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In the same way the CIA invented foreign enemies which required us to go to war, there are people who have invented stories of fearful germs that demand medical treatment and prevention. The story tellers know that among the public, many people WANT the germ, need it, and even love it. Yes, love it, after enough conditioning has helped them along the path of surrender.

The COVID operation aims to engulf all of civilization in a preposterous and fake medical nightmare.

The operation has its roots in “modifying” citizens to accept medical dictates.

There are many kinds of such dictates, and it would take volumes to explore them all. Here I present a set of numbers from the US National Center for Health Statistics, a division of the CDC, covering the year 2018:

• Percent of adults who had contact with a health care professional: 84.3%.
• Percent of children who had contact with a health care professional: 93.6%.
• Number of physician office visits (2016): 883.7 million.

Here is another related estimate: according to the US National Alliance on Mental Illness, in a recent year, “More than 25 percent of college studentshave been diagnosed or treated by a professional for a mental health condition…”

Try to grasp how this unprecedented rate of exposure to doctors shapes the minds of Americans. Appointments, tests, diagnoses, advice, orders, prescriptions, drugs and vaccines, follow-ups, referrals to specialists.

These factors alone—never mind the toxic effects of treatments, or wall to wall medical ads and other propaganda—add up to a medical civilization.

Given this reality, how do you think people are going to respond when they are told there is a pandemic and they must follow orders?

After a hundred years of Rockefeller Medicine…new normal? We’ve been living under the new normal for a long time.

How many drug prescriptions do you think are written in the US every year? According to statista.com, “It is estimated that in 2019, 4.38 billion retail prescriptions will be filled throughout the United States.”

Many, many people accept the ubiquitous medical civilization without thought or pause. It’s “just the way things are.”

Pretended pandemics are an arm of medical civilization. But now we’ve reached a point where The Medical is a gateway into a technocratic Brave New World.

This attempted transition is launched from the foundation of lifelong conditioning of the public to doctors and everything those doctors order and represent.

Mind control par excellence.

Two important groups of people—politicians and journalists—are operating from bias in their decisions, because they, too, have been trained to place themselves under the care of doctors on an ongoing basis. Are they going to rip out that hard wiring of their own experience when the rubber meets the road, when they’re faced with professional questions about medical credibility? No. They’re going to side with the CDC and WHO and university experts.

What I’m describing in this article goes beyond the acceptance of “Science” as the dominant paradigm. This conditioning is deeply personal and deeply seated in the minds of people who have been trudging along the bleak path of medical care since early childhood. Medical care for every so-called “symptom.”

I have spent many hours exposing the actual death and maiming effects of medicines on the population. Again, here I’m simply discussing the up-close connection between eternal patient and doctor.

In that sense, telling a dedicated person to take off his mask is telling him to destroy what he believes is a deep lifeline, without which he might very well drown.

Medical civilization’s leaders want us to bow down to the germ. They want us to drool like Pavlov’s dogs, when they ring the bell signaling the presence of a “new virus.” Our anticipated food, in this case, is supposed to be treatment. Treatment and containment measures.

Surely, a Declaration of Medical Independence is needed. “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the medical bands which have connected them with some Health Authority…whenever any Form of Medicine becomes destructive…it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Medicine, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…”

Under the heading of “such principles,” one statement would make it clear that every person has the natural right to reject false faith in the germ, in its power, and in its very existence.

Let those who fear the germ, or want it, cling to it like an idol, if they must, if they refuse to be dissuaded. The rest of us will go our way, secure in our freedom from the idolatry, knowing that medicalized civilization is a tyrant, built without our consent.

Keeping freedom is now the great challenge.

The global lockdowns, present and future; the business closures; the bankruptcies; the resultant family breakups and suicides and drug addictions; the expansion of poverty, hunger, starvation; the desolation of once-great cities—on what basis has all this destruction been launched?

A story about a virus.

So pardon me if I keep attacking that story. If I keep pointing out gaping holes in that story. My basic position is this: I reject the cultish rhetoric coming out of labs. It is divorced from the world of human beings. It aims to claim ownership over our bodies, minds, and souls. Through one abstraction piled on another, its proponents have staked out a cause that is anti-life. With the data they derive and invent from their serums and sequencing, they set up a prison in which we are supposed to be biological machines that merely react to the stimuli of microbes.

Reject that lunatic non-reality.

The set-up and the con are clear: “We say there is a deadly virus on the loose. We describe it and promote it. We run the game and make the rules. We say you are unprotected unless we protect you with treatment and containment measures. We can quibble about which treatments. We can quibble about how much containment, where and when, and under what circumstances, since we define the circumstances; and we can loosen and tighten the rules at our discretion. But in the end, we are the sellers and you are the buyers. You buy our story. We are a protection racket. You give us your lives or we close you down. And guess what? Either one of those choices produces the same result. Get it?”

So when I hear someone say, in effect, THIS containment measure is necessary and effective, but THAT one is minimally effective, and THIS country did well by adopting a LESS RESTRICTIVE MODEL, and SMART CONTAINMENT WOULD LOOK LIKE THIS, I know that person has bought enough of the story to keep the basic con going; and the elite planners are winning.

The war is long. They must not win.

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The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power.

Featured image is from SHTFplan.com

In any given news cycle it is sometimes the lesser articles that are more illuminating in terms of where everything in a country as vast as the United States is heading. This is particularly true in terms of what the U.S. has been experiencing in 2020: a pandemic, civil unrest, wars and continued turmoil overseas plus an election that promises to result in one of two radically different visions of what America should be.

Ironically, Joe Biden is being depicted as the establishment candidate but the Democratic Party program is actually far more radical than that of the Republicans. The Democrats are locked into support of policies that are ostensibly meant to address racial disparities and gender related issue but will instead increasingly turn government into an intrusive mechanism for social engineering, abandoning America’s traditional meritocracy while also creating categories that some might describe as fostering reverse racism and sexism. There could be devastating impact on American education, on maintaining law and order, on controlling immigration, on setting hiring quotas and on First and Fourth Amendment rights relating to free speech and association. A glorious multicultural and gender bending future shaped by Democratic Party social justice hacks will be nothing but a disaster for most Americans, effectively disenfranchising many citizens based on the color of their skin or for other attributes yet to be determined.

And the widespread support for Biden by neoconservatives, who would return to power with his administration, would mean that the likes of Bill Kristol, Max Boot, and Jennifer Rubin will be driving a pro-Israel anti-Iran policy that might even outdo what Trump and Mike Pompeo have contrived, which now will include labeling international human rights agencies as anti-Semitic. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee would be headed by Robert Menendez, corrupt even by congressional standards, who is a totally owned shill for the Israel Lobby. Dan Shapiro, who has apparently become Biden’s leading adviser on the Middle East, is an American Jew now living in Israel and working for an Israeli think tank who should be registered as a Foreign Agent.

The neocons and their media allies are also architects of much of the anti-Russian sentiment in Congress, making the current bad relationship measurably worse. As the Democrats have been blaming practically everything on Russian President Vladimir Putin one cannot expect any serious effort to reset the relationship.

Trump for his part brings with him the negative baggage of his abrasive persona as well as his apparent inability to assimilate and apply simple facts relating to how the nation and the rest of the world work. He has been the aggressor directly against Syria and Iran as well as Venezuela and has been using NATO to threaten Russia. His attitudes towards the environment and climate change are also a disgrace but whatever you think of Trump’s actual performance, the fact is that throughout the campaign and since taking office most of the media and the entire “progressive” left has been labeling him a fascist and a racist. And hanging the racist tail on Trump has continued in the current campaign, to include the lines of questioning in the recent presidential debates and the town hall hosted by Savannah Guthrie.

Trump might make America worse in some ways, but he will not substantially change it as the Democrats almost certainly will do either willfully or by not paying attention to what is developing. Several stories circulating on social media demonstrate just how much “equal justice under law” has been eroded in the minds of some Democratic Party luminaries. Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich tweeted a demand to create a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” after the expected defeat of Donald Trump. The commission borrows the name and would be modeled on the organization set up in South Africa after the fall of the apartheid government and the establishment of majority black rule, an exercise in attempted democratization that has nevertheless failed to put an end to extremely high levels of corruption and communal violence in the country.

Reich’s objective is not limited to punishing the Trump White House’s top officials who may have promoted policies considered anathema by the incoming Democratic administration. Reich tweeted “When this nightmare is over, we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It would erase Trump’s lies, comfort those who have been harmed by his hatefulness, and name every official, politician, executive, and media mogul whose greed and cowardice enabled this catastrophe.” The Reich proposal would potentially mean punishing thousands of otherwise innocent individuals who had little influence over what happened during the past four years. “Enabled” covers a lot of ground, and is prone to devolve into something like a witch hunt. “McCarthyism” only much worse comes immediately to mind.

Reich followed up on his proposal with a second tweet saying “I love the people responding to this tweet as if it’s a radical, undemocratic idea” and, to be sure, there are a lot of people out there who think like he does. One Reich supporter wrote in defense of the proposal “As long as unresolved historic injustices continue to fester in the world, there will be a demand for truth commissions” and there have been numerous comments on social media sites like Facebook insisting that “something be done” about the “deplorables” who voted for and supported Trump.

Other comments made on Twitter in response to the Reich demand include “It is the right idea and I fully support it. It is not right for people to do so much damage to people and get away Scott free. The GOP is Complicit in Genicide and Senicide. There need to be repercussions.” And “I agree 100%… my fear is Joe Biden is going to come into office and want to heal the nation and work with the GOP and ignore all this… if he does that, I will work to ensure he is a 1 term president too.” And also “But it doesn’t go far enough, clearly. Trump’s assets and those of his voters should be seized by the state through legislation and distributed to those he’s harmed as reparations. Surely that’s the only way to heal our nation. Land of the free!” And finally “Robert… you’re right. And after we win… we’ll come for you all… we’re pretty much over trying to share a country with you anyway. Four years ago I thought you were people with bad ideas. I was wrong: YOU’RE BAD PEOPLE.”

Another good Democrats-are-in-power story comes from Virginia where Governor Ralph Northam is preparing to sign a bill that will prevent policemen from stopping cars with expired registrations or inspection stickers, no headlights, brake lights, or other moving violations relating to safety. The reasoning behind the bill is that black drivers appear to be stopped for such offenses disproportionately. That may be true, but the assumption by Northam and his crew is that blacks are being targeted by police, whereas the actual cause just might be that a disproportionate number of blacks don’t maintain their cars very well. Some black public officials including Arlington’s so-called Public Defender Brad Haywood loves the idea, saying: “This might be the most significant reform of the state’s criminal justice system in decades. This is a big step forward for racial justice in Virginia.”

While some of the offenses might be regarded as relatively painless, allowing cars to drive without brake lights in a state like Virginia where drivers routinely proceed at over 70 miles an hour on highways could prove catastrophic if someone had to stop quickly with the cars behind not knowing it until too late. The safety of all citizens is clearly being sacrificed to render what is perceived as social justice for a minority, but when Democrats are in a full pander mode anything is possible.

And a third and final story, also from Virginia, is about the impending death of the once formidable American public education system. It concerns the destruction of what is regarded as the best high school in the United States because it is not diverse enough. The Fairfax County school board has ruled that the high admission standards at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a prestigious magnet school, are now to be eliminated after approval of a proposal submitted by Superintendent Scott Brabrand. The decision by the board eliminates the test and the $100 application fee, long requirements of the rigorous admissions process at Thomas Jefferson. Brabrand’s proposal also increases the size of the school, known as TJ. The changes have been implemented and this year’s eighth-graders — many of whom have prepared for the test — will not take the multi-part exam covering math, reading and science.

Details of how the new admissions policy will work have not been finalized, but a lottery is being considered. One mother protested that a lottery “trashes the meaning of hard work.” TJ’s student body is currently more than 70 percent Asian and about 20 percent white, with single-digit percentages of black and Hispanic students. The intention is to have the school more closely resemble the demographics of Fairfax County’s schools, which is 10 per cent black, 27 per cent Hispanic and 38 per cent white. It will be accomplished by fiat policies and quotas. Though whites are actually under-represented in the school nothing will be done to increase their presence.

Other select by-examination-only schools in New York City, Boston, Chicago and on the West Coast are similarly being stripped of their exclusivity and will instead be embracing diversity. The San Diego school district is completely eliminating testing grades so more minorities can graduate. And the students will no longer be downgraded for exhibiting behavior problems or truancy.

The Beatles once sang “You say you want a revolution!” It seems that many so-called progressives, minority spokespersons and assorted radicals want one here in America. Truth commissions, laws that only apply based on race and quotas in schools are only the beginning. Joe and Kamala, if they are elected, will no doubt encourage all that and more. As there are many “deplorable” Americans who want to preserve what the United States once was, the Democrats might well regret the path that they have chosen even if they do win the election.

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Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Leaked documents seen by Good Law Project set out special pathways by which “VIP” and “Cabinet Office” contacts could be awarded lucrative PPE contracts at the height of the pandemic – and at inflated prices.

Lord Bethell, a junior Health Minister, promised that “suppliers will be evaluated by Departmental officials on their financial standing.” But questions arose over how enormous contracts came to be awarded to dormant or new entities and those of dubious financial standing including:

• PPE Medpro won two contracts worth over £200m to supply PPE to the NHS. The £100 company, set up by the former business associate of Conservative peer Baroness Mone, won the contract just seven weeks after it was set up.
• SG Recruitment UK Limited, a staffing agency, won two PPE contracts worth over £50m, despite auditors raising concerns about its solvency. Tory Peer Lord Chadlington sits on the Board of its parent company, Sumner Group Holdings Limited.
• P14 Medical Limited, controlled by former Conservative Councillor Steve Dechan, who stood down in August this year, was awarded three contracts worth over £276m despite having negative £485,000 in net assets.

The leaked documents disclose that special procurement channels – outside the normal process – were set up for VIPs.

They also show that Cabinet Office was feeding its contacts into the procurement process, outside the normal public channel.

Good Law Project is also aware that successful contractors – like Ayanda which received a £252m contract for supplying facemasks most of which were unusable – were guided through the process by the Cabinet Office.

The leaked documents also evidence a startling opportunity for price gouging by favoured suppliers.  It is only if prices were more than 25% above the average paid to other suppliers that questions were to be asked about value for money.

Good Law Project understands that most suppliers were operating on 10-20% margin. The leaked documents reveal that Cabinet Office contacts and others were helping ‘VIPs’ sell PPE to Government outside normal procurement channels. The information that Government would buy at 25% above the price paid to ‘regular’ suppliers was a licence to make enormous margins – 35% – 45% – on contracts sometimes worth hundreds of millions of pounds. Although Government has tried to cover up the per unit prices it paid to connected suppliers, we know that Ayanda enjoyed staggering margins above the prices paid to others. So there are certainly questions to be asked about whether other politically connected ‘VIPs’ benefited from lucrative inside information about pricing.

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An outstanding characteristic of the Western human rights industry has long been the way it politicizes its production to serve the foreign policy needs of its countries’ governments. To that end corporate and government investors fund leading industry producers like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House or the International Federation for Human Rights. The formal reports and social media content of these producer organizations downplay abuse and violations by governments supported by NATO and allied country governments. By contrast, these Western NGOS exaggerate or even invent human rights abuses in countries targeted by their countries’ governments.

In Latin America, widespread abuses under right wing regimes in, for example, Colombia, Honduras, Haiti or Brazil get mentioned in low key terms, if at all, while false claims by US funded opposition groups in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are amplified and broadcast with minimal or zero effort at responsible corroboration. Neither the human rights industry itself, nor the communications media and academic industries which are its main consumers, make any serious effort at investigation because they too are funded by the same or similar corporate and government investors as their human rights industry brand name suppliers.

