposed Tribunal in to the assassination of Lebanon’s former`Prime Minister, Rafick Hariri (14th February 2005) killed with his friend, former Minister of Economy Bassel Fleihan and twenty colleagues and bodyguards, in a huge bomb, detonated under his motorcade, this “vulnerability” could be exploited.

Unproven allegations have pointed the finger at Israel, Syria, Hezbollah and myriad others, as behind another Middle East tragedy, but Roebuck regarded it as an: “opportunity to exploit this raw nerve, without waiting for the formation of the Tribunal.”

Another idea outlined under a further “vulnerability” heading, was the growing  alliance between Syria and Iran. “Possible action”, was to: “play on Sunni fears of Iranian influence.” Although these were: “often exaggerated”, they were there to be exploited:

“Both the local Egyptian and Saudi missions here … are giving increasing attention to the matter and we should co-ordinate more closely with their governments on ways to better publicize and focus regional attention to the issue.”

Concerned Sunni religious leaders should also be worked on. Iraq-style divide and rule model, writ large.

The “divide” strategy, of course, should also focus on the first family and legislating circle, with: “ targeted sanctions (which) must exploit fissures and render the inner circle weaker, rather the drive its members closer together.”

The public should also be subject to: “continual reminders of corruption … we should look for ways to remind …”

Another aspect to be exploited was: “The Khaddam factor.”

Abdul Halim Khaddam, was Vice President, 1984-2005, and acting President in 2000, during the months between Bashir al Assad’s accession and his father’s death.

Thought to have Presidential ambitions himself, there was a bitter split between Khaddam and al Assad after Hariri’s death. Allegations of treasonous betrayal by Khaddam have validity.

The ruling party, writes Roebuck: “…follow every news item involving Khaddam, with tremendous emotional interest. We should continue to encourage the Saudis and others to allow  Khaddam access to their media … providing him with venues for airing the SARG’s dirty laundry.”

Morever, it was anticipated that:  “an over reaction by the regime [would] add to its isolation and alienation from its Arab neighbours.”

On January 14th 2006, Khaddam had formed a government in exile, and had predicted the end of the al-Assad government by the year’s end.

He is currently regarded as an opposition leader, and has claimed, on Israel’s Channel 2 TV.(4) receiving money from the US and the EU to help overthrow  the Syrian government.

The ever creative Mr Roebuck’s further plans included:

“Encouraging rumours and signals of external plotting.” To this end: “Regional allies like  Egypt and Saudi Arabia should be encouraged to meet with figures like Kaddam  and Rifat (sic) al Assad, with appropriate leaking of the meetings afterwards. This … increases the possibility of a self-defeating over-reaction.”

Rifaat al Assad, Bashar’s uncle, was in charge of the Defence Brigade, who killed up to thirty thousand people in, and flattened much of, the city of Hama, in February 1982. So much for endlessly trumpeted concerns for: “human rights violations.” Rifaat al Assad lives in exile and safety, in London. Khaddam lives in Paris.(5)

Here is a serious cause for concern for the overthrow-bent: “Bashar keeps unveiling a steady stream of initiatives on reform and it is certainly possible he believes this is his legacy to Syria …. These steps have brought back Syrian expats to invest …  (and) increasing openness.”

Solution? “Finding ways to publicly call into question Bashar’s reform efforts.” Indeed, moving heaven and earth to undercut them, is made clear.

Further: “Syria has enjoyed a considerable up-tick in foreign direct investment”; it follows: foreign investment is to be: “discouraged.”

In May of 2006, complains Roebuck, Syrian Military Intelligence protested: “what they believed were U.S. efforts to provide military training and equipment to Syria’s Kurds.” The Iraq model, yet again.

The answer was to: “Highlight Kurdish complaints.”  This, however: “would need to be handled carefully, since giving the wrong kind of prominence to Kurdish issues in Syria, could be a liability for our efforts … given Syrian … civil society’s skepticism of Kurdish objectives.”

In “Conclusion”, this shaming, shoddy document states: “The bottom line is that Bashar is entering the New Year in a stronger position than he has been, in several years”, meaning “vulnerabilities” must be sought out.

“If we are ready to capitalize, they will offer us opportunities to disrupt his decision-making, keep him off balance – and make him pay a premium for his mistakes.”

The cable is copied to: The White House, U.S. Secretary of State, U.S. Treasury, U.S. Mission at the UN, U.S. National Security Council, CENTCOM, all Arab League and EU countries.

The only U.S. Embassy which received a copy is that in Tel Aviv. William Roebuck worked at the Embassy in Tel Aviv (2000-2003) embracing the invasion of Iraq year.

In 2009, he was Deputy Political Consul In Baghdad: “leading efforts to support the critical 2009 Iraqi elections.” The “free and fair, democratic” ones, where people were threatened with the deaths of their children even, if they did not vote the “right” way.

The result was Nuri al Maliki’s premiership, complete with his murderous militias. The man under whose Ministry of the Interior, U.S. soldiers discovered tortured, starving prisoners.

The Damascus cable comes courtesy Wikileaks.

Lt. Colonel Peters called, on Fox News, for founder, Julian Assange, to be assassinated. The forty second clip(6) is worth the listen.

The Colonel also writes fiction and thrillers under the name Owen Patterson. Perhaps he is living the dream.

Felicity Arbutnot is Global Research’s Human Rights Correspondent based in London

Notes

1. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3882

2. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3011.htm

3. http://wikileaks.cabledrum.net/cable/2006/12/06DAMASCUS5399.html

4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COqBQYcrd9Q

5. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29501

6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS5h59iZg3o

First published on January 28, 2017.

Mid-March 2011. Ten Years Ago, Marks the Commencement of the War on Syria

***

The following eight concepts are intended to clarify the nature of the war on Syria, which started ten years ago on March 17-18, 2011. 

It was never “a civil war”. It was an undeclared  war of aggression using Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists as the foot-soldiers of US-NATO and their Middle East allies.  

From day one, terrorists were involved in the killing of civilians. 

It started in Daraa as an insurgency integrated by Salafist mercenaries. 

Most of what is presented below is backed up by mainstream and official sources of information.  

1. The Daraa “Protest Movement” on March 17-18 2011

Daraa is a small border town.  National protest movements are invariably initiated in large urban areas.

The Daraa “Protests” had all the appearances of a staged event involving covert support to “Islamic terrorists”.

Government sources pointed to the role of radical Salafist groups.  In chorus, the Western media described the events in Daraa as a protest movement against Bashar Al Assad. Tacitly acknowledged by the media, many of the alleged “demonstrators” were professional killers.

In a bitter irony, the deaths of policemen were higher than those of “demonstrators”. It was not a protest movement, it was an armed insurgency.

In Daraa, roof top snipers were targeting both police and protesters  

Reading between the lines of Israeli and Lebanese news reports (which acknowledge the police deaths) a clearer picture of what happened in Daraa on March 17-18 had emerged. The Israel National News Report (which can not be accused of being biased in favor of Bashar al Assad) confirmed that:

“Seven police officers and at least four demonstrators in Syria have been killed in continuing violent clashes that erupted in the southern town of Daraa last Thursday. … and the Baath Party Headquarters and courthouse were torched, in renewed violence on Sunday. (Gavriel Queenann, Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests, Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, March 21, 2011, emphasis added)

The Lebanese news report also acknowledged the killings of seven policemen in Daraa.

[They were killed] “during clashes between the security forces and protesters… They got killed trying to drive away protesters during demonstration in Dara’a” 

The Lebanese Ya Libnan report quoting Al Jazeera also acknowledged that protesters had “burned the headquarters of the Baath Party and the court house in Dara’a” (emphasis added)

These news reports of the events in Daraa confirmed that from the very outset this was not a “peaceful protest” as claimed by the Western media.

Moreover, from an assessment of the initial casualty figures (Israel News), there were more policemen than “demonstrators” who were killed.

This is significant because it suggests that the police force may have initially been outnumbered by a well organized armed gang of professional killers.

2. Recruitment and Training of Terrorists From the Very Outset in 2011

Image on the right is from Massoud Nayeri

From Day One, the Islamist “freedom fighters” were supported, trained and equipped by NATO and Turkey’s High Command. According to Israeli intelligence sources:

NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent. … NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011)

This initiative, which was also supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, involved a process of organized recruitment of thousands of jihadist “freedom fighters”, reminiscent of  the enlistment of  Mujahideen to wage the CIA’s jihad (holy war) in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war:

Also discussed in Brussels and Ankara, our sources report, is a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (Ibid, emphasis added)

These mercenaries were subsequently integrated into US and allied sponsored terrorist organizations including Al Nusrah and ISIS.

3. June 2014. The Staged ISIS “Invasion” of Iraq

The Islamic State is protected by the US and its allies.

If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have “carpet” bombed their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June 2014.

\

The  Syro-Arabian Desert is open territory (see map below). With state of the art jet fighter aircraft (F15, F22 Raptor, CF-18) it would have been  -from a military standpoint-  a rapid and expedient surgical operation  

But the objective was not to eliminate them, the objective was to support them.

4. September 2014. Obama’s “Counter-Terrorism Campaign”. US-NATO and Coalition “Humanitarian” Airstrikes “Directed against ISIS”

In September 2014, Obama ordered a “counter-terrorism” bombing campaign against the ISIS in both Syria and Iraq.  This major bombing campaign was initiated two months months after the entry of the ISIS convoy of Toyota pickup trucks into Iraq in June 2014. The bombing campaign has now entered into its third year. Its objective was NOT to go after the Islamic State (ISIS-Daesh). The coalition consisted of some 4o countries five allied Arab monarchies, which are known to provide support to both ISIS and al Qaeda.  The “40-nation coalition that unleashed more than 200 airstrikes in Syria on a single night with state-of-the-art U.S. fighter planes and help from five allied Arab monarchies” Among the advanced weapons system allegedly used against the ISIS was the F-22 Raptor.

The total number of US and coalition sorties against Syria and Iraq is of the order of 111,410. This translates into an average of 147 sorties a day (over a period of 755 days).

  • More than 8,300 strike sorties have been carried out against Syria according to US Department of Defense sources.
  • The non-strike sorties have been used for the purposes of reconnaissance, logistics and coordination with terrorist commandos on the ground. 
  • 31,900 targets in Syria and Iraq have been hit by US war planes (see table below) including public buildings, residential areas, economic infrastructure (all of which was waged under a fake campaign against ISIS- Daesh).

Over a two year period (September 2014- September 2016)

Its all for a good cause. None of these strikes were directed at the Syrian people, according to official statements.

And these humanitarian statements have never been challenged by the Western media.

The initiative was part of the “Global War on Terrorism”. It was in violation of  international law. What we are dealing with are extensive war crimes directed against the people of Syria and Iraq. 

5. 2014-2016: 31,900 “Targets Damaged/Destroyed” by US and Coalition Air Raids

Source of Tables US Department of Defense, copyright US DoD, 2016

6. The Cost of Obama’s Air Campaign: 9.3 billion dollars 

755 days, 12.3 million dollars a day since August 2014

These are the costs of destroying Iraq and Syria. killing tens of thousands of Syrians, triggering a refugee crisis. These costs are ultimately financed by tax dollars. We are dealing with the conduct of extensive war crimes. The mainstream media remains on silent this issue. 

These 12.3 million dollars a day are the cost of destroying Syria and Iraq and killing their people.

In the table above the “official” breakdown is provided, the figures refer to US strikes against Syria and Iraq.

31,900 targets as part of a war on terrorism. Ironically, the number of terrorists has increased dramatically as a result of the “counter-terrorism” campaign, not to mention the NATO sponsored international campaign of recruitment of terrorists.

7. U.S. Weapons to Al Qaeda and ISIS 

According to Jane’s Defence Weekly, quoting documents released by the U.S. Government’s Federal Business Opportunities (FBO), the US –as part of its “counterterrorism campaign”– has provided Syrian rebels [aka moderate Al Qaeda] with large amounts of weapons and ammunition.

The US and its allies (including Turkey and Saudi Arabia) have relied on the illicit trade in light weaponry produced in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, China, etc. for delivery to rebel groups inside Syria, including ISIS-Daesh and Al Nusra. In turn, operating out of the occupied Golan Heights, Israel’s IDF has provided weapons, ammunition, logistical support to Al Qaeda rebels operating in Southern Syria.

While Washington’s Middle East allies undertake shady transactions in a buoyant market for light weapons, a significant part of these illicit weapons shipments is nonetheless directly commissioned by the US government.

These shipments of weapons are not conducted through internationally approved weapons transfers. While they are the result of  a Pentagon (or US government) procurement, they are not recorded as “official” military aid. They use private traders and shipping companies within the realm of a thriving illicit trade in light weapons.

Based on the examination of a single December 2015 Pentagon sponsored shipment of more than 990 tons, one can reasonably conclude that the amounts of light weapons in the hands of  ”opposition” rebels inside Syria is substantial and exceedingly large.

Screenshot from Jane’s Defense Report

For further details click here

8. Weapons “Made in Canada” Delivered to Saudi Arabia, A State Sponsor of Terrorism  

Ottawa’s deal with Saudi Arabia is coordinated with Washington. It essentially serves the Pentagon’s military agenda in the Middle East, it channels billions of dollars to the US military industrial complex.

Amply documented, Saudi Arabia is the state sponsor of Al Qaeda affiliated “opposition groups” in Syria including the Islamic State (ISIS). Riyadh –acting in liaison and on behalf of Washington– plays a central role in the financing of the Islamic State (ISIS) as well as the recruitment, training and religious indoctrination of terrorist mercenary forces deployed in Syria and Iraq.

What this signifies is that Canada is selling weapons to a country which is supporting and sponsoring terrorist organizations.  Moreover Saudi Arabia is currently involved in a war of aggression against Yemen in blatant derogation of international law.

The weapons are “Made in Canada” produced by General Dynamics Land Systems, London, Ontario., a subsidiary of US defense contractor General Dynamics.

General Dynamics has subsidiaries in 43 countries including Canada.

Ottawa’s official stance is that these weapons which include “combat vehicles with machine guns and anti-tank cannons” are to be used by Saudi Arabia solely for purposes of national defense. They are not be used against civilians.

Opponents of Canada’s $15-billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia took Ottawa to court. The action was led by law Professor Daniel Turp together with students of the University of Montreal. In a recent judgment (January 23) by Federal Court in Montreal, the case was dismissed: “Justice Daniele Tremblay-Lamer ruled that the court’s role was not to “pass moral judgment” on the decision by then-foreign affairs minister Stéphane Dion to issue export permits allowing the deal.”

9. The Liberation of Aleppo

While Aleppo has been liberated against the scourge of US-NATO supported terrorism, most mainstream media are accusing Syrian government forces of committing atrocities against civilians, describing Aleppo as a humanitarian crisis. What they fail to mention is that for the last four years the Eastern part of  Aleppo has been occupied by Al Qaeda terrorists who are now upheld as “opposition” rebels.

The terrorists are described as the victims of Syrian government aggression. From the very outset, the atrocities committed by the terrorists are casually blamed on Syrian government forces and their allies.

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It’s no secret that Bill Gates and the advocates of the UN Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 are also devout promoters of human eugenics, the “thinning of the Human Herd” as Britain’s misanthropic Prince Philip once put it. Some such as Joachim Schnellnhuber, climate adviser to the Pope, openly welcome a human population below one billion as “sustainable.” Now serious research is emerging that one of the most effective reducers of the human population is being spread by so-called “modern scientific agriculture” through the select use of toxic agrochemicals, pesticides deemed safe which are anything but safe.

According to a new book by Dr Shanna Shaw, Count Down, the male sperm count in Western industrial countries, including the EU and USA, is falling at a dramatic rate. Shaw estimates that over the past four decades the average sperm count has dropped by 50% or more. In other words a young male today seeking to have a family has only half the sperm count his grandfather did, half the chance to conceive. Shaw estimates that unless toxic chemical exposures in agriculture and the environment are dramatically altered, we may not have the ability to reproduce naturally much longer, and that by 2050 most human beings in the industrial countries, including China, will need technological assistance to procreate.

Shaw’s book is a further elaboration of a 2017 peer-reviewed scientific paper which Shaw and colleagues published. In the paper, Shaw carefully analyzed a total of 244 estimates of Sperm Concentration and Total Sperm Count (TSC) from 185 studies of 42 935 men who provided semen samples in 1973–2011. What they found was alarming to the extreme. But beyond a few media headlines, no changes of consequence resulted, as the powerful agrochemical corporations such as Bayer-Monsanto, Syngenta, DowDuPont (now Corteva) lobbied regulators to ignore the findings.

Shaw found that “Among Unselected Western studies, the mean Sperm Concentration declined, on average, 1.4% per year with an overall decline of 52.4% between 1973 and 2011.” The same group of males, had “an average decline in mean TSC of 1.6% per year and overall decline of 59.3%.” That is a sperm count decline as of a decade ago of more than 59% in men, unselected by fertility, from North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. And it continues to decline year by year.

Because of lack of serious support for new studies, updated data is limited. Fifteen years ago, over half of potential sperm donors in Hunan Province, China, met quality standards. Now, only 18% do, a decline blamed on endocrine disrupting chemicals according to one study. A similar fall in sperm count was registered by researchers in Taiwan, as well as a similar result for Israel. Shaw concludes, “male reproductive health, not just semen quality by the way, is in trouble, and this has consequences, not just for the ability to have a child, but it also impacts the health of the man.” She cites as examples, “low sperm count, infertility, testicular cancer, and various general defects. One of them is undescended testicles, another one is a condition where the opening of the urethra is not where it should be…”

Endocrine Disruptors

Swan, today with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, believes the cause is to be found in the huge rise in toxic chemical exposures in recent decades, especially of chemicals known as “endocrine disruptors” or hormone disruptors. She points to “chemicals that make plastics soft, which are phthalates, or chemicals that make plastics hard like Bisphenol A, or chemicals that are flame retardants, chemicals that are in Teflon, and so on, pesticides…”

The last, pesticides, is the group that should send loud alarm bells ringing because it is proven to get into groundwater and the human food chain. Today the two most widely used pesticides in the world are Bayer-Monsanto’s Roundup containing the probable carcinogen, glyphosate, and Azatrine made by Syngenta, which today is owned by ChemChina.

Atrazine effects

In 2010 a renowned University of California, Berkeley scientist, Tyrone B. Hayes, professor of integrative biology, led a major study of the effect of Atrazine exposure for frogs. He found that the pesticide, widely used on US corn crops and sugarcane, wreaks havoc with the sex lives of adult male frogs, emasculating three-quarters of them and turning one in 10 into females. He found ,“These male frogs are missing testosterone and all the things that testosterone controls, including sperm.” Moreover Hayes noted that the 10% of frogs exposed to Atrazine that “turn from males into females – something not known to occur under natural conditions in amphibians – can successfully mate with male frogs but, because these females are genetically male, all their offspring are male.” Hayes declared, “I believe that the preponderance of the evidence shows atrazine to be a risk to wildlife and humans.”

Atrazine is a potent endocrine disruptor. Atrazine is also the second-most widely used herbicide in the US behind Monsanto’s glyphosate product, Roundup. Despite the evidence, in a controversial ruling the US Environmental Protection Agency, in 2007 ruled that “Atrazine does not adversely affect amphibian sexual development and that no additional testing was warranted.” End of story? Hardly. But in 2004 the EU banned Atrazine saying Syngenta failed to prove its safety in drinking water.

Another agrochemical that has been determined to be an endocrine disruptor is Monsanto’s Roundup with glyphosate. Roundup is the world’s most widely used pesticide, in over 140 countries including Russia and China. Its use on US GMO crops has exploded in recent years as almost 90% of US corn is GMO, and a similar percent of its soybeans. Between 1996 when GMO Monsanto corn and soybeans were authorized in the USA, and 2017, Americans’ exposure to the chemical grew 500 percent. It has been tested in drinking water, cereals in stores and in urine of pregnant women. Almost all meat and poultry is saturated with glyphosate from animal feed.

A recent study carried out in Australia by researchers at Flinders University found that Roundup killed the cells that produce progesterone in women, causing their levels to drop. Glyphosate and Roundup have been “linked to birth defects, reproductive problems and liver disease, and it has been shown to have the potential to harm the DNA of human umbilical cord, placental and embryonic cells.”

In 2015 scientists in Nigeria examined the effects of combined exposure to both glyphosate and Atrazine on rats. They found the combination was even worse with effects on sperm, testosterone synthesis and male reproductive organs.

In 2016 China’s state-owned chemicals giant, ChemChina, bought Syngenta for a colossal $43 billion. At the time ChemChina had distribution rights in China and other Asian countries for Monsanto Roundup as well. On the ChemChina website it lists Atrazine among the herbicides it sells, calling it a “safe and efficient herbicide for corn fields…” ChemChina is also the leading producer of glyphosate for the Chinese agriculture market.

Today China is facing, by its own admission, a major agriculture crisis and is also struggling with ways to insure food security. Reports are that an increased role for GMO crops with Chinese patents will be a central part of a new five year plan which would undoubtedly mean using glyphosate and Atrazine. At the same time the state is increasingly alarmed by the falling birth rate which has not improved despite relaxations on the One Child policy. With Chinese farmers using significant amounts of pesticide chemicals including glyphosate and Atrazine to improve yields, they are pursuing a disastrous combination that will not only not solve the growing food crisis, but also may destroy the reproductive potential of a major portion of its 890 million rural population, as well as countless millions of urban citizens.

Are these dangerous endocrine disrupting agrochemicals allowed worldwide because of bureaucratic ignorance of the damage caused by glyphosates, Atrazine and other endocrine disrupters on the human reproduction? Is it only because of corporate greed for hyper profits that they exist? A 1975 quote from Henry Kissinger, author of the eugenics document NSSM-200 during the Nixon-Ford era is instructive: “Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third world, because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries.”

And from Bill Gates: \“The world today has 6.8 billion people…that’s headed up to about 9 billion. If we do a really great job on vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 to 15 percent.”

Or the grand old dog of eugenics, Prince Philip: “I must confess that I am tempted to ask for reincarnation as a particularly deadly virus.” ~ Prince Philip, in his Foreword to “If I Were an Animal” – United Kingdom, Robin Clark Ltd., 1986.

We are rapidly making the human species extinct as we continue to ignore dangers of these toxins to human and other life forms.

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

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***

Syrian investors have about $42 billion in Lebanese banks. The corrupt Lebanese banking system has frozen those accounts and prevented withdrawals.  The Syrian economic crisis is caused in large part by the Lebanese crisis. 

In the summer of 2019, the Lebanese crisis began with street protests. This was instigated by the US to create the conditions needed to freeze the Syrian money in the banks, thus preventing the rebuilding of Syria now that the war is over.

The US strategy has two tracks: one to tie-up the Syrian money, and the other to put pressure on Lebanese President Michel Aoun and the Lebanese resistance.

Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse interviewed Dr. Jamal Wakim, who holds a Ph.D. in International Relations and Modern Arab History from the Universite St Joseph, Beirut, Lebanon.  His answers illuminate the headlines of the current Lebanese news.

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Steven Sahiounie (SS):  One week ago, the Lebanese protesters attacked and destroyed a sign on Hamra street which was a memorial to the martyr Khaled Alwan, who carried out an operation against Israeli occupiers in the 1980s.  In your opinion, why did the protesters do that against the symbol of the operation, which was considered one of the biggest in Lebanon, against the Israeli occupation?

Jamal Wakim (JW):  The protesters did that because many of them are financed by the Americans and paid for their hidden agenda, which is to normalize relations with Israel.

SS:  The tension between President Aoun and Prime Minister Hariri plays a big role in the crisis in Lebanon. Do you think that the disagreement between them will continue, or is there a solution before the collapse of Lebanon?

JW:    I believe that the disagreement between them is due to a wider regional agenda of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the US to corner Hezbollah by exerting pressure on Michel Aoun, the strongest ally of Hezbollah. They think this way Hezbollah will not be represented in the government, hence they would be able to form a government that complies with US requirements to delegitimize Hezbollah weapons and impose western tutelage on Lebanon. However, based on the regional and international developments, this attempt will fail and an agreement might be reached between Iran and the West which would have a positive impact on Lebanon easing the tension and leading to a national compromise.

SS:  Many of the Lebanese people and politicians place the blame on Riad Salameh for the economic crisis. In your view do you think that he is solely responsible?

JW:  Actually Salameh is not solely responsible for the crisis, it is the whole financial capitalist class and its political allies which have imposed a monopoly on the country and benefitted from all economic and financial policies over the past three decades leading to the current crisis. That was the reason why all political parties in power were unanimous in voting for Salameh successive terms since 1992. And that is the reason why they refuse to dismiss him and put him on trial. They are all part of the same gang that has sucked off the blood of the Lebanese people.

SS:  The international community has pressured Lebanon because of their resistance stance against the occupation of Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. How will the resistance react to this pressure?

JW:  The strategy of Hezbollah is to gain time until the regional and international situation changes to their favor as they think that what is happening in Lebanon is related to other controversial issues in the Middle East.

SS:  The Lebanese pound is at the lowest point and the Lebanese economy needs as much help as it can get. Do you see a foreign actor stepping in to help Lebanon?

JW:  Lebanon has always been a haven for French capitalist investments which were coupled with petrodollar money starting from the 1950s, in case of a regional and international agreement Lebanon might benefit from French capital investments, noting that petrodollar has left Lebanon to Dubai, Bahrain, and other Gulf financial centers.

SS:  Syria and Lebanon are historically one country and both need each other, but the Lebanese Pro-US politicians are refusing to improve this relationship. Do you think that all Lebanese politicians will get to the point that they will have to extend their hand and work with Syria?

JW:  On the geopolitical level, part of what is happening in Lebanon is directed against Syria, for an unstable Lebanon has always had a negative impact on stability in Syria. The US has lost much of its bargaining in Syria and is trying to make up for this loss by taking full control of Lebanon. On the economic level, Lebanon has always benefitted from being the gateway of western capital into Syria and the region via the port of Beirut-Damascus axis; many Lebanese capitalist families are of Damascene or Aleppan origins, so at a time when Syria was thinking of reconstruction, the Lebanese crisis, partly generated by US sanctions, was directed against Syrian efforts of reconstruction.

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***

The West-Iran conflict is extremely a-symmetric. It’s the West that has, historically, sought to influence, change, threaten, demanded obedience from, punished (with sanctions and more), liquidated high-level politicians and scholars, shot down a civilian plane, demonised and excluded Iran. Not to speak of giving Saddam Hussein the chemical weapons and the green light for his war on Iran in 1980.

Iran has not done similar harm to the West.

The conflict’s roots go back to 1953 when the US’s CIA and the UK’s MI6 orchestrated a coup d’état, or regime-change, in Tehran and deposed the democratically elected Prime Minister, Dr Mohammad Mossadegh and installed the Shah and made Iran the most militarised country in the region (and gave it nuclear power).

Iran and the West have been on a collision course ever since around various issues. The biggest has been whether or not Iran should be “allowed” to have nuclear weapons. In addition to strong Western political pressure, sanctions and embargo have been imposed since 1987.

From Day One this whole affair has been a sort of the Theatre of the Absurd. Here sits a series of nuclear weapons powers – the US, Russia, the UK, France and China – which for decades have arrogantly ignored every attempt at real nuclear reductions, nuclear abolition and the UN goal of general and complete disarmament – and force through a deal that tells Iran to not acquire what they themselves obviously cannot live without.

Furthermore, next door is heavily-armed nuclear weapons state, Israel, that – in contrast to Iran – became a nuclear weapons state in the 1960s with the full blessings of the West, accepts no inspections, is not a member of the NPT (the Non-Proliferation Treaty) and is the only country violating the UN’s normative work which dates back to the 1970s to establish a legally binding Weapons Of Mass Destruction-free zone in the Middle East.

We should be grateful that Iran has put up with it and joined the nuclear deal in 2015, the JCPOA.

President Trump withdrew the US from that deal and few have understood that that was a gross violation of international law because the JCPOA was part of a UN Security Council resolution. And in addition to the psychological effects of dropping what has been one of the most important deals ever negotiated – in my view, the alternative at the time would have been war – he also slammed new sweeping suffocating sanctions on Iran that increased further the very serious suffering of country’s innocent citizens.

I want my readers to be aware that these sanctions also include humanitarian aid. In 2019 and just as a test, I tried to donate the equivalent of US $ 5 to the Iranian Red Crescent – when millions of people were hit by floods. The Nordea bank blocked the transfer with a blurred reference to there being “sanction in the country.” I have written the story here and published my Open Letter to the Chair of Nordea’s Board. Not a word in response.

And what was – and is – the reason? It is that anyone who does business transactions with Iran will be punished by the US Treasury. Other countries such as the EU have de facto and de jure accepted that American sanctions on Iran shall also be applied by them which means that US law is applied in otherwise sovereign states. That’s why my Nordea bank would not transfer those US $ 5 to help Irans in need.

No media among a few thousands I sent the above article to took up that story.

Even US State Department has acknowledged that Iran was in compliance with every aspect of the JCPOA until the US scrapped it. Thereafter, it increased the level of enrichment but, as stated repeatedly by Iran’s brilliant foreign minister (and West connoisseur), Javad Zarif, it will be adjusted down again immediately after the sanctions that should have been lifted from 2015 are finally lifted.

The Future

Let me admit two things before I continue here. One, we have listened more than enough to the general US/Western view and perspectives on Iran – in politics, media and research. We have listened far too little to what the conflict is about and to what Iran’s views of the West and the conflict are and what its future goals may be.

Two, I do not believe that even 1% of the people who shape and conduct the media war and the political war on Iran have ever visited the country or have any deeper sense about its culture, history and people – and the suffocation of the later by sanctions. If you don’t, you should forget about finding a peaceful solution.

The difference between the generalised Western image of Iran and the reality any visitor will experience is, simply put, mind-boggling.

While the Biden-Blinken team states that the US is back and totally different from the Trump days, there is nothing new. Instead, it takes advantage of Trump’s withdrawal. Because what it says is this:

Iran must first come into compliance with the deal and then the US may re-enter – depending, it seems, also on Iran being willing to negotiate a new deal in which several other non-nuclear issues shall be included – such as what conventional missiles and what influence it can have in the Middle East in general and in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, and with Hezbollah.

And to make its point and to continue stealing Syria’s oil, Biden authorised military attack on Iran-supported militias inside Syria on February 25, 2021 – not one comment pointing out that this was an act of aggression or asking why the US still has hundreds of military facilities in Iraq and 11 bases in Syria around the main oil fields and re-enforcing them.

There is in my view not 1% of a chance that a sovereign state should or would accept such dictate. None of the existing nuclear weapons powers waited for a kind of permission from anyone when they decided to go nuclear; they just did it.

In addition, the religious Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has repeatedly stated that nuclear weapons are ”Haram” – forbidden – according to the Quran. It is my impression from a number of visits to Iran and conversations with various experts, scholars and media people that Iran does not want to become a nuclear weapons power. They see that that would mean escalation and automatically legitimise Israel’s existing up to 400 nuclear weapons.

This entire issue now has a new frame. As of January 22, 2021, all nuclear weapons exist in violation of the new, truly historical, UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, TPNW. In other words, Iran is in a legally correct position, the majority of those imposing themselves on its policies do so from a position of illegality.

As I said, Iran cannot be expected to accept such injustice, such bullying in response to its status as a non-nuclear weapons state.

My prediction, therefore, is – and I hope by all my heart that I am wrong and some miracle happens – that the Biden Administration will conclude that Iran is not bowing down to US dictates and will neither accept its content nor its sequencing.

Iran is not Iraq where soldiers rapidly put on civilian clothes and ran away in March 2003. But Iran is a very small military power when compared with those who could, and probably, would gang up against it – the US, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and members of NATO. And while Iran is rapidly turning its back on the West and its face to China and Russia, they would hardly intervene military in support of Iran.