Given the close integration across these various Western knowledge and information industries, it has been impossible for them to avoid complicity in the criminal support of their governments for terrorism and organized crime around the world. In Latin America, Bolivia, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua are the clearest examples of this reality. In Nicaragua’s case, the violent failed coup attempt of 2018 involved the use of both terrorism and organized crime by US funded and directed proxies. Abundant material exists, for example here and here, based on reliable, often first-hand sources that narrate and document very serious crimes and egregious human rights abuses in Nicaragua by the violent US funded opposition between April and July 2018.

The UN Office on Drugs and organized Crime has produced valuable material on the use of organized crime for political ends in its “University Module Series on Linkages between Organized Crime and Terrorism”. The UNODC Module Series offers various definitions of terrorism, for example:

• the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

• the conduct of premeditated violent acts or the threat of violence perpetrated by members of an organized group, designed to create fear in an adversary or specific segment of society

• the deliberate creation and exploitation of fear through violence or the threat of violence in the pursuit of political change

• the threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion or intimidation.

• illegitimate use of force to achieve a political objective by targeting innocent people

All of these definitions apply to the violent actions of Nicaragua’s US funded and controlled opposition in 2018. They and their US funders and strategists sought to overthrow Nicaragua’s democratically elected government. They used the threat of violence and actual acts of violence to create fear to achieve the political change they sought. They used illegal force, violent extortion and murder to coerce and intimidate innocent people to achieve their political objectives. Furthermore, the UNODC Module Series explains that the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime defines organized crime as “A structured group of three or more persons, existing for a period of time and acting in concert with the aim of committing one or more serious crimes or offences established in accordance with this Convention, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit.”

The Convention defines a serious crime as any offence punishable by at least four years imprisonment. Likewise, among the Convention’s definitions of transnational organized crime is any offence committed in one State but when a substantial part of its preparation, planning, direction or control takes place in another State. All these definitions apply to the violent crimes of the US funded Nicaraguan opposition in 2018. Among the crimes prosecuted by the Nicaraguan authorities many of which have been independently documented and corroborated, figure multiple cases of arson, extortion, hostage taking, serious assault causing grievous bodily harm, robbery with violence, torture and murder.

When in 2018 Nicaragua’s Vice-Foreign Minister Valdrack Jaentshcke asked then head of the Inter American Commission for Human Rights delegation to Nicaragua, Paulo Abrao, why the IACHR refused to investigate opposition killings of police officers and government workers, Abrao replied that they fell outside the IACHR mandate because IACHR doctrine was that human rights can only be violated by States. Later, when the Nicaraguan authorities defeated the terrorist coup attempt and applied due process to prosecute those guilty of the opposition’s violent crimes, the IACHR and the rest of the Western human rights industry rose up and accused Nicaragua’s government of mounting political prosecutions.

To the contrary, the material brought together in the UNODC Module Series is very helpful in terms of revealing the nature of the unquestionable systematic crimes committed by the US funded political opposition in Nicaragua during 2018. For example, the 1979 International Convention against the Taking of Hostages expressly asserts that taking hostages is a terrorist act. It defines a hostage taker as “any person who seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure or to continue to detain another person in order to compel a third party, namely, a State, an international intergovernmental organization, a natural or juridical person, or group of persons, to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the hostage”.

In relation to the funding of terrorism, the UNODC notes that

“The 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism has far- reaching implications for investigating and punishing criminal financial activities used to fund acts of terrorism. Within the framework of this Convention, a person commits a criminal offence if they: [B]y any means, directly or indirectly, unlawfully and wilfully, provide or collect funds with the intention that they should be used or in the knowledge that they are to be used, in full or in part, in order to carry out: […] (b) Any other act intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.”

Victim testimony and media reports confirm that US funded terrorist criminals and human rights abusers like Felix Maradiaga, Eva Coppens, Francisca Ramirez and Medardo Mairena all committed terrorist crimes in 2018 in Nicaragua. Even so, they and other terrorist criminals have been feted by the Western human rights industry as heroic defenders of human rights. While certainly outrageous, this fact is far from surprising, since the US authorities and their NATO country vassals have been sponsors and funders of terrorism against various target governments and countries for decades. One way or another, governments and corporate interests fund their accomplices in the Western human rights industry and in both the related knowledge and information industry in Western universities and the communications industry of Western corporate and alternative media. Beyond Nicaragua, in their reporting of events from Syria to Venezuela or Iran to Ukraine, they are all guilty to one degree or another of promoting terrorism and covering up organized crime.

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This article was originally published on Tortilla con Sal.

Background: An Auspicious October

October 2, 2020: United Nations High Level Meeting Commemorating and Promoting the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons: This Meeting Was Boycotted by United Kingdom, United States and France, AGAIN!

For many years the saner members of the United Nations, the majority, deplored the fact that there were treaties prohibiting biological weapons, chemical weapons, and other weapons of mass destruction, but the only weapons which were not yet prohibited by an international treaty were the most deadly weapons of all: nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and other countries, and Article 6 of this treaty requires the nuclear weapons states to eliminate their arsenals of nuclear weapons. Not only are the major nuclear powers, in particular the United States and the United Kingdom failing to eliminate their nuclear weapons, they are now spending trillions of dollars in upgrading their nuclear stockpiles, in brazen violation of Article 6 of the Nuclear NPT. At the same time, they are inflicting savage sanctions decimating the population of the DPRK, which is developing a nuclear deterrent, in realistic efforts to protect their country from the horrific fate suffered by Libya, and other countries which abandoned efforts to build nuclear protections.

In this connection, it is important to highlight the speech of China, the only major nuclear power state who spoke at this important meeting Commemorating and Promoting the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons:

Ambassador Geng Shuang affirmed:

Ever since the first day of possessing nuclear weapons, China has been advocating the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons. China has declared the policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances, and unconditionally commits itself not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against Non-Nuclear-Weapon States or Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones. China calls upon other Nuclear-Weapon States to make similar commitments and conclude a legally-binding instrument in this area…..The complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons and the ultimate realization of a nuclear-weapon-free-world is in the common interest of mankind. China supports the GA resolutions on nuclear disarmament proposed by NAM, supports the establishment of the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, and supports a nuclear-weapons-free world.

Ambassador Geng continued:

“For the past years the US has been advocating American exceptionalism and America First, pushing for modernization of its nuclear arsenal, lowering the threshold of using nuclear weapons, and seeking to free its hands in the nuclear field. The US has unilaterally withdrawn from the INF Treaty, responded negatively to the proposal for extending the New START, and tried to evade its special responsibility in nuclear disarmament by trumpeting the so-called “trilateral talks.” The US is imposing unilateral sanctions and exerting maximum pressure on the Iranian and Korean Peninsular issues to advance its own geo-political agenda. Such US behaviors run counter to the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world and the common interests of the international community.”

Among the memorable speeches at the October 2 meeting was the address by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Algeria, Sabri Boukadoum, who recalled that Algeria had been the Chairman of the First Committee on Disarmament, when the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted. Mr. Boukadoum stated that Algeria was well aquainted with the devastation of nuclear weapons, which had been tested on Algerian territory while Algeria was still a colony of a nuclear power. His speech was one of the most powerful and compelling.

On October 9, the DPRK spoke at the First Committee, and excerpts of Ambassador Kim Song’s address follow:

“In order to achieve nuclear disarmament, the countries with the largest nuclear arsenals should take the lead in dismantlement and withdraw nuclear weapons deployed outside their territories. Recently, show-down and rivalry aimed at extending military influence and gaining strategic edge in and around Asia are becoming increasingly fierce, which hampers peaceful development of the countries in the region. The DPRK delegation hereby stresses that any attempt to bring about a new Cold War and trigger a global arms race should not be tolerated as it is an affront to the common aspiration of humankind for a peaceful world. This year, even in the midst of the turmoil caused by the spread of the pandemic, undisguised acts of hostility threatening peace continued in the southern half of the Korean Peninsula such as joint military exercises of provocative nature and steady introduction of modern military hardware from the outside…We possess a self-defensive deterrent to reliably defend ourselves against any form of high-intensity pressure, military threats or blackmail by hostile forces… From the standpoint of using the outer space solely for peaceful purposes, we oppose arms race in the outer space and reaffirm the need to conclude a legally-binding treaty prohibiting militarization and weaponization of outer space at an early date.”

October 24, 2020: Entry-into-Force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

In 2017, the majority of nations within the United Nations voted to adopt the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The DPRK supported the Treaty from its inception. When the UN General Assembly voted, Iran voted “yes,” in support of the Treaty, along with the majority of UN member states.

On October 24, 2020, the fiftieth country, Honduras, ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This fiftieth ratification, deposited with the United Nations Secretary-General, made possible the Entry Into Force of the Treaty. “In accordance with its article 15(1) the Treaty shall enter into force on 22 January, 2021.

“The Secretary-General commends the States that have ratified the Treaty and salutes the work of civil society, which has been instrumental in facilitating the negotiation and ratification of the Treaty. Entry-into-Force is a tribute to the survivors of nuclear explosions and tests, many of whom advocated for the Treaty. The entry-into-force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is the culmination of a worldwide movement to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons. It represents a meaningful commitment towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons, which remains the highest disarmament priority of the United Nations.”

Last week, as the forty-ninth ratification of the Treaty was announced at the UN Daily Noon Press Briefing, with the added remark that only one more nation needed to ratify the Treaty in order for it to Enter-Into-Force, one journalist asked the Spokesman of the Secretary-General if he was aware of pressures upon treaty signatories to persuade (or compel) them not to ratify the treaty; the Spokesman made no comment about the ominous allegation. In fact, on October 24, 2020, the day the fiftieth country, Honduras, ratified the treaty, the distinguished Associated Press correspondent Edith M. Lederer reported that the “United States had written a letter to the treaty signatories saying the Trump administration believes they made ‘a strategic error’ and urging them to rescind their ratification.”

Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a major supporter and campaigner for the treaty stated:

“The 50 countries that ratify this Treaty are showing true leadership in setting a new international norm that nuclear weapons are not just immoral but illegal….The United Nations was formed to promote peace with a goal of the abolition of nuclear weapons.  This treaty is the UN at its best—working closely with civil society to bring democracy to disarmament.”

The arguments in the US letter to oppose and prevent the Entry-Into-Force of this historic treaty are spurious and preposterous, and indicative of their determination to retain possession of nuclear weapons while avoiding the stigma of now being known as a “rogue state.”  The Treaty requires ratifying countries must “never under any circumstances..develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices—and the threat to use such weapons—and requires parties to promote the treaty to other countries.”

The US letter pressured the countries that ratified the treaty to withdraw from it, thereby demolishing its Entry-Into-Force status.  The US, UK and France have ferociously opposed the treaty from its inception, and its Entry-Into-Force will expose and consign the US (and the UK, etc.) to the opprobrium of world history, as the first and only  country to use nuclear weapons on a defenseless civilian population in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and henceforth, a danger to the entire world, determined to hold this “Sword of Damocles” over a now clearly demonstrated opposition by the vast majority of humanity.

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

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“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
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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   

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered mutual inspections of each other’s military bases to NATO to prevent the deployment of missiles banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

The INF was signed between the US and the Soviet Union in 1987 and banned land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500km to 5,500 km (310 to 3,410 miles). The treaty expired in August 2019 after the US withdrew, citing Russian violations.

“We reaffirm the commitment to the Russian Federation’s previously announced moratorium on the deployment of ground-launched intermediate-and shorter-range missiles as long as no similar class missile weapons of US manufacture emerge in the respective regions,” Putin said, according to Russia’s Tass news agency.

Putin offered access to sites in Kaliningrad, where the US has accused Russia of deploying 9M729 missiles. The US claims Russia’s 9M729 missiles are a violation of the INF, one of the reasons Washington cited to withdraw from the treaty, but Moscow insists the 9M729’s are a lower range than banned under the INF.

Still, Putin says Russia has not deployed the 9M729 in Europe. He is asking for access to US and NATO sites in Europe in exchange for Kaliningrad. Since the US withdrew from the INF, Washington has abstained from deploying INF-banned missiles to Europe but is seeking to deploy such missiles in Asia to face China.

Russia has argued that a US missile system deployed in Europe, known as the Mk 41 Aegis Ashore, violates the INF. Moscow says the MK 41 can launch Tomahawk missiles, but the US maintains the MK 41 is meant for defense purposes.

“In particular, it might be possible to consider verification measures regarding the Aegis Ashore systems equipped with Mk 41 launchers at US and NATO bases in Europe and the 9M729 missiles at Russian military facilities in the Kaliningrad Region,” Putin said.

“The purpose of such verification measures would be to confirm the absence from the facilities, encompassed by the agreements, of ground-launched intermediate and shorter-range missiles as well as weapons whose parameters and classification have remained a controversy between the two parties (Russia’s missile 9M729).”

Putin’s offer comes as the fate of the last nuclear arms control treaty between the two powers remains uncertain. The New START limits the number of warheads each country can have deployed. The treaty will expire in February 2021 if an agreement is not reached. Moscow has offered to extend the treaty for five years with no preconditions, as it allows, but the US is demanding more.

Putin recently offered to temporarily extend the treaty for one year in exchange for a freeze on both countries’ nuclear arsenals, a key US demand. The US State Department welcomed Putin’s offer, and negotiations to finalize a deal are expected to start soon.

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

The “Fortress Taiwan” arms deal overseen by ex-Assistant Secretary of Defense Randall Schriver is one of the most provocative U.S. moves against China in years – and a big win for his think tank’s arms industry and Taiwanese patrons.

When the United States finalized a set of seven arms sales packages to Taiwan in August, including 66 upgraded F-16 fighter planes and longer-range air-to-ground missiles that could hit sensitive targets on mainland China, it shifted U.S. policy sharply toward a much more aggressive stance on the geo-strategic island at the heart of military tensions between the United States and China.

Branded “Fortress Taiwan” by the Pentagon, the ambitious arms deal was the engineered by Randall Schriver, a veteran pro-Taiwan activist and anti-China hardliner whose think tank had been financed by America’s biggest arms contractors and by the Taiwan government itself. 

Since assuming the post of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs in early 2018, Schriver has focused primarily on granting his major arms company patrons the vaunted arms deals they had sought for years.

The arms sales Schriver has overseen represent the most dangerous U.S. escalation against China in years. The weapons systems will give Taiwan the capability to strike Chinese military and civilian targets far inland, thus emboldening those determined to push for independence from China. Although no U.S. administration has committed Washington to defend Taiwan since it normalized relations with China, the Pentagon is developing the weapons systems and military strategy it would need for a full-scale war. If a conflict breaks out, Taiwan is likely to be at its center.

Returning the favor to arms makers and Taiwanese government donors

Schriver is a longtime advocate of massive, highly provocative arms sales to Taiwan who has advanced the demand that the territory be treated more like a sovereign, independent state. His lobbying has been propelled by financial support from major arms contractors and Taiwan through two institutional bases: a consulting business and a “think tank” that also led the charge for arms sales to U.S. allies in East Asia.

The first of these outfits was a consulting firm called Armitage International, which Schriver founded in 2005 with Richard Armitage, a senior Pentagon and State Department official in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations. Schriver had served as Armitage’s Chief of Staff in State Department and then as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. (Armitage, a lifelong Republican, recently released a video endorsement of Joseph Biden for President).

As a partner in Armitage International, Schriver was paid consulting fees by two major arms contractors — Boeing and Raytheon — both of which hoped to obtain arms sales to Taiwan and other East Asian allies to compensate for declining profits from Pentagon contracts.

Schriver started a second national security venture in 2008 as President and CEO of a new lobbying front called The Project 2049 Institute, where Armitage served as Chairman of the Board. The name of the new institution referred to the date by which some anti-China hawks believed China intended to achieve global domination.

From its inception, The Project 2049 Institute focused primarily on U.S. military cooperation with Northeast Asian allies — and Taiwan in particular — with an emphasis on selling them more and better U.S. arms. Schriver, known as the Taiwan government’s main ally in Washington, became the key interlocutor for major U.S. arms makers looking to cash in potential markets in Taiwan. He was able to solicit financial support for Institute from Lockheed Martin, General Atomics, BAE and Raytheon, according to the Institute’s internet site, which provides no figures on the amounts given by each prior to 2017.

Equally important, however, is the Project 2049 Institute’s heavy dependence on grants from the government of Taiwan. The most recent annual report of the Institute shows that more than a third of its funding in 2017 came either directly from the Taiwan government or a quasi-official organization representing its national security institutions. 

Project 2049 received a total of $280,000 from the Taiwan Ministry of Defense and Taiwan’s unofficial diplomatic office in Washington (TECRO) as well as $60,000 from the “Prospect Foundation”, whose officers are all former top national security officials of Taiwan.  Another $252,000 in support for Schriver’s Institute in 2017 came from the State Department, at a time when it was taking an especially aggressive public anti-China line.

By creating a non-profit “think tank,” Schriver and Armitage had found a way to skirt rules aimed at minimizing conflicts of interest in the executive branch. The Executive Order 13770 issued by President Donald Trump in early 2017 that was supposed to tighten further restrictions on conflicts of interest barred Schriver from participation for a period of two years “in any particular matter that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients….”

However, the financial support for Project 2049 from Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, General Atomics, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, and from Taiwanese official and quasi-official bodies were considered as outside that prohibition, because they were not technically “clients.”

Big wins for Schriver’s corporate supporters and anti-China interests

Brought into the Pentagon at the beginning 2018 to push China policy toward a more confrontational stance, Schriver spent 2018 and the first half of 2019 moving proposals for several major arms sales to Taiwan — including the new F-16s and the air-to-ground missiles capable of hitting sensitive targets in China — through inter-agency consultations.  He secured White House approval for the arms packages and Congress was informally notified in August 2019, however, Congress was not notified of the decision until August 2020. That was because Trump was engaged in serious trade negotiations with China and wanted to avoid unnecessary provocation to Beijing.

Lockheed Martin was the biggest corporate winner in the huge and expensive suite of arms sales to Taiwan. It reaped the largest single package of the series: a ten-year, $8 billion deal for which it was the “principle contractor” to provide 66 of its own F-16 fighters to Taiwan, along with the accompanying engines, radars and other electronic warfare equipment.

The seven major arms sales packages included big wins for other corporate supporters as well: Boeing’s AGM-84E Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM), which could be fired by the F-16s and hit sensitive military and even economic targets in China’s Nanjing region, and sea surveillance drones from General Atomics.

In February 2020, shortly after Schriver left the Pentagon, the Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen received the lobbyist in her office in Taipei and publicly thanked him for having “facilitated the sale of F-16V fighter jets to Taiwan and attached great importance to the role and status of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific region.” It was an extraordinary expression of a foreign government’s gratitude for a U.S. official’s service to its interests.

Having delivered the goods for the big military contractors and the Taiwan government, Schriver returned to the Project 2049 Institute, replacing Armitage as chairman of the board.

Realizing the neocon PNAC’s vision

The arms sales to Taiwan represented a signal victory for those who still hoping to reverse the official U.S. acceptance the People’s Republic of China as the legitimate government of all of China. Ever since the 1982 U.S.-China Joint Communique, in which the United States vowed that had “no intention of interfering in China’s internal affairs or pursuing a policy of “two China’s” or “one China, one Taiwan”, anti-China hardliners who opposed that concession have insisted on making the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which called for the United States to sell Taiwan such arms “as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability” as keystone of U.S. Taiwan policy.

The neoconservative Project for a New American Century (PNAC) led by William Kristol and Robert Kagan wanted to go even further; it pushed for the United States to restore its early Cold War commitment to defend Taiwan from any Chinese military assault.  Thus a 1999 PNAC statement called on the United States to “declare unambiguously that it will come to Taiwan’s defense in the event of an attack or a blockade against Taiwan, including against the offshore islands of Matsu and Kinmen.”

After leaving the World Bank in 2008 amidst a scandal involving his girlfriend, Paul Wolfowitz – the author of that 1999 statement on East Asia – turned his attention to protecting Taiwan. Despite the absence of any business interest he was known to have in Taiwan, Wolfowitz was chairman of the board of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council from 2008 to 2018. The Project 2049 Institute was a key member of the Council, along with all the major arms companies hoping to make sales to Taiwan.

During the first days of Wolfowitz’s chairmanship, the U.S.-China Business Council published a lengthy study warning of a deteriorating air power balance between China and Taiwan.  The study was obviously written under the auspices of one or more of the major arms companies who were members, but it was attributed only to “the Council’s membership” and to “several outside experts” whom it did not name. 

The study criticized both the Bush and Obama administrations for refusing to provide the latest F-16 models to Taiwan, warning that U.S. forces would be forced to defend the island directly if the jets were not immediately supplied.  It also called for providing Taiwan with land-attack cruise missiles capable of hitting some of the most sensitive military and civilian targets in the Nanjing province that lay opposite Taiwan.

The delicacy of the political-diplomatic situation regarding Taiwan’s status, and the reality of China’s ability to reunify the country it chooses to do so has deterred every administration since George H.W. Bush sold 150 F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan. That was, until Shriver’s provocative “Fortress Taiwan” sale went through. 

The triumph of corporate and foreign interests in determining one of the most consequential U.S. decisions regarding China is likely to bedevil U.S. policy for years to come.  At a moment when the Pentagon is pushing a rearmament program based mainly on preparation for war with China, an influential former official backed by arms industry and Taiwanese money has helped set the stage for a potentially catastrophic confrontation.

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Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist who has covered national security policy since 2005 and was the recipient of Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in 2012.  His most recent book is The CIA Insider’s Guide to the Iran Crisis co-authored with John Kiriakou, just published in February.

Featured image is from The Grayzone

At last week’s presidential debate, the American people were presented with two widely divergent points of view on how to address North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal: Either engage with its leader (and thereby “legitimize” a “thug”) or apply more sanctions and pressure in order to “control” North Korea.

But this is a false dichotomy. Meeting or not meeting with the North Korean leader hasn’t been the failure of U.S. policy. And more pressure and sanctions will not convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons arsenal.

To make any substantial progress, the next administration must take a wholly new approach to achieve a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

Most urgently, the next administration should officially end the Korean War with a peace agreement. Contrary to the belief held by most Americans, the 70-year-old war never officially ended and was only halted by a fragile ceasefire signed in 1953. That means that the risk of an escalation (intentional or accidental) that triggers a full-scale — potentially nuclear — war remains, endangering us all.

Both the Trump and Obama administrations depended on a mixture of sanctions, political isolation, and the threat of military force to try to compel North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program. But both “maximum pressure” (Trump) and “strategic patience” (Obama) failed to make progress toward that goal. A positive step was the 2018 Singapore Agreement in which the United States and North Korea agreed to establish new relations toward a peace regime and a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. While North Korea has improved its military capability, it has not tested any long-range missiles or new nuclear weapons since then.

But since last year’s Hanoi Summit, talks between North Korea and the United States have stalled. That’s because engagement with North Korea was not accompanied by a fundamental change in U.S. policy. The United States keeps expecting that pressure will convince North Korea to unilaterally disarm without providing any sanctions relief or security guarantees.

What actually put the prospect of denuclearization on the table was the possibility of peace that began with the 2018 Olympics diplomacy between North Korea and South Korea. It manifested in the Panmunjom Declaration, in which President Moon Jae-in and Chairman Kim Jong Un declared “that there will be no more war and a new era of peace has begun on the Korean peninsula.” The Declaration calls for inter-Korean economic and civic projects and replacing the Armistice Agreement with a peace agreement. But the United States has impeded these reconciliation efforts.

Instead of further militarizing the region and applying more sanctions and pressure, which are harming innocent North Korean civilians, the next administration should engage in the hard work of sustained diplomacy based on specific, concrete next steps. Diplomacy isn’t a “gift” to North Korea; it’s what needs to happen to get to peace. Talking with North Korea should not be viewed differently from what Washington does with any authoritarian power. Ignoring North Korea only kicks the can down the road in addressing Pyongyang’s growing nuclear capabilities and arms proliferation. Furthermore, a majority of Americans support the United States negotiating with adversaries like North Korea to avoid a military confrontation.

Specifically, the next administration should replace the “all or nothing” stance with step-by-step, reciprocal, verifiable actions to advance denuclearization and peace. That could mean building confidence through opening liaison offices, easing sanctions, facilitating reunions between Korean-American families and their loved ones in North Korea, and formalizing a moratorium on North Korean long-range missile and nuclear testing and U.S.-South Korea military exercises.

But most crucially, we must end the Korean War. This continued state of war is not a mere technicality; it’s the root cause of militarism and tensions that must be resolved if there is to be real progress with North Korea.

The good news is that there are growing voices in Congress that recognize the importance of peace with North Korea as a crucial step towards denuclearization. There are now 50 members of Congress who have co-sponsored House Resolution 152, which calls for an end to the Korean War and a peace agreement. Notably, all of the Democratic contenders for the next chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee — Reps. Brad Sherman, Joaquin Castro, and Gregory Meeks — are co-sponsors of this important resolution.

The status quo means more nuclear weapons, more human rights violations, more separated families, more suffering from sanctions, and the ongoing risk of nuclear war. It’s in everyone’s interest to change course with a realistic, concrete plan toward peace and denuclearization, but this is ultimately in the hands of the next U.S. president. Americans must urge him to choose wisely.

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Featured image: Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-in holding hands after signing the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity, and Reunification of the Korean Peninsula in April 2018. Photo credit: Cheongwadae/Blue House

A new report from Airwars raises the question of whether the Trump administration has switched to using the CIA for strikes in Yemen in order to shroud US operations there in greater secrecy.

Airwars documented at least 30 locally-claimed US drone strikes, including 11 in the past ten months. The US has not officially declared a strike in Yemen since mid-2019.

The report found that US strikes and raids in Yemen since Trump came into office have killed at least 86 civilians, including 28 children and 13 women.

When Airwars contacted the US military with evidence of these incidents, the US declined to respond. Instead, officials confirmed that there is no functioning civilian casualty monitoring cell covering Yemen operations within the US Department of Defense. The DoD claimed there were zero civilian deaths in both its 2018 and 2019 reports to Congress.

The failure to carry out adequate post-strike investigations was just one of a series of criticisms levelled at the US drone programme by a German court in a landmark decision in March 2019. The case, brought on behalf of Faisal bin ali Jaber, a Yemeni engineer who lost family members to a strike in August 2012, marked the first time a European country has been found to play an essential role in US drone strikes. The court’s decision, which held that Germany must do more to ensure its territory is not used by the US to carry out unlawful drone strikes in Yemen, is set to be heard on appeal at Germany’s highest Administrative Court on November 25.

Jennifer Gibson, who leads Reprieve’s work on drone strikes, said:

 “These findings paint a shocking picture of a US administration gone rogue in Yemen, so unconcerned with accountability that they haven’t even allocated a desk to track how many civilians their missiles kill. This shadowy assassination programme makes none of us safer, and is causing irreparable harm.”

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Poland is currently experiencing one of the most difficult periods in its recent history. The effects of the new coronavirus pandemic have been devastating in the country, considering that it has effectively reduced Polish industrial production – which decreased by 24.6% compared to last year – and structurally weakened the tourism sector in which the orders in hotels and restaurants fell by 80%, registering the worst numbers in the country’s history. Unemployment also affects the Polish people terribly. Only in April this year, 165 thousand people lost their sources of income due to the crisis generated by the virus, which is a number five times greater than the Polish citizens who lost their jobs during the 2008 crisis. Still, small and medium-sized private businesses have completely broken down, leading to countless breaches of workers’ contracts who are now unemployed and, therefore, dependent on government aid. The authorities will have to pay benefits of 209 million zlotys to unemployed citizens, the money that comes from the Ministry of Labor’s social security fund, which further increases the government spending. In total, the state has already spent 47 billion dollars to fight the coronavirus pandemic, even though it has had few practical results so far.

Faced with this absolutely catastrophic scenario, the most strategic attitude for the Polish state would be to invest heavily in a national economic recovery plan, rescuing companies affected by the crisis and guaranteeing maximum employment for the people. However, the Polish government’s priorities appear to be different. Poland recently announced an economic aid plan for Belarus valued at more than 500 million dollars. The project goes far beyond the Polish borders since an economic recovery plan for Belarus was already presented to the European Union under the condition of new elections in Minsk. Such economic aid from the EU is valued at more than a billion dollars and is still being evaluated in the bloc.

However, Poland’s situation in the EU is getting worse. Because of the crisis of democracy in the country The EU wants to pressure Poland to move forward in its democratic process through economic punishments that will further affect the Polish economy, and it is possible that Warsaw will soon stop receiving its annual aid from the EU. In fact, despite contributing to various Western interests, Poland is still a nation considered “retrograde” on issues such as the implementation of democracy and the defense of human rights, which creates serious problems in their relations.

Interestingly, neither the crisis of relations between the EU and Poland nor the Polish economic collapse seems enough to stop the plan to “save” Belarus. In this sense, to ensure that the plan for Belarus is carried forward, the Polish government is investing in a truly dishonest propaganda. Polish Finance Minister Tadeusz Kosczynski even announced that “everything is very good with public finances and the banking sector is working normally”, which is contradicted by the country’s official data. Still, the little “stability” that remains in Polish public finances is thanks to European aid – every year Warsaw receives 11 billion euros from the EU.

It is also important to consider that not only is Poland experiencing a serious economic crisis, but also the EU itself is inserted in a scenario of great economic difficulties, which is being aggravated by the advance of the second wave of the new coronavirus. The pandemic makes several European nations impose measures of social isolation that severely hamper economic development. So, what would be the advantage of offering so much money to Belarus?

The idea of a “Marshall plan” to “save” Belarus must be analyzed far beyond the economic aspect. The EU is more concerned with the economy of its members than with the situation of Belarusians. We can only understand the real nature of the plan when we analyze it from a strictly political point of view: in fact, Poland is so concerned with Lukashenko’s victory that in order to change the Belarusian scenario it demands to spend such huge amount of money.

The pandemic situation in Belarus is far less worrying than in Poland or any European country. The small Slavic nation has managed to control the major effects of the crisis. In this sense, the proposal for economic aid from Poland is not intended to rescue a country in ruins due to a crisis, but simply to guarantee the interests of the nation that sends such “aid” which mostly destined for the Belarusian political opposition. Poland has been one of the most active countries in the Belarusian political crisis, openly supporting the opposition, collaborating with protest organizers and protecting political activists who committed crimes during the unrest.

Both Poland and the EU see Lukashenko’s victory as a threat due to the rapprochement between the Belarusian president and Russia, which has strengthened considerably recently. In parallel, Poland, although acting as a satellite of Western interests, is far from the democratic ideal desired by Europeans, who are already considering some kind of sanctions against Warsaw. In this sense, attracting the focus of European concern to Belarus and trying to promote a falsely “democratic” and “humanitarian” campaign of economic support for the opposition is an interesting strategy for Poland. However, until Europeans actually decide to send the large sum requested by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, it is Poland itself that is leading this “new Marshall plan” while its own population suffers from unemployment and exponential increase in poverty.

Undoubtedly, Poland’s priority must be to protect its own people, while the EU’s priority must be to ensure that all its members are indeed in line with the democratic values and standards upheld by the organization (isn’t it the case with Poland?) before worrying about nations outside the bloc.