Iran does have some advantages in that equation of power – such as closing the Hormuz Strait – but, again, US military power would then probably just increase as would the suffering of the Iranian people.

What could prevent such a terrible military scenario?

The only other scenario is that the other parties, China and Russia in particular, to the JCPOA as well as all of the EU with one voice tells Biden this: 1) Rejoin the JCPOA, 2) lift the sanctions on Iran according to the JCPOA and the secondary sanctions on us, 3) let’s dialogue with Iran about how to pick up the pieces and begin various types of civilian interaction and 4) let’s find a formula that enables us all to discuss a new stable order for security and peace in all the Middle East.

With just one positive move by the West, I am positive that Iran would immediately come into compliance again with all provisions and would be eager to cooperate with the West.

It would be reasonable also that the US paid reparations for the harm done to Iran and its suffering people. Remember, that more people died from 13 years of sanctions in Iraq than from the military violence.

However and to my chagrin, the EU has proven unable to deal with anything important with the one voice stipulated in the Lisbon Treaty. It could not get its acts together concerning the refugees in 2015; it has accepted US policies vis-a-vis Iran and also faltered miserably when it comes to the Corona crisis. Nationalisms prevailing.

Under Trump, the US has undermined its own diplomatic capacity. It is a declining super power that is only second to none in one field – the military. The US does not have a MIMAC – Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex; rather, towards its end, like the Soviet Union at its end, is is a MIMAC. There may be quite a few in Washington who see a new armament drive and a new war as a welcome distraction/cover-up for the deep inner crisis that existed and has now become much worse because of the Corona.

If the West and the JCPOA countries could come together and offer Iran something reasonable and fair in the direction of the four points above, we would avoid a terrible war (or some nasty military actions) with unavoidable regional and global consequences. And we would see the world moving in a better, more balanced direction in which Iran plays its rightful role as one of the world’s oldest continuous civilizations with a history going back to 7000 BC.

And my long-term vision in such a perspective?

Iran as “different” as it is, could become a kind of Switzerland of the Middle East and a central player on the new Silk Roads, an important connector of the Far, the Middle and the Near East and the West (Venice, the Arctic, Belgrade and London) – and also include the US if it should decide to become one among equals and seek permanent cooperation instead of permanent confrontation.

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Prof. Jan Oberg, Ph.D. is director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment. CV: https://transnational.live/jan-oberg
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***

I have a new book out, Raging Twenties: Great Power Politics Meets Techno-Feudalism. For those who don’t use Amazon, here is a mini-guide on how to order and buy the book. 

The journey of a book finding its readers is always an idiosyncratic, mysterious and fascinating process. To set the scene, permit me a short presentation drawn from the book’s introduction.

The Raging Twenties started with a murder: a missile strike on General Soleimani at Baghdad airport on January 3. Almost simultaneously, that geopolitical lethality was amplified when a virus trained its microscopic missiles on all of humankind.

Ever since, it’s been as if time had stood still – or imploded. We cannot even begin to imagine the consequences of the anthropological rupture caused by SARS-CoV-2.

Throughout the process, language has been metastasizing, yielding a whole new basket of concepts. Circuit breaker. Biosecurity. Negative feedback loops. State of exception. Necropolitics. New brutalism. Hybrid neofascism. New viral paradigm.

This new terminology collates to the lineaments of a new regime, actually a hybrid mode of production: turbo-capitalism re-engineered as rentier capitalism 2.0, where Silicon Valley behemoths take the place of estates, and also of the state. That is the “techno-feudal” option, as defined by economist Cedric Durand.

Squeezed and intoxicated by information performing the role of a dominatrix, we have been presented with a new map of Dystopia – packaged as a “new normal” featuring cognitive dissonance, a bio-security paradigm, the inevitability of virtual work, social distancing as a political program, info-surveillance and triumphant trans-humanism.

A sanitary shock was superimposed over the ongoing economic shock – where financialization always takes precedence over the real economy.

But then the glimpse of a rosy future was offered towards more “inclusive “capitalism, in the form of a Great Reset, designed by a tiny plutocratic oligarchy duly self-appointed as Saviors.

All of these themes evolve along the 25 small chapters of this book, interacting with the larger geopolitical chessboard.

SARS-CoV-2 accelerated what was already a swing of the power center of the world toward Asia.

Since World War II, a great deal of the planet has lived as cogs of a tributary system, with the hegemon constantly transferring wealth and influence to itself – via what analyst Ray McGovern describes as the SS (security state) enforcing the will of the MICIMATT (Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank) complex.

This world-system is irretrievably fading out – especially due to the interpolations of the Russia-China strategic partnership. And that’s the other overarching theme of this book.

As a proposal to escape our excess hyper-reality show, this book does not offer recipes, but trails: configurations where there’s no master plan, but multiple entryways and multiple possibilities.

These trails are networked to the narrative of a possible, emerging new configuration, in the anchoring essay titled Eurasia, The Hegemon and the Three Sovereigns.

In a running dialogue, you will have Michel Foucault talking to Lao Tzu, Marcus Aurelius talking to Vladimir Putin, philosophy talking to geoeconomics – all the while attempting to defuse the toxic interaction of the New Great Depression and variations of Cold War 2.0.

With the exception of the anchoring essay, this is a series of columns, arranged chronologically, originally published here by Asia Times and also by Consortium News/Washington D.C., and Strategic Culture/Moscow, widely republished and translated across the Global South.

They come from a global nomad. Since the mid 1990s I have lived and worked between (mostly) East and West. With the exception of the first two months of 2020, I spent the bulk of the Raging Twenties in Asia, in Buddhist land.

So you will feel that the scent of these words is inescapably Buddhist, but in many aspects even more Daoist and Confucianist. In Asia we learn that the Dao transcends everything as it provides serenity. There’s much we can learn from Daoist humanism, no metaphysics necessary.

The year 2021 may be even fiercer than 2020. Yet nothing condemns us to be lost in a wilderness of mirrors while, as Pound writes:

a tawdry cheapness / shall reign throughout our days.

The hidden “secret” of this book may be actually a yearning – that we’re able to muster our inner strength and choose a Daoist trail to ride the whale.

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

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons


Raging Twenties: Great Power Politics Meets Techno-Feudalism in the Era of COVID-19 by [Pepe Escobar ]Raging Twenties: Great Power Politics Meets Techno-Feudalism in the Era of COVID-19

by Pepe Escobar

Publisher: Nimble Books LLC (February 10, 2021)

ASIN: B08WHKK3XN

Print length: 170 pages

Click here to order.

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***

Nowadays, there is a relative consensus among international analysts about the escalation of the military-politic-economic struggles among the great powers, mainly the United States, China, and Russia. The roots of this process were at the end of the Cold War when the United States reshaped its global geostrategy and established opposition to all regional threats to its global hegemony.

Instead of reducing its foreign military presence after its victory against the Soviet Union, the United States has expanded its military bases in the world since then. For example, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has enlarged by including twelve new members since 1999. Around the world, the United States owned eight hundred foreign military bases in 2015, whereas the rest of the great powers altogether had only thirty outside of their territories.1 Furthermore, the United States and NATO have carried out different conflicts, interventions, and wars since 1991. Firstly, one could mention the interventions in the Balkans during the nineties and, later in the Great Middle East, the sequence of wars and actions against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, for example.

By the way, all this strength requires an ability to support expenses in a bigger proportion than other countries. Besides, it isn’t the American citizens who pay for all these military actions, presence, and structure in all parts of the world. It comes from: the position of the American currency in the international monetary system; and the way this system has worked since the eighties.

All the public and private international agents have to act based on the U.S. dollar to carry out their operations abroad. They also have to pile up positive balances in this currency. Only this way, public authorities can deal with the unstable capital flows so typical of the current international economic system. Otherwise, they couldn’t act to preserve the value of their currency in the exchange markets and, also, to ensure the autonomy of their economic policy. For these reasons, the best economic-political strategy is to pile up foreign exchange reserves in the American dollar to stabilize the national exchange rate and also provide some kinds of capital controls avoiding unstable movements.

Therefore, associated with the diffusion of this economic-political strategy among countries, there is a strong demand for dollar-denominated financial assets. All countries in the world have been trying to obtain growing U.S. dollar reserves, mainly the U. S. government debt securities (bills, notes, and bonds). It looks as if there was limitless demand for this kind of asset in the current system. This fact has been allowing the U.S. governments out of proportional spending capacities and chronic macroeconomic imbalances. By and large, the whole world has made it possible for the United States to wage wars and interventions in all continents of the globe.

Considering these arguments are corrected, one may ask, what are the foundations of the dollar position as the monetary standard? During the Second World War, the United States was able to impose its currency by different means. First of all, there was the lend-lease policy: a program under which the United States supplied food, oil, and armies to the allies. All countries ended the conflict dollar indebted, even the defeated, mainly Germany and Japan, whose war repair debts were defined in American dollar, by the Treaties of Yalta and Potsdam.

Second, the United States was the “center of gravity of world oil production” until the end of the war, and since 1945 it has set control of the new center, Saudi Arabia, ensuring the pricing of oil in U.S. dollar. From that time, every country that needed to import oil had to pay in dollars.

Third, in the post-war, all the new multilateral institutions, such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, had the U.S. currency as the reference in their original agreements.

Finally, the strategy of rebuilding Japan and Western Europe, known as the Marshall Plan and associated with the Truman Doctrine, reinforced the position of the U.S. dollar as the international monetary standard. Hence, the U.S. dollar was the mean to access financial support and other ways of assistance. Since then, the oil pricing and the monetary reference in the multilateral institutions have become two central pillars of the U.S. diplomacy in defense of the dollar as the international standard.

It has never been a market choice nor the result of extensive negotiations among different States. It has always been the output of disputes among great powers by advantages related to the monetary standard. First, the international currency allows the expansion of the spending capacity of the issuer state, due to the demand increasing for assets denominated in it. Besides, it creates advantages to the internationalization of their banks, which can operate with the international monetary standard easier than any other. Finally, the currency becomes a foreign policy tool since the State, whose money is the international standard, can provide liquidity to allies and squeeze rivals.

In this context, two recent initiatives hit straight in the most important bases of the U.S. currency in the world. The first one has been the new multilateral financial institutions capable of competing with the IMF and the World Bank for stabilization loans and international financing. The BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement and the New Development Bank of the BRICS, if consolidated, they would empty the Bretton Woods institutions’ power of framing. In the event of success and global projection, the BRICS institutions would gain the potential to put pressure on the current international monetary hierarchy by the diffusion of a currency other than the U.S. dollar.

The second initiative of real de-dollarization is the disputes over the currency of quotation (pricing) of oil traded internationally. In 2018, China launched the first renminbi (petroyuan) oil futures contracts traded on the Shanghai futures market, competing with the New York and London markets, where one negotiates such contracts in dollars. Therefore, there is already an organized global oil market outside the U.S. dollar. Russia, for its part, has increased bilateral agreements for non-dollar trading, including its oil. It has also divested a significant share of its dollar reserves and announcing the issuance of sovereign debt securities in Chinese currency. The Venezuelan government has stated a similar intention to reduce its dollar operations in its international transactions. The point here is the fact that Venezuela has become the world’s most important oil reserve, even surpassing Saudi Arabia. Other countries, such as Iran, have also implemented similar policies.

In an interview in 2019, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, former president of Brazil (2003-10), disclosed the problem to the journalist Pepe Escobar.

 “At the BRICS meeting in Fortaleza [2014], I talked with my companion of party Dilma [then president of Brazil, 2011-16] that Brazil should make a pact more or less the same as what Russia had done with China. A great pact. The BRICS was not created as a defense instrument but as an attack one. It was to coin its currency in order not to depend on the dollar in commercial relations. And the U.S. was very afraid of it. Obama once called me asking if we were looking to create a new currency, and I said no, I’m just trying to get rid of the dollar. I don’t want to be dependent.” (TV 247, Aug 22, 2019).2

It is interesting to remember that, simultaneously to this event in 2014, it occurred a summit between BRICS and the Union of South American Nations (USAN), in which were present leaders from Russia, China, India, South Africa, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Brazil. The USAN created for the first time a space for negotiation to the south American countries without the United States, which is different from the Organization of American States (OAS). Indeed, through BRICS and the USAN, Brazil became the connection between South America and the current U.S. challengers in the international system, Russia and China.

Two years later, Dilma Rousseff had the mandate interrupted, and after other two years, Lula da Silva, the most popular politician in the country, was arrested. It is no for small reason that Brazilian foreign policy has changed since 2016, returning to a tradition of automatic alignment with Washington, a direction not favorable neither to the USAN nor BRICS.

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Mauricio Metri is a Professor Associate at the Institute of International Relations and Defense of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil, and the Graduate Program in International Political Economy (UFRJ). PhD, Master and Graduate in Economics.

Notes

Vine, Davi. Base Nation: how U.S. military bases abroad harm America and the world. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2015. (pp. 5).

On Modern Feminism

March 13th, 2021 by Prof. Ruel F. Pepa

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

“Other people will call me a rebel, but I just feel like I’m living my life and doing what I want to do. Sometimes people call that rebellion, especially when you’re a woman.” — Joan Jett

“Feminism is not a dirty word. It does not mean you hate men, it does not mean you hate girls that have nice legs and a tan, and it does not mean you are a ‘bitch’ or ‘dyke’; it means you believe in equality.” — Kate Nash

“I’d like every man who doesn’t call himself a feminist to explain to the women in his life why he doesn’t believe in equality for women.” — Louise Brealey

The present discussion specifically focuses on

(1) second-wave feminism, also called modern feminism (which emerged in the 1960s and was highlighted by the publication in 1963 of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique) whose principal aim is to end gender discrimination and

(2) post-modern or third-wave feminism (which came out ca. 1990s) whose centerpiece is sexuality as a significant foundation of female empowerment. Antedating these two waves was the pre-modern or first wave ( in the 19th century) feminism whose main concern was on woman’s suffrage or right to vote.

One presupposition that stands out though in dealing with this issue is the fact that feminism as an ideology and a movement is unilaterally a western socio-cultural and politico-economic concern. The height of its assertive defiance is in the context of a western industrial society whose fundamental landscape has been dominated by the male species being simply a continuation and perpetuation of patriarchy in the preceding civilizations both ancient and medieval. If however, we find feminist movements in Asian societies, these are almost certainly the more heavily western-influenced ones.

Feminism, in general, is an assertive stance against social prescriptions that undermine the dignity of the woman as a human being.

We find this woman-debasing condition in almost all social institutions where the rules of the game–both implied and expressed–are almost always male-centered, male-promoting and hence absolutely advantageous to the social standing of the man. In this kind of social arrangement, the man is in full control of major concerns such as organizational leadership, decision-making, rules-formulation and institutional administration among others. In this state of affairs, it is the man who calls the shots, so to speak. It is against this pernicious social setting that the woman has rebelled to actively assert her rights, her dignity, her creativity, her competence, her humanity and the distillation of all these is cogently imbued in the ideological framework of feminism.

Pushed against the male-dominated social wall, the prejudiced woman of the modern western industrial society has seen her disparaged condition and resolved once and for all to rise up and subvert the imbalanced system. With an unwavering will power that even surpassed that of a man’s heart, she has moved onward traversing old and seemingly secured cultural frontiers to claim territories society bestowed on her male counterpart since time immemorial. In this particular instance, feminism is not only an ideology but a movement. Along the rugged socio-cultural terrain, the woman succeeds in demonstrating not only to the man but likewise to the docile segment of her species the reality that she is perfectly able to dabble and accomplish a lot of endeavors culturally assigned to the man without necessarily losing her femininity.

We’ve seen her as an accomplished engineer directing an army of construction workers in a high-rise building project smack at the center of the metropolis.

We’ve witnessed her mettle operating a bulldozer in a highway construction project. Right in the busy inner-city streets,  we have boarded countless times the bus or the taxi she drives, or the subway train she operates. Nowadays, she is no longer as defiant and angry as in the past several decades ago hollering invectives against the system in mass mobilizations.

With the total confidence of a seasoned performer, she soberly does her job today with a high sense of achievement while reminiscing the past when such kind of a job was  specifically categorized within the exclusive domain of the male species. Neither is her competence being challenged by anybody anymore for her place in society being equal to that of the man is already established and secure. These are among the many positive gains of feminism.

However, the struggle is not over yet. Conservative fundamentalist religions which are mainly of so-called Christian rootage in western societies are still around asserting their irrational dogmatism and freak stubbornness despite obvious irrelevance. Suffused with their counterfeit spirituality, these so-called conservative fundamentalists have formulated self-serving moral guidelines to perpetuate the notion that the woman ought to be subjected to the headship of the man. More repugnant than this general mandate is the particular injunction that the woman has no “god-given” right over her body. In other words, she has no choice at all to determine what she thinks is best for her condition in physical terms. The loudest voices from which this notion emanates are those of the fundamentalists–both catholic and evangelical–whose nauseating slogan is “All life is sacred.”

In the light of this imminent concern, post-modern or third-wave feminism is here yet to stay until the moral legitimacy of feminine sexuality is fully achieved over and against the distorted morality of religious fundamentalism and when total woman empowerment is finally an unconditional reality.

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Prof. Ruel F. Pepa is a Filipino philosopher based in Madrid, Spain. A retired academic (Associate Professor IV), he taught Philosophy and Social Sciences at Trinity University of Asia, an Anglican university in the Philippines. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia Pacific Research.

The Ides of March: Ten Years of Bloodshed in Syria

March 13th, 2021 by Michael Welch

“The “protests” did not emanate from internal political cleavages as described by the mainstream media. From the very outset, they were the result of  a covert US-NATO intelligence operation geared towards triggering social chaos, with a view to eventually discrediting the Syrian government of Bashar Al Assad and destabilizing Syria as a Nation State.”

– Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Syria: NATO’s Next “Humanitarian” War?

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It was billed as another ‘humanitarian war.’ [1]

In Syria, according to UN numbers, over 400,000 people had died in the war in Syria. According to UNICEF, 12,000 children have died or been injured during the conflict – that’s more than three per day. Since 2011,according to the UN Refugee Agency, 5.5 million are living abroad as refugees and 6.7 million are internally displaced within Syria.

According to multiple reports throughout Western mainstream media the brutality began ten years ago, in the Southwestern Syrian town of Daraa. What started with children getting arrested for scribing anti-government propaganda evolved into protests in cities throughout the country on March 15, 2011. Reportedly, fierce crackdowns on the population left dozens of people dead on the 24th. The ‘peaceful’ demonstrations turned into an organized resistance.[2][3][4]

In 2012, the fighting erupted in cities across the country, with rebels taking hold of many regions including Al-Qusayr, Saraqeb, a section of Aleppo, Maarat Al-Numan and Douma. What apparently started as a peaceful appeal for political and economic reforms, and an action in sympathy with the ‘Arab Spring’ quickly moulted into violence for control of the nation.

Now with retaliation involving Russia, the tide has turned and the rebellion is in retreat.

There are other voices telling an unsettling tale, however. They indicate that the ‘civil war’ is in fact a foreign fueled insurgency largely indifferent to the current lot of the Syrian people. And according to the Global Research dossier Syria: NATO’s Next “Humanitarian” War, the attitude of Syrians was overwhelmingly opposed to the fight and the aims of this cause:

The majority of Syria’s population (including the opponents of  the Al Assad government) do not support the “protest movement” which is characterized by an armed insurgency. In fact quite the opposite.

Ironically, despite its authoritarian nature, there is considerable popular support for the government of President Bashar Al Assad, which is confirmed by the large pro-government rallies.

A war has been fought on Syrian soil almost as long as World War I and World War II combined. If the people of Syria support Bashar Al-Assad (at least as far as the 2014 election results indicate) then why exactly is a mountain of corpses and unrelenting echoes of wailing grief animating ten years of torment and suffering? This is among the many questions we seek answers to in the one hour broadcast of the Global Research News Hour.

Coming up first, we have statements by journalist Steven Sahiounie. He talks about the lies about the start of the war, the Free Syrian Army, and the role of Turkey in this endeavor. Acclaimed journalist Gareth Porter comments on the many ways in which the U.S. became a pivotal force of financing, arming and helping the Islamist forces attacking Syria as ‘freedom fighters.’ Finally, the renowned journalist Vanessa Beeley makes her appearance to expand on attitudes toward the Syrian president and the Syrian Arab Army, her pivotal reporting on the White Helmets as fueled and funded by the West, and the continued propaganda role of mainstream media.

Toward the end, all three guest express their attitude of where Syria is headed going into the future.

Steven Sahiounie is a journalist and commentator writing in English and Arabic. He is Syrian and living in Latakia. He specializes in Syrian affairs.

Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist, historian and author who has covered U.S. wars and interventions in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen and Syria since 2004 and was the 2012 winner of the Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. His most recent book is “Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare” (Just World Books, 2014).

Vanessa Beeley is an independent researcher, writer, photographer and peace activist. She has researched the background of the White Helmets and has been visiting Syria since July 2016. 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 uncompromising integrity in journalism. She currently lives in Damascus.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 308)

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

Other stations airing the show:

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

Notes:

  1. www.huffpost.com/entry/humanitarian-intervention-and-just-war-in-syria_b_1707436
  2. edition.cnn.com/2012/03/01/world/meast/syria-crisis-beginnings/index.html
  3. www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26116868
  4. www.cbsnews.com/news/how-schoolboys-began-the-syrian-revolution/

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

There’s so much to take issue with in this recent Atlantic Council report by arch Russophobe, Swedish economist and senior fellow at the Council Anders Aslund, that it’s hard to know where to begin.  His paper, written jointly with Russian social activist Leonid Gozman, entitled ‘Russia after Putin: How to rebuild the state’ is a masterpiece in western pro-regime change propaganda.

The ‘Regime is falling apart’ the report asserts, ‘we do not know when and how Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime will end, but there are signs that it is struggling and the end could come in the foreseeable future’. Anders Aslund is not alone of course in predicting the imminent collapse of Russia. Many ‘Russia experts’ are at it. Take this piece from 2016 entitled ‘Lights out for the Putin Regime: The Coming Russian Collapse’.  5 years on, and Russia is still going strong.

Aslund and his colleague have skipped the difficult bit of course – explaining how the Russian state would collapse – and instead they fantasize as to how they would rebuild the country from scratch. They’d start by dismantling the FSB, of course.

As they put it: ‘Normal countries do not have secret police that suppress their citizens’. Really?

Firstly, what on earth is a ‘normal country’?

Secondly, has Aslund never heard of the CIA, MI5 or even the 77th brigade?

Censorship on social media is taking place all the time. What does he think MI5’s remit is in the UK? We know, for example, that there have been attempts for years to infiltrate the Scottish independence movement, using agents to sow division. And what about the forces that led to the incarceration and arrest of Julian Assange? Authorities in Sweden, the UK and US were all complicit in his persecution.

Each state’s security apparatus plays a role in restricting its citizens, particularly if their activities are deemed a threat to national security. As such the authors are either ignorant in this regard, or are deliberately trying to obfuscate the reader.

The report repeatedly refers to the opinions of ‘ordinary Russians’ throughout, without any data to back up such statements. As an academic, Aslund should be aware of the need for evidence to support sweeping statements like the ones he makes. As a result the paper comes across more like a piece of propaganda.  Take, for example, his reference to the recent vote on amendments to the Russian constitution.  He states: ‘Russians describe these changes as a ‘nullification’ because they perceive the essence of these changes to be that Putin’s four previous terms as president no longer count.’

Which ‘Russians’ did Aslund talk to? He doesn’t tell us, and doesn’t quote a single survey. In reality, 78% of the Russian population voted for the constitutional amendments. Even the BBC ran with the headline at the time: ‘Putin strongly backed in controversial Russian reform vote.’  The vast majority agreed that the amendments should take place.

Aslund talks about the ‘unfortunate situation of the Russian people.’ On the contrary, Russians’ living standards have increased substantially in the last two decades. Back in 2000, around 29% were living in poverty, now that figure is around 13.5%. Life expectancy was reported in 2019 as 73.4 years – compare that to 65 years back in 2000.

One can also compare Putin’s approval rating to that of other world leaders. One recent poll on Biden’s position rates the newly elected President at 49%. The UK’s Boris Johnson gets a meagre 41%. Putin in February 2021 was rated at 65%, and that figure is pretty consistent for the Russian leader. If the Russian people indeed felt they were hard done by they’d be unlikely to give their leader such an approval rating, surely?  The report authors really need to be providing data to support their accusations that Russians themselves want regime change. So far, it looks like Anders Aslund wants it more than anyone else.

There are also somewhat sinister undertones of some of the points made.  Leonid Gozman is quoted as saying ‘Russians’ apathy, which is based on a sense of hopelessness, can be turned into hate and aggression towards the authorities. This absolutely stinks of a pro-regime change strategy, an attempt to use weaknesses in the population to further a western imperialist agenda. It’s straight out of the classic regime change manual ‘from dictatorship to democracy’ by Gene Sharp which speaks of identifying the ‘Achilles’ heel’ in the country in order to engineer its collapse:  ‘The general public may over time become apathetic, sceptical and even hostile to the regime’ is identified as one of the weak points.

There are many, many problems with this Atlantic Council report for anyone who has lived in, and knows Russia. Too many problems, in fact, for the length of this article. It does not reflect public opinion or take into account Russia’s cultural values which differ from those of the West. It does not reflect Russia’s unique geographical position and historical experience. On the contrary, it puts forward a western agenda, pushing western values, for a western model of what Russia should look like. Keep dreaming about your Russian regime change, Anders Aslund.

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Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland. You can follow the author on Twitter.

Before COVID, Gates Planned Social Media Censorship of Vaccine Safety Advocates with Pharma, CDC, Media, China and CIA

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr, March 12 2021

In October 2019, shortly before the COVID outbreak, Gates and other powerful individuals began planning how to censor vaccine safety advocates from social media during a table-top simulation of a worldwide pandemic, known as Event 201.

3 More EU Countries Hit Pause on AstraZeneca After Reports of Illness and Deaths

By Megan Redshaw, March 12 2021

Denmark, Norway and Iceland today announced they are joining other European countries in temporarily suspending use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID vaccine following reports of blood clots in people who got the vaccine.

7 European Nations Halt AstraZeneca Jabs on Reports of “Serious” Blood Clots

By Zero Hedge, March 12 2021

Iceland has become the latest European nation to suspend the AstraZeneca jab. The tiny island nation has confirmed roughly 6K COVID cases since the start of the pandemic, which is roughly 2% of the population.

Thailand Halts AstraZeneca Vaccinations Following Concerns in Europe

By Praphorn Praphornkul, March 12 2021

The Prime Minister and Cabinet have put off on receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccination after reports emerged from Europe of blood clots forming among some recipients and a pending review by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) expected to take one to two weeks.

China – Leading to World Recovery – And Beyond

By Peter Koenig, March 12 2021

China’s currently ongoing (4-11 March 2021) annual parliamentary meeting, known as the “Two Sessions”, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the National People’s Congress (NPC), may be the most important of such meetings in recent years.

Video: Fauci Admits There Is No ‘Science’ Behind Continued Lockdown

By Steve Watson, March 12 2021

In a rare moment of truth of CNN Wednesday, Anthony Fauci admitted that there is no scientific reason why people who have had the COVID vaccine are still having their freedoms restricted.

COVID-19, Trust, and Wellcome: How Charity’s Pharma Investments Overlap with Its Research Efforts. BMJ

By Tim Schwab, March 12 2021

An increasingly clear feature of the covid-19 pandemic is that the public health response is being driven not only by governments and multilateral institutions, such as the World Health Organisation, but also by a welter of public-private partnerships involving drug companies and private foundations.

“COVID Denialism” Now Enshrined in Case Law

By Makia Freeman, March 12 2021

COVID denialism – a broad term leveled at those who have seen through lies regarding the COVID scamdemic – has been enshrined in legal history and case law, at least in Canada.

“Domestic Terrorism” Goes Transnational: The War on Dissidents Picks Up Momentum

By Philip Giraldi, March 12 2021

Now that we have an identified “domestic terror” problem one should expect at a minimum a massive increase in surveillance of innocent citizens couple with arbitrary arrests and incarcerations. Indeed, the process is already well underway.

Ten Problems with Biden’s Foreign Policy – And One Solution

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, March 12 2021

Biden’s foreign policy already seems stuck in the militarist quagmire of the past twenty years, a far cry from his campaign promise to reinvigorate diplomacy as the primary tool of U.S. foreign policy. In this respect, Biden is following in the footsteps of Obama and Trump.

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“COVID Denialism” Now Enshrined in Case Law

March 12th, 2021 by Makia Freeman

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

COVID denialism – a broad term leveled at those who have seen through lies regarding the COVID scamdemic – has been enshrined in legal history and case law, at least in Canada.

This is another horrendous yet sadly predictable step of the COVID agenda, which is none other than the agenda to steal your rights and freedom.

MSM outlet CBC reported last week that a judge stripped a man (who remains anonymous at this stage) of his custody rights in his divorce case with his ex-wife due to his belief that COVID was a hoax, and his subsequent decision to defy social distancing and mask wearing rules. In other words, he was stripped of some of his rights due to his COVID denialism.

The case was heard in late 2020 in the Ontario Superior Court, however Justice George W. King delivered the written decision at the end of January 2021, and the story was just picked up by The Free Thought Project.

Judge Considers Man’s Belief that COVID is a Hoax to be a Factor in Determining his Worthiness as a Father

I have been unable to locate the link to the original ruling, and the CBC article does not link to it, however the article reported that the judge explicitly wrote that the man’s public promotion of his opinions was affecting the health and welfare of his children:

“Ontario Superior Court Justice George W. King denied a Windsor man interim custody of his kids because the man’s fervent anti-masking beliefs means he wouldn’t take appropriate actions to keep them safe from COVID-19. The decision notes the man believes COVID-19 to be a hoax and has boasted in public about flouting health restrictions such as masking and social distancing.

“The health and welfare of the children (and by extension their principal caregiver) should not be jeopardized because of [his] public behaviour in promotion of his opinions,” he wrote.”

This is quite an astounding thing for a judge to write, since it shows how the judge has bought the official COVID narrative hook, line and sinker. The judge is saying that if you challenge the theory (i.e. brainwashing propaganda) that COVID is a highly lethal dangerous disease, that can only be contained or avoided with mandatory social distancing and masking, that therefore you are “jeopardizing” the health of your kids. Wow. It is truly shocking a judge could be so out-of-touch with scientific reality. However, it gets worse. The CBC further reported:

“I have concluded that the respondent’s behaviour is dictated by his world view. Everything else is subordinate to that view, including, but not limited to, his love for his children,” the decision by Justice King read.”

Now that is a supremely arrogant opinion. This man’s love for his children is subordinate to perspective that COVID is a hoax? WTF? I seriously doubt that is true for any parent – that any intellectual belief or world perspective would outweigh their love for their children – and even if it were, how could the judge possibly know that? Only the man himself would know. Besides, he is providing immense care for their welfare by REFUSING to put masks on his kids or allow them to be scared of ginned up COVID fear. He is proving his worth as a father by leading by example and being a good role model in showing his children that one must stand up for truth, freedom and inherent rights rather than be bullied by corrupt authorities. He would be doing great damage to the “health and welfare” of his children by forcing them to go along with the absurd, unscientific and freedom-crushing COVID dictates being foist upon the public.

Judge Blames Man for COVID Denialism When Governmental Lockdown Policies are the Real Culprit

Finally, it turns out this judicial decision will impact whether his children could get vaccinated:

“Justice King called some of what the man had posted about COVID-19 not being real as erroneous, pointing out rise in hospitalizations and deaths due to the virus as well as the effect that has had on health care providers having to delay other medical procedures because of the tax the virus has placed on the system. 