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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.

Featured image is from fnf-europe.org

The Dangers of Environmental Toxins

By Jemma Nott, October 28 2020

While California, Brazil and Bolivia have spent the past Northern Hemispheric summer burning and we all await more chaos created by more frequent natural disasters, a climate emergency of a different nature has gone under the radar for some time.

In fact, to even raise it as something that requires alarm or a sense of emergency seems to often be dismissed as conspiracy in spite of mounting evidence to the contrary.

Environmental toxins are wreaking havoc through our environment and while it’s cool to challenge our major polluters we ignore some of the other major corporations that are letting toxins go unchecked.

One of the most obvious and best culprits to challenge on this particular topic is Monsanto – one which many perceive as attracting perhaps unwarranted ire.

But yet, Monsanto were discovered in 2018 to have been ghost writing scientific studies only revealed when plaintiffs filed suits against the mega-corporation in an attempt to prove that glyphosate or Roundup was a carcinogen and in particular the result of their aggressive Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. The court case also revealed that a prominent academic and proponent of GMO crops had asked Monsanto to draft an article for him which was identical to an article he had purportedly authored on Forbes.

Even further, one of the ‘BBC reporters’ at the trials was also later revealed to be a “reputation manager” for FTI consulting who’s clients include Monsanto. The results of the trial saw the plaintiffs walking away successfully with a jury satisfied that there is sufficient evidence that it is in fact a carcinogen.

The trial pushed open the door into a world that even the biggest tin-hatters could not have really imagined. Monsanto was revealed to have feelers and money spread all throughout industry and including scientific boards like the American Council on Health and Science, which purports to be independent of industry.

When the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glysophate as a possible carcinogen in 2017, it was revealed that one of Monsanto’s PR firms had ‘contacts’ at Reuters who immediately published an article questioning the legitimacy of the IARC decision.

What’s most troubling about this of course is that the only study on Roundup since the EPA studies with fraudulent data implies that Monsanto has known since 1974 that their products are carcinogenic. In Australia, the agricultural chemical regulator, which receives funding from Monsanto, received pressure to review Roundup after the IARC decision but it refused despite a revelation in a Four Corners episode that they are in fact themselves funded by the agricultural industry.

Companies like Monsanto are a product of the post-WW2 blending of military and industry in the United States.

The military industrial complex sought to normalize the use of chemical weapons in warfare and the consequence of this was the rapid expansion of pesticide industries.

As Frank A Von Hippel reveals in his new book the Chemical Age, DDT an organic pollutant now primarily used for killing mosquitos is not just dangerous and harmful in that it negatively disrupts our hormones but that is has trans-generational epiginetic effects revealed after a study across Africa where it is used heavily. Organaphosphates were later developed as a purported replacement for DDTs as they were considered to able to degrade in the environment and detoxified by the human body several decades ago but this is now known to not be true.

The EPA banned them from being used in the home as late as 2001 because they were revealed to be disrupting developing brains and childrens nervous systems. However, pyrethroids and pyrethrins (a class of insecticide) continue to be used across suburbs, lawns and farmlands globally.

The EPA still considers this class safe for use despite a 2011 study of New York mothers which found that prenatal exposure to piperonyl butoxide — an additive commonly used in pyrethroid sprays — is strongly associated with delayed mental development in toddlers. The Transport Workers Union of Australia even in 2013 considered a class action suit for their airline workers over a link between Parkinsons Disease and insecticides used in long-haul flights since it is an Australian government measure that all flights are sprayed for insects before landing.

Hippel proposes that there is absolutely no square inch of Earth (including extremely remote tribes of the Antarctic, the upper layers of the atmosphere and in women’s breast milk) that insecticides and pesticides do not exist. And what’s more, there are a plethora of other herbicides have known impacts on human health.

Alex Jones is more infamously known for his theories around Atrazine but what we do know is that Atrazine is in fact an endocrine disruptor meaning that it can dysregulate hormones in the human body and any dysregulation of hormones necessarily leads to adverse health effect. And it is a herbicide found in many global populations water supply and was found in a Melbourne University study to be affecting men’s fertility.

Another better known endocrine disruptor is BPA found in most plastic which is most commonly linked to endometriosis or other forms of infertility in women but it can also act to suppress the production of testosterone in men. And if you think you are one of those people that can simply ‘go plastic-free’ I’m sure you’ll be surprised to learn that, that is quite impossible because it is literally everywhere.

Plastic is not just in your computer, your lunch box, your car or your phone, your clothes but more importantly in the form of microplastics covering the entirety of the Earth from sediments on the deep sea floor to ice in the Arctic.

Microplastics are said to poison the soil and in turn enter into our food supply.

And we know that microplastics are harming animals organs including their liver and bloodstream so its reasonable to guess that they are having at least a low grade negative effect on human health. The Lancet dubbed microplastics an “urgent human health problem” calling for strong regulations on plastic producers. And in fact, with so many endocrine disruptors now in the atmosphere and in every day items that we encounter its suspected to be at least partially linked to drastically declining fertility rates in men – declining by over 50% in the past 40 years. Which not only leaves men less healthy but the species in jeopardy of real decline.

Not only do insecticides and pesticides destroy human fertility but they also destroy long-term soil fertility too creating larger and larger chunks of the Earth that will not be arable in decades to come. But what’s damning right now is that GMO crop production methods are increasingly producing vegetables with higher and higher levels of lectins. If you are unfamiliar with lectins, it is a natural insecticide produced by some plants (a part of their natural defensive mechanisms) which high intake in humans is increasingly showing strong association with an array of chronic diseases from diabetes to fibromyalgia and association with damaged gut permeability.

Most vegetables have some level of lectins already but it’s inconsequential to most GMO Big Agra companies how high the level is that they are raising them to if it is a cheap and profitable guard for their crops.

It’s no coincidence of course that we don’t treat these issues with the same level of alarm that is afforded climate change, which of course deserves weight in its own right, but to ignore a holistic approach to environmental destruction leaves us not knowing the full array of people (or more accurately multinational corporations) to point fingers at. Because ultimately, the reason so many of us are hoodwinked into, in many cases, dismissing this aspect of environmental destruction as nothing but sheer conspiracy is exactly because of industry conspiracy to hide the real harm these producers in fact do.

The only difference is that they’ve somehow managed to wage a much better PR campaign than most coal producers. Most countries regulate these chemicals in different ways the UK has 50% less pesticides and insecticides in their foods than the US does for example but until in all countries we have determined that there are safe human levels (and exactly what that is) without corporate fraud and bullying, we may never know if there even is a safe level for human exposure. Whether it’s the insectides in your soft tissues, or the microplastics you are ingesting, we will never not feel the consequences of pollutant mega-corporations from the military industrial complex to Big Agra, and in the West we need to learn the confidence to teach them to pay a price for it.

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Jemma Nott is a multimedia journalist.

Featured image is from Shutterstock

The most radical socialists, Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters (Black, White, Latino or Asian), liberal and conservative zealots, diversity and equity gurus, pacifists, denizens of corporates and non-profits, rappers, rockers and country western musicians, Bernie Sanders, racists and White guilt pushers, Baptists, Catholics, and Muslims, children, bland K-16 teachers, members of the military, indeed, every social, cultural, political and economic demographic of the United States of America drinks, swims and drowns in an ocean of Liquid Capitalism. It is nearly as old as humanity itself.

Liquid Capitalism is impressive and horrifying. It floods and absorbs every political movement and message. It dilutes it, repackages it, commodifies it and profits from it. Take the BLM movement. Corporations jumped on the bandwagon finding another bullet point to add to their Multicultural Marketing strategies. BLM is beyond necessary and about time, of course, but look how quickly corporations took up the mantel of political activists: from Coke and Amazon to Walmart and Apple, corporations push the notion that they are really conscientious, nice inclusive people and are going to restructure internally and hire more Blacks from a pool of 13.4 percent of the US population.

Drowning the Message

Behind the smiling corporate face that supports BLM (and other minority/diversity movements like LGBTQ), lurks the backstabbing bottomline: How to keep Black Identity consumers spending on the products that corporate capitalists produce. Consider this from Neilson:

“When it comes to African-American consumer spending, there are millions, sometimes billions of dollars in revenue at stake,” said Andrew McCaskill, Senior Vice President, Global Communications and Multicultural Marketing, Nielsen. “With 43% of the 75 million Millennials in the US identifying as African American, Hispanic or Asian, if a brand doesn’t have a multicultural strategy, it doesn’t have a growth strategy. The business case for multicultural outreach is clear. African-American consumers, and all diverse consumers, want to see themselves authentically represented in marketing, and they want brands to recognize their value to the bottomline.”

And that was in 2017 before the Black Lives Matter movement kicked off.  Even BLM has to resort to capitalist practices to keep afloat: The official BLM store is online and needs consumers to purchase clothing and other items to support the movement.

Liquid Capitalism has drowned out the BLM voice [which is generously funded by the Ford Foundation and Soros’ Open Society]. No one in their right mind can’t support their cause. But like everything else in the US, their message, as broadcast on television or the WWW, is mixed in with a hundred other product sells and it gets watered down. It is tough to keep those media corporations and their advertisers—who determine what news you’ll digest—interested in one subject for too long. News and advertisements—along with Social Justice fare—are repetitively pounded into television viewers heads (and with every click of the user’s mouse) and they eventually become numb to what counts. Just as they shrug their shoulders and say, “My gosh, how awful” as another shooting of a Black man is broadcast or a school shooting takes place, they all forget about it in a few weeks time because liquid capitalism dilutes the message by commodifying and selling it for profit, and ultimately it is washed away Besides, there is always a new “thing” just around the corner that will cause an important movement like BLM to drop out of the news cycle.

It’s the same story with the Covid-19 pandemic. Here is this gem from a marketing firm:

“To market to people during this difficult and scary period, to really and cleverly market to them, you must understand their deepest psychological needs. People want what they don’t have, and there are ways of figuring out exactly what it is that they don’t have and how they’d like it served to them—even during a pandemic.”

Liquid Identity

According to Moises Esteban Guitart,

“Liquid modernity [capitalism] provides an explosion of choices. The number of products or options available has increased dramatically: TV channels, telephonic companies, clothes, varieties of foods, retirement pensions, medical care, different computers, gas services, heterogeneity of families, different kinds of jobs, plurality of religions, and so on. However, several researchers have suggested that materialism, extreme consumption as a way of life, could be toxic to subjective wellbeing The consumerist society fosters individualistic identity and is associated with the creation of infinite needs, hedonistic material pleasure, impulsive and hyperactive behavior, dissatisfaction with the “solid life,” craving for novelty, concern with appearance, and deteriorating happiness and interpersonal relations.

The individualistic liquid identity syndrome is the negative psychological effect of the consumerist capitalism. Individualistic liquid identity is the product of cultural capitalistic tools (concepts like materialism, artifacts like money, and institutions like markets) that people utilize to define and understand themselves and others and they interiorize explicitly and implicitly. The individualistic liquid identity syndrome affects people that give a high value to money, possessions, autonomy, appearances (physical and social), fame and independence.

The ideologies and institutions of [Liquid] capitalism foster, maintain and encourage a set of values based in materialism, self interest and a selfish, strong desire for financial success and economic growth, hedonism, high levels of consumption and interpersonal styles based on competition. These values and practices often conflict with pursuits such as caring about the broader world, having a close relationships with others, feeling worthy and free, and sharing or solidarity.” 

Corporations Say, “A Tribal Nation is More Profitable than a Unified Nation”

Liquid Capitalism is destroying the fabric of the United States. Businesses go where the cash is whether it is an LGBTQ Identity market ($3.7 trillion spending power) or Latino Identity market ($1.7 trillion). Corporations and their politicians in the US Congress are salivating for a time when the USA consists of many Identity Tribes. And they are using artificial intelligence to accelerate that process.

“When we identify ourselves and allow ourselves to be identified, when we tribe up and proclaim the characteristics that are uniform throughout our tribe, we give advertisers and marketers just what they’ve been looking for all these years: groups of conformed individuals to whom they can sell things. The last century proved to marketers and advertisers that they could create products that were geared to be consumed by specific subsets of the population, from fan bases to ethnic groups. The new way to do this is through AI and machine learning algorithms that do more than target individuals who subscribe to group identities—it actually herds us into identities…Advertisers are specifically targeting individuals based on their revealed group identity, and the algorithms that are being designed to help us, to give us the content we want, are driving our choices as much as (if not more than) we are driving them.”

Great! Now Artificial Intelligence and Machine Language is in on the gig.

The fact is there is no escape from Liquid Capitalism.

Even leading advocates of Equity in Education/Social Justice are bound by the dictates of capitalism.

Take the case of Australia. It has followed US federal, state and local schemes that push the privatization of education. Here in the US, as in Australia, “Schools compete against each other via test scores; public schools are required to fight for limited resources and for the most talented teachers and students; competition [capitalism] has been significantly amplified by the publication of student performance data; competition includes the creation of unforgiving performance cultures, which result in teachers spending more time “working for the numbers” than delivering pastoral care or addressing issues of equity and inclusion; and young people are sandwiched, therefore, into the same cookie-cutter model of excellence that schools must adopt to retain market competitiveness.” ( Note: I have witnessed first hand “working for the numbers” in a public middle school. Students in a virtual class were given A’s across the board even though some did not complete an assignment work or only partially did so. One teacher quipped, “We’ve got to keep them coming back, right?”)

Eliminate False Consciousness? Reeducation

There is no question that Equity in Education and Social Justice require an alteration of American language/thought. This is commonly called Inclusive Language. Who isn’t for that, if it is implemented sensibly?

To get there, the US public and private school systems have become the primary targets of education strategies pushed by Equity/Inclusion and Social Justice Missionaries (capitalists), regulators and politicians, (lobbied by capitalists) and; of course, corporations. Beyond the noble cause they all proclaim, they all have a financial interest, or capitalist incentive, even as they seek to challenge the norms of American education and language that are insensitive to all minority groups. Get em while they are young, as the saying goes.

American educators, with the “Change” Missionaries in the vanguard, claim that they will transform the inequitable language and thought processes used by some 328 million Americans (they are sure to make a lot of money in the process). But to what end, all this? To some advocates, the goal seems to be to lead the charge to force the majority population to acknowledge its sin of “Whiteness and inherent bias” and “White Violence” that has limited minority freedom of movement in American society whether in the athletic, economic, political or cultural spheres. To other advocates it means fighting to maintain LGBTQ rights, or pushing against ageism, and ensuring societal inclusiveness for those with disabilities (to include military veterans). And to others it is remembering the past pernicious segregation of Mexican Americans in Arizona schools.

To put a fine point on it all, all Americans are being subjected to a massive reeducation campaign. It is also mandate from corporate and military America. It’ll work as long as the practice of shaming by some advocates or particular portion of the American populace is removed.

And the flow of Liquid Capitalism makes it all happen.

Corporations and the US military are well into the process of the reeducation effort. Consider Goldman Sachs manual for Inclusive Language. In it, employees are instructed in the proper use of pronouns. “Goldman Sachs has launched an internal campaign centered around gender identity and pronouns, seeking to provide education on what the different types of pronouns are, guidance for the way to use them and offering new avenues for our people to proactively self-identify.”

Over at Lockheed Martin an ALL-INclusive campaign has been underway since 2019: Transforming for Impactprogram is well underway: “We define inclusion as acknowledging and leveraging diversity by creating an environment where employees feel welcomed, respected, engaged and able to bring their full self to work in order to develop innovative solutions that drive business success.”

Then there is the US Army’s Project Inclusion:

“The Army has enacted a range of initiatives, to include training. The training helps to increase deliberate thinking and shift attention from the visual construct and keep the focus on the value that diversity brings…[we are] redacting race, ethnicity, and gender data from both the Officer and Enlisted Record Briefs.”