“The long-term effects of the pandemic and of delayed treatments to persons with other health conditions is currently unmeasurable,” justice King wrote.

“All of this has occurred while a percentage of our population, including [the man], continue to deny the existence, significance and/or impact of COVID-19.”

The ruling includes giving the mother the power to make decisions around vaccination. But it noted the interim custody was awarded wholly within the context of the pandemic and can be revisited once it subsides.”

This is problem when people can’t distinguish between different causes. The effect of COVID on the health system and the “significance” and “impact” of COVID are all due to governmental reactions and lockdown policies not the virus itself. As I have extensively and exhaustively documented, the virus has never been isolated nor proven to exist as a purified, separate entity. Meanwhile, judges like this ‘Justice King’ character, who being part of the judicial branch is therefore part of the government, are blaming and punishing members of the public (and depriving them of their rights) for standing for the truth and not going along with the COVID Cult, when it is the government itself that is the culprit! The virus didn’t crush small businesses; the government did. The virus didn’t throw people into poverty; the government did. The virus didn’t put a strain on hospitals and the medical treatment system; the government did by mass inculcation of fear. So-called COVID denialism is not the problem; rather, the problem is when people are so programmed they can’t see beyond their noses. It is all the more dangerous when these people occupy positions of power.

And now one potential consequence of this decision is these children may end up getting vaccinated, either in general or specifically with the COVID vaccines, which are not really vaccines but gene editing tools.

This is truly a gross and outrageous betrayal of justice. May the day come soon when the people who have orchestrated and perpetuated this colossal fraud be brought to justice. Some modern Nuremburg Trials would be appropriate.

The implications of such a decision could be far-reaching if it becomes established precedent in Canada and elsewhere. This means that we could be entering an Orwellain dystopia where your unalienable, inherent, sovereign rights can be deprived based on your ideas, theories, beliefs, opinions and world perspectives. In other words, wrongthink is a crime. This case mark another stepping stone into descent for humanity. Hopefully, the pushback against the COVID Cult – led in part by 16 US states who are re-opening – can counterbalance the betrayal of justice that has happened here.

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

Sources

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/windsor-covid-19-custody-decision-1.5937278

https://thefreethoughtproject.com/court-removes-children-from-fathers-custody-covid-beliefs/

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

https://thefreedomarticles.com/do-mandatory-masks-vaccines-break-10-points-nuremburg-code/

https://thefreedomarticles.com/covid-cult-and-the-10-stages-of-genocide/

https://thefreedomarticles.com/toxic-vaccine-adjuvants-the-top-10/

https://thefreedomarticles.com/not-a-vaccine-mrna-covid-vaccine-chemical-pathogen-device/

https://www.aier.org/article/16-states-are-now-following-the-science/

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

The Biden presidency is still in its early days, but it’s not too early to point to areas in the foreign policy realm where we, as progressives, have been disappointed–or even infuriated.

There are one or two positive developments, such as the renewal of Obama’s New START Treaty with Russia and Secretary of State Blinken’s initiative for a UN-led peace process in Afghanistan, where the United States is finally turning to peace as a last resort, after 20 years lost in the graveyard of empires.

By and large though, Biden’s foreign policy already seems stuck in the militarist quagmire of the past twenty years, a far cry from his campaign promise to reinvigorate diplomacy as the primary tool of U.S. foreign policy.

In this respect, Biden is following in the footsteps of Obama and Trump, who both promised fresh approaches to foreign policy but for the most part delivered more endless war.

By the end of his second term, Obama did have two significant diplomatic achievements with the signing of the Iran nuclear deal and normalization of relations with Cuba. So progressive Americans who voted for Biden had some grounds to hope that his experience as Obama’s vice-president would lead him to quickly restore and build on Obama’s achievements with Iran and Cuba as a foundation for the broader diplomacy he promised.

Instead, the Biden administration seems firmly entrenched behind the walls of hostility Trump built between America and our neighbors, from his renewed Cold War against China and Russia to his brutal sanctions against Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Syria and dozens of countries around the world, and there is still no word on cuts to a military budget that has grown by 15% since FY2015 (inflation-adjusted).

Despite endless Democratic condemnations of Trump, Biden’s foreign policy so far shows no substantive change from the policies of the past four years. Here are ten of the lowlights:

1. Failing to quickly rejoin the Iran nuclear agreement. The Biden administration’s failure to immediately rejoin the JCPOA, as Bernie Sanders promised to do on his first day as president, has turned an easy win for Biden’s promised commitment to diplomacy into an entirely avoidable diplomatic crisis.

Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA and imposition of brutal “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran were broadly condemned by Democrats and U.S. allies alike. But now Biden is making new demands on Iran to appease hawks who opposed the agreement all along, risking an outcome in which he will fail to reinstate the JCPOA and Trump’s policy will effectively become his policy. The Biden administration should re-enter the deal immediately, without preconditions.

2. U.S. Bombing Wars Rage On – Now In Secret. Also following in Trump’s footsteps, Biden has escalated tensions with Iran and Iraq by attacking and killing Iranian-backed Iraqi forces who play a critical role in the war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Biden’s February 25 U.S. airstrike predictably failed to end rocket attacks on deeply unpopular U.S. bases in Iraq, which the Iraqi National Assembly passed a resolution to close over a year ago.

The U.S. attack in Syria has been condemned as illegal by members of Biden’s own party, reinvigorating efforts to repeal the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force that presidents have misused for 20 years. Other airstrikes the Biden administration is conducting in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria are shrouded in secrecy, since it has not resumed publishing the monthly Airpower Summaries that every other administration has published since 2004, but which Trump discontinued a year ago.

3. Refusing to hold MBS accountable for the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khasssoghi. Human rights activists were grateful that President Biden released the intelligence report on the gruesome murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi that confirmed what we already knew: that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS) approved the murder. Yet, when it came to holding MBS accountable, Biden choked.

At the very least, the administration shcould have imposed the same sanctions on MBS, including asset freezes and travel bans, that the U.S. imposed on lower-level figures involved in the murder. Instead, like Trump, Biden is wedded to the Saudi dictatorship and its diabolical Crown Prince.

4. Clinging to Trump’s absurdist policy of recognizing Juan Guaidó as President of Venezuela. The Biden administration missed an opportunity to establish a new approach towards Venezuela when it decided to continue to recognize Juan Guaidó as “interim president”, ruled out talks with the Maduro government and appears to be freezing out the moderate opposition that participates in elections.

The administration also said it was in “no rush” to lift the Trump sanctions despite a recent study from the Government Accountability Office detailing their negative impact on the economy, and a scathing preliminary report by a UN Special Rapporteur, who noted their “devastating effect on the whole population of Venezuela.” The lack of dialogue with all political actors in Venezuela risks entrenching a policy of regime change and economic warfare for years to come, similar to the failed U.S. policy towards Cuba that has lasted for 60 years.

5. Following Trump on Cuba instead of Obama. The Trump administration overturned all the progress towards normal relations achieved by President Obama, sanctioning Cuba’s tourism and energy industries, blocking coronavirus aid shipments, restricting remittances to family members, putting Cuba on a list of “state sponsors of terrorism,” and sabotaging Cuba’s international medical missions, which were a major source of revenue for its health system.

We expected Biden to immediately start unraveling Trump’s confrontational policies, but catering to Cuban exiles in Florida for domestic political gain apparently takes precedence over a humane and rational policy towards Cuba, for Biden as for Trump.

Biden should instead start working with the Cuban government to allow the return of diplomats to their respective embassies, lift all restrictions on remittances, make travel easier, and work with the Cuban health system in the fight against COVID-19, among other measures.

6. Ramping up the Cold War with China. Biden seems committed to Trump’s self-defeating Cold War and arms race with China, talking tough and ratcheting up tensions that have led to racist hate crimes against East Asian people in the United States. But it is the United States that is militarily surrounding and threatening China, not the other way round. As former President Jimmy Carter patiently explained to Trump, while the United States has been at war for 20 years, China has instead invested in 21st century infrastructure and in its own people, lifting 800 million of them out of poverty.

The greatest danger of this moment in history, short of all-out nuclear war, is that this aggressive U.S. military posture not only justifies unlimited U.S. military budgets, but will gradually force China to convert its economic success into military power and follow the United States down the tragic path of military imperialism.

7. Failing to lift painful, illegal sanctions during a pandemic. One of the legacies of the Trump administration is the devastating use of U.S. sanctions on countries around the world, including Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea and Syria. UN special rapporteurs have condemned them as crimes against humanity and compared them to medieval sieges. Since most of these sanctions were imposed by executive order, President Biden could easily lift them. Even before taking power, his team announced a thorough review, but, three months later, it has yet to make a move.

Unilateral sanctions that affect entire populations are an illegal form of coercion, like military intervention, coups and covert operations, that have no place in a legitimate foreign policy based on diplomacy, the rule of law and the peaceful resolution of disputes. They are especially cruel and deadly during a pandemic and the Biden administration should take immediate action by lifting broad sectoral sanctions to ensure every country can adequately respond to the pandemic.

8. Not doing enough to support peace and humanitarian aid for Yemen. Biden appeared to partially fulfill his promise to stop U.S. support for the war in Yemen when he announced that the U.S. would stop selling “offensive” weapons to the Saudis. But he has yet to explain what that means. Which weapons sales has he cancelled?

We think he should stop ALL weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, enforcing the Leahy Law that prohibits military assistance to forces that commit gross human rights violations, and the Arms Export Control Act, under which imported U.S. weapons may be used only for legitimate self defense. There should be no exceptions to these U.S. laws for Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel, Egypt or other U.S. allies around the world.

The U.S. should also accept its share of responsibility for what many have called the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world today, and provide Yemen with funding to feed its people, restore its health care system and rebuild its devastated country. A recent donor conference netted just $1.7 billion in pledges, less than half the $3.85 billion needed. Biden should restore and expand USAID funding and U.S. financial support to the UN, WHO and World Food Program relief operations in Yemen. He should also press the Saudis to reopen the air and seaports, and throw U.S. diplomatic weight behind the efforts of U.N. Special Envoy Martin Griffiths to negotiate a ceasefire.

9. Failing to back President Moon Jae-in’s diplomacy with North Korea. Trump’s failure to provide sanctions relief and explicit security guarantees to North Korea doomed his diplomacy and became an obstacle to the diplomatic process under way between Korean presidents Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in, who is himself the child of North Korean refugees. So far, Biden has continued this policy of Draconian sanctions and threats.

The Biden administration should revive the diplomatic process with confidence-building measures such as opening liaison offices, easing sanctions, facilitating reunions between Korean-American and North Korean families, permitting U.S. humanitarian organizations to resume their work when COVID conditions permit, and halting U.S.-South Korea military exercises and B-2 nuclear bomb flights.

Negotiations must involve concrete commitments to non-aggression from the U.S. side and a commitment to negotiating a peace agreement to formally end the Korean War. This would pave the way for a denuclearized Korean Peninsula and the reconciliation that so many Koreans desire — and deserve.

10. No initiative to reduce U.S. military spending. At the end of the Cold War, former senior Pentagon officials told the Senate Budget Committee that U.S. military spending could safely be cut by half over the next 10 years. That goal was never achieved, and instead of a post-Cold War “peace dividend,” the military-industrial complex exploited the crimes of Sept. 11, 2001 to justify an extraordinary one-sided arms race. Between 2003 and 2011, the U.S. accounted for 45% of global military spending, far outstripping its own peak Cold War military spending.

Now the military-industrial complex is counting on Biden to escalate a renewed Cold War with Russia and China as the only plausible pretext for further record military budgets that are setting the stage for World War III.

Biden must dial back U.S. conflicts with China and Russia, and instead begin the critical task of moving money from the Pentagon to urgent domestic needs. He should start with at least the 10 percent cut that 93 Representatives and 23 Senators already voted for. In the longer term, Biden should look for deeper cuts in Pentagon spending, as in Rep. Barbara Lee’s bill to cut $350 billion per year from the U.S. military budget, to free up resources we sorely need to invest in health care, education, clean energy and modern infrastructure.

A Progressive Way Forward

These policies, common to Democratic and Republican administrations, not only inflict pain and suffering on millions of our neighbors in other countries, but also deliberately cause instability that can at any time escalate into war, plunge a formerly functioning state into chaos or spawn a secondary crisis whose human consequences will be even worse than the original one.

All these policies involve deliberate efforts to unilaterally impose the political will of U.S. leaders on other people and countries, by methods that consistently only cause more pain and suffering to the people they claim – or pretend – they want to help.

Biden should jettison the worst of Obama’s and Trump’s policies, and instead pick the best of them. Trump, recognizing the unpopular nature of U.S. military interventions, began the process of bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq, which Biden should follow through on.

Obama’s diplomatic successes with Cuba, Iran and Russia demonstrated that negotiating with U.S. enemies to make peace, improve relations and make the world a safer place is a perfectly viable alternative to trying to force them to do what the United States wants by bombing, starving and besieging their people. This is in fact the core principle of the United Nations Charter, and it should be the core principle of Biden’s foreign policy.

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

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

Featured image is from OffGuardian

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

The claim is often made that President George W. Bush’s war on terror, which produced legislation that was employed to attack Iraq in 2003, eventually morphed into the worst foreign policy mistake in U.S. history when that conflict destabilized the entire region and led to an American multifront military engagement that now appears permanent. Few of those in the policymaking business appreciated that by turning “terrorism” into an especially invidious form of evil allowing governments to arrest or even assassinate without due process and bomb civilians if they fit a profile, Pandora’s box was being opened to expand that authority to commit other heinous abuses of authority.

Jim Bovard has described how post 9/11 there were hundreds of arrests for no good reason, in some cases only because someone had a name or countenance that appeared to be “Arabic.” Congressman Ron Paul and a handful of others observed at the time that the legislation would inevitably be used against domestic enemies of the state as well as against foreign or foreign-linked groups, meaning that the real damage done by the Patriot Act, the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) and the Military Commissions Act would be felt somewhere down the road, possibly at a point where the original objective of the legislation would be more or less forgotten.

Now that we have an identified “domestic terror” problem one should expect at a minimum a massive increase in surveillance of innocent citizens couple with arbitrary arrests and incarcerations. Indeed, the process is already well underway with FBI Director Christopher Wray announcing that there are several thousand terror “cases” under development. There will also be increasing calls to take away guns and to control what is allowed to appear on the internet. Soon Americans will have nothing to measure their remaining liberties by and will be less free to exercise rights including free speech, possibly dramatically so.

So now we have reached a point where we have a government that is committed to further reducing one’s rights in order to “keep us safe” from a domestic threat and congress critters are openly speaking of bringing in “war on terror” type expedients to make sure that they have the tools available to do just that. The Joe Biden White House has made clear that it has embraced fighting domestic terrorists as a top priority. Last week, the Administration sought authorization from the Pentagon to keep thousands of national guard troops in the District of Columbia for 60 days more, presumably to protect the government buildings and staff. The pretext for the continued presence was a vaguely described plot constituting a “potential threat” to overrun the Capitol building on March 4th, a day when it was apparently anticipated that Donald Trump would miraculously be returned to office. The House of Representatives even canceled a session over concerns that they were about to be invaded by a hostile “militia.” Just how “real” the threat was has not been made clear beyond suggestions of “chatter” over the internet, nor has there been any explanation of why the 2,200 strong Capitol Police force is unable to deal with the problem.

Be that as it may, the Biden Administration thinks it knows exactly who the enemy is. The government already has a working definition of a domestic terrorist, i.e. “If you advocate violence as a tool to further political ends, and take concrete steps to do that, you’re a terrorist.” But if you thought that included groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter (BLM) you would be wrong. For the Biden Administration it is the stereotyped right-wing extremist, who, among other attributes, is represented by the media and government as coming from the class that Hillary Clinton once described as “deplorables.”

The accepted definition of the enemy defies logic as the rioting, arson, and killing that has taken place over the past year has generally been inspired by Antifa and BLM, resulting in major damage and destruction in various cities and states. But the mobs who wrecked and looted have been mostly set free by the courts in the Democratic Party dominated cities. In Portland Oregon 90% of the rioters were not prosecuted, presumably because the local judicial system believed that their “cause was just.” Against that is the trauma of the January 6th incident at the Capitol, much smaller in scope and damages but obviously terrifying to the media and Congress. Also what did occur bore a more comfortable theme for the Democrats which they have been beating to death ever since – “insurrection caused by right wing extremists who were overwhelmingly white and support Donald Trump.” That’s apparently all one needs to initiate a campaign to get rid of such dissidents.

For some suggestions about the direction the Biden Administration will be going in to eliminate domestic terrorism, one only has to review the comments of Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland at his Senate confirmation hearing on February 22nd, where he declared that going after domestic terrorists would be a top administration priority. When asked if he regards the numerous attempts by Antifa and BLM rioters to destroy federal courthouses in Portland and Seattle as acts of domestic extremism or terrorism, he hedged on the issue and replied:

“So an attack on a courthouse while in operation, trying to prevent judges from actually deciding cases, that plainly is, uhm, domestic extremism, uhm, domestic terrorism. An attack simply on a government property at night…or any other kind of circumstances, is a clear crime and a serious one and should be punished. I don’t mean…I don’t know enough about the facts of the example you’re talking about, but that’s where I draw the line. One is…both are criminal, but one is a core attack on our democratic institutions.”

According to the man who almost became a Supreme Court Justice and now appears to be on his way to becoming Attorney General if you attack and seek to destroy a government building when there is no one in it is a different level of criminality than seeking to disrupt what is going on inside during business hours. It clearly is a fine line, or at least Garland sees it that way, but in either case you are making the building non-functional in terms of its intended use. Indeed, groups like BLM have regularly condemned the criminal justice system and if you burn the building down it will be unusable for a long, long time. So clearly what makes something “terrorism” as opposed to only “criminality” is the expectation based on the events of 1/6 that it will be right-wing whites who will be doing the disruption. They are the terrorists.

So, it seems pretty clear that the Biden Administration is now preparing to go after the people that it objects to and will create new laws as necessary to do so. Garland will certainly have a hand in that development. And if anyone is thinking of leaving all of this behind by fleeing to another country where there is an actual rule of law, it would be best to consider the matter again. On February 22nd, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that white supremacy right-wing nationalist movements have become a “transnational threat” that has exploited the fear of the coronavirus pandemic to gain support. He said that “White supremacy and neo-Nazi movements are more than domestic terror threats. They are becoming a transnational threat. Today, these extremist movements represent the number one internal security threat in several countries. Far too often, these hate groups are cheered on by people in positions of responsibility in ways that were considered unimaginable not long ago. We need global coordinated action to defeat this grave and growing danger.”

It means you can run but you can’t hide. It looks like there will be a worldwide coalition to extirpate the evils that come automatically with whiteness and, as BLM is now de facto a major constituency of the U.S. Democratic Party, you know that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi will be leading the charge.

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Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.orgaddress is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Storming of the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 (TapTheForwardAssist/Wikimedia Commons)

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

In October 2019, shortly before the COVID outbreak, Gates and other powerful individuals began planning how to censor vaccine safety advocates from social media during a table-top simulation of a worldwide pandemic, known as Event 201.

Over the last two weeks, Facebook and other social media sites have deplatformed me and many other critics of regulatory corruption and authoritarian public health policies. So, here is some fodder for those of you who have the eerie sense that the government/industry pandemic response feels like it was planned — even before there was a pandemic.

The attached document shows that a cabal of powerful individuals did indeed begin planning the mass eviction of vaccine skeptics from social media in October 2019, a week or two before COVID began circulating. That month, Microsoft founder Bill Gates organized an exercise of four “table-top” simulations of a worldwide coronavirus pandemic with other high-ranking “Deep State” panjandrums. The exercise was referred to as Event 201.

Gates’ co-conspirators included representatives from the World Bank, the World Economic Forum (Great Reset), Bloomberg/Johns Hopkins University Populations Center, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, various media powerhouses, the Chinese government, a former Central Intelligence Agency/National Security Agency director (there is no such thing as a former CIA officer), vaccine maker Johnson & Johnson, the finance and biosecurity industries and Edelman, the world’s leading corporate PR firm.

At Gates’ direction, these eminences role-played members of a Pandemic Control Council, wargaming government strategies for controlling the pandemic, the narrative and the population. Needless to say, there was little talk of building immune systems, off-the-shelf remedies or off-patent therapeutic drugs and vitamins, but lots of chatter about promoting uptake of new patentable antiviral drugs and vaccines.

But the participants primarily focused on planning industry-centric, fear-mongering, police-state strategies for managing an imaginary global coronavirus contagion culminating in mass censorship of social media.

Oddly, Gates now claims that the simulation didn’t occur. On April 12, 2020, Gates told BBC, “Now here we are. We didn’t simulate this, we didn’t practice, so both the health policies and economic policies, we find ourselves in uncharted territory.”

Unfortunately for that whopper, the videos of the event are still available across the internet. They show that Gates and team did indeed simulate health and economic policies. It’s hard to swallow that Gates has forgotten.

Gates’s Event 201 simulated COVID epidemic caused 65 million deaths at the 18-month endpoint and global economic collapse lasting up to a decade. Compared to the Gates simulation, therefore, the actual COVID-19 crisis is a bit of a dud, having imposed a mere 2.5 million deaths “attributed to COVID” over the past 13 months.

The deaths “attributed to COVID” in the real-life situation are highly questionable, and must be seen in the context of a global population of 7.8 billion, with about 59 million deaths expected annually. The predictions of decade-long economic collapse will probably prove more accurate — but only because of the draconian lockdown promoted by Gates.

Gates’ Event 201 script imagines vast anti-vaccine riots triggered by internet posts. The universal and single-minded presumption among its participants was that such a crisis would prove an opportunity of convenience to promote new vaccines, and tighten controls by a surveillance and censorship state.

Segment four of the script — on manipulation and control of public opinion — is most revealing. It uncannily predicted democracy’s current crisis:

  • The participants discussed mechanisms for controlling “disinformation” and “misinformation,” by “flooding” the media with propaganda (“good information”), imposing penalties for spreading falsehoods and discrediting the anti-vaccination movement.
  • Jane Halton, of Australia’s ANZ Bank, one of the authors of Australia’s oppressive “no jab, no pay” policy, assured the participants that Gates Foundation is creating algorithms “to sift through information on these social media platforms” to protect the public from dangerous thoughts and information.
  • George Gao, the prescient director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control, worries about how to suppress “rumors” that the virus is laboratory generated: “People believe, ‘This is a manmade’… [and that] some pharmaceutical company made the virus.”
  • Chen Huang, an Apple research scientist, Google scholar and the world’s leading expert on tracking and tracing and facial recognition technology, role-plays the newscaster reporting on government countermeasures. He blames riots on anti-vaccine activists and predicts that Twitter and Facebook will cooperate in “identify[ing] and delete[ing] a disturbing number of accounts dedicated to spreading misinformation about the outbreak” and to implement “internet shutdowns … to quell panic.”
  • Dr. Tara Kirk Sell, a senior scholar at Bloomberg School of Health’s Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, worries that pharmaceutical companies are being accused of introducing the virus so they can make money on drugs and vaccines: “[We] have seen public faith in their products plummet.” She notes with alarm that “Unrest, due to false rumors and divisive messaging, is rising and is exacerbating spread of the disease as levels of trust fall and people stop cooperating with response efforts. This is a massive problem, one that threatens governments and trusted institutions.”

Sell reminds her fellow collaborators that “We know that social media is now the primary way that many people get their news, so interruptions to these platforms could curb the spread of misinformation.” There are many ways, Sell advises, for government and industry allies to accomplish this objective: “Some governments have taken control of national access to the Internet. Others are censoring websites and social media content and a small number have shut down Internet access completely to prevent the spread of misinformation. Penalties have been put in place for spreading harmful falsehoods, including arrests.”

  • Matthew Harrington, CEO of Edelman Public Relations agrees that social media must fall in line to promote government policy: “I also think we’re at a moment where the social media platforms have to step forward and recognize the moment to assert that they’re a technology platform and not a broadcaster is over. They in fact have to be a participant in broadcasting accurate information and partnering with the scientific and health communities to counterweight, if not flood the zone, of accurate information. Because to try to put the genie back in the bottle of misinformation and disinformation is not possible.”
  • Stephen Redd, the Admiral of the Public Health Service, has the sinister notion that government should mine social media data to identify people with negative beliefs: “I think with the social media platforms, there’s an opportunity to understand who it is that’s susceptible … to misinformation, so I think there’s an opportunity to collect data from that communication mechanism.”
  • Adrian Thomas of Johnson & Johnson announces “some important news to share from some of “our member companies [Pharma]”: We are doing clinical trials in new antiretrovirals, and in fact, in vaccines!” He recommends a strategy to address the problems to these companies when “rumors were actually spreading” that their shoddily tested products “are causing deaths and so patients are not taking them anymore.” He suggests, “Maybe we’re making the mistake of reporting and counting all the fatalities and infections.”
  • Former CIA deputy director, Avril Haines unveiled a strategy to “flood the zone” with propaganda from “trusted sources,” including “influential community leaders, as well as health workers.” He warns about “false information that is starting to actually hamper our ability to address the pandemic, then we need to be able to respond quickly to it.”
  • Matthew Harrington (Edelman CEO) observes that the Internet — which once promised the decentralization and democratization of information — now needs to be centralized: “I think just to build a little bit on what Avril said, I think as in previous conversations where we’ve talked about centralization around management of information or public health needs, there needs to be a centralized response around the communications approach that then is cascaded to informed advocates, represented in the NGO communities, the medical professionals, et cetera.”
  • Tom Inglesby (John Hopkins biosecurity expert advisor to the National Institutes of Health, the Pentagon and Homeland Security) agrees that centralized control is needed: “You mean centralized international?”
  • Matthew Harrington (Edelman) replies that information access should be: “Centralized on an international basis, because I think there needs to be a central repository of data facts and key messages.”
  • Hasti Taghi (Media Advisor) sums up: “The anti-vaccine movement was very strong and this is something specifically through social media that has spread. So as we do the research to come up with the right vaccines to help prevent the continuation of this, how do we get the right information out there? How do we communicate the right information to ensure that the public has trust in these vaccines that we’re creating?”
  • Kevin McAleese, communications officer for Gates-funded agricultural projects, observes that: “To me, it is clear countries need to make strong efforts to manage both mis- and disinformation. We know social media companies are working around the clock to combat these disinformation campaigns. The task of identifying every bad actor is immense. This is a huge problem that’s going to keep us from ending the pandemic and might even lead to the fall of governments, as we saw in the Arab Spring. If the solution means controlling and reducing access to information, I think it’s the right choice.”
  • Tom Inglesby, director of Bloomberg’s Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security concurs, asking if “In this case, do you think governments are at the point where they need to require social media companies to operate in a certain way?”
  • Lavan Thiru, Singapore’s Finance Minister suggests that the government might make examples of dissidents with “government or enforcement actions against fake news. Some of us, this new regulations are come in place about how we deal with fake news. Maybe this is a time for us to showcase some cases where we are able to bring forward some bad actors and leave it before the courts to decide whether they have actually spread some fake news.”

Read the attached transcript to see how Gates and his government, pharma and intelligence apparatus telegraphed their plans to censor and control the media during the pandemic. In yet another uncanny coincidence, COVID-19 began circulating among global populations within days of Gates’ meeting.

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Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s reputation as a resolute defender of the environment stems from a litany of successful legal actions.

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

China – Leading to World Recovery – And Beyond

March 12th, 2021 by Peter Koenig

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

China’s currently ongoing (4-11 March 2021) annual parliamentary meeting, known as the “Two Sessions”, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the National People’s Congress (NPC), may be the most important of such meetings in recent years. The event is also celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC). 

The conference will define China’s internal and external development strategies, as well as her future role on the world stage. China is the only major economy that has mastered the covid-induced economic crisis, ending 2020 with a 2.3% growth. Compare this with economic declines way into the red for the US and Europe, of 25% to 35%, and 10% to 15%, respectively.

These figures may only be indicative. The bulk of the economic fallout from western governments’ mishandling of the covid crisis, i. e. bankruptcies, trade disruption, unemployment and housing foreclosures – a massive slide into poverty – may only be registered in 2021 and beyond.

The greed-driven capitalist system has already plunged tens of millions of westerners – and perhaps hundreds of millions in the Global South – into destitution.

What China decides, at the “Two Sessions” Conference will undoubtedly have an impact on the entire world – in the medium-term (2025) as well as long-term (2035) – and beyond. China’s socialism “with Chinese characteristics” will be an influence for peace, justice and equality, as well as for a multi-polar world.

China’s thousands of years of cultural history and the ensuing Tao-philosophy of non-aggression and conflict avoidance, of a societal spirit of endless creation, as well as long-term thinking, contrasts radically with western conflict and instant-profit seeking.

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The summit is addressing ambitious but attainable 2035 targets, including a 6%-plus growth in the foreseeable future; reduction of unemployment with urban focus; continued food self-sufficiency and environmental improvement targets, a gigantic 18% CO2 reduction, largely through a significant drop in energy consumption (13.5%) per unit of GDP – and this with a projected higher than 6% annual economic output. Environmental improvement and protection targets are way above any environmental objectives of western countries.

The conference may also define China’s guiding role in a worldwide recovery from a covid-related devastated economy. China’s economy has suffered, mainly during the first half of 2020, but her decisive actions have successfully overcome the pandemic’s path of destruction. By the end of 2020, China’s production and services were back to 100%. Thanks to this stellar efficiency, the west and Global South may continue relying on China’s supply of such vital goods as medical equipment, medicines, electronics and more.

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What China’s 2025 Plan and 2035 / 2050 visions may include, is a strong emphasis on economic autonomy and defense.

Economy

Western China bashing with related sanctions, trade and currency wars, may continue also under the Biden Administration – because US / European policies on dealing with China – and Russia for that matter – are made well above the White House and Brussels.

Rapid dedollarization may be an effective way to stem against the western “sanctions culture”. China may soon roll out her new digital Renminbi (RMB) or yuan, internationally, as legal tender for inter-country payments and transfers, and as an international reserve currency.

Reduce demand for US-dollars may incite worldwide investments in the new digital RMB.

Detaching from western dependence, China is focusing trade development and cooperation on her ASEAN partners. In November 2020 China signed a free trade agreement with the ten ASEAN nations, plus Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, altogether 15 countries, including China.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, covers some 2.2 billion people, commanding some 30% of the world’s GDP. This agreement is a first in size, value and tenor – worldwide.

China, Russia, as well as the Central Asia Economic Union (CAEU) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), are likewise integrated into the eastern trade block.

RCEP’s trade deals will be carried out in local currencies and in yuan – no US dollars. The RCEP is, therefore, also an instrument for dedollarizing, primarily in the Asia-Pacific Region, and gradually moving across the globe.

Defense

China provides the West’s main supply chain, from medical goods to electronic equipment to almost every sector important to humanity. Yet, western political interference in China’s internal affairs, like in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Tibet, are endless. Overcoming these aggressions and threats of armed conflicts, is part of China’s forward-looking plan and defense strategy.

Mr. Wang Yi, China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, recently warned the White House to stop meddling in China’s internal affairs; that reunification with Taiwan is a historic tendency and was the collective wish of the Chinese people. He added, this trend cannot be reversed.

As a forerunner to China’s CPPCC Summit, in his address to the virtual World Economic Forum (WEF) on 25 January 2021, President Xi Jinping stated that China’s agenda was to move forward in the World of Great Change, with her renewed policy of multilateralism, aiming for a multi-polar world, where nations would be treated as equals.

China will continue to vouch for strong macroeconomic growth with focus on internal development which, in turn, will stimulate and contribute to international trade and investments. – China pledges assistance for those that are suffering the most during this pandemic-induced crisis.