Original Sins

In the end, the human species is Capitalist to the core. Archeological finds from the city of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia (4000 to 3100 BC) show that some of the first writings in human history were used to document expenses and revenues for “transactions involving grain and sheep.” Independently, Egypt (Old Kingdom 2700-2200 BC) developed its own writing system and used it for similar purposes. If that were not Capitalist enough, trade in obsidian (volcanic black glass used to make tools and weapons) between Bingol in Eastern Anatolia to sites hundreds of kilometers away in Mesopotamia and the Levant took place in 10,000 (BC) by river and overland routes. [Making Civilizations: The World before 600, Harvard, 2020].

And humanity’s original sins of war, slavery and Capitalism are at least that old. Will we ever rid ourselves of them?

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John Stanton can be reached at [email protected].

Featured image: Oakland California, May 30, 2020. Credit: Thomas Hawk/ Flickr

First published by New Eastern Outlook  and Global Research March 10, 2020 coinciding with the announcement of the Lockdown and closure of 190 National Economies Worldwide

Every day world mainstream news reports more people in more countries diagnosed “positive” for the coronavirus illness, now called COVID-19. As the reported numbers grow, so does widespread nervousness, often in the form of panic shopping for masks, disinfections, toilet paper, canned goods. We are told to accept the testing results as science-based. While it is next to impossible to get a full picture of what is taking place in China, the center of the novel virus storm, there is a process, being fed by mainstream media accounts and genuine panic in populations unclear what the real dangers are, that has alarming implications for the post-pandemic future.

During the last week of January the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ordered an unprecedented lock down of an entire city of 11 million, Wuhan, in an attempt to contain a public health situation that had clearly gotten out of control. Never before in the history of modern public health had a government placed an entire city in quarantine by imposing a cordon sanitaire around it. That lock down was quickly extended to other China cities to the extent that, for the past weeks, a major part of the world’s second largest national economy has shut down. That in turn is impacting the global economy.

At this point, as cases and the first deaths are being reported in countries outside of China, especially in South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy, the prime question everyone has is how dangerous this virus is. The fiasco with the US CDC, where the putative tests for the novel virus were shown defective, underscores the fact that the testing for the now-named virus, SARS-CoV-2, said to cause the disease called COVID-19, is anything but 100% reliable. Despite this, influenced by a steady stream of mainstream media images of empty shop shelves in Italy, of police cordons around Washington State nursing homes said to house several presumed Coronavirus patients, of pictures of Iranian hospitals filled with body bags, millions of citizens are understandably becoming alarmed and fearful.

What is being done in city after city and country after country is cancellation of major events where many people come together. This has included the Venice Carnival, major sports events, trade shows in Switzerland and elsewhere being canceled. Major airlines are being financially devastated as people around the world cancel holiday flights, as are cruise ship lines. China orders burning of cash notes claiming they might be contaminated. The French Louvre reopens but does not accept cash, only cards, as paper might be contaminated. WHO warns about paper money contagion risk. Countries are introducing laws such as in the UK allowing legal detention of citizens who might have a virus. Growing media promotion in the West of shop shelves bare of everyday essentials such as rice, pasta, toilet paper is feeding panic buying everywhere.

Questions on Death Rate

It is important to have a perspective on the apparent deaths provably due to COVID-19. Here facts become very imprecise.

As of March 3, 2020 according to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom, worldwide there were a total of 90,893 cases of COVID-19, with 3,110 resulting in death. He then called this a 3.4% mortality rate, a figure highly disputed by other health experts. Tedros stated, “Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died. By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected.”

The problem is that no one can say precisely what the true death rate is. That’s because globally we have not tested all who might have mild cases of the virus and the accuracy of those tests are anything but 100% certain. But a statement about a death rate more than three times that of seasonal flu is a real panic-maker if true.

The reality is very likely a far lower true mortality according to epidemic experts. “We do not report all the cases,” says Professor John Edmunds of the Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “In fact, we only usually report a small proportion of them. If there are many more cases in reality, then the case fatality ratio will be lower.” Edmunds went on to say, “What you can safely say […] is that if you divide the number of reported deaths by the number of reported cases [to get the case fatality ratio], you will almost certainly get the wrong answer.” The WHO under Tedros seems to be erring on the side of spreading panic.

The WHO and the USA CDC some years ago changed the definition of deaths from seasonal flu to “deaths of flu or pneumonia.” The CDC calculates only an approximate flu death count by totaling death certificates processed that list “pneumonia or influenza” as the underlying or contributing cause of death. The CDC estimates 45 Million Flu Cases, and 61,000 what they deftly call “Flu-Associated” Deaths in 2017-2018 US Flu Season. How many were elderly with pneumonia or other lung diseases is unclear. Naturally the numbers help spread fear and sell seasonal flu vaccines whose positive effect is anything but proven. Worldwide, the CDC estimated in a study in 2017 that, “between 291,000 and 646,000 people worldwide die from seasonal influenza-related respiratory illnesses each year.”

In China alone the estimate for seasonal influenza-associated (including pneumonia) deaths was about 300,000 in 2018. Note that 3,000 corona-attributed deaths, as tragic as it is, is but 1% of the “normal” annual deaths from lung-related illnesses in China, and because of the mixed or changing China accounting, it is not clear how many of the 3,000 China deaths are even from seasonal pneumonia. But owing to dramatic videos, not verifiable, of people allegedly dropping dead on the streets in China, with no proof, or of Wuhan hospitals filled in the corridors with body bags apparently of dead from COVID-19, much of the world is understandably anxious about this strange exogenous invader.

Amid what is clearly confusion among many well-meaning health officials and likely opportunism by Western vaccine makers like GlaxoSmithKline or Gilead and others, with alarming speed our world is being transformed in ways just months ago we could not have imagined.

‘LOCK STEP’

Whatever has occurred inside China at this point it is almost impossible to say owing to conflicting reactions of the Beijing authorities and several changes in ways of counting COVID-19 cases. The question now is how the relevant authorities in the West will use this crisis. Here it is useful to go back to a highly relevant report published a decade ago by the Rockefeller Foundation, one of the world’s leading backers of eugenics, and creators of GMO among other things.

The report in question has the bland title, “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development.” It was published in May 2010 in cooperation with the Global Business Network of futurologist Peter Schwartz. The report contains various futurist scenarios developed by Schwartz and company.

One scenario carries the intriguing title, “LOCK STEP: A world of tighter top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership, with limited innovation and growing citizen pushback.” Here it gets interesting as in what some term predictive programming.

The Schwartz scenario states,

“In 2012, the pandemic that the world had been anticipating for years finally hit. Unlike 2009’s H1N1, this new influenza strain — originating from wild geese — was extremely virulent and deadly. Even the most pandemic-prepared nations were quickly overwhelmed when the virus streaked around the world, infecting nearly 20 percent of the global population and killing 8 million in just seven months…”

He continues,

“The pandemic also had a deadly effect on economies: international mobility of both people and goods screeched to a halt, debilitating industries like tourism and breaking global supply chains. Even locally, normally bustling shops and office buildings sat empty for months, devoid of both employees and customers.” This sounds eerily familiar.

Then the scenario gets very interesting:

“During the pandemic, national leaders around the world flexed their authority and imposed airtight rules and restrictions, from the mandatory wearing of face masks to body-temperature checks at the entries to communal spaces like train stations and supermarkets. Even after the pandemic faded, this more authoritarian control and oversight of citizens and their activities stuck and even intensified. In order to protect themselves from the spread of increasingly global problems — from pandemics and transnational terrorism to environmental crises and rising poverty — leaders around the world took a firmer grip on power.”

A relevant question is whether certain bad actors, and there are some in this world, are opportunistically using the widespread fears around the COVID-19 to advance an agenda of “lock step” top down social control, one that would include stark limits on travel, perhaps replacing of cash by “sanitary” electronic cash, mandatory vaccination even though the long term side effects are not proven safe, unlimited surveillance and the curtailing of personal freedoms such as political protests on the excuse it will allow “identification of people who refuse to be tested or vaccinated,” and countless other restrictions.

Much of the Rockefeller 2010 scenario is already evident. Fear is never a good guide to sound reason.

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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image is from NEO

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Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl

ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2

Year: 2007

Pages: 341 pages with complete index

List Price: $25.95

Special Price: $18.00

 

This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

The U.S. supported tarnishing of democracy is only causing a re-birth of sovereignty and freedom movement in Macedonia.

Not standing for democracy, rule of law and human rights, the United States can no longer claim the moral high ground it once proclaimed for itself. The loss of credibility poses a question for the increasingly tenuous superpower: Has the violation of these once defended principles been worth the short term and only seemingly strategic but likely unsustainable gains in various places around the world, including Macedonia?

The textbook case for sacrificing the claimed moral high ground for short term gains only to lose in the immediate aftermath is Macedonia, where all known techniques and practices of overthrowing the legitimate government where deployed. Like elsewhere, the tentacles of the superpower helped subjugate Macedonia through a brutal color revolution that ended up with an illegitimate government and one more humiliated nation. It succeeded, it doesn’t have popular support or legitimacy, and will ultimately fail as elsewhere.

The Republic of Macedonia was praised for its 28 years of independence as a peaceful country, a good neighbor and an island of peace and stability in the otherwise troubled Balkan region.

So many indecent incentives were thrown in front of the Macedonian elites as a cheap trick to bait the country to accept the submissive position of Macedonia and to satisfy Greek demands so Macedonia could be forced into NATO as soon as possible so it can be “saved” from the supposed Russian influence.

The EU, on the other hand, remains a distant goal, and while far from being the promised panacea, it was dangled like a carrot in front of a Macedonian state as a solution to all of its problems. The two main Macedonian parties alternated in power with peaceful democratic transitions in the course of these nearly three decades. In the last decade, with the conservative VMRO-DPMNE in power, Macedonia also came to be considered as a small economic miracle praised by the very World Bank and IMF [2], the financial arm of the US-led globalist order.

However, with the confrontation with Russia becoming an official and open global US policy, after the Sochi Olympic Games in 2014, and the orchestrated coup in Ukraine that took place in parallel, all other potential Russian-friendly hot-spots were marked for a quick takeover and solidification of US imperial positions. Among other such hot spots was the Republic of Macedonia. This was effectively telegraphed to the Macedonians by the former Secretary of State John Kerry [3] who stated in front of the US Senate subcommittee in early 2015 that Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo, as well as Georgia, Moldova and Transnistria, are now “in the line of fire.” [4]

Little did we know that soon the well-oiled Ukraine-style machine for overthrowing legitimate democratically elected governments will be put in full motion. Quickly, the stories spread through the globalist mainstream media that Russia was trying to bring Macedonia under its wing [5] — statements by globalist megaphones that are currently an equivalent of the kiss of death for the nations “in the line of fire.”

The government of VMRO-DPMNE was immediately put under pressure to start relinquishing its power, regardless of a full and legitimate parliamentary mandate to govern for two more years. Democracy? Citizens’ will at the ballots? Not the right time now when the Russians are coming! The pressure was exerted by the US Ambassador Jess Baily who before coming to the ambassadorial post in Macedonia led an unsuccessful campaign to overthrow the Turkish President Tayip Rejep Erdogan supposedly over some trees in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. In this, he received full support and assistance by the other western ambassadors in Macedonia and significant operational help by the tens of NGOs financed by western money.

The interesting part is that both VMRO-DPMNE and SDS are staunchly pro-NATO and pro-EU so there was no big strategic fight between them over Russian or any other influence which simply was not there. However, the thinking among the neocons was that in order to bring Macedonia to NATO quickly and keep Macedonia away from the Russian Bear it had to bring a more constructive government in power that will sell out the Macedonian people on the crucial identity issue with Greece. The choice was made to support the option that was most prepared to shamelessly and quickly give in to the US demands and strip their own people of their statehood for which they strived for generations.

A Macedonian Juan Guaido with low popular support in the face of Zoran Zaev of SDS, a convicted corrupt municipal official, was chosen since he was promising to bend his spine, as he famously said in an interview. The US began its pressure to organize early elections by using illegally taped phone conversations, obtained by a foreign intelligence service and given to the previously soundly defeated opposition.

Virtually all NGOs, artificially created with significant foreign grants and tasked to advance essentially non-issues with little or no popular support, were put in motion to organize what predictably turned out to be unsupported protests around issues such as trees, university exams, etc. In order to beef up the low-scale protests, the same USAID and Soros funded Canvas that trained Venezuelan puppet Guaido and other anti-Chavistas [6], was engaged in Macedonia to train and physically bus in paid protesters from neighbouring Serbia and Greece [7]. The police were forbidden to react, even when these small scale protests turned violent and when the policemen were beaten over thе heads with concrete blocks.

This was supported by generating an outcry led by the media outlets operating in a hyped media landscape funded and supported by USAID for years prior to these by now familiar events [8], so the terrain was well prepared. The “investment” into obedient media continues even today and over the entire Balkans [9] with the help of ever more increasing sums of money. The previously pro-government media outlets were silenced by threats of closure, jail time, and bribery with hush money.

In parallel, good old fashioned tactics of Syria-style import of CIA-created terrorist groups were also employed to put an additional pressure on the government. In May 2015 a group of KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) members that briefly invaded the border region in Macedonia in 2001 with covert support of the US military and diplomacy [10], entered the Macedonian town of Kumanovo from the neighbouring US-controlled Kosovo. The group intended to carry out mass terrorist attacks in public places in the capital of Skopje but was discovered by the Macedonian police and in the ensuing shootout 14 terrorists were killed and the rest surrendered while 8 Macedonian policemen were killed [11].

With multilayered pressure exerted, the ruling party VMRO-DPMNE eventually folded and was forced to sign an agreement to share power with the opposition 100 days prior to the early elections, contrary to the constitution of the Republic of Macedonia.

The arrangement transferred the levers of powers to the opposition in order to allow a possibility for stealing the popular vote in the elections. In affect, the agreements (Przino 1 and 2) unconstitutionally gave half of the power to the opposition SDS even before the elections were announced with five key ministries being controlled by them for a full year before the elections took place. The Przino agreements were themselves not adhered to as the power sharing agreement was supposed to last for only 100 days, not the full year it took for new elections to be held. The elections were postponed twice after an illegal intervention by the American ambassador to allow the conditions to be created under which the vote could be manipulated and the result would be a win by the opposition.

The agreement, also contrary to what is allowed by the constitution, created a body called the Special Public Prosecutor Office alongside an existing public prosecutor. The constitution? Who cares when US strategic interests are in question. An unconstitutional Special Prosecutor Counsel was appointed that investigated only the VMRO-DPMNE party members despite the rampant corruption of the SDS party leaders.

Despite the many occurrences of obvious ballot stuffing and numerous illegalities, the opposition SDS came up second in the elections on the 11th of December 2016 and the ruling VMRO-DPMNE won. This caused all masks to fall and the US went all in by forcing a rag-tag of smaller anti-Macedonian and quite divergent parties to join forces and form a parliamentary majority on the 27th of April 2017. And when they declared the majority, with 59 votes instead of the required 61 out of 120 deputies, even that was swept under the carpet. The unarmed peaceful protesters that were gathering in the 100s of 1000s for months prior to the April 27 symbolically occupied the Parliament Hall, where the act of treason was committed, only to be thrown out by brutal police force and to have its leaders accused of terrorism and subsequently jailed to serve long sentences in a rigged court process led by an SDS-influenced judiciary.

US military vehicles quickly rolled into Macedonia for a brief shameful parade through Skopje in May 2017 from the neighboring US Bondstil base in Kosovo only to settle further south in the key strategic military training base of Macedonia, Krivolak. Since then, little has been heard in the obedient media about the uninvited presence of the foreign armed forces on Macedonian territory, about its aims, terms or length of stay. Macedonia has been formally placed under occupation with a puppet government in power.

Fast forward to 2018, the illegitimate government reached a treasonous deal with Greece called the Prespa Agreement and similarly unfavorable and unnecessary agreements were reached with Bulgaria and Albania causing widespread national protests. If such treasonous acts were part of the election program of the opposition SDS led by the puppet Zaev, they would have not had a single Macedonian vote.

The government put the Prespa Agreement with Greece on a referendum, dangling again the carrots of EU and NATO with all powerful emissaries coming to Macedonia to tell the Macedonian people how to vote. Despite all the pressure, the referendum was boycotted by the Macedonian people. By using all illegal methods known to them, the self-proclaimed government managed to reach only 36.7% of the electorate, far less than the necessary 50% to have a census. Far more people stayed home than this percentage, however. The unofficial count was as low as 20%.

And while the treasonous Prespa Agreement was defeated by the will of Macedonian people as registered by the Election Commission, instead of abandoning the deal, the illegal government pushed forward to adopt the agreement in parliament against an existing constitutional rule against such moves. The will of the people? Crushed by further illegitimacy. Hence the illegitimate Prime Minister Zaev decided to press on with implementing his deal with Greece as if the referеndum had never happened [12]. The police used brutal Macron-style force against the protesters in front of the parliament.

In order to get the required two-thirds majority the illegitimate government used blackmail, illegal bribery payments, and threats of imprisonment to opposition deputies of the VMRO-DPMNE. This dirty tactic was led by the illegitimate Prime Minister with active participation by the US Ambassador Baily [13] who has denied his role in the arm-twisting of the deputies to vote for the deal. As in an old saying: It’s not official and true until a politician officially denies it.

After the election of Donald Trump in 2016, Baily and others have been investigated by congress regarding the misappropriation of USAID money that was paid to Soros-backed organizations and causes in Macedonia to further the narrow neoliberal agenda abroad [14]. As a consequence, Baily will retire early after a successful reign over Macedonia without the coveted higher position in the State Department. This is a small consolation for the extraordinary role in tampering with the Macedonian state.

In summary, the US-backed coup in the Macedonian parliament led to an illegitimate government that put forward treasonous policies that were never electorally checked, tested and approved; the US supported politicization of the media landscape in favor of only one party; participated in bribery of politicians; showed blatant disregard for the sovereignty of a nation and democracy at the ballot box; used terrorist allies to destabilize a legitimate government; condoned brutal use of force against demonstrators, etc.

What has the US gained? Only temporary support by the SDS that has lost even the marginal support it had. And VMRO-DPMNE, another US ally, now a crumbled former political giant with internal defections caused by blackmail, bribery and threats of imprisonment and its meek and unheard-of for an opposition party tolerant behavior towards the treasonous acts by the SDS-led puppet government, lost all of its appeal with Macedonian citizens whose protests it never joined or supported. The US created a political landscape that is dominated by a small group of alienated non-representatives and corrupt elites. The people’s trust in institutions and politicians has been eroded to zero, the high ideals of democracy, rule of law, popular vote, media independence, tarnished forever. For these reasons, the two severely discredited parties recently agreed not to call early elections because they know they will both be crushed by the electorate.

For now Macedonia has suffered grave damage that will take years and a new generation to repair. And since both, the ruling and the opposition parties have been totally destroyed and discredited in the eyes of the people, this duty will fall on new political forces just forming in Macedonia. This is already happening.

Because of the events leading to a national humiliation for the Macedonian people and the degradation of the political process in the country, the pro-NATO and pro-EU stance of the population is currently at its lowest level since the country’s independence in 1991. Some estimates place the support for the two organizations below the already low 30% mark registered in the days before the coup. As both parties officially declare being pro-NATO and pro-EU, in a truly democratic vote which is not possible under the current occupation environment, they would meet electoral defeat to any new political options that can read the popular mood of the Macedonians.

And since both the ruling and opposition parties have been totally destroyed and discredited in the eyes of the people, this duty will fall on new political forces just forming in Macedonia. The Macedonian political space is ripe for new political forces that are willing to channel the widespread popular sentiment that is anti-globalist, and that calls for all of the forced changes in Macedonian national feeling to be reversed.

And this is already happening, with the newly-formed parties such as Rodina Macedonia and others similarly to other new European parties formulating strong popular anti-NATO and anti-EU sentiment and molding a strategic position for Macedonia within the new Eurasian geopolitical landscape of a union of free and sovereign nations. If such predictions hold, the US spent its political capital, its moral high ground and a lot of its treasury in vain. The accomplishment will then end up being just a blip in the development of a truly Macedonian state but also a permanent stain or one more loss for the vanishing Deep State in the US and the EU.

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Goran Sumkoski (www.sumkoski.com) is an international development expert and full time activist in the anti-globalist battle.

Sources

World Bank praises Macedonia’s efforts to improve business climate. Macedonia News. 21st October 2016. https://macedonia-mk.blogspot.com/2016/10/world-bank-praises-macedonias-efforts.html

Is Russia Showing Special Interest in Macedonia? Radio Free Europe 25th March 2015.
https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/is-russia-showing-special-interest-in-russia/26919885.html

Macedonia: A pawn in the Russian geopolitical game? Deutsche Welle 26th May 2015.
https://www.dw.com/en/macedonia-a-pawn-in-the-russian-geopolitical-game/a-18476013

Imported Serb, Greek, Albanian protesters joining Soros-funded protests in Skopje. Sitel TV 19th of April 2016.
https://sitel.com.mk/srbi-grci-i-albanci-ufrleni-na-antidrzhavnite-protesti?utm_source=daily.mk&utm_medium=daily.mk

Gang for coups! Soros-funded organizations pay 1,500 USD per idea for anti-government protest in Macedonia. 13th of May 2016.
https://puls24.mk/banda-za-drzavni-udari-eve-koj-gi-plaka-demonstraciite-pred-vladata/

Washington Behind Terrorist Attacks in Macedonia, by Michel Chossudovsky. www.antiwar.com July 23, 2001.
https://www.antiwar.com/rep/chuss6.html

Terrorist group destroyed. Nova Makedonija. 11th of May 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150514171748/http://www.novamakedonija.com.mk/NewsDetal.asp?vest=51115957106&id=9&prilog=0&setIzdanie=23464 [11]

Macedonia PM ‘determined’ to change name despite referendum failure. NBC News 1st October 2018.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/macedonia-pm-determined-change-name-despite-referendum-failure-n915296

US Regime Change Blueprint Proposed Venezuelan Electricity Blackouts as ‘Watershed Event’ for ‘Galvanizing Public Unrest’ Grayzone 3rd March 2019.
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/03/11/us-regime-change-blueprint-proposed-venezuelan-electricity-blackouts-as-watershed-event-for-galvanizing-public-unrest/

Name of the USAID program: Program for Strengthening Independent Media in Macedonia (SIMM). USAID website.
http://mdc.org.mk/en/%D1%83%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B8%D0%B4

USAID will give 7 milion USD for the media in the Balkans. USAID website. 31st January 2018.
https://civilmedia.mk/usaid-podli-sdum-milioni-dolari-za-mdiumit-na-balkanot/

Baily: I wasn’t at the Parliament as I was watching the voting on TV. Meta Agency. 25th October 2018.
http://meta.mk/en/baily-i-wasn-t-at-the-parliament-as-i-was-watching-the-voting-on-the-tv/

State Department and Congress Should Probe USAID, Soros Promotion of Radical Agenda Overseas. The Heritage. 27th March 2017. https://www.heritage.org/gender/rhttps://www.heritage.org/gender/report/state-department-and-congress-should-probe-usaid-soros-promotion-radical-agendaeport/state-department-and-congress-should-probe-usaid-soros-promotion-radical-agenda [15]

Notes

[2] https://macedonia-mk.blogspot.com/2016/10/world-bank-praises-macedonias-efforts.html

[3] https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/is-russia-showing-special-interest-in-russia/26919885.html

[4] http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5a7_1425064348#kgLzOzME8YlWXoPy

[5] https://www.dw.com/en/macedonia-a-pawn-in-the-russian-geopolitical-game/a-18476013

[6] https://thegrayzone.com/2019/03/11/us-regime-change-blueprint-proposed-venezuelan-electricity-blackouts-as-watershed-event-for-galvanizing-public-unrest/

[7] https://sitel.com.mk/srbi-grci-i-albanci-ufrleni-na-antidrzhavnite-protesti?utm_source=daily.mk&utm_medium=daily.mk

[8] http://mdc.org.mk/en/%D1%83%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B8%D0%B4

[9] https://civilmedia.mk/usaid-podli-sdum-milioni-dolari-za-mdiumit-na-balkanot/

[10] https://www.antiwar.com/rep/chuss6.html

[11] https://web.archive.org/web/20150514171748/http:/www.novamakedonija.com.mk/NewsDetal.asp?vest=51115957106&id=9&prilog=0&setIzdanie=23464

[12] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/macedonia-pm-determined-change-name-despite-referendum-failure-n915296

[13] http://meta.mk/en/baily-i-wasn-t-at-the-parliament-as-i-was-watching-the-voting-on-the-tv/

[14] https://www.heritage.org/gender/report/state-department-and-congress-should-probe-usaid-soros-promotion-radical-agenda

[15] https://www.heritage.org/gender/rhttps:/www.heritage.org/gender/report/state-department-and-congress-should-probe-usaid-soros-promotion-radical-agendaeport/state-department-and-congress-should-probe-usaid-soros-promotion-radical-agenda

Humanity is at the crossroads of the most serious economic and social crisis in modern history. To understand the background of the complex web of deceit aimed at luring the American people and the rest of the world into accepting a military solution which threatens the future of humanity, get your copy of these important titles from Global Research Publishers:

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America’s “War on Terrorism”

By Michel Chossudovsky

Year: 2005

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In this expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s 2002 best seller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by “Islamic terrorists”.  Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.

According to Chossudovsky, the  “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalization is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.

September 11, 2001 provides a justification for waging a war without borders. Washington’s agenda consists in extending the frontiers of the American Empire to facilitate complete U.S. corporate control, while installing within America the institutions of the Homeland Security State.

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In all major regions of the world, the economic recession is deep-seated, resulting in mass unemployment, the collapse of state social programs and the impoverishment of millions of people. The meltdown of financial markets was the result of institutionalized fraud and financial manipulation. The economic crisis is accompanied by a worldwide process of militarization, a “war without borders” led by the U.S. and its NATO allies.

This book takes the reader through the corridors of the Federal Reserve, into the plush corporate boardrooms on Wall Street where far-reaching financial transactions are routinely undertaken.

The complex causes as well as the devastating consequences of the 2008 economic crisis are carefully scrutinized with contributions from Ellen Brown, Tom Burghardt, Michel Chossudovsky, Richard C. Cook, Shamus Cooke, John Bellamy Foster, Michael Hudson,  Tanya Cariina Hsu, Fred Magdoff,  Andrew Gavin Marshall, James Petras, Peter Phillips, Peter Dale Scott, Bill Van Auken, Claudia Van Werlhof and Mike Whitney.

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The US has embarked on a military adventure, “a long war”, which threatens the future of humanity. US-NATO weapons of mass destruction are portrayed as instruments of peace. Mini-nukes are said to be “harmless to the surrounding civilian population”. Pre-emptive nuclear war is portrayed as a “humanitarian undertaking”.

While one can conceptualize the loss of life and destruction resulting from present-day wars including Iraq and Afghanistan, it is impossible to fully comprehend the devastation which might result from a Third World War, using “new technologies” and advanced weapons, until it occurs and becomes a reality. The international community has endorsed nuclear war in the name of world peace. “Making the world safer” is the justification for launching a military operation which could potentially result in a nuclear holocaust.

The object of this book is to forcefully reverse the tide of war, challenge the war criminals in high office and the powerful corporate lobby groups which support them.

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The widespread use of mail-in voting in this presidential election makes it unlikely that a winner will be declared on election night unless it is Biden.  The reason is that polls indicate that a majority of Democrat voters intend to vote by mail.  As long as the ballots are postmarked by November 3 (election day), they are considered valid.  As mail-in votes will be delivered after November 3, unless one candidate wins the in-person vote by a landslide, the outcome will not be known until days later.

If the outcome seems favorable to Trump, this gives Democrats and the media, which is uniformly against Trump, days to make propaganda that Trump is stealing the election (with Putin’s help).  Rioting and looting will be encouraged in cities under Democrat control in order to create more chaos and charges against Trump.  If enough confusion can be sown, an “investigation” can be demanded and/or Democrats can demand the outcome be put in the hands of the House of Representatives where the Democrats have a majority.  It is entirely possible that Trump can win and be denied inauguration.

This, of course, would be more than an attack on Trump.  It would be an attack on the Constitution. 

There is circumstantial evidence that more than opportunism is involved and that this scenario is an orchestrated plot to prevent a second Trump term.

It is highly unusual for an anti-establishment candidate to be elected president.  Such people are carefully kept out of the ranks of presidential candidates.  Even slightly anti-establishment presidents such as Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan are unwelcome in Washington.  If you have forgotten Trump’s inaugural address, listen to it.  Such a challenge to the Establishment is unprecedented in its boldness and recklessness. 

Who could be behind such a plot to interfere so blatently in the presidential election?  The global elite for one and the Deep State for another.  The global elite want an end to national sovereignty and governments accountable to the people and is opposed to national states being made great again.

The Deep State doesn’t want any risk of being made accountable or having its budget and power impaired by a president who wants to normalize relations with Russia, a necessary enemy.  The global elite and Deep State are powerful and largely invisible forces with which Trump must contend.  

Trump has his deplorables, but they are largely people who have been dispossessed by global capitalism and the Deep State. Trump’s allies do not control the public forums.  Biden’s do.  Therefore, facts can be ignored and “truth” can be established by repetition—as we have seen on numerous occasions.

The audacity is unprecedented with which Hillary Clinton and the Obama regime Department of Justice, FBI, and CIA moved against President Trump, first attempting to frame him with their concocted “Russiagate” plot and then with false charges that he attempted to bribe the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden & Son.  It could be done because the US media has been captured by the CIA and the Democrat Party and serves them as a Ministry of Propaganda.  The exclusiveness of One Voice now extends to social media where Twitter and Facebook ban alternative views to the official ones.  Internet search engines, such as Google, make dissenting views difficult to find, a practice that has spread to Amazon’s book monopoly that refuses to make available challenges to the controlled explanations that serve the agendas of the global elite and Deep State.

The definite proof that the “Covid pandemic,” for example, is serving an agenda is the banning of alternative explanations on social media as well as print and TV media.  We are very close to Big Brother’s world of totally controlled information.

So how do Trump and the “Trump Deplorables” protest if the election is stolen from them?  They are not organized for violence, and they are demonized as racists and misogynists.  This is not a strong position.  

If Trump loses or the election is stolen from him, it is likely that he will be indicted on false charges in order to complete the lesson for all future American political candidates that representing the people instead of the Establishment is not tolerated. Washington is long experienced in teaching foreign governments this lesson—Hondurus, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia—and is bringing the lesson home to America. 

As for the Red States, they will be cut out of the federal budget, and the remaining jobs will be moved out of those areas.  

In this election, the Establishment is playing for keeps.  If the Establishment wins, Americans lose.

NOTE:  Trump’s campaign events are heavily attended.  Biden’s events are sparsely attended.  Yet polls show Biden with a 7% lead.  Clearly, campaign event attendance and the polls do not correspond.  This raises a question:  Are the polls faked in order to support the case that a Trump win is the result of fraud?  The question will be: “how can Trump have won when he was 7 points behind in the race?”

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

Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons

Bill Moyers’s Secret Government was aired on PBS in 1987.