President Xi emphasized, there was no place in this world for large countries dominating smaller ones, or for economic threats and sanctions, nor for economic isolation. China is pursuing a global free trade economy. BUT – and this is important – when talking of “globalism” – respect for political and fiscal sovereignty of nations, is a MUST.

On a global scale, President Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) embraces currently more than 130 countries and over 30 international organizations, including 18 countries of the European Union. BRI offers the world participation – no coercion. The attraction and philosophy behind BRI, is shared benefits – the concept of win-win. BRI may be the road to socioeconomic recovery from covid-devastation and cross-border cooperation for participating countries.

China’s achievements in her 71 years of revolution are unmatched by any nation in recent history. From a country largely ruined by western colonization and conflicts, China rose from the ashes, by not only lifting 800 million people out of poverty, becoming food, health and education self-sufficient, but to become the world’s second largest economy today; or, if measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), since 2017 the world’s largest econmy. China is poised to surpass the US by 2025 in absolute terms.

On 4 March, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Children’s Health Defense), asked the pertinent question, “Can We Forge a New Era of Humanity Before It’s Too Late?” – His answer is simple but lucid: “Unless we move from a civilization based on wealth accumulation to a life-affirming, ecological civilization, we will continue accelerating towards global catastrophe.”

This understanding is also at the forefront of China’s vision for the next 5 and 15 years – and beyond. A China-internal objective is an equitable development to well-being for all; and on a world-scale, a community with shared benefits for all.

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This article was originally published on New Eastern Outlook.

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

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

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Israeli Violence in Arab Cities Reaches Intolerable Levels

March 12th, 2021 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

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Much is said in the international media about the Palestinian issue, but the internal ethnic crisis in Israel is ignored. Levels of violence against Arabs in Israeli territory have increased exponentially and this has led to the revolt of several social leaders in these Arab communities. The Israeli authorities justify their violence on the basis of a “policy to combat organized crime”, but, in fact, this rhetoric has been used simply to cover up the killings of Arab youth and children.

On March 10, in a shootout in the Arab-Israeli city of Jaljulia, Muhamad Abdelrazek Ades, a 14-year-old teenager was murdered and his friend, Mustafa Osama Hamed, a 12-year-old child, was injured and is hospitalized in serious condition. Local residents accuse the police of having acted negligently and shot indiscriminately at the population. A member of the Muhammad’s family said the boys left the house at the time of the shooting and were hit by about 20 shots at close range. The case would be tragic if it were unique, but this is a growing phenomenon. Muhammad has been the 23rd fatal victim of Israeli police violence against Arab citizens since the beginning of this year.

More and more young Arabs in Israel are dying in police operations carried out with malpractice and neglect. The head of the Jaljulia city hall, commenting on the case, said that the violence against the Arab community exceeded all possible limits and that the country is at a real civil war. In fact, the situation is one of absolute insecurity for the Arabs. For them there are no laws or guarantees, just endless violence.

The case of Muhammad and Mustafa triggered revolt in the Arab community. Israeli police, on the other hand, respond to criticism only by stating that it was “a mistake” and emphasizing that the families of the youth were involved in organized crime. And, in fact, this has been the practice of the Israeli authorities in cities with an Arab majority: systematically exterminating young people whose families are supposed to be involved in the crime. The high degree of marginalization and exclusion to which the Arabs are subjected on Israeli soil makes organized crime a recurrent practice in some of these communities, especially with regard to economically motivated crimes. However, the Israeli police does not act to combat such crimes using intelligence techniques or investigating the real offenders, but simply systematically exterminating members of these communities, in an act of true ethnic and social cleansing.

Police violence is also intense when Arabs take to the streets to protest and claim their civil rights. In Umm al Fahem, in northern Israel, protests have been almost daily. In a recent demonstration, the number of 10,000 participants was reported, a record for popular demonstrations in these regions. The reason for such an exponential increase is certainly due to the fact that weeks ago, in protests with a much smaller number of participants, police officers wounded 35 protesters, even though the acts were peaceful. In the same vein, after Muhammad’s death, a general strike was declared in Jaljulia. The unnecessary violence of the police only encourages more and more people to take to the streets and with this an endless cycle of popular dissatisfaction and police brutality emerges.

In institutional politics, the Arab community is agitated as much as possible. Community members in Parliament have publicly condemned the recent attacks. The Arab Deputy Aida Touma Silman made harsh statements against the Israeli police, but also emphasized the importance of fighting organized crime, saying that Arab criminals are also responsible for the killings. Although combating all forms of crime is necessary in any region of the planet, it is important to note the high degree of asymmetry in police violence. There is nothing that can explain how a child is shot 20 times at close range simply because his family is involved with criminal organizations.

In parallel to the unrest, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced last week that his government will invest around 45 million dollars to combat violence in the Arab cities. The Arab community leaders did not interpret the government’s attitude as positive, as they rightly believe that this money will be used not to improve social rates in these cities, but to further arm the police and generate more chaos and violence.

In fact, international society remains silent on this, when it should not. Tel Aviv is responsible for the death of every Arab youth. When the policemen who executed the shots against children are spared from any punishment, the state practically takes part in favor of the violence.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

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Update (0954ET): Iceland has become the latest European nation to suspend the AstraZeneca jab.

The tiny island nation has confirmed roughly 6K COVID cases since the start of the pandemic, which is roughly 2% of the population.

Back on the Continent, the EMA (the European equivalent of the FDA) confirmed that it has counted no fewer than 30 incidents of harmful blood clots in patients who received the vaccine, including at least one case in Denmark where the patient died.

That doesn’t sound good.

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Update (0820ET): More countries have followed Denmark by suspending approval of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID vaccine. Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, and Italy have now opted to halt use of the vaccine, creating more problems for Europe’s sluggish vaccine rollout.

The halts follow incidents involving blood clots in patients who recently received the vaccine. Two incidents were reported in Austria, although Vienna is allowing the vaccine to continue to be used, at least for now. Serious cases of blood clotshave been reported in Denmark and other countries as well.

Writer and skeptic Alex Berenson noted in a tweet that the AZ jab isn’t the only COVID shot suspected of causing harmful side effects in a small number of patients.

In a tweet confirming the suspension, Denmark’s health minister said there’s currently no way to know for certain whether the cases of serious blood clots are connected to the vaccine, but the situation certainly warrants ore investigation. “We acted early, it needs to be thoroughly investigated,” he said.

Just days ago, Italian PM Mario Draghi halted a shipment of AstraZeneca jabs to Australia, marking the first time an EU leader invoked rules to prioritize domestic vaccine access. Now, Italian authorities are suspending vaccinations from a current batch of the AstraZeneca jab following a pair of suspicious deaths.

Meanwhile, health authorities in Brussels and London have dismissed these concerns, insisting that the AZ jab is safe, while moving ahead with plans to approve Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose jab.

The EU medicines regulator said it was recommending the vaccine be authorized for all adults over 18 “after a thorough evaluation” of JNJ’s data found the vaccine met the criteria for efficacy, safety and quality. The JNJ jab is the fourth to be licensed for use inside the EU.

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Europe’s much-criticized vaccination rollout has just hit another snag, as Danish health authorities are increasingly concerned about harmful side-effects believed to be associated with the AstraZeneca-Oxford jab, the cheap COVID remedy that was supposed to help Europe catch up with the US, UK and Israel.

Danish authorities on Thursday temporarily suspended AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 shot following reports of cases of dangerous blood clots forming inside patients, including one such incident that took place in Denmark. Authorities didn’t specify exactly how many reports of blood clots there had been, but Reuters reports that Austria has also stopped using a batch of AstraZeneca shots while investigating a death attributed to coagulation disorders, along with an illness attributed ot a pulmonary embolism, a condition where one or more of the lung’s arteries becomes blocked by a blood clot. Six other European countries have also reportedly halted distribution of the COVID jab.

“Both we and the Danish Medicines Agency have to respond to reports of possible serious side-effects, both from Denmark and other European countries,” the director of the Danish Health Authority, Soren Brostrom, said in a statement.

The Danish Medicines Agency said the suspension would last for 14 days as authorities launch an investigation into the blood clots, with assistance from other EU member states.

They did not say how many reports of blood clots there had been, but Austria has stopped using a batch of AstraZeneca shots while investigating a death from coagulation disorders and an illness from a pulmonary embolism.

AstraZeneca claims its vaccine is subject to strict and rigorous quality controls and that there have been “no confirmed serious adverse events associated with the vaccine.” It said it was in contact with Austrian authorities and would fully support their investigation.

“Both we and the Danish Medicines Agency have to respond to reports of possible serious side-effects, both from Denmark and other European countries,” the director of the Danish Health Authority, Soren Brostrom, said. “It is important to emphasize that we have not opted out of using the AstraZeneca vaccine, but that we are putting it on hold.”

The European Medicines Agency said Wednesday there is no evidence linking AstraZeneca to the two cases of blood clots in Austria. The company said the number of (thromboembolic events” (blood clots forming) in people who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine is no higher than that seen in the general population, with 22 cases of such events being reported among the 3MM people who have received it as of March 9.

And at least one investor claimed Denmark’s suspension of AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine on blood clot concerns shows “the detection systems that look for potential safety issues are working,” and that most of these “safety events” would ultimately be linked to natural processes, not the jab.

“It’s good to see the safety signal detection systems working and it’s important that any safety signal is followed-up using the correct protocols,” Shore analyst Adam Barker told Bloomberg. Data from the vaccine’s phase three trials suggests that “you would expect that most safety signals won’t ultimately be linked to the vaccine,” he said.

However, “it’s hard to make judgments on the impact on shareholder value,” he added, given there are “a lot of moving parts.” But ultimately, a risk-reward trade-off with any therapy; “you can only confidently make judgments on that decision when all the data is finalized and clear”

Nevertheless, shares of AZ tumbled on Thursday on signs that the European vaccine rollout is facing fresh skepticism and obstacles. Shares were down more than 2% in London’s mid-morning trade.

Whether Austria and other EU states will follow suit remains to be seen, though at least one other national health authority is reportedly considering a halt: the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and the Medicines Agency are meeting to discuss Denmark’s decision to halt vaccinations using doses of the vaccine, according to reports from state broadcaster NRK.

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Denmark, Norway and Iceland today announced they are joining other European countries in temporarily suspending use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID vaccine following reports of blood clots in people who got the vaccine.

Denmark suspended the shots until further notice after a 60-year-old woman died from a blood clot which formed after she was vaccinated, reported Reuters.

The Danish decision came days after Austrian authorities announced they were suspending a batch of AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine while investigating the death of one person and the illness of another after receiving the shots. The same batch used in Austria was used in Denmark, according to Reuters.

In Austria, a  49-year-old woman died of severe coagulation disorders, and a 35-year-old woman developed a pulmonary embolism –– an acute lung disease caused by a dislodged blood clot –– and is recovering, said The Federal Office for Safety in Health Care (BASG) in Austria.

Austrian newspaper Niederoesterreichische Nachrichten, broadcaster ORF and the APA news agency reported that both women were nurses at the same clinic where the vaccine batch was used.

In a statement provided to Reuters, AstraZeneca said the safety of its vaccine had been extensively studied in human trials and that peer-reviewed data had confirmed the vaccine was generally well tolerated.

Earlier this week, AstraZeneca reported “no confirmed serious adverse events associated with the vaccine” during trials and said it was working with Austria in its investigation.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Luxembourg have suspended all or part of their AstraZeneca vaccine roll-out as a precaution while they investigate concerns related to blood clots, reported France 24.

According to Reuters, Italy announced it banned a batch of the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine following the deaths of two men who had recently been vaccinated. One man was a 43-year-old naval officer who died after a suspected heart attack the day after his shot. The second man, a 50-year-old policeman, fell ill within 24 hours of his injection, never recovered and died 12 days after being vaccinated. Both men had received shots from AstraZeneca’s ABV2856 batch.

As of March 10, 30 cases of thromboembolic events had been reported to  EudraVigilance, the system for managing and analyzing information on suspected adverse reactions to medicines which have been authorized or are being studied in clinical trials in the European Economic Area.

As The Defender reported today, 12 prominent doctors and scientists are demanding that EU regulators address seven critical safety issues relating to the AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines, or withdraw approval of the vaccines for use in the EU.

The UK government is meanwhile urging people to “still go and get their COVID-19 vaccine,” stressing the suspension in multiple countries “is a precautionary measure,” reported EuroNews.

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency also urged people to still get vaccinated, as it had not been confirmed that the COVID vaccine caused the blood clot in the woman in Denmark.

On March 2, The Defender reported that government data showed 43% more reports of injuries related to the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine in the UK, including 77% more adverse events and 25% more deaths compared to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Britain’s regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), runs YellowCard, which is the nearest British equivalent to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System or VAERS in the U.S.

The MHRA expressed no concern about the number of reports of adverse events connected with AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine.

“The problem with spontaneous reports of suspected adverse reactions to a vaccine are the enormous difficulty of distinguishing a causal effect from a coincidence,” Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine told France 24.

Last month two regions in Sweden temporarily halted AstraZeneca COVID vaccinations after 400 people received the vaccine and 100 people experienced adverse reactions leaving them unable to work. Another region observed a surprising number of side effects after a mass vaccination effort of more than 500 people, reported The Defender.

South Africa halted the roll-out of AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine due to low efficacy in February, and European countries France, Germany and Sweden reported more side effects from the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine than from the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

The World Health Organization approved the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID vaccine for emergency use last month, despite growing safety concerns in other countries and questionable clinical trials.

AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine has not yet been approved for use in the U.S. but the drugmaker plans to file for Emergency Use Authorization with the U.S Food and Drug Administration in the upcoming weeks pending the results of a clinical trial, according to CBS News.

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Megan Redshaw is a freelance reporter for The Defender. She has a background in political science, a law degree and extensive training in natural health.

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In a rare moment of truth of CNN Wednesday, Anthony Fauci admitted that there is no scientific reason why people who have had the COVID vaccine are still having their freedoms restricted.

CNN host John Berman asked Fauci “What’s the science behind not saying it’s safe for people who have been vaccinated – received two doses, to travel?”

“When you don’t have the data and you don’t have the actual evidence, you’ve got to make a judgment call,” Fauci replied, declaring that Americans will just have to trust the CDC:

As we reported this week, CNN announced that the CDC is graciously allowing vaccinated Americans some ‘limited freedoms’, prompting a huge backlash on social media where people pointed out that the health body doesn’t grant anyone their God given freedoms.

So, there is no science and the CDC is making a judgement call about how ‘free’ Americans can be. Hmmm.

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An increasingly clear feature of the covid-19 pandemic is that the public health response is being driven not only by governments and multilateral institutions, such as the World Health Organisation, but also by a welter of public-private partnerships involving drug companies and private foundations.

One leading voice to emerge is the Wellcome Trust, one of the world’s top funders of health research, whose sprawling charitable activities in the pandemic include co-leading a WHO programme to support new covid-19 therapeutics. The Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator project hopes to raise billions of dollars and deliver hundreds of millions of treatment courses in the year ahead, including dexamethasone and a number of monoclonal antibodies.1

At the same time, The BMJ finds, Wellcome itself holds investments in companies producing these same treatments. Financial disclosures from late 2020 show that Wellcome has a £275m (€318m; $389m) stake in Novartis, which manufactures dexamethasone and is investigating additional therapeutics. And Roche, in which Wellcome holds a £252m stake,2 is helping to manufacture monoclonal antibodies with Regeneron. Both Roche and Novartis report having had conversations with WHO’s ACT Accelerator about their therapeutic drugs.3

Wellcome’s financial interests have been published on the trust’s website and through financial regulatory filings but do not seem to have been disclosed as financial conflicts of interest in the context of Wellcome’s work on covid-19, even as they show that the trust is positioned to potentially gain from the pandemic financially.

Revelations of the Wellcome Trust’s financial conflicts of interest follow news reports that another charity, the Gates Foundation, is also positioned to potentially benefit financially from its leading role in the pandemic response. An investigation by the Nation revealed that Gates had more than $250m (£179m; €206m) invested in companies working on covid-19 and cited civil society groups expressing alarm with the outsize influence the billionaire charity wields in the pandemic response, which they see as elevating the role of the drug industry.4

Yet charities such as Gates and Wellcome—and even drug companies—have generally been praised in the news media during the pandemic for their efforts to solve the public health crisis, with relatively little attention paid to their financial interests and with few checks and balances put on their work.

“What the pandemic is doing is buffing the reputation of organisations like Gates and Wellcome and the drug companies, when I don’t think they really deserve that buffing up,” says Joel Lexchin, professor emeritus of York University’s school of health policy and management in Toronto. “I think they’re acting the way they always have, which is, from the drug companies’ point of view, looking after their own financial interests, and from the point of view of the foundations is pursuing their own privately developed objectives without being responsible to anybody but their own boards of directors.”

Conflict of interest?

Mohga Kamal-Yanni, a policy adviser to UNAIDS and other organisations who recently co-wrote a paper citing problems with the Gates Foundation’s influence in the pandemic, says that Wellcome’s investments raise critical questions around transparency and accountability.5

“In covid, these two words have such a huge meaning because we need to know that decisions are being made based on evidence and science,” she tells The BMJ. “Do we know which companies they are talking to? How they make the decisions about funding a particular company—or this product or that one?”

The Wellcome Trust disputes that its investments compromise—or conflict with—its independence. “We are not aware of any situation in our relations with . . . the ACT Accelerator in which a conflict has arisen as a result of our investment portfolio, or in which it would have been necessary for Wellcome representatives to recuse themselves,” a spokesperson said, declining to comment on its investments in Novartis or Roche. “We would never make decisions or advise others about the pandemic response for a reason other than public health.”

Wellcome’s supporters describe the deep well of biomedical expertise the charity brings to the pandemic, prominently from its director, Jeremy Farrar, a famed infectious disease researcher who is credited with playing leading roles in previous outbreaks of Ebola and avian influenza.6,7

Kenny Baillie, a research group leader in the department of genetics and genomics at the University of Edinburgh who has received research funding from Wellcome, says that the charity also deserves credit as a “beacon of probity and good governance.”

He explains, “I certainly can speak to my personal experience interacting with the science side, and there’s been no attempt to influence me or any other researcher I know from doing the best science to benefit humanity.” Yet it is still not clear what governance structures are in place to guarantee that Wellcome’s vast endowment does not influence its agenda setting role through WHO or its other work in the pandemic.

Unitaid, which co-leads the WHO ACT Accelerator project, says that it has a “clear mutual understanding” with Wellcome “that relevant institutional interests will be transparently disclosed.” But, Unitaid told The BMJ last December, “We have not received any declaration of conflict of interest.”

Marc Rodwin, professor of law at Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts, says that institutions with financial conflicts of interest can still make valuable contributions to the pandemic response but should not be in a position of influence or decision making.

“I’d go back further than just saying they should recuse themselves from particular decisions. Why are they being chosen in the first place to be in these positions [of authority]?” he asks. “I like the concept of epidemiological risk factor here—it’s just introducing a level of risk that is unnecessary. When there’s a lot of money going around, you don’t want to have those kinds of financial conflicts that can sway those decisions.”

Click here to read complete article on BMJ.

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For almost seven months, Palestine solidarity activists in Canada have been engaged in a struggle to hold their national broadcaster, the CBC, to account. On August 18, 2020, CBC’s current affairs program “The Current” carried an interview with Joe Sacco where the host used the word Palestine. This was deleted in the later online version and CBC apologized for Sacco’s language the next day. Following multiple complaints from listeners, it was learnt that CBC’s official language guide promoted this kind of anti-Palestinian bias.

The issue then went to CBC’s Ombudsman who has finally released his review of the case. His lengthy report concluded “that while The Current did not violate journalistic standards, producers made a poor decision in issuing an apology. Even though the original program was at odds with CBC’s usual practice, it would have been better to leave it as is.”

Canada Palestine Association, whose chair was listed as the complainant by the Ombudsman, issued a statement unpacking the review. They noted that:

The Ombudsman posed 4 questions. Did CBC violate its own journalistic standards. He answered No. Is CBC’s language guide on Palestine reasonable? Yes, it is. Did the on-air apology violate CBC’s standards? No.

But then question number 4: Was the apology reasonable in this instance? The answer was No, despite the CBC staff adhering to the supposedly ‘reasonable’ language guide.

It might appear positive that the Ombudsman conceded that ‘the decision to excise the word Palestine from future editions, and the decision to make the apology, were both unwise.’ But his conclusion is tainted by the fact that this incident is presented as merely an aberration, against a background of otherwise sound CBC policy on language regarding Palestine. As such, this can only be regarded as mere window-dressing.

Mondoweiss has covered the case extensively. From the original article by David Kattenburg, to the letter campaign by Just Peace Advocates, to the CodePink statement: all of these were documented and all of them contributed to bringing pressure on CBC. Even this limited victory would not have been possible without such sweeping pushback that shamed CBC management. CPA also highlighted this and stated:

Perhaps the negative and broad backlash generated by this whole controversy was the main reason for the conclusion that the apology was ‘a poor decision.’ Frankly, CBC looked extremely foolish when news of this controversy broke; the more senior management tried to defend it, the more ridiculous they appeared. Even the guest on the show, Joe Sacco, questioned the apology and noted: ‘To whom, exactly, was the CBC apologizing for using the word ‘Palestine’?

The role of Ombudsman in media outlets like CBC is something that we need to understand more fully. Are they basically gate-keepers and PR front people for their organizations or are they genuine independent arbiters? The result of this case would lead us to conclude the former is true.

The CPA statement questioned if there is an “in-house hasbara unit” at CBC, given the extreme tone of the relevant language clause on Palestine. One section is particularly egregious:

“So do not refer to Palestine or show a map with Palestine as a country. Use the term ‘pro-Palestinian’ instead of ‘pro-Palestine’ when referring in generic ways to Palestinian supporters.”

The statement also pointed out that “this whole incident simply highlighted how fundamentally flawed CBC’s language guide is, something the Ombudsman refused to acknowledge; in fact, it was the logical extension and outcome of the dictates in the language guide.”

In my last article in Mondoweiss on this CBC debacle, I speculated whether this investigation would produce any genuine change in CBC’s biased policies. I said, “We hope this will not be a case of the mountain labored and brought forth a mouse, as happened with a previous complaint filed about bias in coverage at CBC.” Regretfully, that is exactly what happened – it produced a mouse.

The issue of whether CBC censors Palestine (or the word Palestine) seemed to be a touchy subject for the Ombudsman, who was insistent that such censorship does not exist. CPA’s response concluded with the following:

The Ombudsman is adamant that there is no censorship of Palestine at CBC, dismissing such ‘rhetoric’ as ‘simply untrue.’ But what are listeners to understand from a policy that insists staff must not refer to Palestine, must not show a map with Palestine as a country, and must not even use the term pro-Palestine in a generic way? To censor is defined by Merriam-Webster as to ‘suppress or delete as objectionable’; this is exactly what CBC is doing in their language guide.

We know that other listeners have been told several times that CBC guidelines are always being revisited, but to no avail. As the complainant referenced in the Ombudsman’s report, we call on CBC to immediately review its language guide on Palestine and amend it to reflect not only international reality but also to show a commitment to impartiality and follow its declared mission to ‘seek out the truth.’ Their policy as it stands now is both offensive and censorship; its denial of the existence of Palestine as a country, a nation, a people, and a culture with thousands of years of history amounts to institutional and systemic anti-Palestinian racism.

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***

A video of armed Israeli soldiers arresting a group of five Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank has triggered widespread condemnation from activists and human rights groups, who viewed the incident as “extremely aggressive”.

The video, filmed by a field researcher with Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, was recorded in the Masafer Yatta area of the southern Hebron hills, which is home to dozens of clusters of Palestinian villages and enclaves, as well as several illegal Israeli settlements and outposts.

“I got a call in the early afternoon saying that there were settlers chasing a group of young Palestinian boys near the at-Tuwani village, and that I should go there as fast as I could,” Nasr Nawajaa, a local activist and B’Tselem field researcher told Middle East Eye.

“When I arrived, there were dozens of armed and masked Israeli soldiers pulling the children towards a group of military Jeeps. And I immediately picked up my camera and started filming,” Nawajaa said.

In the video filmed by Nawajaa and published by B’Tselem, dozens of Israeli soldiers in combat gear can be seen grabbing the terrified children and pushing them towards the military vehicles.

Several Palestinian bystanders can be seen attempting to intervene, but to no avail. At one point, an older Palestinian boy can be seen trying to rescue one of the minors, at which point he is grabbed by another soldier and dragged along with the group.

“The children were screaming and crying, pleading with the soldiers to call their parents and wait until their family arrived before taking them away,” Nawajaa told MEE.

He said the soldiers were “extremely aggressive” with the children, who were between eight and 13 years of age.

“The soldiers were treating the children like some hardened criminals, as if they had committed some huge crime,” Nawajaa said, adding that the soldiers “took the children by force.”

According to Nawajaa, the children were detained and taken to the nearby Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba, where they were held inside the military vehicles and interrogated for several hours, before being released to their families in the evening.

“These are just harmless children, what kind of threat could they possibly pose to justify this treatment?” Nawajaa asked.

‘They were just picking vegetables’

The circumstances of the boys’ arrest has drawn widespread condemnation, as it came to light that the children were out picking wild vegetables and herbs when they were detained.

According to Nawajaa, the boys were picking a wild vegetable called “akoub”, which blooms in the spring time in Palestine.

“Many of the families in Masafer Yatta live in poor socio-economic conditions,” Nawajaa told MEE. “‘Akoub can be sold at a good price in the Palestinian market, so many families and their children go out to pick the wild vegetable during this time of year in order to make some money to support themselves.”

Nawajaa noted that while Israel had previously outlawed the picking of akoub, that law was repealed last year, making it legal to pick 5kgs per person in the area where the boys were.

“There was no legal justification for their arrest,” Nawajaa said.

The five boys, who are all cousins, were picking and collecting the akoub on the outskirts of Havat Maon, an Israeli settlement south of Hebron. Settlers from Havat Maon then allegedly started harassing and chasing the boys out of the area.

“This is something the settlers do when they see Palestinians close to the settlement,” Mohammad Abu Hmeid, the father of two of the boys told MEE. “Sometimes they even fire live ammunition at the Palestinian shepherds grazing sheep in the area if they get too close to the settlement.”

“I’m just relieved that the boys managed to escape the settlers. God knows what would have happened to them if they didn’t,” the father said.

Abu Hmeid said his sons Jaber, 13, and Saqer, 10, and their three cousins, fled from settlers. They abandoned their buckets, barrels, and akoub, leaving it behind and heading towards their grandfather’s house near at-Tuwani.

It was there that the group of armed Israeli soldiers caught up with the boys, and began arresting them.

According to Abu Hmeid’s testimony, which echoed that of Nawajaa’s, it was the settlers who allegedly called the Israeli soldiers and ordered them to arrest the boys.

“The settlers accused the boys of trying to steal some of their birds, and destroying some of their property,” Abu Hmeid said, adding that the settlers were “making up stories just to get the boys arrested and intimidate them.”

“All they were doing was picking akoub, and that is not a crime,” Abu Hmeid said, adding that the soldiers confiscated the boys’ buckets and barrels, and their plant harvest. “They didn’t pose a threat to anyone. They weren’t doing anything wrong.”

Interrogation, threats and coercion

In the occupied West Bank, Palestinians live under Israeli military law, and when arrested they are charged and tried in military courts that have a conviction rate of over 99 percent against Palestinians.

In comparison, Israeli settlers living in the West Bank in contravention of international law are subject to Israeli civilian law, and never come into contact with the military courts.

While Israeli military and civilian law stipulates the minimum age of criminal responsibility as 12 years old, rights group Defence for Children International – Palestine (DCIP) says that Israeli forces routinely detain Palestinian children younger than this.

According to the group, Israel detains around 700 Palestinian children a year. There are currently 168 child “security” detainees in Israeli prison, and as of 2020, there were 27 children being held in solitary confinement.

DCIP has highlighted that Israel ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which stipulates that children “should only be deprived of their liberty as a measure of last resort, must not be unlawfully or arbitrarily detained, and must not be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

According to DCIP, Israel regularly and arbitrarily detains Palestinian children, subjects them to long periods of interrogation without the presence of a parent, legal guardian, or lawyer. Children are often coerced into signing false confessions, in documents written in Hebrew, a language most Palestinian children do not understand.

“From the moment of arrest, Palestinian children encounter ill-treatment and torture at the hands of Israeli forces. Three out of four experience physical violence during arrest or interrogation,” DCIP said.

The process of arrest and detention described by DCIP is similar to what happened to the five boys in the Hebron hills, according to testimony from both Nawajaa and Abu Hmeid, who claim the boys were threatened by the Israeli soldiers during their interrogation in an attempt to coerce them into confessing to a crime they did not commit.

“When the boys were finally released, they were in complete shock,” Abu Hmeid said. “It was only after we took them home and they calmed down a bit that they started to tell us what happened.”

“My sons told us that the soldiers kept the five of them crammed up in the Jeep for the whole time they were detained, and continued to threaten and harass them,” Abu Hmeid said.

At one point, the soldiers allegedly told the boys that their families had been arrested, and that if they didn’t confess to trying to steal from the settlers or to damaging their property, the soldiers would “beat them up.”

“They did everything they could to scare the boys and get them to confess,” Abu Hmeid said, “but the boys kept insisting that they were innocent and didn’t do anything.”

He added that the two oldest boys in the group, including his son Jaber, were summoned for another interrogation with Israeli forces on Sunday.

Abu Hmeid told MEE that while none of the boys were physically tortured during the interrogation, the mental toll that the ordeal has had on the children “has done more than enough damage.”

“They are so scared and terrified, and I don’t know what to do to comfort them,” Abu Hmeid said. “As a Palestinian father, this is one of your worst nightmares. With the Israeli occupation, we can’t even protect our own children.”

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***

Community and environmental groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging Kern County’s adoption of an ordinance that would fast-track permitting for oil and gas projects and eliminate future environmental reviews and public participation.

The ordinance adopted Monday by the Kern County Board of Supervisors approved a single environmental impact report to serve as an environmental review for more than 40,000 new oil and gas projects over the coming decades.

“This ordinance is a disaster for public health in Kern County, particularly for low-income communities and Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other communities of color that live next to oil wells and are already harmed daily by fossil fuel pollution,” said Chelsea Tu, senior attorney at the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, which represents the Committee for a Better Arvin, Committee for a Better Shafter, and Comité Progreso de Lamont in the lawsuit. “Kern communities are bringing this lawsuit in order to protect their families because the county has failed to do so.”

This week’s adoption comes a year after a California appeals court struck down a nearly identical ordinance, which the oil industry spent more than $10 million to develop. The court found that Kern County failed to adequately disclose or mitigate significant health and environmental harms from anticipated projects.

The county’s new environmental impact report has few meaningful changes. It still fails to require adequate environmental review and mitigation and doesn’t protect communities from toxic pollution generated by oil and gas extraction.

“We’re suing to protect community members from this blatant disregard of the need for a thorough and honest environmental review,” said Ann Alexander, a senior attorney at Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “Kern County deserves better than a rubberstamped fossil fuel nightmare for years to come.”

Kern County accounts for 80% of all oil and gas production in California and has some of the most polluted air in the country. Numerous scientific studies show a direct link between oil and gas pollution and a wide range of serious health harms, including asthma, cancer, high-risk pregnancies and preterm births. A recent Harvard study found 34,000 premature deaths in California in a single year could be attributed to fossil fuel emissions.

“Kern County’s oil production is some of the dirtiest and most damaging in the world for people’s health and our climate,” said Hollin Kretzmann, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “Adding tens of thousands of wells will trigger more frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves and wildfires and cause more illness and death. Kern County’s fast-track plan is an appalling violation of our state’s bedrock environmental protection and community right-to-know law.”