Moyers is a very respected TV journalist who also worked for Lyndon Johnson and has a very professional approach. He interviews many different people involved with the CIA and other government agencies.

This documentary gives quite an overview of what has actually happened in the 40 years before 1987 regarding the CIA and the cold war – including Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Nicaragua, Chile and Viet Nam and features such people as Ralph McGeehee and Phil Retinger (both former CIA agents), Rear Admiral Gene La Rocque (Ret. U.S.N.), Theodore Bissell (active in the CIA at the time), Sen. Frank Church and many others.

Moyers is so very credible. This was at a time when PBS was allowed to air the truth about the CIA and U.S. foreign policy. This film has been “disappeared” for many years.

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We are living history. This documentary is of particular relevance in understanding the Covid crisis and the role of what Moyers called the “Secret Government”.

The fear campaign and media propaganda are there to mislead people around the World into believing that the Lockdown and the Closure of the Planet’s economy is a solution to resolving a public health crisis. And now they are preparing for a Second Wave.  (Michel Chossudovsky, October 2020)

BILL MOYERS: THE SECRET GOVERNMENT

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Subject : COVID

Attention ……. CEO, Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF)

My concerns are about SRF reporting on covid.

You realize that there is not one SRF news program without covid being at the center.

Covid discussions appear even between news topics as special shows and discussion “panoramas”.

They are constantly alarming and aiming clearly at fear mongering.

New “cases” are reported almost on an hourly basis, how they double and triple in 24 hours, its astounding, really fear-inflicting; that we are in a second wave, that the hospitals are overflowing, that testing-testing-testing is key, so we can prevent others from being infected…

It is one big horror show, even worse than in other European news programs, alias misinformation programs, where the covid propaganda is also bad, but appears to be not as intense and manipulative as it is in Switzerland.

And, believe me, I’m not alone with this opinion.

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There is never a true and full analysis of “new infections” (“new cases”); never an explanation on how these new “infection cases” are assembled and composed, that, for ex.

1) More than 80% are asymptomatic, and therefore no risk of transmission. Yes, WHO has changed its opinion, already several times, always following instructions from their (financial) Masters;

2) Tthat “cases” increase with increased testing which you are promoting with SRF’s fear-campaigns. Specially now with the flu and cold season coming upon us, fear-fear-fear is what lowers the immune system and people are vulnerable (scientifically proven, as you probably know).

So scared people run to the doctor, or hospital with covid-fear, to be tested.

That’s how testing and ‘cases’ are increased.

3) There is never a mention that in some cases the RT-PCR test deliver, according to various virologists and medical doctors’ associations in Germany and Belgium and the US, and elsewhere – up to 90 % “false positives”. They enter the statistics, but the “patient” is not sick, has no covid.

4) As said above, we are entering the winter flu season. The PCR test cannot make a clear distinction between a common flu and covid-19, since the similarity is so striking. The common flu (cold) is known to contain a portion of corona viruses. Therefore all common flu cases are now conveniently labeled covid, so that the “case” figures can be “sky-rocketed” into fear-dimensions, thereby scaring even more people to death and incite even more people to run to testing facilities — and the spiral rises rapidly, so to justify ever more selective lockdowns, until the country is again totally locked down, for the “good of the people” — and the economy, what’s left of it, is run into the ground — its called asset-grabbing by the rich.

That’s what’s going on.

5) People who die from covid are very few and far in between. More than 90% of them are over 75 or over even over 80 and die with co-morbidities, and would have most likely died anyway from one of the other health preconditions.

Since they are tested positive, and they die with but not of covid, their death certificate will be issued saying “cause of death: covid-19”.

Case in point where this has also happened and is still happening – and was divulged by medical doctors – is Italy. And the same in Germany and France and the US, to name just a few.

6) There is nobody ever questioning the official government narrative, repeated by SRF ad absurdum (and of course other western newscasts); and there is nobody ever independently checking and investigating these figures, how they are assembled. Nobody. Maybe nobody dares challenging our Federal Council and the surrounding covid-taskforce – and other coopted scientists.

It is clear that higher forces are dictating this narrative, this fear-indoctrination – so that people are scared everyday more from an invisible enemy.

They are screaming for the vaccine to come – can’t wait.

Its is clear that SRF just fulfills a job.

It is clear that there is a different, higher agenda behind this all. Worldwide.

Imagine, the coincidence, on 18 October 2019, the Bill Gates Foundation, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, sponsor Event 201 in NYC, simulating a pandemic, called SARS-2-Cov, later renamed by WHO as covid-19.

In January 2020 in Davos, the WEF decides in the presence of the Director General of WHO, that this coming “covid-disease” must be declared a “pandemic” – a decision with which Dr. Tedros, DG WHO, complied, declaring on 11 March 2020 covid-19 a “pandemic”, when there were worldwide only a total of 1130 deaths (outside of China) – WHO Situation Report.

On exactly mid-March 2019, all 193 UN member nations declare a general lockdown (with just a few exceptions, Belarus and Sweden). What a coincidence, an invisible enemy strikes simultaneously the entire world, never happened before in human history. But we are moving into strange times in a dystopian world.

Imagine, the Swiss authorities would stop testing tomorrow, at once – covid would be gone. No more cases. We could breathe again and would only be bothered by the usual annual common flu and occasional cold, the death-rate of which, by the way, is far higher than that of covid. And no more immune system debilitating fear!

Please, just think about it, and if you can, PLEASE, reduce the covid-fear propaganda on radio and TV.

You would do the public at large  great favor.

And I am talking about the very public which pays for the SRF services, but not for being fear-manipulated, but for receiving true analysis and non-biased news.

Thank you.

Best regards,

Peter Koenig

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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals such as Global Research; ICH; New Eastern Outlook (NEO) and more. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

The Turkish authorities arbitrary arrests are no longer limited to Turkish opponents of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inside and outside the country, but also reached Syrians within Turkish territory, whether they are displaced, opponents to the Syrian state or even businessmen.

A previous Syrian prisoner inside Turkish prison said that the Syrian opponents who are arrested by the Turkish authorities under various fabricated pretexts “are nothing but leverage that Ankara use for its deals.”

Media sources quoted one of the Syrian detainees who was recently released from prison:

“The Turkish authorities’ approach to the Syrian opposition has changed since 2016, after Erdogan had the excuse of (the military coup), so the charges are ready even before choosing the arrested person, which is dealing with external parties, employment for a foreign country and being involved in the 2016 coup.”

He added:

“I did not really know the reason for my detention for 4 years, we have been used as leverage that Ankara exploits for its deals, in addition to violating human rights inside prisons and even outside, such as forced deportation or killing.”

The former detainee explained that after the coup attempt,

“the Turkish authorities allowed themselves to arrest simply any suspected of involvement in the coup attempt or acquired foreign support from a particular party or country, through several legal amendments. As we have seen, large arresting campaigns of Turkish officers and activists appeared, followed by other campaigns targeting Syrians in turn.”

As for the methods of torture and inhuman treatment prisoners are subjected to, he added:

“I was placed in a prison measuring two meters by three meters long with seven people,” indicating that no one interrogated him until 12 passed and after his great urgency. The torture began when he was transferred to the “Gaziantep” central prison, where a black bag was placed on his head, and upon his arrival to the prison, five security forces hit him severely.”

Another survived Syrian from the Turkish prisons talked about what happened to him of arbitrary detention without any pretext or charge, to stay in prison for 20 days with elements he said were from the terrorist organization “ISIS”, in dormitories he described as “ISIS emirates” controlled by prisoners not jailers. During his trial, the Turkish translators could not understand him well, and instead of bringing another translator, he was detained for all this period without any charge, until he learned that the Turkish authorities had fabricated him the charge of “dealing with foreign entities against Ankara”, to legalise the period he spent imprisoned.

He added:

“One of the most famous forms of torture inside these detention centers is the hammer usually used to strike iron, as I was beaten on the knees with other detainees, causing severe injuries to the foot.”

In the absence of any deterrent against Erdogan and his repressive policy, Syrian opponents in Turkey are living in a state of fear and feelings of great danger, noting that the matter is not limited to coercive crackdowns or arbitrary arrests, but there are other arresting methods which resemble kidnapping and aim to make the detainees’ families ignore where their sons are, and believe that they were indeed kidnapped.

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There is a piece of news on an important anniversary missing from western state and corporate news. This year, 2020, is the 70th anniversary of the Chinese People’s Volunteers (CPV) army entering the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to help in, what the Chinese call, the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.

It is described by the People’s Daily thus:

The war, which happened 70 years ago, was forced upon the Chinese people by invading imperialism. After the U.S. repeatedly ignored the warning from the Chinese government, brazenly started the war against Korea and even attacked the territory of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese government resolutely made the historic decision to resist the aggression of the U.S., aid Korea and protect its homeland, shouldering the historic mission of safeguarding peace with indomitable courage.

After the United Nation forces invaded the DPRK in October 1950 and advanced quickly towards the Yalu River, which forms the border with China, the CPV crossed the Yalu and joined with the DPRK people and army. Two years and nine months later, the CPV and DPRK had “won a great victory.”

American author Bruce Riedel referred to it as “the catastrophe on the Yalu.”

By December 31, 1950, the Americans had been driven 120 miles south back to the 38th parallel and were still retreating. Seoul would fall to [the direct commander of the CPV] Peng [Dehuai]’s armies in early 1951. It was by far the worst military debacle the U.S. armed forces suffered in the entire twentieth century.

It was a military victory for the peasant Chinese and DPRK fighters, but as the People’s Daily made clear this was not military triumphalism.

The Chinese people love and cherish peace. They take safeguarding world peace and opposing hegemony and power politics as their sacred responsibility. They firmly oppose resorting to threat of military force for solving international disputes, and interfering in other countries’ domestic affairs under the name of the so-called democracy, freedom and human rights.

CPC chairman Xi Jinping echoed this earlier on 28 March 2014:

The Chinese nation, with 5000 years of civilization, has always cherished peace. The pursuit of peace, amity and harmony is an integral part of the Chinese character which runs deep in the Chinese people. (1)

The People’s Daily argued,

The victory of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea proves that a nation, which is awakened and dares to fight for its glory, independence and security, is undefeatable.

Does this hold true in all cases? The relative size of the combatant nations and the level of military and technological development likely play a large role.

Nonetheless, there are numerous examples that support this contention. For instance, consider that impoverished Yemen (population 28.5 million) has not only steadfastly resisted the 2015 invasion by US-backed, oil-rich Saudi Arabia (population 33.7 million) but has inflicted some severe strategic damage itself to the invader. And the US is still mired in Afghanistan after 20 years. Following the Vietnamese defeat of French imperialists, who were aided by the US, the US military took over, with the military support of allies such as Australia and South Korea. The final military outcome featured US personnel escaping by helicopters from the rooftops in Saigon.

The DPRK has never attacked the US. It is only the US, when it intervened in a Korean civil war, that attacked the DPRK.

During the US-UN-China-Korean war the US destroyed crops, food reserves, and the energy grid when it attacked the DPRK (2) – actions designed to cause food shortages. It was war in which the US used biological and chemical weapons. (3) US military commanders had even sought permission to use nuclear weapons. (4)  The US caused enormous destruction during the war on the peninsula, a war that some claim was started by the US and the Republic of Korea (ROK) . (5) There had been several ROK troop incursions into the North preceding the DPRK invasion that began on 25 June 1950. (6)

Korea expert Bruce Cummings wrote: “it is the Americans who bear the lion’s share of the responsibility for the thirty-eighth parallel.” (7) The DPRK and China blame the US for the war — a blame that is logically unassailable. Because if the US had not insisted on splitting the Korean peninsula, the casus belli of reuniting the two Koreas wouldn’t have existed. Consequently, today’s precarious security situation would have been avoided.^{(8 -9)}

Ramifications to China of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea

Today, although beset with crunching economic sanctions, the DPRK is independent and fully capable of thwarting any attack. It would be foolish to attack a nuclear-armed opponent. The DPRK for its part has pledged no first use of nuclear weapons.

On the China-US front, the US abrogates its undertaking to recognize one China by supplying the breakaway province Taiwan with military armaments. The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea had thrown a large wrench into the plans of chairman Mao Zedong and the Communist forces to liberate Taiwan from the Guomindang (KMT) and reincorporate it with the Chinese motherland. (10)

As with the division of the Korean peninsula, the US was complicit in the separation of Taiwan from mainland China,

The [KMT] Generalissimo [Chiang Kai-shek aka Jiang Jieshi], his cohorts and soldiers fled to the offshore island of Taiwan (Formosa). They had prepared their entry two years earlier by terrorizing the slanders into submission—a massacre which took the lives of as many as 28,000 people. Prior to the Nationalists’ escape to the island, the US government entertained no doubts that Taiwan was a part of China. Afterward, uncertainty began to creep into the minds of Washington officials. The crisis was resolved in a remarkably simple manner: the US agreed with Chiang that the proper way to view the situation was not that Taiwan belonged to China, but that Taiwan was China.¹¹

China is economically rising while the US is battling negative growth. Although now militarily powerful, China is committed to peaceful existence.

The expected outcome is with the US in decline that their Taiwanese kin will proudly one day rejoin the resurgent and unified China.

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Kim Petersen is a former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Twitter: @kimpetersen

Sources

1) Xi Jinping, “China’s Commitment to Peaceful Development” in The Governance of China (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2014). 

2) Nhial Esso, What You Don’t Know about North Korea Could Fill a Book (Intransitive Publishers International, 2013): 63%. 

3) See (23 June 2001). Korean International War Crimes Tribunal: Report on U.S. Crimes in Korea 1945-2000, (Korean Truth Commission). 

4) Bruce Cummings, “Korea: forgotten nuclear threats,” Le Monde diplomatique, December 2004. 

5) See Ho Jong Ho, Kang Sok Hui, and Pak Thae Ho, The US Imperialists Started the Korean War (Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1993).

6) See Won Myong Uk and Kim Hak Chol, Distortion of US Provocation of Korean War (Pyongyang : Foreign Languages Publishing House, 2003). 

7) Bruce Cumings, Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2005): 186.

8) Carole Cameron Shaw, The Foreign Destruction of Korean Independence (Seoul: Seoul National University Press, 2007).

9) Nhial, 11-22%.

10)Lin Cheng-yi, “The legacy of the Korean War: Impact on U.S.-Taiwan relations,” Journal of Northeast Asian Studies, Winter92(11) Issue 4, p40.

11) William Blum, Killing Hope (Zed Books, 2003): 23.

Most of us can still remember where we were on that fateful and tragic day of 11 September 2001 when the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre (WTC) in New York collapsed. Whilst damage to the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were widely reported – what is less well known is the damage to some of the other surrounding buildings including WTC #7.

In particular the collapse of Building 7 has attracted a significant amount of controversy. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) concluded that fire damage around Column 79 in the north east corner, initiated a progressive collapse mechanism that caused a straight down collapse of WTC#7 into its own footprint. This took place at free fall velocity for the first 32 meters of its descent.

NIST hypothesised this “never seen before” collapse mechanism to explain the collapse thereby making WTC7 the first high rise steel building in history to collapse from fire alone.

Like other steel framed buildings throughout the world, Building 7 was designed by professional engineers to withstand normal office fires.  If the design was indeed at fault, significant changes should be made to steel building design, construction and maintenance standards. But since the NIST report was issued in 2008, NIST’s own records show that the ICC (International Code Council) has not addressed the root causes put forward.

In March 2020 the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) published a report following a detailed four year investigation into the WTC7 collapse. The UAF study ran a multitude of static and dynamic analysis simulation cases to find a scenario that best matched the observed collapse, including those proposed by NIST. Unlike NIST the UAF study found a scenario that exactly matched the observed collapse both visually and in the time domain – a scenario and conclusion that is very different from the official narrative.  In the interests of public safety we need to understand the true cause of this event, so appropriate action and evacuation philosophies can be implemented in similar buildings.