Low-income communities and Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other communities of color already suffer pollution-related exposure and serious health problems at disproportionate levels, in Kern County and across the nation. Of the Californians who live within a mile of oil and gas wells and also live within areas identified by CalEPA as most burdened by environmental pollution in general, nearly 92% are people of color.

“County leaders have turned their back on Kern, and we’re filing this lawsuit to stand up for our communities, particularly for low-income communities and communities of color who’ve been disproportionally impacted by air pollution for years,” said Elly Benson, a senior attorney at the Sierra Club. “It’s past time to focus on putting communities and climate first to build a safe, healthy future for Kern residents for generations to come.”

The lawsuit was filed in Kern County Superior Court by Committee for a Better Arvin, Committee for a Better Shafter, Comité Progreso de Lamont, NRDC, Sierra Club and the Center.

Earthjustice and Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment are providing legal representation alongside NRDC and the Center.

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***

The Prime Minister and Cabinet have put off on receiving the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccination after reports emerged from Europe of blood clots forming among some recipients and a pending review by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) expected to take one to two weeks.

Adviser to the Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), Honorary Professor Dr. Piyasakol Sakolsatayathorn indicated today that Denmark, Australia and several countries in Europe, which have administered a combined 1 million plus doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have reported the discovery of a side effect in which blood clots form and lead to undesired symptoms. The vaccination has been halted in those countries and prompted Thai physicians to consider the situation.

Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Siriraj Hospital Dr. Prasit Wattanapa elaborated that AstraZeneca has distributed 1 million doses of ABV 5300 to 17 countries in the European Union, which after being administered, were tied to the death of one person in Denmark and several cases of blood clots. He clarified that the outcomes have yet to be directly attributed to the vaccine but safety protocols mandate that it must be suspended for two weeks pending an investigation.

Iceland and Norway have announced similar suspensions of vaccinations. The EMA has however, declared it has not officially called for a halt on use of the vaccine and supported its safety.

Similar pauses have been announced in Austria, Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Latvia. All of the countries received the ABV 5300 vaccine, which Thailand has not.

Head of the Center of Excellence in Clinical Virology at the Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University Dr. Yong Phupaworawan explained today that with a mass vaccination, the chance of discovering an unwanted side effect is possible and should be investigated to see if there are any ties between the vaccination and the symptoms. He confirmed the probe is warranted, as is the halt in the vaccination program, while noting that venous thrombosis is three times more likely in people of African and European descent than in Asians.

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March 12th, 2021 by Global Research News

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***

Dr. Tal Zaks, the chief medical officer at Moderna Inc., explained in a 2017 TED talk how the company’s mRNA vaccine was designed to work.

Over the last 30 years, he said, “we’ve been living this phenomenal digital scientific revolution, and I’m here today to tell you, that we are actually hacking the software of life, and that it’s changing the way we think about prevention and treatment of disease.”

He went on to explain [see video below] that the human body is made up of organs and organs are made up of cells.

“In every cell there’s this thing called messenger RNA or mRNA for short, that transmits the critical information from the DNA in our genes to the protein, which is really the stuff we’re all made out of. This is the critical information that determines what the cell will do. So we think about it as an operating system.

“So if you could change that, if you could introduce a line of code, or change a line of code, it turns out, that has profound implications for everything, from the flu to cancer.”

I reported on Feb. 4 that Moderna describes its new vaccine as “a computer operating system” but I was not aware at that time that Zaks had spoken three years ago about this, totally debunking the establishment media’s lie that mRNA vaccines don’t alter your genetic code.

He could not be more clear when he said “We are actually hacking the software of life.”

Zaks stressed that in 2017 his company was working on a vaccine that would not act like any previous vaccine ever created.

“Imagine if instead of giving [the patient] the protein of a virus, we gave them the instructions on how to make the protein, how the body can make its own vaccine,” he said.

Zaks said it took decades to sequence the human genome, which was accomplished in 2003, “And now we can do it in a week.”

He proceeded to reveal, in 2017, his company’s plans to make individual cancer vaccines, tailored to the needs of individual cancer patients, “because every cancer is different.”

Interestingly, one of the most potentially catastrophic side effects of the mRNA vaccine is its interaction with cancer cells. According to a study at New York City-based Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the mRNA has a tendency to inactivate tumor-suppressing proteins, meaning it can promote the growth of cancer cells.

Both the Moderna and Pfizer injections are experimental mRNA vaccines. The FDA has only granted these injections Emergency Use Authorization [EUA] and they will remain in trials through 2023, yet the government, media and corporations are all promoting them as though they are guaranteed safe.

This systemic deception will, in my opinion, end up being judged in the rear-view mirror of history as one of the most reckless acts of medical treachery ever committed against the human race.

If this so-called vaccine does cause more people to get cancer, think of the possibilities from a purely business point of view.

Based on the predictions of Dr. Zaks, who oversaw the creation of the vaccine now being given to millions of people worldwide, the same Big Pharma companies that could potentially give people cancer with one vaccine could step forward later with another vaccine offering the cure for cancer. If you are the CEO of a mega pharmaceutical who answers to profit-driven Wall Street shareholders, that’s a brilliant strategy!

But is it ethical from a medical point of view? That’s a question nobody is asking.

As I listen to Dr. Zaks lay out the achievements of his company in creating the mRNA vaccine, I cannot help but think of how incredibly arrogant it sounds. That scientists think they can rewrite the genetic code [his words not mine for all you out there who still don’t believe these mRNA vaccines change the genetic code just because some ‘fact checker’ says they don’t], believing they can improve on a person’s God-given genetic makeup is entering dangerous territory. Who’s to say they won’t correct one problem and create something far worse?

Zaks wrapped up his 2017 speech with the following words.

“If you think about what it is we’re trying to do. We’ve taken information and our understanding of that information and how that information is transmitted in a cell, and we’ve taken our understanding of medicine and how to make drugs, and we’re fusing the two. We think of it as information therapy.”

Information therapy. Just like a computer software code.

These scientists truly believe that the human body is nothing more than a machine that can be hacked into and reordered according to some programmer’s instructions.

The same ground-breaking nature of this research that excites some, is what horrifies others.

A person’s genetic makeup is, as Dr. Zak said, “the software of life.”

If this is true, then who should be the ultimate authority over each human being’s genetic software code? If we truly live in a free society, wouldn’t it stand to reason that we would want to have an energetic debate over how to answer that question? Shouldn’t it be the number-one issue being debated in Congress and the media? Instead, nobody is allowed to even ask these questions without being threatened, censored, rebuked, deplatformed. Members of the corporate media who dare broach the question get fired.

Contrary to what some scientists believe, we are not machines. We are human beings with bodies, souls and free wills. Anyone who tries to mandate the acceptance of an experimental gene-altering treatment is going against the international Nuremberg Codes, which require informed consent of any experimental treatment.

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Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

The following text is in part based on the author’s E-Book

The 2020 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d’État and the “Great Reset”

***

March 11, 2020 will stand out in the history of mankind. It’s the Day of the Lockdown applied Worldwide.

Following the “official” declaration of the corona Pandemic by the Director General of the WHO, instructions were transmitted to 193 member states on the United Nations.  

The global lockdown started on March 11, 2020. And simultaneously the lives of millions of people in all major regions of the World were in jeopardy.  

The lockdown required the closing down of national economies as a means to resolving a public health crisis. 

We are at the crossroads of one of the most serious crises in World history.

We are living history, yet our understanding of the sequence of events since the outset of this crisis in January 2020 has been blurred. 

Worldwide, people were misled both by their governments and the media as to the causes and devastating consequences of the Covid-19 “pandemic”.

The unspoken truth is that the novel coronavirus provided a pretext and a justification to powerful financial interests and corrupt politicians to precipitate the entire World into a spiral of mass unemployment, bankruptcy, extreme poverty and despair.

In one fell swoop, the lives of Planet Earth’s 7.8 billion people with its diverse cultures, histories and social identities are affected.

All of whom share common values with families, children and friends, living in diverse communities in the planet’s towns, villages and cities.

All of whom cherish humanity and the “value of life” including civil rights, social justice, the right to employment, education, health, culture, music, artistic creation.

And on March 11, 2020, those rights of “All Humanity” were denied. The lockdown requiring the closing down of the global economy was presented to the broader public, nationally and internationally, as a means to “combating the Virus”.

If the public had been informed that Covid-19 is “similar to seasonal Influenza”, the fear campaign would have fallen flat…

***

The Pandemic was officially launched by the WHO on March 11, 2020 leading to the Lockdown and closure of the national economies of 190 (out of 193) countries, member states of the United Nations. The instructions came from above, from Wall Street, the World Economic Forum (WEF), the billionaire foundations.

An unelected “public-private partnership” under the auspices of the World Economic Forum (WEF), had come to the rescue of  Planet Earth’s 7.8 billion people. The closure of the global economy was presented as a means to “killing the virus”.

Destabilizing the economy of Planet Earth cannot constitute a “solution” to combating the virus. But that was the imposed “solution” which they want us to believe in.

And that is what they are doing.

It’s the destruction of people’s  lives. It is the destabilization of civil society.

The Lies were sustained by a massive media disinformation campaign. 24/7, Incessant and Repetitive “Covid alerts” for the last eleven months.

… It is a process of social engineering.

What they want is to hike up the numbers so as to justify the Lockdown.

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People are frightened and puzzled. “Why would they do this?”

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Empty schools, Empty airports, bankrupt grocery stores.   The entire urban services economy is in crisis. Shops, bars and restaurants are driven into bankruptcy. International travel and holidays are suspended.

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Video

click the lower right corner to access full-screen

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Streets are empty. In several countries, bars and restaurants are required to take names and contact information to support effective contact tracing if necessary
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At the same time, starting in March 2020, the Worldwide closure of national economies was accompanied by “a Cultural Lockdown” affecting music and artistic events: Empty museums, no more operas, no more symphonies, concert halls are closed down Worldwide.
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So-called digital stay home platforms were put forth.
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In the US, museums announced closure on March 12, starting with the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. In France, the Louvre, Versailles and the Eiffel Tower were closed down on March 13th.
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Free Speech is Being Suppressed 
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Analysis of what is happening to people Worldwide is the object of routine censorship.

The lockdown narrative is supported by media disinformation, online censorship, social engineering and the fear campaign.

Medical doctors who question the official narrative are threatened. They loose their jobs. Their careers are destroyed. Those who oppose the government lockdown are categorized as “anti-social psychopaths”. 

“What are these times when a conversation about trees is almost a crime” said Bertolt Brecht (three months before the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939)

In colleges and universities, the teaching staff is pressured to conform and endorse the official covid narrative. Questioning the legitimacy of the lockdown  in online “classrooms” could lead to dismissal.

Several medical doctors who oppose the COVID consensus or the vaccine have been arrested.

Timeline 

As we recall, the March 11, 2020 pandemic was preceded by a WHO Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on January 30th, 2020 at a time when there were there were only 86 cases outside China out of a total population of 6.4 billion.

On the following day, President Trump declared a freeze in air travel with China, which paved the way for the outright freeze of international air transport, not to mention the collapse of the tourist industry.

What Happened in Early March 2020. What Was the Justification for The Lockdown?

The pandemic was almost over in China. And outside China, the number of positive cases was ridiculously low.

In China, in early March the total number of  “confirmed infected cases” was 30,448 out of a population of 1.4 billion people. 

Outside China (March 5, 2020) confirmed by the WHO Director General Tedros there were 2055 cases reported in 33 countries. Around 80% of those cases were from just three countries (South Korea, Iran, Italy).

March 7, 2020:  The number of “confirmed cases” (infected and recovered) in the US was  of the order of 430, rising to about 600 (March 8).

Compare that to the figures pertaining to the Influenza B Virus: The CDC estimated for 2019-2020 “at least 15 million virus flu illnesses… 140,000 hospitalizations and 8,200 deaths. (The Hill)

March 11, 2020: The Historic Covid-19 Lockdown

On March 11, The number of confirmed cases outside China (6.4 billion population) was of the order of  44279 and 1440 deaths (figures recorded by the WHO for March 11, (on March 12) (see table right).

In the US, recorded on March 11, 2020, there were according to John Hopkins: 1,335 “cases” and 29 deaths (“presumptive” plus PCR confirmed)

Immediately following the March 11, 2020 WHO announcement, the fear campaign went into high gear.

Stock markets crashed worldwide. On the following morning, the Dow (DJIA) plummeted by 9.99%  (A decline of 2,352.60 to close at 21,200.62) Black Thursday, March 12, 2020 was “the Dow’s worst day” since 1987. Financial fraud was the trigger. A massive transfer of financial wealth had taken place in favor of America’s billionaires.

“Stay at Home” confinement instructions were transmitted to 193 member states of the United Nations.

Was this far-reaching decision justified as a means to combating the Virus?

The decision was based on a flawed lockdown model designed by Imperial College London.

Unprecedented in history, applied almost simultaneously in a large number of countries, entire sectors of the World economy were destabilized. Small and medium sized enterprises were driven into bankruptcy. Unemployment and poverty are rampant.

In several developing countries, famines have erupted. The social impacts of these measures are devastating.  The health impacts (mortality, morbidity) of these measures including the destabilization of the system of national health care (in numerous countries) far surpass those attributed to Covid-19.

Sounds absurd. Closing down the real economy of Planet Earth is not the “solution” but rather the “cause” of a process of Worldwide destabilization and impoverishment, which in turn has a direct impact on patterns of morbidity and mortality. In this regard, what must be addressed is the causal relationship between economic variables (i.e purchasing power) and the state of health of the population.
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The Lockdown and the Process of Engineered Bankruptcy

The lockdown instructions transmitted to national governments have been conducive to the destabilization of  “the national economic landscape”, which consists of an entire economic and social structureThe “stay at home” lockdown prevents people from going to work.

From one day to the next, it creates mass unemployment (Worldwide). In turn, the lockdown is coupled with the closure of entire sectors of the national economy.

In turn, several hundred million workers Worldwide lose their jobs and their earnings. While national governments have set up various “social safety nets” for the unemployed, the payment of wages and salaries by the employer is disrupted which in turn leads to a dramatic collapse of  purchasing power.

The Road Ahead

More than 7 billion people Worldwide are directly or indirectly affected by the corona crisis.

What is required is the development of a broad based grassroots network which confronts both the architects of this crisis as well as the  governments involved in carrying out the lockdown and closure of economic activity as a means to combating “V the Virus”.

The legitimacy of politicians and their powerful corporate sponsors must be questioned, including the police state measures adopted to enforce the various policies. (Face masks, social distancing, public gatherings, etc. )

This network would be established (nationally and internationally) at all levels of society, in towns and villages, work places, parishes. Trade unions, farmers organizations, professional associations, business associations, student unions, veterans associations, church groups would be called upon to integrate this movement.

***

The above text is in part based on the author’s E-Book which consists of 10 chapters.

The  E-Book provides detailed analysis of the public health crisis as well as the underlying social and economic impacts.

The 2020 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d’État and the “Great Reset”

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Urgent Open Letter from Doctors and Scientists to the European Medicines Agency regarding COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Concerns

By Doctors for COVID Ethics, March 11 2021

We note that a wide range of side effects is being reported following vaccination of previously healthy younger individuals with the gene-based COVID-19 vaccines. Moreover, there have been numerous media reports from around the world of care homes being struck by COVID-19 within days of vaccination of residents.

Digital Health Pass: IBM and Moderna Hook Up to Capitalize on COVID Reset

By Raul Diego, March 11 2021

Using what have already become clichéd industry buzzwords like “transparency,” “trust,” and even “privacy,” IBM’s Digital Health Pass marketing describes the mass tracking app as a “smart way to return to society” that allows people to “return to the activities and things they love.”

More Countries Adopt Vaccine Passports to ‘Boost Tourism’

By Zero Hedge, March 11 2021

Airlines in the US are already in the process of leveraging apps and smartphones to allow travelers to offer proof that they have been vaccinated, or recently tested negative for COVID-19, and they’re not alone.

Denmark Suspends Use of AstraZeneca COVID Vaccine. “Serious Cases of Blood Clots”

By DW, March 11 2021

The Danish Health Authority on Thursday halted the use of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for 14 days. It follows reports of “serious cases of blood clots among vaccinated people,” a statement read.

US Nuclear Testing and Its Devastating Impacts: After 75 Years, It’s Time to Clean Bikini

By Hart Rapaport and Ivana Nikolić Hughes, March 11 2021

The Marshall Islands–and Bikini specifically–ended up the site of most of the tests of US hydrogen bombs, weapons up to a thousand times more powerful than atomic bombs used in attacks on Japan in 1945.

Fukushima: Nuclear War without a War

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, March 10 2021

Unimaginable” levels of radiation still prevail. In the words of Dr. Helen Caldicott, “one millionth of a gram of plutonium, if inhaled can cause cancer”. If not duly addressed, the continued dumping of highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean constitutes a potential trigger to a process of global radioactive contamination.

“The Real Nuclear Danger”: What Is Israel Building at Its Dimona Nuclear Site?

By Richard Silverstein, March 11 2021

An international NGO devoted to halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons recently released satellite imagery showing that Israel, for the first time in decades, was engaged in new construction at its Dimona nuclear site.

Iraq in the American Imagination Today

By Barbara Nimri Aziz, March 11 2021

If that ancient place produced the world’s earliest known written novel, the first inscribed legal code, those items don’t fit the allotted page entry. In the imagination of Americans, the name Iraq is not really a country or a desert, not a democracy or a multi-ethnic nation, not a theater-of-war or a cemetery of past patriots.

Garneau and Blinken Meet to Subvert Haitian Democracy

By Yves Engler, March 11 2021

Since Jovenel Moïse extended his mandate extra-constitutionally on February 7 there has been a wave of criticism against US and Canadian policy in Haiti. The country’s heterogenous opposition have vociferously condemned the foreign powers.

The Struggle For Civil Rights: Black Women and the Fight for Access to Public Transportation

By Abayomi Azikiwe, March 11 2021

The antecedents for the Montgomery Bus Boycott can be traced back as far as July 1854, when African American teacher and musician, Elizabeth Jennings, attempted to board a horse-driven streetcar in New York City. Jennings, only 24 at the time, was told she could not ride on the car because she was Black.

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Doctors for Covid Ethics

To:

Emer Cooke, Executive Director, European Medicines Agency, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

28 February 2021

Dear Sirs/Mesdames,

FOR THE URGENT PERSONAL ATTENTION OF: EMER COOKE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE EUROPEAN MEDICINES AGENCY

As physicians and scientists, we are supportive in principle of the use of new medical interventions which are appropriately developed and deployed, having obtained informed consent from the patient. This stance encompasses vaccines in the same way as therapeutics.

We note that a wide range of side effects is being reported following vaccination of previously healthy younger individuals with the gene-based COVID-19 vaccines. Moreover, there have been numerous media reports from around the world of care homes being struck by COVID-19 within days of vaccination of residents. While we recognise that these occurrences might, every one of them, have been unfortunate coincidences, we are concerned that there has been and there continues to be inadequate scrutiny of the possible causes of illness or death under these circumstances, and especially so in the absence of post-mortems examinations.

In particular, we question whether cardinal issues regarding the safety of the vaccines were adequately addressed prior to their approval by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

As a matter of great urgency, we herewith request that the EMA provide us with responses to the following issues:

1. Following intramuscular injection, it must be expected that the gene-based vaccines will reach the bloodstream and disseminate throughout the body [1]. We request evidence that this possibility was excluded in pre-clinical animal models with all three vaccines prior to their approval for use in humans by the EMA.

2. If such evidence is not available, it must be expected that the vaccines will remain entrapped in the circulation and be taken up by endothelial cells. There is reason to assume that this will happen particularly at sites of slow blood flow, i.e. in small vessels and capillaries [2]. We request evidence that this probability was excluded in pre-clinical animal models with all three vaccines prior to their approval for use in humans by the EMA.

3. If such evidence is not available, it must be expected that during expression of the vaccines’ nucleic acids, peptides derived from the spike protein will be presented via the MHC I — pathway at the luminal surface of the cells. Many healthy individuals have CD8-lymphocytes that recognize such peptides, which may be due to prior COVID infection, but also to cross-reactions with other types of Coronavirus [3; 4] [5]. We must assume that these lymphocytes will mount an attack on the respective cells. We request evidence that this probability was excluded in pre-clinical animal models with all three vaccines prior to their approval for use in humans by the EMA.

4. If such evidence is not available, it must be expected that endothelial damage with subsequent triggering of blood coagulation via platelet activation will ensue at countless sites throughout the body. We request evidence that this probability was excluded in pre-clinical animal models with all three vaccines prior to their approval for use in humans by the EMA.

5. If such evidence is not available, it must be expected that this will lead to a drop in platelet counts, appearance of D-dimers in the blood, and to myriad ischaemic lesions throughout the body including in the brain, spinal cord and heart. Bleeding disorders might occur in the wake of this novel type of DIC-syndrome including, amongst other possibilities, profuse bleedings and haemorrhagic stroke. We request evidence that all these possibilities were excluded in pre-clinical animal models with all three vaccines prior to their approval for use in humans by the EMA.

6. The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binds to the ACE2 receptor on platelets, which results in their activation [6]. Thrombocytopenia has been reported in severe cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection [7]. Thrombocytopenia has also been reported in vaccinated individuals [8]. We request evidence that the potential danger of platelet activation that would also lead to disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) was excluded with all three vaccines prior to their approval for use in humans by the EMA.

7. The sweeping across the globe of SARS-CoV-2 created a pandemic of illness associated with many deaths. However, by the time of consideration for approval of the vaccines, the health systems of most countries were no longer under imminent threat of being overwhelmed because a growing proportion of the world had already been infected and the worst of the pandemic had already abated. Consequently, we demand conclusive evidence that an actual emergency existed at the time of the EMA granting Conditional Marketing Authorisation to the manufacturers of all three vaccines, to justify their approval for use in humans by the EMA, purportedly because of such an emergency.

Should all such evidence not be available, we demand that approval for use of the gene-based vaccines be withdrawn until all the above issues have been properly addressed by the exercise of due diligence by the EMA.

There are serious concerns, including but not confined to those outlined above, that the approval of the COVID-19 vaccines by the EMA was premature and reckless, and that the administration of the vaccines constituted and still does constitute “human experimentation”, which was and still is in violation of the Nuremberg Code.

In view of the urgency of the situation, we request that you reply to this email within seven days and address all our concerns substantively. Should you choose not to comply with this reasonable request, we will make this letter public.

This email is copied to:

Charles Michel, President of the Council of Europe

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission.

Doctors and scientists can sign the open letter by emailing their name, qualifications, areas of expertise, country and any affiliations they would like to cite, to [email protected] faithfully,

***

Professsor Sucharit Bhakdi MD, Professor Emeritus of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Former Chair, Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (Medical Doctor and Scientist) (Germany and Thailand)

Dr Marco Chiesa MD FRCPsych, Consultant Psychiatrist and Visiting Professor, University College London (Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom and Italy)

Dr C Stephen Frost BSc MBChB Specialist in Diagnostic Radiology, Stockholm, Sweden (Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom and Sweden)

Dr Margareta Griesz-Brisson MD PhD, Consultant Neurologist and Neurophysiologist (studied Medicine in Freiburg, Germany, speciality training for Neurology at New York University, Fellowship in Neurophysiology at Mount Sinai Medical Centre, New York City; PhD in Pharmacology with special interest in chronic low level neurotoxicology and effects of environmental factors on brain health), Medical Director, The London Neurology and Pain Clinic (Medical Doctor and Scientist) (Germany and United Kingdom)

Professor Martin Haditsch MD PhD, Specialist (Austria) in Hygiene and Microbiology, Specialist (Germany) in Microbiology, Virology, Epidemiology/Infectious Diseases, Specialist (Austria) in Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine, Medical Director, TravelMedCenter, Leonding, Austria, Medical Director, Labor Hannover MVZ GmbH (Medical Doctor and Scientist) (Austria and Germany)

Professor Stefan Hockertz, Professor of Toxicology and Pharmacologym, European registered Toxicologist, Specialist in Immunology and Immunotoxicology, CEO tpi consult GmbH. (Scientist) (Germany)

Dr Lissa Johnson, BSc BA(Media) MPsych(Clin) PhD, Clinical Psychologist and Behavioural Psychologist, Expertise in the social psychology of torture, atrocity, collective violence and fear propaganda, Former member Australian Psychological Society Public Interest Advisory Group (Clinical Psychologist and Behavioural Scientist) (Australia)

Professor Ulrike Kämmerer PhD, Associate Professor of Experimental Reproductive Immunology and Tumor Biology at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University Hospital of Würzburg, Germany, Trained molecular virologist (Diploma, PhD-Thesis) and Immunologist (Habilitation), Remains engaged in active laboratory research (Molecular Biology, Cell Biology (Scientist) (Germany)

Associate Professor Michael Palmer MD, Department of Chemistry (studied Medicine and Medical Microbiology in Germany, has taught Biochemistry since 2001 in present university in Canada; focus on Pharmacology, metabolism, biological membranes, computer programming; experimental research focus on bacterial toxins and antibiotics (Daptomycin); has written a textbook on Biochemical Pharmacology, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada (Medical Doctor and Scientist) (Canada and Germany)

Professor Karina Reiss PhD, Professor of Biochemistry, Christian Albrecht University of Kiel, Expertise in Cell Biology, Biochemistry (Scientist) (Germany)

Professor Andreas Sönnichsen MD, Professor of General Practice and Family Medicine, Department of General Practice and Family Medicine, Center of Public Health, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna (Medical Doctor) (Austria)

Dr Michael Yeadon BSc (Joint Honours in Biochemistry and Toxicology) PhD (Pharmacology), Formerly Vice President & Chief Scientific Officer Allergy & Respiratory, Pfizer Global R&D; Co-founder & CEO, Ziarco Pharma Ltd.; Independent Consultant (Scientist) (United Kingdom)

***

References

[1] Hassett, K. J.; Benenato, K. E.; Jacquinet, E.; Lee, A.; Woods, A.; Yuzhakov, O.; Himansu, S.; Deterling, J.; Geilich, B. M.; Ketova, T.; Mihai, C.; Lynn, A.; McFadyen, I.; Moore, M. J.; Senn, J. J.; Stanton, M. G.; Almarsson, Ö.; Ciaramella, G. and Brito, L. A.(2019).Optimization of Lipid Nanoparticles for Intramuscular Administration of mRNA Vaccines, Molecular therapy. Nucleic acids 15 : 1–11.

[2] Chen, Y. Y.; Syed, A. M.; MacMillan, P.; Rocheleau, J. V. and Chan, W. C. W.(2020). Flow Rate Affects Nanoparticle Uptake into Endothelial Cells, Advanced materials 32 : 1906274.

[3] Grifoni, A.; Weiskopf, D.; Ramirez, S. I.; Mateus, J.; Dan, J. M.; Moderbacher, C. R.; Rawlings, S. A.; Sutherland, A.; Premkumar, L.; Jadi, R. S. and et al.(2020). Targets of T Cell Responses to SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus in Humans with COVID-19 Disease and Unexposed Individuals, Cell 181 : 1489–1501.e15.

[4] Nelde, A.; Bilich, T.; Heitmann, J. S.; Maringer, Y.; Salih, H. R.; Roerden, M.; Lübke, M.; Bauer, J.; Rieth, J.; Wacker, M.; Peter, A.; Hörber, S.; Traenkle, B.; Kaiser, P. D.; Rothbauer, U.; Becker, M.; Junker, D.; Krause, G.; Strengert, M.; Schneiderhan-Marra, N.; Templin, M. F.; Joos, T. O.; Kowalewski, D. J.; Stos-Zweifel, V.; Fehr, M.; Rabsteyn, A.; Mirakaj, V.; Karbach, J.; Jäger, E.; Graf, M.; Gruber, L.-C.; Rachfalski, D.; Preuß, B.; Hagelstein, I.; Märklin, M.; Bakchoul, T.; Gouttefangeas, C.; Kohlbacher, O.; Klein, R.; Stevanović, S.; Rammensee, H.-G. and Walz, J. S.(2020). SARS-CoV-2-derived peptides define heterologous and COVID-19-induced T cell recognition, Nature immunology.

[5] Sekine, T.; Perez-Potti, A.; Rivera-Ballesteros, O.; Strålin, K.; Gorin, J.-B.; Olsson, A.; Llewellyn-Lacey, S.; Kamal, H.; Bogdanovic, G.; Muschiol, S. and et al.(2020). Robust T Cell Immunity in Convalescent Individuals with Asymptomatic or Mild COVID-19, Cell 183 : 158–168.e14.

[6] Zhang, S.; Liu, Y.; Wang, X.; Yang, L.; Li, H.; Wang, Y.; Liu, M.; Zhao, X.; Xie, Y.; Yang, Y.; Zhang, S.; Fan, Z.; Dong, J.; Yuan, Z.; Ding, Z.; Zhang, Y. and Hu, L.(2020). SARS-CoV-2 binds platelet ACE2 to enhance thrombosis in COVID-19, Journal of hematology & oncology 13 : 120.

[7] Lippi, G.; Plebani, M. and Henry, B. M.(2020).Thrombocytopenia is associated with severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections: A meta-analysis, Clin. Chim. Acta 506 : 145–148.

[8] Grady, D. (2021). A Few Covid Vaccine Recipients Developed a Rare Blood Disorder, The New York Times, Feb. 8, 2021.

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***

Since seasonal flu was renamed covid early last year, the largest-scale, US state-sponsored, war on public health has been ongoing with destructive force.

Casualties are increasing exponentially, the true toll suppressed, the tip of the iceberg alone reported.

What US and UK public health authorities revealed establishment media suppressed — as part of their complicity with dark forces and Pharma, pushing what harms health, not the other way around.

What’s been going on since mass-jabbing for covid began in Europe, then the US, and elsewhere last December, unprecedented harm to public health is just beginning.

No end to it is planned by US-led Western dark forces, intending forever mass-jabbing with booster shots for new annual strains.

The more taken, the greater the harm to growing numbers of people.

Unwittingly playing Russian roulette with their health, they’ve been conned to believe that what doesn’t protect and risks irreparable harm to health is beneficial.

What’s going on with no end of it in prospect is arguably the most diabolical con game in human history — countless millions likely to be irreparably harmed, the body count likely to continue increasing exponentially.

According to Technocracy News on March 9, Moderna’s “top scientist,” Dr. Tal Zaks, said the firm’s mRNA technology in use for covid mass-jabbing is “hacking the software of life.”

He revealed the above on a 2017 talk show, saying that for over the past 30 years:

“(W)e’ve been living this phenomenal digital scientific revolution, and I’m here today to tell you, that we are actually hacking the software of life, and that it’s changing the way we think about prevention and treatment of disease,” adding:

“In every cell there’s this thing called messenger RNA or mRNA for short, that transmits the critical information from the DNA in our genes to the protein, which is really the stuff we’re all made out of.”

“This is the critical information that determines what the cell will do.”

“So we think about it as an operating system” — that irreversibly alters human DNA with unknown, potentially devastating consequences.

“So if you could change that, if you could introduce a line of code, or change a line of code, it turns out, that has profound implications for everything, from the flu to cancer.”

mRNA technology used by the company and Pfizer for covid mass-jabbing is extremely hazardous to human health.

It should be banned, not permitted for use on anyone.

In 2017, Moderna abandoned what it now calls “gene (altering) therapy technology” because tests caused large numbers of adverse effects.

The experimental, inadequately tested, high-risk technology is unapproved by the FDA because of hazards it poses.

The elderly with weakened immune systems are especially vulnerable to harm — that for growing numbers proved lethal.

The technology’s nanoparticle-based delivery system is unapproved because tests showed large numbers of adverse effects.

It contains hazardous polyethylene glycol (PEG) to deliver the DNA-altering drug to human cells.

Moderna and Pfizer use the same technology and nanoparticle delivery system.

Moderna earlier admitted that its lipid nanoparticles (LNP) risks “significant adverse events,” adding:

“No mRNA drug has been approved in this new potential category of medicines, and may never be approved…”

“(T)here can be no assurance that (it) will not have undesired effects.”

Technocracy News cited a Sloan Kettering Cancer Center study, saying mRNA technology may promote growth of cancer cells.

There’s nothing remotely safe and effective of what’s being widely promoted by the greatest-ever/media supported mass deception campaign in modern memory.

Technocracy News stressed that what’s deceptively going on is “one of the most reckless acts of medical treachery ever committed against the human race.”

A Final Comment

None of the above would get out of the starting gate without establishment media complicity.

In the mid-1970s, the US Senate’s Church Committee revealed that the CIA uses domestic and foreign media to aid its diabolical agenda.

They’re bribed and otherwise enlisted to report fake news over the real thing — state-approved propaganda of what’s vital for everyone to know.

The above applies to domestic and geopolitical issues — state-approved talking points over truth-telling journalism.

They’re featured daily in the US and West — in print, on television, even on the silver screen by Hollywood.

We’re repeatedly and consistently lied to by US dark forces and complicit media on virtually all major issues mattering most — notably what affects our health, well-being and fundamental rights.

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

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

“How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/

“Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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***

March 2021 began with a mix indiscriminate air strikes by Saudi Arabia, of incredible Houthi activity, and calls for them to halt their attacks, which testifies to their efficacy.

This new round of hostilities is a kind of common occurrence in the Middle East, as the standoff between Iran and the U.S. and its allies appears to be ramping up.

Starting from March 2nd, Ansar Allah, or as they are more colloquially known – the Houthis have been launching steadily increasing waves of suicides drones and missiles on various locations in eastern and southern Saudi Arabia.

It all began with a single Qasef 2K drone being used to target the Abha Airport. On the very next day, to claim that no damage had been done, Riyadh released a video showing that the drone had been intercepted.

There was a short lull in activity, with the intensity of attacks increasing again on March 5th. Several attacks happened all in the same day. Initially, the Houthis targeted the Abha Airport and the King Khalid Airbase with 3 Sammad-3 drones and a Qasef 2k drone. Then, again, Ansar Allah targeted the King Khalid Airbase with 5 Qasef 2k drones.

On the next day the attacks continued, with the Houthis targeting the King Khalid Airbase with a Sammad-3 drone.

On March 7th, the Houthis went even further and targeted the Jeddah Airport with several drones.

Later on the same day, Houthi spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Sari said that a total of 14 suicide drones and six missiles were used in the operation codenamed “Deterrent Balance 6.”

Ten Samad-3 suicide drones and a Zulfiqar ballistic missile were launched at one of Saudi Arabia’s major oil ports, Ras Tanura, on the Persian Gulf.

The Houthis also launched 4 Qasef-2K suicide drones and six Badir artillery rockets at targets in the southern Saudi provinces of ‘Asir and Jizan.

The Saudi-led coalition announced the interception of only two missiles, meaning that the Houthis could consider the operation as a success.

This level of activity from the Houthis has been unseen in recent months, and the group appears to be making progress. In response, Saudi Arabia also began carrying out airstrikes with an intensity that has been absent for a while.

Saudi-led coalition warplanes carried out a series of powerful airstrikes on the Yemeni capital, of Sanaa, and other areas held by the Houthis. Despite the attempt at a Saudi counter-offensive, the Houthis seem undeterred and the attacks are ramping up.

Riyadh, a typical US ally, and an enemy of the Iran-led Axis of Resistance is struggling in the fight, and Houthi raids are likely to increase in the upcoming days and weeks.

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The Danish Health Authority on Thursday halted the use of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for 14 days.

It follows reports of “serious cases of blood clots among vaccinated people,” a statement read.

The Danish Health Authority stopped short of saying there was a direct link between the vaccine and the blood clots, “at the time being.”

Shortly after the announcement, Iceland followed suit.

Danish, EU authorities launch an investigation

The Danish Medicines Agency said it had launched an investigation into the vaccine.

The probe is being carried out by corresponding agencies in other EU-countries as well as the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

The EMA is in charge of the evaluation and supervision of medicinal products in the EU.

“Both we and the Danish Medicines Agency have to respond to reports of possible serious side-effects, both from Denmark and other European countries,” the director of the Danish Health Authority, Soren Brostrom, said in a statement.

Read Complete Article on Deutsche Welle

 

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The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) Solidarity Network, made up of allied organizations and individuals, demands the North Atlantic Treaty Organization end its imperialist endeavor in Afghanistan and calls on the United States to abide by the 2020 U.S.-Taliban agreement by exiting Afghanistan by May 1.

The BAP Solidarity Network encourages anti-imperialist, anti-war people and organizations to sign a petition to demand the Biden administration exit Afghanistan. It also has developed a template to help the U.S. public write letters to the editors of news organizations to demand an end to the U.S. intervention.

The BAP Solidarity Network has uncovered through its research that although 2,500 U.S. troops occupy Afghanistan, 11,000 NATO troops representing 36 countries are in the war-riddled country. At a December 16, 2020 meeting, NATO allies agreed to a $1.94 billion 2021 military budget and a $312.5 million 2021 civil budget—all for its Afghanistan operations.

Tod Wolters, commander of the U.S. European Command—one of 11 global command structures the United States uses to dominate every inch of the world—also is NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe. He said, “Everything we do is about generating peace. We compete to win… and if deterrence fails, we’re prepared to respond to aggression, primarily through NATO.” That indicates NATO does not merely advise or train Afghan troops.

Today, the U.S. European Command and NATO, along with the Afghan Forces they finance, are shifting their objectives from the so-called anti-terrorist campaign to “peace building in Afghanistan.”

“The BAP Solidarity Network understands this is only a cover for the real objectives, namely fighting the New Cold War against Russia, China and other countries not aligned with the U.S.-European imperialist consensus,” says Zach Kerner, member of the BAP Solidarity Network.

While increasingly under threat of a global war, the people of Afghanistan continue suffering the immediate brunt of imperialist and capitalist interests in the region. To date, the U.S. empire and its European allies are complicit in the deaths of over 100,000 Afghan adults and children, leaving thousands more injured or permanently disabled. Two decades of dropping 50,000 bombs on a country the size of Texas has left Afghanistan with catastrophic levels of poverty, an economy in shambles, and health care workers struggling with the added burden of the pandemic. Nearly 3 million Afghans refugees have fled their country to escape the violence, making Afghanistan one of the world’s biggest sources of refugees, and over 2 million Afghans have been internally displaced. Two decades of war has cost the U.S. public more than $1 trillion.

Within days of taking office, the Biden administration signaled it would not abide by the U.S.-Taliban agreement, citing the importance of supporting a “stable, sovereign, democratic, and secure future for Afghanistan.”

“This is the same language we hear whenever the United States and NATO conspire to destabilize foreign countries hostile to U.S. and European capital,” says Danny Haiphong, co-coordinator of the BAP Solidarity Network. “But we condemn the threat of the New Cold War and the continued war and occupation of Afghanistan, as we condemn the use of state violence and militarism against poor and working-class people of all nations. That is why we demand the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO forces as well as the financing of the war machine in Afghanistan and the region.”

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Featured image: Then-Vice President Joe Biden during a tour of the largest military training facility in Afghanistan in 2011. (Photo by Chief Petty Officer Brian Brannon/public domain)

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The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier and its Carrier Strike Group have entered the Mediterranean Sea.

This makes it, currently, the closest aircraft carrier to the Middle East. It has been quite a while since the US hasn’t had one of its super warships deployed in or near the Persian Gulf.

Starting in the spring of 2019, the U.S. Navy has been publicly ordered to keep a near-constant presence in the region, as if this were something new.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced that a global posture review is taking place, and it would be reconsidered whether a carrier was even needed in the region. Still, the Mediterranean Sea is quite nearby, and the removal of the Carrier Strike Group (CSG) from the Persian Gulf was a political move.

It’s Lloyd Austin’s dream to have a CSG in every hotspot in the world, but resources don’t allow for that.

Still, the US has the amphibious warship USS Makin Island (LHD-8) in the Persian Gulf with a detachment of F-35B fighter jets, so it still has a hefty presence. Further, it is without a doubt possible for the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and its CSG to operate without issue in the Middle East, be it Syria, Iraq or elsewhere, from its current place of deployment.

In Syria itself, as the primary US competitor, alongside Iran, Russian forces are preparing to set up a permanent military base near the city of Palmyra in the Badia Desert. This is not yet confirmed, but according to satellite photos it has a helipad as a runway.

This base is likely planned to support the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) further in their push against both ISIS and Turkish proxies.

On March 9th, the SAA carried out heavy shelling on the positions of Turkish proxies in the village of Jabal Al-Zawiya, in southern Idlib.

Separately, Pro-Turkey opposition factions reportedly thwarted an attempt by the SAA to advance on the Qalaat front in the northern countryside of Latakia. Attacks are frequently repelled in Twitter posts, but nowhere else, demonstrating that the propaganda wing of the Turkish proxies is quite active.

In the days leading up to this, the SAA has been preparing for a large push in the province of Aleppo.

This is likely an attempt to form a uniform front, which can exert equal pressure along the frontline and thin the enemy’s forces to provide opportunity for a breach.

Turkey and its proxies are sure to offer heavy resistance to any advance by the SAA, but so far it appears that this may not be enough.

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Using what have already become clichéd industry buzzwords like “transparency,” “trust,” and even “privacy,” IBM’s Digital Health Pass marketing describes the mass tracking app as a “smart way to return to society” that allows people to “return to the activities and things they love.”

IBM is partnering with Covid-19 mRNA vaccine maker Moderna to track vaccine administration in real time through its various blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, and hybrid cloud services. According to a company press release, the collaboration will “focus on exploring the utility of IBM capabilities in the U.S.,” such as a recently unveiled pilot program for a Covid-19 Digital Health Pass in the State of New York, which effectively deputizes private businesses to enforce government-imposed Covid-19 regulations.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the initiative, billed as the “Excelsior Pass,”  during his 2021 State of the State Address in January and the program’s initial phase was tested at the Barclays Center during an NBA game, followed by another test at Madison Square Garden for an NHL game on March 2.

According to the state’s official website, the trial runs were designed to maximize “return on investment and saving development time” before submitting the “wallet app” to the Google and Apple app stores.

“The Excelsior Pass will play a critical role in getting information to venues and sites in a secure and streamlined way,” said Cuomo, who in February rolled out the state’s reopening guidelines for sports and entertainment venues, which would pave the way “to fast-track the reopening of these businesses and getting us one step closer to reaching a new normal (emphasis added).”

New York vaccine pass

A promotional image showing the Excelsior Pass

Built on IBM’s Digital Health Pass technology, the QR code-based health data tracking app is only one of multiple blockchain ledger applications the company will leverage as part of its partnership with Moderna. Others include their Blockchain Transparent Supply and Food Trust services, which use the open-source Hyperledger technology to share supply-chain and food sourcing “credibility” data respectively with enterprise customers.

IBM’s Blockchain World Wire cross-border payment processing service rounds out the blockchain ecosystem that will serve to “enhance” supply chain visibility and “real-time” vaccine management and administration.

Transparent coercion

Using what have already become clichéd industry buzzwords like “transparency,” “trust,” and even “privacy,” IBM’s Digital Health Pass marketing literature describes the mass tracking app as a “smart way to return to society” that allows people to “return to the activities and things they love.”

Still in the “voluntary” stages of use, according to IBM’s Steve LaFleche, the Digital Health Pass and similar mobile health verification apps, like CommonPass, cease to be so once government guidelines and regulations force the private sector to enforce their implementation, as in the case of New York’s reopening rules for stadiums, theaters and other venues.

In addition to the already widely-enforced capacity limits, social distancing and mandated facial coverings, Cuomo’s guidelines for venue operation now include the requirement that “all staff and spectators receive a negative COVID-19 PCR test within 72 hours of the event,” as well as the collection of contact information of everyone in attendance in order to “inform contact tracing efforts.”

IBM’s partnership with Moderna allows many of these requirements to be carried out unobtrusively and with minimal fuss for the general population, who are by now used to interfacing with the world on their smartphones. As LaFleche writes, the app “can interoperate easily with other solutions so that people won’t have to rely on multiple apps when going about their daily lives.”

Tethered to the blockchain

The development of these health-tracking, blockchain-based technologies as part of a broader redesign of supply chain and capital organization structures — often referred to as the “new normal” or the “Great Reset — has been in the works since at least 2016. It began with the “Use of Blockchain in Health IT and Health-related Research Challenge,” co-hosted by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where IBM submitted its white paper, “Blockchain: The Chain of Trust and its Potential to Transform Healthcare – Our Point of View.”

Since April 2020, these efforts have sped up considerably through initiatives like the COVID-19 High Performance Computing (HPC) Consortium, a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) “spearheaded” by IBM and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which brought Big Tech players like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft together with academic institutions and federal agencies to apply an “unprecedented scale of computing power to support COVID-19 research.”

The PPP applied its “unprecedented” computing power to controversial research topics like the supposed genetic predisposition among African Americans to Covid-19 infection and other areas of focus, such as potential treatments and “medicinal plants,” which can now all be integrated as part of IBM’s blockchain-based applications across the entire economic spectrum.

As covered by MintPress in a recent three-part series by this author, the intersection between blockchain technology and health data is at the center of a global campaign to recreate capitalism as a data-driven economic model based on a so-called “impact investment” paradigm, which purports to solve the world’s health, social and environmental problems through market-based solutions.

“Hacking the software of life”

The collection of our genomic data lies at the core of the fraudulent concept of creating financial incentives around human misery. DNA is the single point of data convergence across humanity that allows for these new “moral” economic models to generate enough volume to replicate present-day economies of scale and design financial instruments to exploit human beings at a cellular level.

Moderna’s former Chief Medical Officer, Tal Zacks, is well aware of the opportunities. On February 25, Moderna announced their CMO’s intention to step down in September as he looks forward to the “next leg of his career.” Zacks will leave a wealthy man, after regularly selling Moderna stock over the course of 2020, making him approximately $1 million a week, according to SEC filings.

In 2017, Zacks delivered a TED Talk in which he plainly states what many of the mRNA vaccine detractors have been warning about. Namely, that these novel vaccination technologies are, in fact, mechanisms designed to manipulate the human genetic code.

Zacks mirrors much of what his colleague and fellow vaccine credential promoter, Dr. Brad Perkins, said in a similar presentation that same year, in which he expounded on the massive potential for profits of these kinds of technologies — and the collection of genomic data, in particular — across the healthcare and insurance industries.

“I’m here today to tell you,” Zacks informed the spectators, “that we’re actually hacking the software of life.” Aiming at a more general audience, Zacks wasn’t as forward as Perkins in his description of the implications, limiting himself to emotional appeals through anecdotal accounts of former patients who might have been saved had they lived through the “phenomenal digital and scientific revolution” of mRNA “information therapy” solutions from which he has profited so handsomely.

Conveniently, IBM’s strong presence in the law enforcement space, as one of the largest providers of digital profiling technologies and AI policing systems in the world, may also help with any obstacles Moderna may face among vaccine-hesitant populations — such as the 3,000 Romanians who took to the streets of Bucharest to protest mass vaccinations, or the refusal of entire communities in Mexico to have their personal sovereignty violated by the world’s newest crop of snake oil salesmen.

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Raul Diego is a MintPress News Staff Writer, independent photojournalist, researcher, writer and documentary filmmaker.

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***

Airlines in the US are already in the process of leveraging apps and smartphones to allow travelers to offer proof that they have been vaccinated, or recently tested negative for COVID-19, and they’re not alone: Across Europe, a growing number of airlines and countries are adopting, or leaning toward adopting, so-called “vaccine passports”.

France24 reports Wednesday that countries increasingly see these vaccine passports as the best chance to bolster hard-hit tourism industries in places like Spain and Greece. However, since vaccines are still relatively hard to come by in Europe (supplies in the developing world are also scarce) there are concerns that vaccine passports won’t work – while also raising thorny privacy issues.

Most programmes under development are geared towards facilitating travel and come in the form of smartphone apps with varying criteria for a clean bill of health.

Vaccine passports, for example, are a popular way to approach proof of immunity with jab rollouts underway across the globe.

While UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently told Britons that they won’t need a vaccine passport to visit the local pub, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron is considering creating a digital vaccine passport without which French citizens might be barred from visiting restaurants and other public places.

French President Emmanuel Macron recently suggested yet another, more localised form of Covid-free permission slip: the so-called “health pass.”

This certification would only be valid within France’s borders but would allow a fully vaccinated person to, for example, eat in restaurants and attend certain events.

Fortunately, vaccine passports aren’t the only option available to airlines hoping to fight the spread of COVID.

There are also apps that accept positive antibody tests as proof of immunity for those who have had the virus and recovered.

But the World Health Organization has warned that there is no evidence to show that recovered Covid sufferers with antibodies are protected from a second infection.

Even as pressure to implement passports grows, the report notes that vaccine passports do raise some thorny legal issues, while also potentially exacerbating economic inequality as the poor are effectively barred from traveling, while their movements in public are limited.

Making health passports stricter or requiring them for travel could invite legal challenges.

A major worry is that banning unvaccinated people from travelling would exacerbate inequality since access to jabs is far from universal.

There are also concerns over how applications would access users’ personal data.

In France, there is already an official database of citizens who have been vaccinated against Covid-19, approved by the country’s privacy watchdog.

However, the body has warned it will re-examine the issue should the database be put to use in the context of a health passport.

Earlier this week China launched a digital “health certificate” for its 1.3 billion citizens which will record their vaccination status and COVID test status.

In tourism-dependent Greece and Cyprus, vaccination passports are being launched specifically for travel to and from Israel, which has fully vaccinated 44% of its population, and, being situated on the east coast of the Mediterranean, is also located nearby. Denmark and Sweden are also looking to launch health passports soon, while the EU is promising to propose a “green pass” to ease movement within the bloc.

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***

Lebanon’s political, economic and COVID crises are ballooning while politicians continue to bicker over the formation of a government capable of implementing reforms that could deliver $21 billion in financial aid to rescue the country from collapse.

Caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab, who resigned last August, has threatened to suspend work to exert pressure on recalcitrant politicians to form the long overdue government. Hizbollah has warned of a social explosion if a new government is not in place soon. Maronite Christian Patriarch Beshara Al Rahi has castigated politicians for the “intentional delay” in establishing a government and said popular protests are justified.

Army chief Joseph Aoun has urged the politicians to resolve Lebanon’s economic crisis quickly while pointing out that his officers and men suffer privation along with the general population. Addressing the political class, he asked, “Where are we headed? What do you intend to do?”

He had no reply from politicians who mismanaged Lebanon’s affairs for decades and have done nothing to tackle its current political, economic, social and COVID crises.

The explosion is already taking place. Lebanese have adopted a new strategy to vent their fury over economic melt-down. Instead of mounting mass protests in central squares in cities and towns, Lebanese are disrupting the movement of people and goods by blocking highways and main roads across the country. The blocking protests have been triggered by the fall in the value of the Lebanese Lira to more than 10,000 to the dollar, driving up the prices of both imported and locally produced essential supplies. While the Lira has hovered around the 8,000 mark for some months, the long-term official rate has been 1,500 to the dollar. To make matters worse salaries have fallen by more than 80 per cent and inflation is running at between 300 and 400 per cent.

The economic and social crises will become more acute if the central bank enacts progressive reductions in subsidies on essential foodstuffs, electricity and fuel. The World Food Programme has warned that this would have “major inflationary repercussions” and impose “an unbearable strain on households” which are already struggling to put food on the table.

If subsidies are ended, the price of bread would triple and the cost fuel would rise 4.5 times. Although financial assistance would be provided to 83 per cent of the population, most Lebanese do not trust the government to deliver monthly payments of $50 for adults and $25 for children. While the World Bank is set to provide $246 million for those suffering extreme proverty, money has a tendency to go astray before reaching the people for whom it is destined.

After Lebanon’s downward economic slide began in mid-2019, Lebanese took to urban streets and squares to call for an end to corruption and mismanagement and the ouster of the sectarian power-sharing regime imposed by France before independence. Tens of thousands joined these largely peaceful protests but the politicians, determined to preserve their paternalist powers and pelf, did not budge: Not even after the horrific explosion in Beirut port that killed more than 200 people and devastated four neighbouring districts.

Appointed last October to form a cabinet of nonpartisan technocrats to deal with the economic crisis and enact reforms, prime minister Saad Hariri awaits presidential approval of his 18 ministers. President Michel Aoun argues Hariri has no authority to dictate who is in his cabinet and insists on key ministries for the Aounist Free Patriotic Movement.  Other political factions, naturally, put forward their demands.

Instead of capitulating, Hariri went, as they say in Australia, “walk-about”. He travelled around the region and elsewhere but his absence changed nothing.

COVID vaccinations, which should be dispensed impartially, have even been mismanaged and become politicised. The World Bank provided bankrupt Lebanon with COVID vaccines valued at $34 million to inoculate two million of the six million residents of the country — Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrians and others. The Bank also called for the elderly and health care workers to be first in line for shots which were to be administered at designated locations. Naturally, deputies jumped the queue and the Health Ministry inoculated them in parliament itself, infuriating World Bank officials who threatened to halt to halt funding of the rollout. Lebanon registers 3,000-4,000 cases daily and total infections have reached 400,000 and deaths 5,000. While Lebanon’s self-inflicted travails are largely ignored by the world, Pope Francis, as he wrapped up his historic visit to war-devastated Iraq, promised his next trip will be to Lebanon.

It is significant that the two countries are governed by sectarian regimes imposed by Western occupying powers. France sought to ensure domination of Lebanon by Christians favourable to Paris but two civil wars and constant instability have demonstrated the Lebanese model is a dangerous failure. Nevertheless, in Iraq the US installed a “democratic” Shia fundamentalist government which, ironically, favours Tehran over Washington. In both countries, corruption is rampant and misrule has brought about the collapse of the state. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that, both Lebanese and Iraqis have been rising against sectarian governments since October 2019.

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***

A 39-year-old woman from Ogden, Utah, died Feb. 5, four days after receiving a second dose of Moderna’s COVID vaccine, according to CBS affiliate KUTV.

Kassidi Kurill died of organ failure after her liver, heart and kidneys shut down. She had no known medical issues or pre-existing conditions, family members said.

KUTV uncovered the death as part of its investigation into COVID vaccine side effects. The investigation involved looking into reports submitted by Utah residents to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, there were four deaths in Utah reported to VAERS in January and February, including Kurill’s.

KUTV reported that doctors at Intermountain Medical Center recommended Kurill’s family request an autopsy, and the family agreed.

The medical examiner could not say whether the autopsy would be automatically forwarded to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Dr. Erik Christensen, Utah’s chief medical examiner, said proving vaccine injury as a cause of death almost never happens.

“Did the vaccine cause this? I think that would be very hard to demonstrate in autopsy,” Christensen told KUTV.

Christensen could think of only one instance where a vaccine as the official cause of death would be seen on an autopsy report. That would be in the case of immediate anaphylaxis where someone received a vaccine and died almost instantaneously.

“Short of that, it would be difficult for us to definitively say this is the vaccine,” Christensen said. “A more likely result would be a lack of answers or an incomplete autopsy.”

An autopsy can provide answers to a family when no disease or red flags are found, or rule out other competing causes of death, Christensen explained. The lack of answers may help a family “understand if the vaccine was a possible cause.”

Christensen said vaccine deaths are possible and do happen.

“Just about every vaccine or anything you do [to] treat someone, when you inject something has a potential for a negative outcome. I’m sure VAERS can verify other vaccines have led to death.”

After her first shot, Kurill, a surgical tech for local plastic surgeons, experienced a sore arm but no other side effects. The day of her second shot she had gone shopping and was fine until she started feeling “not so great that evening,” said her sister Kristin.

According to Kurill’s father, she “got sick right away” after receiving the second shot. She had soreness at the injection site, started to get sick and complained “she was drinking fluids but couldn’t pee.”

Kurill went to the emergency room and was later transported to Intermountain Medical Center for a liver transplant. Both parents were willing to donate portions of their liver to save their daughter, but Kurill died within 30 hours of arriving at the ER.

Kurill’s obituary states that she died from “apparent complications due to the second COVID-19 vaccination.”

Between December 14, 2020, and Feb. 26, 2021, VAERS had received reports of 1,265 deaths after COVID vaccination.

Although the CDC says on its website that CDC and FDA physicians review each reported death as soon as notified, it does not appear that autopsies were ordered in any of the other reported Utah cases, according to KUTV.

Last month The Defender reported on a 58-year-old woman who died hours after getting her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. State and federal officials said they were investigating her death but had not performed an autopsy.

On Feb. 5, officials said that they did not know the cause of Keyes’ death or any underlying conditions that could have contributed to her death, but there was “no evidence it was tied to the vaccine,” reported NBC News.

According to The Virginian Pilot, a public records request related to Keyes’ death revealed concerning emails. State Health Commissioner Norman Oliver told public information officers in a Feb. 5 email that if reporters asked whether an autopsy was done on Keyes, they should say “a full autopsy was not needed in order to ascertain whether the death was related to the vaccination.”

The public records request also revealed that officials inside and outside the health department were “concerned the death of Keyes, who is Black, could worsen vaccine hesitancy among minorities,” reported The Virginian Pilot.

When the health department spokespeople crafted a statement following Keyes’ death, they included Gov. Ralph Northam’s press secretary and another Northam staffer in the editing process. The wording regarding timing of the death after the vaccine went from saying there may appear to be a relationship, “But that is not necessarily the case,” to the timing “is not evidence of it being related,” highlighting their focus on deterring speculation, according to The Virginian Pilot.

The family was forced to get their own private autopsy. Keyes’ daughter said that even before state officials had her mother’s postmortem preliminary test results, the medical examiner’s office told her they would not perform an autopsy. They told her “nothing could be gleaned from an autopsy that would relate the vaccine to her death.”

State officials didn’t answer how medical examiners could thoroughly rule out other potential causes of death triggered by or linked to the shot without an internal examination of the body.

The CDC says no deaths have been attributed to COVID-19 vaccines. However, according to the latest data available from VAERS — which includes reports submitted between Dec. 14, 2020, and Feb. 26, 2021, a total of 1,265 deaths following COVID vaccines have been reported to the system.

Dr. Sheffield with Intermountain explained the difference in numbers of deaths reported and the CDC’s statement of “no vaccine deaths,” saying it comes down to what can and can’t be proven.

“You have to look at what it (the numbers) are saying,” Sheffield told KUTV. “Is it saying the vaccine caused the deaths, or there were deaths in people who received the vaccine? And those are two very different things.”

As The Defender reported last month, the CDC is investigating the death of a 36-year-old doctor in Tennessee who died Feb. 8, about one month after receiving the second dose of a COVID vaccine.

News reports at the time didn’t identify which brand of vaccine the doctor received, though at the time, only the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were approved for emergency use in the U.S. Dr. Barton Williams’ death was attributed to multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-A) caused by asymptomatic COVID, though he never tested positive for the virus.

In January, The Defender reported on the death of baseball legend Hank Aaron from an “undisclosed” cause 18 days after receiving his first dose of the Moderna vaccine. The New York Times implied that Aaron’s death was unrelated to the vaccine, however no autopsy was conducted.

Children’s Health Defense urges anyone who suffers any reaction to any vaccine to report it following these steps.

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Megan Redshaw is a freelance reporter for The Defender. She has a background in political science, a law degree and extensive training in natural health.

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***

Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.” – Edward W. Said. (Los Angeles Times, July 20, 2003)” 

“Geographically, the Horn of Africa is normally understood to comprise Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. As foreign military forces operate in ways that link deployments on land, in the air and at sea, for the purposes of this paper the Horn of Africa region is defined as a security space comprised of the four core countries plus Kenya, the Seychelles, South Sudan and Sudan, as well as key adjacent maritime areas—the southern Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait” 1

Introduction: Historical Background

The Horn of Africa is a complex site of geopolitical and geostrategic importance, inextricably linked to key aspects of its history and geography. The uptick in engagement by external actors, and their attendant interests, alliances and agendas, underscore the pivotal role of geopolitics in shaping the security and economic trajectory of the region. The proximity of the Horn of Africa to the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf, and the vital commercial lanes that transit the Bab al-Mandab and the Gulf of Aden, reinforce the region as a crucial maritime chokepoint and port of call in an increasingly connected global order. 1)

France had African colonies since the  European Colonial powers Berlin Conference in  1884, which they divided and took positions of Africa among themselves.

The French presence in Africa dates to the 17th century, but the main period of colonial expansion came in the 19th century with the invasion of Ottoman Algiers in 1830, conquests in West and Equatorial Africa during the so-called scramble for Africa and the establishment of protectorates in Tunisia and Morocco and much of Equatorial and Central Africa.

French colonialism  always were interested in Egypt even before Napoleon’s war Egypt in 1789. They also were interested in the countries along the red sea and the Bab el Mandep strait which allows the passage of  goods safely through the narrow strait.

And thus, Djibouti (The French Territories of Afar & Isse) came to play when France took possession of Djibouti (called French Somali-land) in 1884. As the Territory of the Afars and the Issas, it remained part of the French republic until independence in  1977,

France is interested in the following :

1) The Safety and continuity of  passage of goods and peoples through Bab el Mandep straits and the Red Sea.

2) French power projection in the Horn of Africa region and the littoral states of Red Sea i.e. Egypt, Saudia, and Yemen.

3) The Protection and Preservation of Christian Ethiopia with in the Muslim HOA region.

4) French economic, political and soft-power projections in the HOA and Red Sea litterol nations.

5) French imperial occupation, exploitation under the coattails of AFRICOM/EU/NATO empire of Africa and the littoral states of Egypt, Eritrea, Saudia, Sudan, Yemen and Djibouti  which plays a major role as a Hub of  western military bases, currently housing US/French/Italian/Chinese/ and Japanese military bases in such small country.

French Neocolonialism in Africa

To protect and influence its interests in post-Independence Africa, France, opted to institutionalize its relationships with its former colonies by singing comprehensive bilateral economic, political, military and cultural accords that binds effectively french control, domination, and presence of the former colonies.

Besides Djibouti, the French controls military bases in Reunion, Seychelles and Kerguelen Islands in the Indian Ocean which connects to the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea via Bab El Mandep straits which is strategically important for economic, military and Geo-strategic purposes.

Thus, France uses and employs its political, economic, military and its United Nations Security Council (UNSC) membership. And  as an ally of the US, through NATO and AFRICOM, it projects its powers in the region.

Although the French Colonial Empire is long gone, Paris is still attempting to maintain its global influence through its former colonies, not only in the Red Sea and HOA region, but also in  Central and Northern Africa, Another point to note is that the French energy company Total is one of the most important partners for Gas and Oil explorations, operations, sells and marketing  in Ethiopia and Kenya – 1950 and 1955  respectively.

The French Oil conglomerate Total holds a 45% interest in three offshore exploration licenses in the Lamu Basin (Near the disputed Somali Maritime border) namely L11a, L11B and L12. 3)

Conclusions

Historically it is evident, that the French seeks to use its former  African colonies in the indian ocean Basin and The Red Sea littoral countries for its Geostrategic interests in the region and its competition with Turkey, China and Russia.

There is a Turkish-French Competition in Africa since 2000. Turkey and France are acting as rivals in  Africa by creating cooperation with the East, HOA and West African countries. France has joined  strategic marriage of convenience  with Anti-Turkish Arab countries of Egypt, Saudi, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates may work against Turkey to create their influential zone. 

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Prof. Dr. Bischara Ali EGAL is Executive Director and Chief Researcher at The Horn of Africa Center for Strategic and International studies (Horncsis.org) https://horncsis.orgMogadishu, SOMALIA (HOA)

Notes

1)  Faith Mabera (2020) The Horn of Africa-Persian Gulf nexus: inter-regional dynamics and the reshaping of regional order in geopolitical flux. INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL DIALOGUE Issue 136 /April 2020

2) Melvin, Neil “ The new external security politics of the horn of africa region” No#2/2019, April, 2019 https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep24470?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents(accessed January12, 2021)

3) Total in Kenya (2020),  https://www.total.com/kenya (Accessed feb.13th, 2021)

4) https://www.academia.edu/43038240 Avoid_the_French_Trap_in_Reforming_the_UN_2004?email_work_card=reading-history

5)  Why US, UK, France, https://qz.com/africa/1743984/us-uk-france-norway-pick-sides-in-kenya-somalia-maritime-row/ (accessed feberuary15, 2021)

6) https://theconversation.com/the-flawed-logic-behind-french-military-interventions-in-africa-132528 (accessed  january 12, 2021)

7) https://www.usip.org/programs/red-sea-rising-peace-and-security-horn-africa-and-middle-east(accessed feb.6th, 2021)

8) Tekle, Amare (1989). Peace and Stability in the Horn of Africa: in Northeast African Studies ; Vol.11, No.1;(1989) pp-75 108 https://www.jstor.org/stable/43660263?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents (Accessed Feb.2, 2021)

9) https://www.theafricareport.com/50499/the-horn-of-africa-and-the-gulf-shifting-power-plays-in-the-red-sea/

10)  Total operations in Ethiopia (2021); https://www.totalethiopia.com/business/total-mining-solutions (Accessed feberuary 14th, 2021)

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It’s Lianghui (“Two Sessions”) time – the annual ritual of the Beijing leadership. The stars of the show are the top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference; and the traditional delivery of a work report by the Prime Minister to the top legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC).

The review of the draft outline of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan will proceed all the way to March 15. But in the current juncture, this is not only about 2025 (remember Made in China 2025, which remains in effect). The planning goes long-range towards targets in the Vision 2035 project (achieving “basic socialist modernization”) and even beyond to 2049, the 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.

Premier Li Keqiang, delivering the government work report for 2021, stressed that the target for GDP growth is “above 6%” (the IMF had previously projected 8.1%). That includes the creation of at least 11 million new urban jobs.

On foreign policy, Li could not draw a sharper contrast with the Hegemon: “China will pursue an independent foreign policy of peace” and will “promote the building of a new type of international relations”.

That’s code for Beijing eventually working with Washington on specific dossiers, but most of all focusing on strengthening trade/investment/finance relations with the EU, ASEAN, Japan and the Global South.

The outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for the Chinese economy had already been designed last October, at the CCP plenum. The NPC will now approve it. The key focus is the “dual circulation” policy, whose best definition, translated from Mandarin, is “double development dynamics”.

That means a concerted drive to consolidate and expand the domestic market while continuing to push foreign trade/investment – as in the myriad Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects. Conceptually, this amounts to a quite sophisticated, very Daoist, yin and yang balancing.

In early 2021, President Xi Jinping, while extolling Chinese “conviction and resilience, as well as our determination and confidence”, was keen to stress the nation faces “unprecedented challenges and opportunities”. He told the Politburo “favorable social conditions” must be created by all means available all the way to 2025, 2035 and 2049.

Which brings us to this new stage of Chinese development.

The key target to watch is “common prosperity” (or, better yet, “shared prosperity”), to be implemented alongside technological innovations, respect for the environment, and fully addressing the “rural question”.

Xi has been adamant: there’s too much inequality in China – regional, urban-rural, income disparities.

It’s as if in a cool reading of the dialectical drive of historical materialism in China, we would arrive at the following model. Thesis: imperial dynasties. Antithesis: Mao Zedong. Synthesis: Deng Xiaoping, followed by a few derivations (especially Jiang Zemin) all the way to the real synthesis: Xi.

On the Chinese “threat”

Li stressed China’s success in containing Covid-19 domestically; the nation spent at least $62 billion on it. This should be read as a subtle message, addressed especially to the Global South, about the efficacy of China’s governance system to design and execute not only complex development plans but also cope with serious emergencies.

What’s ultimately at stake in this competition between wobbly Western (neo)liberal democracies and “socialism with Chinese characteristics” (copyright Deng Xiaoping) is the capacity to manage and improve people’s lives. Chinese scholars are very proud of their national development plan ethos, defined as SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound).

A very good example is how China, in less than two decades, managed to extricate 800 million people out of poverty: an absolute first in History.

All of the above is rarely evoked as Atlanticist circles drown in virtually 24/7 China demonization hysteria. Wang Huiyao, the director of the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization, at least had the merit to bring into the discussion Sinologist Kerry Brown of King’s College, London.

Drawing from comparisons between Leibniz – close to Jesuit scholars, interested in Confucianism – and Montesquieu – who only saw a despotic, autocratic, imperial system – Brown re-examines 250 years of entrenched Western positions on China and remarks how is “more difficult than ever” to engage in a reasonable debate.

He identifies three major problems.

1. Throughout modern history, there’s no Western appreciation of China as a strong and powerful nation, and its restored historical importance. Western mindsets are not ready to deal with it.

2. The modern West never really thought of China as a global power; at best as a land power. China was never seen as a naval power, or capable of exercising power way beyond its borders.

3. Propelled by the iron certainty over its values – enter the very much debased concept of “true democracy” – the Atlanticist West has no idea what to make of Chinese values. Ultimately the West is not interested in understanding China. Confirmation bias reigns; the result is China as a “threat to the West”.

Brown points to the key predicament afflicting any scholar or analyst trying to explain China: how to convey China’s extremely complex worldview, how to capture the China story in a few words. Soundbites do not apply.

Examples: explaining how a whopping 1.3 billion people in China have some sort of health security, and how 1 billion enjoy some kind of social security. Or explaining the intricate details of China’s ethnic policies.

Premier Li, delivering his report, vowed to “forge a strong sense of community among the Chinese people and encourage all of China’s ethnic groups to work in concert for common prosperity and development”. He did not specifically mention Xinjiang or Tibet. It’s an uphill task to explain the trials and tribulations of integrating ethnic minorities into a national project amid non-stop hysteria on Xinjiang, Taiwan, South China Sea and Hong Kong.

Come and join the party

Whatever the Atlanticist West’s whims, what matters for the Chinese masses is how the new Five-Year Plan will deliver, practically, what Xi has previously described as “high-quality” economic reform.

Things look good for powerhouses Shanghai and Guangdong – they were already aiming at 6% growth. Hubei – where Covid-19 cases first appeared – is actually targeting 10%.

Based on frenetic social media activity, public opinion confidence in the Beijing leadership remains solid, considering a series of factors. China won the “health war” against Covid-19 in record time; economic growth is back; absolute poverty has been eradicated, according to the original timetable; the civilization-state is firmly established as a “moderately prosperous society” 100 years after the founding of the Communist Party.

Since the start of the millennium, China’s GDP grew no less than 11-fold. Over the past 10 years, GDP more than doubled, from $6 trillion to $15 trillion. No less than 99 million rural people, 832 counties and 128,000 rural villages were the last ones to be extricated from absolute poverty.

This complex hybrid economy is now even engaged in setting up an elaborate, “sweet” trap for Western firms. Sanctions? Don’t be fools; come here and enjoy doing business in a market of at least 700 million consumers.

As I’ve noted last year, the systemic process in play is like a sophisticated mix of internationalist Marxism with Confucianism (privileging harmony, abhorring conflict): the framework for “community with a shared future for mankind”. One country – actually a civilization-state, focused on its renewed historical mission as re-emerging superpower. Two sessions. And so many targets – and all of them achievable.

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

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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After Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau and new US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held their first bilateral meeting Global Affairs’ release mentioned China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and… Haiti. The first four nations are all in the crosshairs of Washington and Ottawa. But Haiti’s de facto president is in the opposite position. Jovenel Moïse would fall quickly if the US and Canada withdrew their support.

What does it mean that a supposedly ‘unimportant’, impoverished, nation is the only non-enemy government mentioned by those in charge of US and Canadian diplomacy? Is it a recognition that their Haitian puppet might fall or is it a backhanded compliment to the anti-dictatorship movement? Or maybe it reflects the US and Canada’s commitment to credible elections?

On Sunday thousands marched against the dictatorship in Port-au-Prince. A week earlier 100,000 marched in the capital and thousands more protested in a half-dozen other cities. On February 14 nearly 100,000 also marched in Port-au-Prince.

Since Jovenel Moïse extended his mandate extra-constitutionally on February 7 there has been a wave of criticism against US and Canadian policy in Haiti. The country’s heterogenous opposition have vociferously condemned the foreign powers. In the US there have been a number of rallies and online actions. A number of Democratic party senators and congresspeople have also called on the Biden administration to stop propping up Moïse. In Canada three current MPs and three former MPs, as well as Noam Chomsky, David Suzuki, Naomi Klein and 500 others, signed a letter criticizing Ottawa’s “support for a repressive, corrupt Haitian president devoid of constitutional legitimacy.” A coalition of 30 Haitian Canadian groups, as well as the Canadian Labour Congress and Council of Global Unions, have also expressed opposition to Canadian and US policy in Haiti.

Blinken and Garneau are undoubtedly feeling some pressure. At the same time, however, the situation on the ground is fluid and if they want Moïse to remain it is imperative to express their diplomatic backing.

The post Blinken/Garneau meeting release noted that the two discussed a desire “to ensure the upcoming electoral process in Haiti is credible, inclusive and transparent.” But Haiti’s opposition has already rejected elections under Moïse, which few will consider “credible”. In the summer Moïse pushed out the entire electoral council and appointed a new one in contravention of the constitution.

The Canada-US position ensures the opposite of their stated aim. By supporting Moïse as he extends his mandate, rewrites the constitution, criminalizes protests, sets up a new intelligence agency, instigates a gang alliance to terrorize the slums, etc. they are guaranteeing that forthcoming elections won’t be credible. But concern for credibility has not been a defining feature of Ottawa and Washington’s response to Haitian elections over the past 20 years.

After Fanmi Lavalas won more than 70% of 7,000 mayoral, senatorial, etc. positions in 2000 the US and Canada undermined what OAS observers initially called “a great success”, probably Haiti’s most credible ever election. Realizing there was little chance Fanmi Lavalas would be defeated at the ballot box in the foreseeable future, they suddenly claimed the previously employed method to determine whether a runoff was to be held in a handful of Senate seats made the election “deeply flawed”. A few years later they overthrew all the elected officials.

After a two-year coup government repressed pro-democracy forces, the US and Canada financed elections that blocked the most popular political party from participating. On simple procedural grounds the election was also dubious. During the election in 2000 there were more than 10,000 registration centres and some 11,000 polling stations across the country. In 2006 the coup government reduced that number to 500 registration centres and a little more than 800 polling stations, even though they had some $50 million to run the election (mostly from the US, Canada and France). In the poorest neighborhoods, where opposition to the coup was strongest, registration centres were few and far between.

At the last minute former president René Préval entered the race. The coup government sought to block Préval from winning in the first round and the head of the International Mission for Monitoring Haitian Elections, chief electoral officer of Elections Canada Jean-Pierre Kingsley, ardently supported the effort. After an explosion of protest following the discovery of thousands of ballots burned in a dump, the US, French and Canadian ambassadors — who initially insisted the electoral council continue counting votes to force a second round — reluctantly agreed to negotiate with their counterparts from Brazil and Chile, as well as the UN and others to grant Préval a first-round victory. But they used the negotiation to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Préval’s mandate, even though he likely won 60% of the vote.

Not viewing Préval as sufficiently compliant, the US and Canada pushed for presidential elections months after the devastating 2010 earthquake and amidst a deadly cholera outbreak. Following the first round of voting, Canadian and US officials forced the candidate whom Haiti’s electoral council had in second place, Jude Celestin, out of the runoff. According to the official results, Mirlande Manigat received 31% of the vote, Celestin 22% and Michel Martelly 21%. With no statistical rationale they removed votes from Celestin, who was allied with Préval, until Martelly was in second place.

Through Martelly’s term he failed to hold legislative elections and ruled by decree. That didn’t stop the US and Canada from supporting the corrupt and thuggish former Ton Ton Macoute. After repeatedly postponing elections Martelly held a poll marred by fraud in 2015. A subsequent audit found that 92% of polling place tally sheets had significant irregularities and 900,000 of the 1.5 million votes cast for president were from accredited poll observers who could vote at any voting station. Despite mass protests against Martelly’s handpicked successor Moïse first round lead, the US and Canada pushed to move forward with the second round of the election as if the first round of voting was legitimate. Riots ultimately forced the cancellation of the second round. In a subsequent redo Moïse ‘won’ an election with few participating.

While the US and Canada claim to support democracy and fair elections in Haiti, history proves otherwise. In reality neither government seems to care about the wishes of ordinary Haitians.

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“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” ~ John F. Kennedy

“A poorly trained, apathetic, and gullible media is one of the greatest national security and public health threats to the United States of America, because in such a world not only does there cease to be a watchdog against government, industry, and general hucksterism, but the media itself becomes prone to manipulation, deception, coercion, and outright recruitment by precisely those it is supposed to be watching for the good of the people.” — Marco Caceres Di Iorio

“The media hacks who push the pro-vaccine propaganda and hide the truth are complicit in crimes against humanity…The entire vaccine machine is built on lies of omission and fraudulent science. billions of dollars are quietly paid out by NVICP (National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program) to vaccine-injured people, but the overwhelming majority of vaccine injuries are never reported. Of the thousands that are reported, only a tiny few are compensated. Therefore, the real amounts that should have been paid out to vaccine injured people is in the trillions.” — William Christenson

“Fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported. The CDC’s entire vaccination propaganda campaign rests on their claim that side effects from vaccinations are exceedingly rare, but according to the blatantly pro-over-vaccination, Big Pharma-funded CDC, in 2016 alone, VAERS received 59,117 vaccine adverse event reports. Among those reports were 432 vaccine-related deaths, 1,091 permanent vaccine-related disabilities, 4,132 vaccine-related hospitalizations, and 10,274 vaccine-related emergency room visits. What if these numbers actually represent less than 1% of the total as this report asserts? You multiply those numbers by 100.” – William Christenson (2017)

“As of 1986, only 12.8% of American kids had chronic diseases. That number has grown to 54% among the vaccine generation (ie, Generation V, those children born after lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers were outlawed in 1986) in lockstep with the CDC’s and AAP’s expanding vaccine schedule.” — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr 

“Safety testing, which typically requires months and years for other medical products, often lasts only a few days with vaccines – not nearly long enough to spot cancers or chronic conditions like autoimmune diseases (e.g. juvenile diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis), allergic illnesses (e.g. food allergies, allergic rhinitis, eczema, asthma), or neurological and neurodevelopmental injuries (e.g. ADD, ADHD, narcolepsy, epilepsy, seizure disorders, and autism). Vaccine manufacturer’s vaccine inserts that accompany every vial of mandated vaccines include warnings about these and over 400 other injuries including many serious immune, neurological, and chronic illnesses for which FDA suspects that vaccines may be the cause.” – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“The children who comprise this vaccine-injured generation are now aging out of schools that needed to build quiet rooms and autism wings, install wobble chairs, hire security guards and hike special ed spending to 25% to accommodate them. They are landing on the social safety net which they threaten to sink. As Democratic lawmakers all around the nation vote to mandate more vaccines and call for the censorship of experts (including parents of vaccine-injured or killed children) that are expressing concerns about vaccine safety, Democratic Presidential candidates argue about how to fix America’s dysfunctional and unaffordable health care system without addressing the reality of the vaccine-related chronic disease and autoimmune disorder epidemic. The good news for Big Pharma, of course, is that many of these vaccine-injured children have lifelong dependencies on unaffordable blockbuster drugs like insulin, Adderall, anti-psychotic drugs, Epi-Pens, asthma inhalers, and diabetes, arthritis, and anti-seizure meds made by the same companies that made the vaccines.” – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“An overwhelming majority of the FDA officials directly charged with licensing vaccines, and the CDC officials who effectively mandate them for children, have personal financial entanglements with vaccine manufacturers. These ‘public servants’ are often shareholders in, grant recipients from, and/or paid consultants to vaccine manufacturers, and, occasionally, even patent holders of the very vaccines they vote to approve. Those conflicts of interest motivate them to recommend ever more vaccines with minimal support from evidence-based science” – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

“The FDA receives 45% of its annual budget from the pharmaceutical industry. The World Health Organization (WHO) gets roughly half its budget from private sources, including Pharma and its allied foundations. And the CDC, frankly, is a vaccine company; it owns 56 vaccine patents and buys and distributes $4.6 billion in vaccines annually through the Vaccines for Children program, which is over 40% of its total budget.” — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“The HHS (US Health and Human Services partners with vaccine makers to develop, approve, recommend, and pass mandates for new products and then shares profits from vaccine sales. HHS employees can personally collect up to $150,000 annually in royalties for products they work on. For example, key HHS officials collect money on every sale of Merck’s controversial HPV vaccine Gardasil, which also yields tens of millions annually for the agency in patent royalties.” — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“In 1986, Congress—awash in Pharma money (the pharmaceutical industry is number one for both political campaign contributions and lobbying spending on legislators over the past 20 years) enacted a law granting vaccine makers blanket immunity from liability for injuries caused by vaccines. The subsequent gold rush by pharmaceutical companies boosted the number of recommended inoculations from twelve shots of five vaccines in 1986 to 54 shots of 13 vaccines today. A billion-dollar sideline grew into the $50 billion vaccine industry behemoth.” — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“Since vaccines are liability-free – and effectively compulsory to a captive market of 76 million children – there is meager market incentive for companies to make them safe. The public must rely on the moral scruples of Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, and Pfizer. But these companies have a long history of operating recklessly and dishonestly, even with (the many drug) products for which they can be sued for injuries. The four companies that make virtually all of the recommended vaccines are all convicted felons.  Collectively they have paid over $35 billion since 2009 for defrauding regulators, lying to and bribing government officials and physicians, falsifying science, and leaving a trail of (incurable chronic illnesses) injuries and deaths from products they knew to be dangerous and still sold under pretense of safety and efficacy.” – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“I ate breakfast last week with the president of a network news division at CBS) and he told me that during non-election years, 70% of the advertising revenues for his news division come from pharmaceutical ads.  And if you go on TV any night and watch the network news, you’ll see they become just a vehicle for selling pharmaceuticals. He also told me that he would fire a host who brought onto his station a guest who lost him a pharmaceutical account.” — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – See more here.

“The public in both poor and rich countries has a right to scientifically-based evidence that international vaccine programs are as safe as possible and that they have been thoroughly safety-tested. The best metrics for measuring safety are studies comparing health outcomes of vaccinated versus unvaccinated cohorts. Yet, both the CDC and the WHO have aggressively discouraged the pursuit of such studies. – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

“I knew that MMR (GlaxoSmithKline’s Measles/Mumps/Rubella vaccine) was a mistake from the start. Within 10 seconds I could see that it was a bad idea.  All the vaccinations prior to MMR could occur in nature; they had never been combined before. Normally, viruses can’t infect at the same time, so if you put more than one virus into a body at once you are making a grave error. Surely the point of vaccination is to make it safer for children, but with MMR a child could be overwhelmed, and might not recover.  The deaths and severe reactions to MMR are just the tip of the iceberg.“ – Dr Peter Mansfield – British general practitioner whose practice was dedicated to reducing his patient’s reliance on doctors by giving them the confidence and information to help themselves

“Even higher levels of aluminium have been found in the brains of individuals, diagnosed with an early-onset form of sporadic (usually late onset) Alzheimer’s disease, who have experienced an unusually high exposure to aluminium through the environment (e.g. Camelford) or through their workplace. This means that Alzheimer’s disease has a much earlier age of onset, for example, fifties or early sixties, in individuals who have been exposed to unusually high levels of aluminium in their everyday lives.” – Christopher Exley, PhD

“No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable…for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death.” – President Ronald Reagan, as he signed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) of 1986, absolving drug companies from all medico-legal liability when children die or are disabled from vaccine injuries, thus reversing many of the intentions of original legislative action.

“…the NIH (National Institutes of Health) is incapable of conducting conflict-free research…it is clear that the system managing our vaccine program is corrupt beyond repair and needs a complete overhaul.” – Lori Mellwain, National Autism Association board chair

Safety Recommendation for Parents Who Choose or are Mandated to Vaccinate Their Children, Based on Guidelines of the Autism Research Institute:

  1. Never vaccinate a sick child, even if just a runny nose from a viral infection, as all viruses are immunosuppressive, rendering the child more vulnerable to adverse vaccine reactions.
  2. Never allow more than two vaccines per visit; avoid all combination vaccines.
  3. Administer vitamin C before and after each vaccination, ideally in doses of 500 mgs every four hours during waking hours. Also give vitamin A in standard doses.
  4. All forms of sugar should be avoided for several days before and after vaccines, as sugar has been shown to diminish the protective activities of the immune system by depressing white blood cells’ ability to destroy bacteria.

The following 7 quotes are from Dr. Richard Moskowitz’s brilliantly articulated article, “The Case Against Immunizations”:

“It is dangerously misleading, and indeed the exact opposite of the truth, to claim that a vaccine renders us ‘immune’ to or protects us against an acute disease, if in fact it only drives the disease deeper into the interior and causes us to harbor it chronically instead, with the result that our responses to it become progressively weaker but show less and less of a tendency to heal or resolve themselves spontaneously. What I propose, then, is to investigate as thoroughly and objectively as I can how the vaccines actually work inside the human body, and to begin by simply paying attention to the implications of what we already know. Consider the process of falling ill with and recovering from a typical acute disease, such as the measles, in contrast with what we can observe following (the intramuscular) administration of the measles vaccine.”

“…Once inhaled by a susceptible individual, the [measles] virus undergoes a prolonged period of silent multiplication, first in the tonsils, adenoids, and accessory lymphoid aggregations of the nasopharynx; later in the regional lymph nodes of the head and neck; and eventually, several days later, it passes into the blood and enters the spleen, the liver, the thymus, and the bone marrow, the ‘visceral’ organs of the immune system. Throughout this ‘incubation’ period, which lasts from 10 to 14 days, the patient typically feels quite well, and experiences few or no symptoms of any kind.”

“By the time that the first symptoms of measles appear, circulating antibodies are already detectable in the blood, and the height of the symptomatology coincides with the peak of the antibody response. In other words, the ‘illness’ that we call the measles is simply the definitive effort of the immune system to clear this virus from the blood. Notice also that this expulsion is accomplished by sneezing and coughing, i. e., via the same route through which it entered in the first place. It is abundantly clear from the above that the process of mounting and recovering from an acute illness like the measles involves a general mobilization of the immune system as a whole, including inflammation of the previously sensitized tissues at the portal(s) of entry, activation of leukocytes, macrophages, and the serum complement system, and a host of other mechanisms, of which the production of circulating antibodies is only one, and by no means the most important.”

“Such splendid outpourings indeed represent the decisive experiences in the normal physiological maturation of the immune system in the life of a healthy child. For recovery from the measles not only protects children from being susceptible to it again, no matter how many more times they may be exposed to it, but also prepares them to respond promptly and effectively to any other infections they may encounter in the future. The ability to mount a vigorous acute response to infection must therefore be reckoned among the most fundamental requirements of health and well-being that we all share.”

“By contrast, the live but artificially attenuated measles-virus vaccine is injected directly into the blood, by-passing the normal port of entry, and sets up at most a brief inflammatory reaction at the injection site, or perhaps in the regional lymph nodes, with no local sensitization at the normal portal of entry, no ‘incubation period,’ no generalized inflammatory response, and no generalized outpouring. By ‘tricking’ the body in this fashion, we have accomplished precisely what the entire immune system seems to have evolved to prevent: we have placed the virus directly into the blood and given it free and immediate access to the major immune organs and tissues, without any obvious mechanism or route for getting rid of it.”

“The result is the production of circulating antibodies against the virus, which can in fact be measured in the blood; but this antibody response occurs as an isolated technical feat, without any overt illness to recover from, or any noticeable improvement in the general health of the recipient. Indeed, I submit that exactly the opposite is true, that the price we have to pay for these antibodies is the persistence of viral elements in the blood for long periods of time, perhaps permanently, which in turn carries with it a systematic weakening of our capacity to mount an acute response, not only to the measles, but to other infections as well.”

“Far from producing a genuine immunity, then, my suspicion and my fear is that vaccines act by interfering with and even suppressing the immune response as a whole, in much the same way that radiation, chemotherapy, corticosteroids, and other anti-inflammatory drugs do. Artificial ‘immunization’ focuses on antibody production, a single aspect of the immune process, disarticulates it, and allows it to stand for the whole, in much the same way as chemical suppression of an elevated blood pressure is accepted as a valid substitute for genuine healing or cure of the patient whose blood pressure has risen. It is the frosting on the cake, without the cake. The worst part of this counterfeiting is that it becomes more difficult, if not impossible, for vaccinated children to mount a normally acute and vigorous response to infection, by substituting for it a much weaker, essentially chronic response, with little or no tendency to heal itself spontaneously.” – Dr Richard Moskowitz – from “The Case Against Immunizations”

“The number of ‘cases’ in turn is dependent on the numbers of ‘positive’ PCR tests. You may have seen the term ‘casedemic’ being used to describe the situation, and while that term can also be misused, it legitimately calls attention to the problem of using PCR tests for diagnostic purposes and justifying policies based on ‘cases’…While PCR tests can be useful to confirm a diagnosis of COVID-19, they should never be used by themselves as a diagnostic tool. Yet, in ‘case’ counts, that is precisely what’s been done: people who do not have the disease and are not contagious are being counted as COVID-19 ‘cases’, and these numbers in turn are being cited to justify continued lockdown measures.” – Jeremy R. Hammond, Independent Journalist and Author – www.jeremyrhammond.com

“Covid-19 ‘cases’ are a practically meaningless metric, especially in light of how their numbers are determined by counting ’positive’ results from RT-PCR tests that do not distinguish between viable virus and non-infectious viral RNA. Even the lockdown-loving New York Times has admitted that 90% of so-called ‘cases’ in the US have been individuals who were probably not contagious.” — Jeremy R. Hammond

“Just as there are professional propagandists masquerading as ‘journalists’, so are there propagandists dutifully masquerading in their role as ‘scientists’ to deceive the public in order to manufacture consent for harmful authoritarian policies.” – Jeremy R. Hammond

“…if a person gets a “positive” PCR test result at a cycle threshold of 35 or higher (as applied in most US labs and many European labs), the chance that the person is infectious is less than 3%. The chance that the person received a “false positive” result is 97% or higher.” – Swiss Policy Research

“There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask…While masks may block some droplets, they do not provide the level of protection people think they do. Wearing a mask may also have unintended consequences: People who wear masks tend to touch their face more often to adjust them, which can spread germs from their hands.” — Dr. Anthony Fauci (60 Minutes interview – March 8, 2020)

“Aluminum adjuvants (which are present in many vaccines) cause behavioral abnormalities, abnormal weight gain, learning and memory impairment, motor neuron death/apoptosis, neuromuscular strength deficits, chronic microglial activation/brain inflammation and large increases in brain and spinal cord aluminum content. These adverse effects occur at dosages less than or approximately equal to dosages received by infants according to the CDC vaccine schedule.” – Informed Consent Action Network

“The medical profession is being bought by the pharmaceutical industry, not only in terms of the practice of medicine, but also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this country are allowing themselves to be the paid agents of the pharmaceutical industry. I think it’s disgraceful.” – Arnold Seymour Relman, MD (1923-2014), Harvard Professor of Medicine and former Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine

(The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) derives a majority of its outside contributions – estimated at more than $25 million per year – from pharmaceutical companies that make vaccines. The pediatricians that the AAP represents derive the majority of their annual revenues from the administration of vaccines to their pediatric patients.) — J.B. Handley 

“The majority of studies that authorities point to as proof that vaccines do not cause autism have been published in a journal called Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. As we know, the AAP is a trade union for pediatricians.” – J.B. Handley

“You’d be amazed at the number of physicians who don’t know what’s in a vaccine. They’ll say, well, there’s the bacteria, the virus you want to vaccinate against, and then there’s a little immune stimulant in there to help stimulate the immunity so they react against those viral antigens. They don’t know about these other chemicals in there like aluminum, mercury, formaldehyde, special proteins, special lipids that are known to be brain toxic, that are known to induce autoimmunity in the brain. They’re not aware of that. They don’t know that MSG is in a lot of vaccines―monosodium glutamate, a brain excitotoxin. They’re not aware of what’s in the vaccine they’re giving! — Russell Blaylock, MD

“Most physicians haven’t got a clue about vaccines. Physicians are undeservedly endowed with a mantle of authority and therefore most of their patients think vaccines are simple, safe and effective. And therefore, there is nothing much to know about vaccines except that they somehow illicit an immune response and magical antibodies will protect the inoculated patient for life. Total ignorance. But that’s what ‘The Snake’ tells physicians starting in medical school; and, since medical school (and nursing school) professors are also undeservedly endowed with a mantle of authority, both of whose healthcare professional groups believed it from the start.  Until they get bit.” – Anonymous Anti-Over-Vaccination activist parent

“The true mortality rate of Corona virus is less than one in 100,000, or ≤ 0.001%, which is even 10 times less than the whistleblowers explain why they died. Therefore, it was not the Corona/COVID-19 virus that killed them. Professor Püschel concludes strongly that we have absolutely no reason to fear that the virus will kill us. The average age of the Corona/COVID-19 dead that Professor Püschel did autopsies on was 80 years old, and they all had one or more severe diseases that could explain why they died. Therefore, it was not the Corona/COVID-19 virus that killed them. Prof Püschel concludes strongly, that we have absolutely no reason to fear that the virus will kill us.” — Søren Ventegodt, MD, Copenhagen, Denmark

“The pharmaceutical industry obviously benefits from the panic over the COVID-19 pandemic. Could it be that the pharmaceutical companies have influenced how the mortality is measured and how the statistics are interpreted? Could commercial interests from the pharmaceutical companies producing vaccines for the world influence the way the World Health Organization (WHO) operates, the information it provided, the advice and guidance it offers to the world? Yes, it is possible, and it could explain how this whole Corona alarm and panic started. The stronger the interest, the less you can trust the data. If there is money involved, you need to be especially skeptical.

“A medical statistic made by a provider or manufacturer of a drug or a vaccine is normally flawed and manipulated to such an extent that you cannot believe in the statistics. To answer this question about how big the influence of the pharma industry might be we need a deep exploration of the WHO, its peoples, the communication between internal organizations in the WHO, and with the industry and people related to the pharmaceutical industry. We need total transparency and full access to all communication in and with the WHO. The lack of openness has earlier made it difficult to investigate the WHO’s Processes.” — see this

“Do you remember the “Swine Flu Scandal” of 2009 and the World Health Organization’s (and the CDC’s) panicky pandemic prognosis at that time? The definition of ‘pandemic’ was changed by WHO 12 years ago to ‘just a worldwide disease’.  Many serious illnesses and many deaths were not required anymore, to announce a pandemic. Due to this change the WHO was able to declare the swine flu pandemic in 2009, with the result that (fast-tracked, poorly tested, and therefore dangerous) vaccines were produced and sold worldwide, on the basis of contracts that have been kept secret until today. During the swine flu in 2009, Drosten was one of those who stirred up panic in the population; repeating over and over again that the swine flu would claim many hundreds of thousands, even millions of deaths, all over the world. Thanks to Germany’s Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, this hoax was brought to an end before it would lead to even more serious consequences.” — Dr Reiner Fuellmich

“Also remember that the WHO has lied before, in 2009, when they said the swine flu was dangerous and millions would die, and based on this, most governments bought many vaccines. It turned out that the swine flu was just the normal flu, and what is even more worrying, the vaccines the governments had bought had to be destroyed because of negative side effects. Many children became handicapped because of the swine flu vaccines. There is a conflict of interests in WHO (and the world’s CDCs) because they are sponsored by pharmaceutical industries. The swine flu scandal is documented.” — Dr Reiner Fuellmich

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Dr Gary G. Kohls is a retired American family physician who practiced holistic (non-drug) mental health care during the last decade of his professional career. His patients came to see him asking for help in getting off the psychotropic drugs to which they were addicted and which they knew had sickened them and disabled their brains and bodies. He was successful in helping significant numbers of his patients get off or cut down on their cocktails of drugs using a time-consuming program that was based on psychoeducational psychotherapy, brain nutrient therapy and a program of gradual, closely monitored drug withdrawal.

He warns against the abrupt discontinuation of any psychiatric drug – legal or illicit – because of the common, often serious withdrawal symptoms that can occur in patients who have been taking such drugs. It is important to be treated by an aware, informed physician who is familiar with treating drug withdrawal syndromes and brain nutritional needs. 

Dr Kohls lives in Duluth, MN, USA and writes a weekly column for the Duluth Reader, the area’s alternative newsweekly magazine. His columns deal with the dangers of American fascism, corporatism, militarism, racism, malnutrition, Big Pharma’s psychiatric drugging and over-vaccination regimens, and other movements that threaten the environment, prosperity, democracy, civility and the health and longevity of the planet and the populace.

Many of Dr Kohls’ columns have been archived at a number of websites around the world, including these five:

http://duluthreader.com/search?search_term=Duty+to+Warn&p=2;

http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/gary-g-kohls;

http://freepress.org/geographic-scope/national;

https://www.lewrockwell.com/author/gary-g-kohls/?ptype=article; and

https://www.transcend.org/tms/author/?a=Gary%20G.%20Kohls,%20MD

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***

Deborah Bunka knows she’s in Hardin County, Iowa, when the smell of manure starts to filter in through her car’s air conditioning. 

As the membership director for Iowa Farmers Union, Bunka has spent a lot of time talking to farmers in counties like Hardin, where pigs outnumber people about 37 to 1. And she’s seen firsthand the effects of living in close proximity to so many animals.

“There are parts of this state where you can’t open your windows,” Bunka said.

In Iowa and across the Midwest, the source of the smell can be hard to pinpoint, and that’s by design. The federal government doesn’t keep tabs on livestock operations nationwide, a matter of concern for environmentalists, activists and community members alike.

Iowa is the country’s top pork producer, with around 24 million hogs at any given time, according to industry data. Most of that production comes from concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, large scale livestock operations that raise thousands of animals in enclosed barns.

CAFOs have been a point of contention between the livestock industry and environmental activists since they began to proliferate in the 1990s, overtaking small, pasture-feeding operations as the dominant form of animal agriculture in the US. As the number of livestock producers has declined, the number of animals — hogs, cattle and poultry — has skyrocketed over the past several decades, in part due to rapid consolidation in the industry.

One large CAFO can easily produce more than one million tons of manure per year — more than the yearly waste of a large city. That manure not only causes the smell that Bunka described, but also contributes to water and air pollution when improperly managed.

The animal waste — usually stored in a lagoon or large tank before being spread as fertilizer in crop fields — contains nitrogen, phosphorus and sometimes growth hormones, antibiotics or pathogens such as E. coli. Rainwater can cause lagoons to spill over or wash the manure out of fields and into waterways.

But the full extent of the damage is hard to estimate because the federal government doesn’t keep track of where CAFOs are located. Instead, it’s up to states, researchers and activists to build their own databases.

This work is complicated by the fact that each state has different rules for issuing CAFO permits, on top of those mandated by the federal government.

Generally, any animal feeding operations (AFOs) that discharge waste into federal waterways must apply for a permit from the Environmental Protection Agency or from the state agency designated by the EPA. When a government agency issues such a permit, the applicant’s information is added to a database. The collected information includes the facility type and location, the owner’s name and contact information, the number of animals at the AFO, and the facility’s manure disposal plan.

These databases are useful because they allow agencies to quickly locate the source of a pollution event, schedule facility inspections and track CAFO hotspots. They’re also considered public records, obtainable via a Freedom of Information Act request, which allows journalists, researchers, environmental groups and neighbors to access the same information.

The federal government doesn’t require permits for facilities that claim they pose no risk to water quality, however, meaning thousands of CAFOs aren’t included in these databases. When the EPA tried to expand its reach to cover unpermitted facilities, judges ruled the agency cannot require all CAFOs to apply for a permit, effectively barring the federal government from creating a complete register.

Even before lawsuits blocked the EPA from collecting more data on CAFOs, the agency wasn’t adequately studying the environmental impact of their waste, according to the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan organization that audits federal agencies.

The work of cataloguing these facilities and their environmental impact is left to states, academic researchers and activists, whose combined work has created a patchwork of maps and databases that shed light on the prevalence of CAFOs in the US.

“I think it’s one hundred percent the government’s responsibility to know where CAFOs are, to know the environmental and health impacts each one can have, and to make that available to the public and to people like myself to inform policy making and policy design,” said Lee Miller, lecturing fellow at Duke Law and food and agriculture policy expert.

The EPA doesn’t know where thousands of CAFOs are

The EPA’s authority to regulate CAFOs comes from two pieces of legislation, both passed in 1972: the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act.

While the Clean Air Act doesn’t specifically mention CAFOs, animal operations have to abide by the same emission limits as other industries.

In 2005, in an attempt to develop specific CAFO air emission requirements, the EPA struck a deal with CAFO operators, granting civil protections to the CAFOs that participated in an industry-funded emissions monitoring program.

The EPA was supposed to use the results of the study to determine the best way to measure CAFO air emissions and to enact emissions controls by 2010.

Eleven years later, the agency still hasn’t determined how to measure CAFO air emissions. In August 2020, the EPA released a draft model for estimating swine CAFO emissions and the agency’s website states that draft models for certain emissions from poultry and dairy operations will be released this year.

But what the limits will be, and when they will take effect, is still “TBD.” Until the rules are finalized, protections remain in place for CAFOs that took part in the original monitoring study 15 years ago.

And, without air quality regulations in place, the EPA cannot create a database of CAFOs using its authority under the Clean Air Act.

The agency has successfully documented certain CAFOs using clean water laws. In the 1970s, under authority granted by the Clean Water Act, the EPA began requiring CAFOs to obtain a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit if they planned on discharging waste into federally regulated waterways. It’s the only permit the federal government requires of CAFOs.

But as the number of unpermitted CAFOs dramatically increased in the decades after the acts passed, the EPA sought to bring more of the facilities under federal regulation.

In 2003, the EPA issued a rule that would require all CAFOs to apply for permits unless they could prove that there was no possibility of water contamination. But the regulation was essentially nullified in 2005, when a judge struck down the “duty to apply” part of the rule, stating that the EPA could not regulate CAFOs based solely on the presumption that the facility would pollute.

“In our experience, we can not trust a lot of these operators to self-report, even in the case of something extreme happening, like a manure spill,” Miller said.

Miller co-authored a report about the lack of public information about CAFOs and their effect on the environment for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit advocating for environmental protection and anti-climate change policies. Due to this court ruling, CAFOs often decide for themselves whether they need to apply for a NPDES permit, the NRDC report alleges.

And not knowing the exact location of thousands of animal feeding operations makes it harder for regulators to find the source of a manure spill or to know which areas are CAFO-dense and should be closely monitored for pollution, Miller said.

In 2013, after the livestock industry resisted EPA efforts to gather information on CAFOs nationwide, the agency instead requested CAFO databases from each state, creating an extensive federal CAFO database for the first time. The Natural Resources Defense Council then filed a Freedom of Information request for that database. The EPA complied, mailing the NRDC a disk with all of the information they’d gathered from 30 states, including the names and addresses of thousands of farmers.

Citing fears of surveillance or compromised biosecurity, the Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation sued the EPA, claiming that by releasing names and addresses, the EPA had endangered farmers and their livestock. The litigation lasted until 2016, when a judge ruled that the EPA had improperly released farmers’ information and blocked the agency from collecting and publicizing such data in the future. The NRDC returned the unredacted data.

“The pork industry has a long track record of working cooperatively with numerous stakeholders and has never hesitated to share information and data when it was warranted with appropriate government officials and legitimate researchers,” NPPC spokesperson Rachel Gantz wrote in an email to the Midwest Center. “NPPC will continue to vigorously defend the rights and privacy of its producers.”

Gantz declined when asked to provide specific examples of when the NPPC has provided industry data to government officials or researchers.

Iowa officials become “little detectives” in search for missing CAFOs

Much of the fight over CAFO management in the Midwest has played out in Iowa. Bunka got involved nearly 15 years ago with an environmental organization named Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement.

In 2007, the group filed a petition with the EPA, asking federal authorities to investigate the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and seeking stronger enforcement of environmental protection rules. The EPA ignored the petition, however, until Iowa CCI threatened to sue for inaction in 2011.

The threat kicked the EPA into gear, and District 7 of the agency conducted an investigation of the Iowa DNR in 2012.

Investigators found that the Iowa DNR didn’t issue NPDES permits when appropriate, didn’t conduct enough inspections of unpermitted facilities to determine if they needed a permit, failed to act on permit violations in nearly half of the reviewed cases, didn’t impose adequate penalties against rule breakers, and didn’t enforce federal rules governing where CAFOs could and could not be built.

From 2013 to 2018, the EPA and Iowa DNR worked together to address the issues pointed out in the report.

Iowa CCI got involved in the plan by petitioning the Iowa Environmental Protection Commission, a politically-appointed group that oversees the state DNR. For nine months, Bunka traveled across rural Iowa, visiting local events like farmers markets and fairs. She gathered signatures for a petition asking the commission to enact stricter regulations and permitting requirements for CAFOs.

Bunka collected more than 2,000 signatures. She brought the signed papers to the Iowa CCI offices, where staff made photocopies and taped all the papers together before bringing the long list of names to a meeting of the Iowa Environmental Protection Commission, a politically-appointed board that oversees environmental policies in the state.

In the meeting room, staff members wrapped the paper chain all the way around the commissioners, asking them to join the call for an audit of the Iowa DNR.

“There was a lot of gaveling, and then they kicked everyone out and ended the meeting,” Bunka said. The commission never enacted the policies sought by Iowa CCI.

But the work plan brought other reforms to the department, including a requirement to take an inventory of all animal feeding operations in the state.

Iowa DNR employees scoured satellite maps, cross-referencing them with their existing AFO database, and found more than 1,200 previously unidentified medium and large animal feeding operations.

“We’ve become little detectives,” Iowa DNR environmental engineer Cindy Garza said.

Garza considers Iowa’s online databases to be the best in the region, and she’s been involved since the data went online in 2009. The state’s online AFO database contains all of the facilities the department has contact with, she said. That includes medium and large AFOs, which are required by state law to file manure management plans; any facility that’s been cited for violating DNR regulations; the operations located in the department’s 5-year search; all NPDES permitted facilities; and those that register voluntarily with the department.

In all, the online database contains information on nearly 13,000 operations, not all of which are active. The Iowa DNR also maintains an interactive map of the facilities connected to the main AFO database.

While the EPA’s intervention shed light on the prevalence of unpermitted, under-the-radar CAFOs in Iowa, the same attention hasn’t necessarily been paid to other states’ permitting programs.

Detailed CAFO databases are harder to come by in other places. In North Dakota, for example, there is no online database or map of AFOs. Instead, anyone seeking information about the facilities must file a formal open records request. And before the state releases information about specific facilities, the Department of Environmental Quality has to mail out release forms to every operation included in the database notifying them of the request. (In 2019, a Midwest Center reporter fielded about 90 phone calls from AFO owners who’d been notified of the request and provided his phone number by the state.)

Researchers and activists create their own CAFO databases

Without a central database to reference in research, scientists and academics who study agriculture and the environment have found other ways to gather information about CAFOs.

In 2020, two Stanford researchers published a deep-learning artificial intelligence tool that could find CAFOs using Google Maps. The tool used the distinctive aerial appearance of CAFOs– rows of long, rectangular roofed barns, sometimes interspersed with manure lagoons — and scanned satellite images to find the operations. According to a report published in Nature Sustainability, the AI tool accurately detected more than 90 percent of concentrated poultry operations in one region of North Carolina — a state that doesn’t require permits for most poultry CAFOs.

The researchers published the AI tool online, and animal rights activists quickly put it to work building maps of CAFOs across the U.S. One activist group, Project Counterglow, published a crowdsourced map of the entire US using AI to pinpoint CAFOs and cross-reference the operations with existing databases.

The map is the first of its kind, pointing out thousands of CAFOs that aren’t present in government records.

But Project Counterglow doesn’t provide any information about its backers or funding. The website crowdsources information on individual facilities, asking followers to gather and publish evidence of animal cruelty or malpractice on the site. The map sparked concern among the livestock industry, prompting articles about protecting one’s operation from surveillance and fear of bioterrorism.

Project Counterglow did not respond to requests for comment.

Fighting a constant battle for data transparency and stronger CAFO regulation has caused burnout among environmental scientists and policymakers, said Austin Frerick, deputy director of the Thurman Arthur Project at Yale University, which conducts research on competition policy and antitrust enforcements.

“A lot of people who used to be in this space have left because they just got so heartbroken,” Frerick* said. “So a lot of institutional knowledge has been lost.”

Online CAFO information by state

Missouri: interactive map

Iowa: AFO database and interactive siting map

Illinois: database of NPDES-permitted AFOs

Nebraska: interactive map

Wisconsin: static map and searchable database (with free account)

North Dakota: None

South Dakota: Static map

Minnesota: Downloadable map and database

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Featured image is from Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting

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***

An international NGO devoted to halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons recently released satellite imagery showing that Israel, for the first time in decades, was engaged in new construction at its Dimona nuclear site. The reactor there, which first became active in the mid-1960s, manufactures plutonium as fuel for Israel’s reputed stockpile of 80 nuclear warheads.

This excavation has piqued the curiosity of nuclear experts and intelligence agencies around the world. Since the Dimona reactor has long since passed its projected lifespan, some have speculated that Israel may be building a new plutonium reactor.

This seems unlikely, as this element is long lasting, and Israel has already produced enough for current or future needs. Some have speculated that the existing reactor is either substantially shut down or being decommissioned.

If Israel does not need a new reactor to replace the old one, then what else might it be building there? In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, pointed to another critical element in nuclear warheads: tritium. It is a hydrogen isotope used to increase the yield of nuclear warheads. It also makes the explosive reaction more efficient, so less fuel (in Israel’s case, plutonium) is needed.

Tritium has allowed for advances in weapons design, including smaller devices whose explosive power is magnified. It is also used in neutron bombs, which are designed to kill humans while having a reduced blast area. Kimball told the AP that Israel “may want to produce more tritium, a relatively faster-decaying radioactive byproduct used to boost the explosive yield of some nuclear warheads”.

Tritium, like plutonium and other substances used to produce nuclear weapons, is manufactured in a nuclear reactor. It can be produced by irradiating lithium metal. The isotope is less stable than plutonium, meaning it requires replenishing more frequently for use in a nuclear arsenal.

If, as leading nuclear expert Avner Cohen has speculated, the old Dimona reactor is to be retired, Israel would need a new source for the production of tritium. Perhaps a reactor is being specifically built for that purpose.

Construction appears to have begun, according to an analysis of satellite photos, sometime in late 2018 or early 2019. This means that work has likely been underway for around two years. The current images mainly indicate excavation, but no buildings yet being constructed.

Why is the process moving so slowly? It could indicate indecision among policymakers about when and whether to shut down the old reactor, or budgetary constraints preventing a faster pace of construction.

The real nuclear danger

But why has the imagery become public only now, after two years of construction? Given the looming conflict between Israel and US President Joe Biden over the revival of the Iran nuclear negotiations, it’s possible that the US administration wants to remind the world where the real nuclear danger lies – and it’s not in Iran.

If the construction is related to the production of tritium, this would suggest that Israel is not building a new class of nuclear arms, such as the hypersonic weapons of which Russian President Vladimir Putin has boasted – at least not at Dimona. Rather, Israel is likely refining the potency of its existing arsenal.

The ultimate irony of the Dimona project is that no one questions Israel’s right to make nuclear weapons or to improve the lethality of its arsenal. Digging a hole the size of a soccer field to build God-knows-what? Go right ahead. Yet, should a single particle of uranium fall to the ground in a place where it should not be in Iran, the whole international community begins tut-tutting that Tehran is a few weeks from nuclear breakout and imminent catastrophe.

Why the double standard? Why does the world believe that Israel has the right to such an immense arsenal, and that it will maintain it responsibly, while Iran has no right to even a single weapon – and that should the latter create one, it would blow up the world? What has Israel ever done to deserve such credibility, and what has Iran ever done that is so much more heinous as to deserve this level of obloquy?

Keeping enemies in check

In a Facebook exchange with Cohen, he called Benjamin Netanyahu Israel’s most “nuclear-keen” prime minister since David Ben-Gurion, who founded the country’s nuclear programme. Netanyahu has taken far more interest in the nuclear project and made numerous speeches, both at Dimona and at Ben Gurion’s graveside nearby at Sde Boker, threatening Iran with nuclear destruction.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that Netanyahu is any more likely to use such weapons than previous prime ministers. It means that he sees a critical need for Israel to have credible nuclear deterrence to keep its enemies in check. This is a key element of Israel’s geopolitical strategy, a means of projecting power and guaranteeing the nation’s regional dominance.

It fends off threats by hostile forces in Iran, Syria and Iraq. In the past, former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered an attack on an Iraqi nuclear reactor, and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered an attack on a Syrian reactor being built in its eastern desert.

Netanyahu’s obsession with Iran’s nuclear programme might derive from his being loath to be the first Israeli leader to permit an Arab enemy to join the nuclear club.

Over the past decade, the US and Israel have played good cop-bad cop roles regarding the Iranian nuclear threat. US presidents have used a combination of covert sabotage and public diplomacy to advance a policy of restraining Iran, while Israel has, at times, advocated an outright military attack. Both collaborated on the covert Stuxnet malware that destroyed uranium centrifuges.

But the US has never been willing to join in an attack on Iran, despite Netanyahu’s lobbying. Will the Israeli leader show restraint, or will he test Biden’s resolve and Iran’s commitment to negotiations by continuing to assassinate nuclear scientists and otherwise undermine a political-diplomatic approach to resolving the crisis?

Biden has learned from the past experiences of former President Barack Obama not to trust Netanyahu. It is an unenviable position to have to distrust both one’s enemy (Iran) and one’s ally.

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Richard Silverstein writes the Tikun Olam blog, devoted to exposing the excesses of the Israeli national security state. His work has appeared in Haaretz, the Forward, the Seattle Times and the Los Angeles Times. He contributed to the essay collection devoted to the 2006 Lebanon war, A Time to Speak Out (Verso) and has another essay in the collection, Israel and Palestine: Alternate Perspectives on Statehood (Rowman & Littlefield) 

Featured image is from Shutterstock


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

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
Print Edition: $10.25 (+ shipping and handling)
PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

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

Reviews

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

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

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

WWIII Scenario

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

A group of scientists and doctors has today issued an open letter calling on the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to answer urgent safety questions regarding COVID-19 vaccines, or withdraw the vaccines’ authorisation.

The letter describes serious potential consequences of COVID-19 vaccine technology, warning of possible autoimmune reactions, blood clotting abnormalities, stroke and internal bleeding, “including in the brain, spinal cord and heart”.

 

“Should all such evidence not be available”, the authors write, “we demand that approval for use of the gene-based vaccines be withdrawn until all the above issues have been properly addressed by the exercise of due diligence by the EMA.”

The letter is addressed to Emer Cooke, Executive Director of the EMA, and was sent on Monday 1 March 2021. The letter was copied to the President of the Council of Europe and the President of the European Commission.

It states:

“We are supportive in principle of the use of new medical interventions.” However, “there are serious concerns, including but not confined to those outlined above, that the approval of the COVID-19 vaccines by the EMA was premature and reckless, and that the administration of the vaccines constituted and still does constitute ‘human experimentation’, which was and still is in violation of the Nuremberg Code.”

Link to letter here.

 

Video statement by Professor Sucharit Bhakdi, Professor Emeritus of Medical Microbiology and Immunology and Former Chair, Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene:

For comment contact Professor Sucharit Bhakdi MD: [email protected], or Associate Professor Michael Palmer MD:[email protected]

In a public statement the group said…

“No sooner did we deliver our letter than the Norwegian Medicines Agency warned that COVID-19 vaccines may be too risky for use in the frail elderly, the very group these vaccines are designed to protect. We would add that, by virtue of the mechanisms of action of the vaccines, to stimulate the production of spike protein, which has adverse pathophysiological properties, there may also be vulnerable people who are not old and already ill. New data shows that vaccine side effects are three times as common in those who have previously been infected with coronavirus, for example. None of the vaccines have undergone clinical testing for more than a few months, which is simply too short for establishing safety and efficacy.

“Therefore, as a starting point, we believe it is important to enumerate and evaluate all deaths which have occurred within 28 days of vaccination, and to compare the clinical pictures with those who have not been vaccinated.

“More broadly, with respect to the development of COVID-19 vaccines, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has stated in their Resolution 2361, on 27th January 2021, that member states must ensure all COVID-19 vaccines are supported by high quality trials that are sound and conducted in an ethical manner. EMA officials, and other regulatory bodies in EU countries, are bound by these criteria. They should be made aware that they may be violating Resolution 2361 by applying medical products still in phase 3 studies.

“Under Resolution 2361, member states must also inform citizens that vaccination is NOT mandatory and ensure that no one is politically, socially, or otherwise pressured to become vaccinated. States are further required to ensure that no one is discriminated against for not receiving the vaccine.”

The letter comes as a petition against UK Government plans for vaccine passports passed 270,000 signatures, more than double that required to compel consideration for debate by MPs. The petition will be debated in the UK Parliament on 15th March 2021.

Doctors and scientists can sign the open letter by sending their name, qualifications, areas of expertise and country of practice to: [email protected].

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***

Due to their remote location in the Northern Marshall Islands, the people of Bikini Atoll were spared the worst of the mid-Pacific fighting between the American and Japanese armies in the final years of World War II. Their millennia-old culture and sustainable way of life ended abruptly when, in early 1946, Commodore Ben Wyatt, a representative of the occupying United States Navy, informed King Juda and other Bikini residents that the US would begin to test nuclear weapons near their homes. Wyatt asked the Bikinians to move elsewhere, stating that the temporary move was for “the good of mankind and to end all wars.” Though Wyatt may have believed his words to be true, the show of might by the US that followed neither ended all conflict, nor was the exodus short-lived. Seventy-five years later, Bikinians have yet to return.

Nuclear testing in Bikini and other Marshall Islands, which lasted from 1946 to 1958, received international attention at the time. In those early Cold War days, America demonstrated its nuclear prowess through images of mushroom cloud blasts towering over the Pacific on the cover of Time magazine and other prominent publications. The word Bikini infiltrated popular culture via the name of a two-piece swimsuit (named by a French designer to be “explosive”) and SpongeBob’s home, without simultaneously suffusing our conscience with an awareness of the injustices and suffering those blasts caused the Marshallese people.

It is time, finally, to recognize and right the wrongs perpetrated by the US government in the Marshall Islands. The US forced a new and dangerous technology on the native lands and peoples, without fully comprehending the short- and long-term consequences. The Marshall Islands–and Bikini specifically–ended up the site of most of the tests of US hydrogen bombs, weapons up to a thousand times more powerful than atomic bombs used in attacks on Japan in 1945. Later, when the refugees were briefly returned to Bikini after testing ended, they were exposed to harmful radiation amounts with devastating health effects.

To be sure, the US government has taken steps to monitor and address the contamination that resulted from these nuclear detonations. However, the status quo—studies by the Energy Department for the sake of scientific publications and reports, while Bikinians continue to live on other islands—is not only inadequate, but morally repugnant. Bikini is a native land and water that, over thousands of years, was critical to the people’s sustenance and the bedrock of their culture. While some of those who survived the decades of relocations are still alive, their children and grandchildren, including the descendants of King Juda, have yet to resettle their ancestral home. Without an immediate US-government-funded plan to resettle the living refugees, the millennia-long culture and history tied to the atoll may be lost forever. Also, as one of the highest lying islands in the region, Bikini could be the solution to challenges the Marshallese face from global warming and corresponding rise of sea levels.

But it’s not as simple as saying: “Let’s move the Bikinians back.” A permanent return to the atoll by a multi-generational community would risk serious health effects unless sources of remaining radiological contamination in Bikini’s fruit, soil, and lagoon are addressed and removed, according to our research at Columbia University’s K=1 Project, Center for Nuclear Studies. We have found radioactive materials throughout Bikini Atoll, resulting in background gamma radiation above the limit agreed upon by the Republic of the Marshall Islands and US and levels of cesium-137 in various fruits that violate most relevant international and domestic safety standards. Even the waters surrounding Bikini, a formerly plentiful source of food, are riddled with radioisotopes from the detonations. The cleanup may require a novel scientific approach on par with that used after the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear accidents. That said, a modern nuclear testing cleanup protocol may prove useful in the event of future nuclear incidents in the United States or elsewhere.

The Biden administration has promised to lead in domestic and international spheres with morals and compassion. To do so, it must engage in a truthful, comprehensive accounting of past missteps in the Marshall Islands, regardless of whether the cost of reparations and resettlement exceeds its current pledgeof roughly $110 million to Bikini. Commodore Wyatt’s allegedly “temporary” displacement of Bikinians from their native land has lasted 75 years and counting. Will the Biden administration act with morals to clean remaining radioactive material from US detonations? Will it act with compassion to help Bikinians find their way home?

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Hart Rapaport is an undergraduate at Columbia University majoring in political science & statistics. He conducts research with Columbia’s K=1 Project, Center for Nuclear Studies.

Ivana Nikolić Hughes is a Senior Lecturer in Chemistry at Columbia University and the Director of Frontiers of Science, the required course for Columbia College students. Ivana is also the Director of the K=1 Project, Center for Nuclear Studies in Arts and Sciences. The center is focused on educating students and the broader public on nuclear technology issues.

Featured image: A nuclear weapon test by the US military at Bikini Atoll in 1946. Credit: US Defense Department image via Wikimedia Commons, licensed with PD-USGov-Military.

Iraq in the American Imagination Today

March 11th, 2021 by Barbara Nimri Aziz

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***

Should we thank Pope Francis’ invitation to the world to stare into the maw of the Iraqi landscape? Whatever image the holy man conjures with his blessings, it can hardly be more than a fleeting one.

What remains, what might endure, what might rise and be restored–is unspeakable for Americans. A blast of yellow dust obscures the present, replaced by a soft image of robed clerics wandering through ancient Mesopotamia.

Among old timers familiar with Middle East archeology, Iraq was simple– an exotic Mesopotamian desert. It yielded scientific discoveries and allowed the removal of unparalleled creations to distant museums; it inspired novels by Agatha Christie. Oil, a collateral benefit of intellectual explorations, emerged from Mesopotamia.

Today, that place has neither oil nor people…to speak of. It’s reverted to an unthreatening, legendary land: a page in American school texts, a museum lecture. Those lessons, stripped of inhabitants, are illustrated mythical beasts and ancient minarets, brick walls cemented with 4000-year-old bitumen mortar. If that ancient place produced the world’s earliest known written novel, the first inscribed legal code, those items don’t fit the allotted page entry.

In the imagination of Americans, the name Iraq is not really a country or a desert, not a democracy or a multi-ethnic nation, not a theater-of-war or a cemetery of past patriots.

The reference belongs to a fellow American, an undisputedly brave “thank-you-for-your-service” recipient. In his late 30s now, he’ll earn more accolades if victim of an IED –not  clean sniper bullets, but something terroristic. If he’s diagnosed with PTSD, he’s secured employment upon retirement. Combat trauma excuses his rage, explains his domestic abuse, references his murder of fellow Americans– co-veterans, neighbors, family—and his drug addiction.

He becomes a pitiable, troubled film hero who displays immense willpower, despite his misdeeds. Or he emerges into a political candidate.

Iraq veteran is a badge of honor, a qualification, for wannabe U.S. politicians today (whatever their party affiliation). Presidential candidates Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Buttigieg boasted war experience. Across the country today, party committees scour towns and neighborhoods to identify such noble figures.

A nearby village hosts a brewery called “Do Good”. The manager explains “Do Good” honors his deceased friend; “He was a sniper in Iraq. Do Good is what he always advocated.”

This transformation from killer-sniper to symbol of democracy took hardly a decade, helped initially by best-selling soldier-authored poetry collections and memoirs, then by Hollywood. Any voter will recall films where American boys emerge valorous: defusing bombs, saving comrades, opening Christmas packages from home, craving fried chicken, caressing photos of newborn children.

To prepare for the glory and pain, the losses and merciless heat, the rigorous sniper training and persistent fear, Mesopotamia needed to be transformed from the benign to the menacing. Kept under the radar, far from American public view, Mesopotamian lads were mobilized against Iranians their own age, enemies along a shared frontier. No Shia or Sunni in Iraq then, only wrathful extremists who’d ousted Washington’s dictator in Tehran.

Never mind the name of a young, promising military officer who sent hardy farm boys into marshy borderlands for face-to-face combat. He gladly took on “religious fanatics”, having earlier served America with his quiet purge of Iraq’s communists.

After 1988 when the two neighbors ended their conflict, Iraq became “The Regime”. Occasionally a real person would emerge with a new memoir of torture under this regime’s “Republican Guard”. Even today, that demon remains more threatening than any Marine-managed torture prison or helicopter gunship firing at children.

“The Regime” became the terror behind the exodus of intellectuals that continues up to today. Uncounted. Highly reputed doctors, renowned engineers, language and history scholars slip away, welcomed by western hospitals and universities after each has somehow managed fees and endured low paid retraining to settle, hushed, in a Michigan or California suburb.

Who won that 1980s border war hardly matters. Kuwait emerged as the victor, defining a new Hitler for the U.S. imagination. How robustly the grimacing face of Saddam gripped the US imagination! Thirty allied nations rallied behind Washington’s call to liberate Kuwait. The global assault was spectacular and efficient—forget about sons and brothers lost on those borders. Forget about the following thirteen silent years while a relentless blockade took a toll greater than any battlefield. Without signs of blood and no American lost, only Iraqi children offered an occasional statistic of malnutrition, disease, or cancer deaths. The quietly murderous U.N. embargowas hardly eventful.

Good Iraq became Kurdistan; some oppressed Shiaa in a triangle of dusty desert pleaded for emancipation. (Nothing about women.) Mesopotamia, modern hospitals, bustling universities, family excursions to Europe and scientific conferences ceded to Saddam and his Republican Guards.

Finally, a motive was found for a full-scale invasion. Was it weapons of mass destruction? Something related to Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack? Or the singular Saddam demon? Minorities needing liberation, craving democracy?

A new generation of journalists headed eastward. Prize-winning books followed.

More medics and teachers disappeared. More young people forgot about education, Olympic training, sculpturing, or cultivating their Mesopotamian soil.

Pillaging and killing were massive, but no heart was won. Local newspapers and new television companies flourished and villagers brandished their purple thumbs. Prime-ministers changed seats while whoever was left became Shia-Sunni, Yazidi or Chaldean, Al-Qaeda-ISIS-Daesh.

Exhausted, the Mesopotamian dust settles over another layer of outstanding civilization.

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

All images in this article are from the author