With this in mind the IMechE Construction and Building Services Division (CBSD) has set up a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) to look into the findings of the UAF report and see if they have any merit.

We already have seven members in the TAC, including one each from from ICE and IStructE. If there are other members interested in joining with experience in either structures, fire engineering, or construction please get in touch with Frank Mills, Chair, Construction and Building Services Division, email [email protected].

We expect to complete our work by Summer 2021.

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Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) is pleased to announce that its defamation lawsuit with Ezra Levant and Rebel Media News Network Ltd. has been settled. Launched in 2016, CJPME’s suit was based on a series of defamatory publications released by Rebel Media that attacked CJPME for its promotion of the BDS campaign. BDS, standing for “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions,” is an international movement to apply economic pressure on Israel such that it fully respects the human rights of Palestinians. Rebel Media’s publications accused CJPME of anti-Semitism, comparing CJPME to Nazis and calling CJPME “Jew-baiters.” The publications also called for CJPME to be stripped of its charitable status, although CJPME has never had charitable status.

“We have reached a settlement with Levant and Rebel Media, and we are satisfied with the settlement,” announced Thomas Woodley, President of CJPME. The settlement was reached several months ago, but issues regarding Rebel Media’s compliance led CJPME to delay announcing it.  The terms of the settlement are confidential. In CJPME’s 2016 statement of claim in the lawsuit, CJPME rejected allegations that its support for the BDS campaign was anti-Semitic, asserting that comparing it to the Nazis was “false, inapposite and deliberately inflammatory.” The statement of claim also pointed out that the BDS movement in Canada is a lawful activity that is constitutionally protected as free expression. CJPME’s statement of claim considered the attack “one of the most egregious kinds of reputational attacks possible” given that the organization welcomes participation from people of all backgrounds who support justice and peace for all people in the Middle East, including both Palestinians and Jews.

CJPME’s statement of claim also made clear that it has never been, nor ever claimed to be a registered charity, contrary to the allegations of Levant and Rebel Media. Rebel’s publications suggested that CJPME was acting in an unlawful manner by misusing its purported charitable status and therefore misallocating public resources. Nevertheless, CJPME’s status as a non-charity is easily confirmed by searching the Canadian Revenue Agency’s public database of charities.

CJPME endorsed BDS in 2008, considering the movement to be an effective means of non-violent protest and pressure grounded on principles of international law. The BDS movement has three objectives: 1) ending Israel’s occupation of all Arab lands and dismantling its Wall, 2) recognizing the fundamental rights of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality, and 3) respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties, or for compensation, as stipulated in UN resolution 194 (1948). CJPME has been one of the movement’s foremost proponents in Canada over the past decade.

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If ever there was evidence of the Johnson government inadvertently aiding the cause of Scottish independence, it was an interview with Scottish Secretary, Alister Jack, on the BBC Politics Scotland show last Sunday.  The interviewer Gordon Brewer, came across more passionate for retaining the Union than the interviewee. Reminding Jack of the various polls which have come out in favour of Scottish independence of late, Brewer asked what exactly Jack and his colleagues were doing to try to prevent the 300 year old Union from dissipating.  He gasped, rather exasperatedly, in disbelief, ‘I’m curious, as a member of Boris Johnson’s government and as Scottish Secretary, what you’re saying to Boris Johnson…there’s a crisis here…what are you proposing to him that he does? Presumably you must be saying to him that we have to do something’.

At one point, Brewer started to feed the Scottish Secretary his own ideas, telling him what he could do to try to curry favour with the Scottish public. It couldn’t have looked more pathetic. The contrast between Brewer’s energy and enthusiasm for the Union and Jack’s complete apathy could not have been more stark. But Alister Jack is just the tip of the iceberg. Since Boris Johnson took office it has seemed as if he himself has done everything to boost Scottish independence. It almost makes one ask: does the PM himself secretly support the dissolution of the Union?!  Unlikely. What is more likely of course is that Boris Johnson simply doesn’t care about Scotland and doesn’t value its place in the Union.

After all, Johnson has never been exactly warm towards the northern nation. He once said a Scottish MP should categorically not become Prime Minister of the UK, stating Gordon Brown’s appointment would be ‘utterly outrageous…because he is a Scot and government by a Scot is just not conceivable in the current constitutional context’. He even went further to suggest being Scottish was Brown’s ‘political disability’. Then there was the time he oversaw the publication of an anti-Scottish satirical poem whilst editor of the Spectator magazine.  The poem, written by James Michie, was nothing short of fascist, describing the Scottish people as a ‘verminous race’ who were ‘polluting our stock’ and that the nation should be turned into a ‘ghetto’ with the inhabitants only fit for ‘extermination.’ Johnson may not have written this shocking piece, but he presided over the publication when it was published, and so the ultimate responsibility lies with him.
These examples give something of the angle from which Boris Johnson is coming from in his relationship with Scotland.

One may have thought, given the huge opposition to Brexit in Scotland, that Johnson may have started a special effort to try to win over Scots increasingly disillusioned by the decisions taken by Westminster against their wishes. But instead, Johnson has done nothing. Support for the SNP has been steadily rising in Scotland for the last two decades, with the UK government’s austerity measures clashing with the more socialist values of the north. But the Brexit vote was a turning point from which there is likely no going back. Scots voted decisively against Brexit – 62% – and yet the country is being taken out of the European Union regardless. What makes it worse is the fact that there are hardly any Conservative MPs left in Scotland, and yet these huge decisions are being made on Scotland’s behalf by a ruling Conservative party down in Westminster.

Nicola Sturgeon is a skilful politician however. She has known all along, that if you want to become an independent country, then first you have to start acting like one. And during this pandemic she has perfected this art. Steering Scotland on its own path through the Covid crisis, she has provided incredible leadership to the nation at a time when Boris Johnson has fumbled his way along. The contrast between them couldn’t have been greater, with Sturgeon sailing high above her Westminster counterpart in the polls. And as Sturgeon’s ratings have climbed higher and higher, so have those in support of Scottish independence.

All polls carried out since March this year have come out in favour of independence. The latest survey by Ipsos Mori recorded a high of 58% for Yes – the highest ever figure supporting it. It is becoming increasingly clear that independence is now a question of when, not if. One of the likely triggers of the latest surge is the controversial Internal Markets Bill, which essentially takes away previously devolved powers back to Westminster after Britain leaves the EU. It has caused outcry in devolved nations like Scotland and Wales. But few are taking notice. One Tory peer, Lord Cormack, recently warned that to neglect Scotland’s concerns over the bill would effectively ‘endanger the future of the Union.’ He admitted that Scotland would ‘almost certainly’ become independent in the next decade and stressed the importance of the issue: ‘there is no subject which should cause more concern or potential heartache to any member of this house that the subject of the future of the United Kingdom.’

If only Boris Johnson were listening. But he isn’t. He’s fiddling as Rome burns, and Sturgeon will be there to pick up the pieces…

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics. 

Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

First published on February 5, 2020. In-depth analysis of the Simulation of a pandemic conducted in 2010 under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation.

By now, those following the novel coronavirus epidemic are familiar with Event 201, the pandemic simulation staged by Johns Hopkins University in conjunction with the World Economic Forum, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, and other ruling-class heavy hitters in October. The media establishment has already picked the story clean, set up and eviscerated a straw man (“No, Bill Gates didn’t cause the coronavirus epidemic, silly conspiracy theorists!”), and convinced the group itself to issue a statement denying their exercise was meant to predict the behavior of the actual virus to follow. 

But few are aware that the epidemic playing out in China and two dozen other countries, including the US, is unfolding in line with a decade-old simulation titled “Lock Step” devised by the Rockefeller Foundation in conjunction with the Global Business Network. The scenario, one of four included in a publication called “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development” in 2010, describes a coronavirus-like pandemic that becomes the trigger for the imposition of police-state controls on movement, economy, and other areas of society.

The Lock Step scenario describes “a world of tighter top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership, with limited innovation and growing citizen pushback.” In “2012” (i.e. two years after the report’s publication), an “extremely virulent and deadly” strain of influenza originating with wild geese brings the world to its knees, infecting 20 percent of the global population and killing 8 million people in just seven months – “the majority of them healthy young adults.” It devastates global economies and ruptures international trade. But not everyone, the Rockefeller Foundation makes clear, is hit equally.

Countries of Africa, southeast Asia, and central America suffer the worst “in the absence of official containment protocols” – it wouldn’t be the Rockefeller Foundation if someone wasn’t licking their lips at the thought of a mass die-off in the Global South – but western “democracies” also pay the ultimate price. “The United States’ initial policy of ‘strongly discouraging’ citizens from flying proved deadly in its leniency, accelerating the spread of the virus not just within the US but across borders,” the report warns. But remove such obstacles as ‘individual rights’ and you have a recipe for surviving, even thriving in the event of a pandemic, the Foundation gushes:

“A few countries did fare better – China in particular. The Chinese government’s quick imposition and enforcement of mandatory quarantine for all citizens, as well as its instant and near-hermetic sealing-off of all borders, saved millions of lives, stopping the spread of the virus far earlier than in other countries and enabling a swifter post-pandemic recovery.”

The message is clear – police state good, freedom bad. And other governments rapidly get the message, according to the simulation. First and third world nations alike follow suit by “flexing their authority” and imposing quarantines, body-temperature checks, and other “airtight rules and restrictions” – most of which, the report is careful to note, remain in place even as the pandemic recedes into the past. “In order to protect themselves from the spread of increasingly global problems – from pandemics and transnational terrorism to environmental crises and rising poverty – leaders around the world took a firmer grip on power.”

This global power-grab is facilitated by a frightened citizenry who “willingly gave up some of their sovereignty – and their privacy – to more paternalistic states in exchange for greater safety and stability…tolerant, and even eager, for top-down direction and oversight.” Everything from tighter biometric identification to stricter industrial regulation is welcomed with open arms. It takes over a decade for people to “grow weary” of the authoritarian controls imposed in the wake of the pandemic, and hints that even the civil unrest that ultimately manifests is focused on the developed world. After all, a popular uprising in the technocratic police state envisioned by the simulation would be all but impossible – as it will be in real life once 5G makes real-time total surveillance of all cities a reality.

Pin the blame on the dragon

It remains unclear what – or who – unleashed the novel coronavirus in Wuhan. The initial claim that it originated in bats from a “wet market,” in which live animals are sold and then butchered in front of the customer, couldn’t have been more perfect from a western point of view – wet markets are reviled in the West, where consumers prefer that the animal cruelty required to put meat on their tables happens behind closed doors. While wet markets would seem to improve food safety by making it impossible to sell “mystery,” mislabeled or expired meat, time and again they are fingered as disease vectors by the disapproving West, every time followed by calls to ban them entirely. However, the Huanan seafood market hadn’t sold bats for years, meaning – if the “wet market” hypothesis is to persist – an “intermediate host” species would be required to get the virus to humans. Snakes were nominated, even though scientists weren’t sure they could be infected by a coronavirus – it was more important that they eat bats and were sold at the market. Three weeks after the Huanan seafood market was shuttered and disinfected, a Lancet study put the last nail in the hypothesis’ coffin, revealing the first several coronavirus cases had no exposure to the market at all. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this has not discouraged the media from continuing to blame it for the epidemic.

Beyond the disintegrating “official story,” rumormongers have pinned the blame on the Chinese government, suggesting that through malice or incompetence Beijing released a virus cooked up in a top-secret bioweapons program operating in the city’s high-security lab. The chief purveyor of this theory is Dany Shoham, an Israeli biosafety analyst, which should raise a forest of red flags in anyone familiar with Israel’s own experiments in gene-targeted biowarfare even before taking into account Shoham’s own history of fraudulently blaming Saddam Hussein’s Iraq for the 2001 anthrax attacks. Other outlets spreading this theory cite American biosafety consultant Tim Trevan, who opined in a 2017 Nature article – published before the Wuhan lab even opened! – that “diversity of viewpoint” and “openness of information” are both critical to the safe functioning of such a high-risk lab and alien to Chinese culture. The persistence of the “lab accident” theory of coronavirus’ creation thus owes more to cultural chauvinism and sinophobia than any fact-based clues.

While many alt-media outlets have fingered Event 201 as the replica “drill” that so often coincides with a false flag event, few are aware that on the day after that simulation, the 2019 Military World Games kicked off in Wuhan, bringing 300 US military personnel to the city.

As of February 4, there are over 1,000 times more coronavirus cases in China than outside of it, and the foreign cases appear to be ethnically Chinese where reported. This is not a coincidence – a recent scientific paper revealed the enzyme which serves as a receptor for novel coronavirus is produced by a certain type of lung cell found in “extremely large numbers” in Asian men compared to those of other ethnicities. Even more intriguingly, those lung cells are involved in the expression of “many other genes that positively regulating [sic] viral reproduction and transmission.” The paper’s authors stop short of suggesting the virus came out of a lab, instead drily observing that it seems to have “cleverly evolved to hijack this population of [lung] cells for its reproduction and transmission,” but one man’s clever viral evolution is another’s expert bioweapon development.

Certainly, American researchers have been surreptitiously collecting Chinese DNA for decades. A notorious Harvard School of Public Health program in the mid-1990s drafted village medics to administer “free physicals” to locals “with asthmatic symptoms.” These “checkups” were conducted as part of a genetic project that also involved the US National Institutes of Health and Millennium Pharmaceuticals, supposedly aimed at “identify[ing] and characteriz[ing] genes that play a role in causing asthma and other allergic disorders.” It later emerged that the researchers had secured the required consent forms from neither the local experimental ethics board nor the test subjects themselves. A government inquiry was commandeered by an insider and squelched. Over 200,000 DNA samples were thus collected and spirited out of the country.

US military literature has been lusting after genetically-targeted weapons for at least 50 years. The infamous Project for a New American Century, whose members have been steering the US ship of state into a series of icebergs since the George W. Bush administration, described gene-specific bioweapons as a “politically-useful tool,” part and parcel of the “new dimensions of combat” in which the future’s wars would unfold. In 1998, the year after PNAC’s formation, reports Israel was working on just such a weapon to target Arabs while leaving Jews untouched flooded the media – part PR campaign, part warning. And it is DARPA and other divisions of the US military, not  the Chinese, that has been intensively studying bat-borne coronaviruses for years, even as their own high-security biowarfare labs are being shut down for shoddy safety procedures.

Meanwhile, the likelihood of the Chinese government unleashing a genetically-targeted virus on its own population is vanishingly low. Unlike popular attitudes of “white guilt” in the West born of a hangover from colonialism, the Chinese do not traffic in racial self-loathing – indeed, outsiders have accused the Chinese of an unspoken, unshakeable belief in their own racial superiority, and regardless of whether that belief is problematic, it is unlikely to lead to intentional self-genocide. Even if behavior-correcting false flag was sought by Beijing in Hong Kong, where US-backed pro-“democracy” protests have raged destructively for months, such an event would not have been unleashed hundreds of miles away in Wuhan.

Never let a good crisis go to waste?

The real-life coronavirus is much less virulent than the pandemic described in Lock Step, with an official death toll of “just” 427 and a global infection toll of “only” 20,629 as of February 4, and the dead were mostly over 60 with preexisting medical issues. Economies worldwide are nevertheless in free-fall just like the simulation predicted. This drop is fueled by scare-stories percolating in establishment media and alt-media alike (the name of an actual article in ZeroHedge by a Rabobank analyst: “What if we are on the brink of an exponential increase in coronavirus cases?”) while videos of dubious origin appearing to show horrific scenes from within China keep the virus viral on social media. Adding to the fear is coronavirus’ lengthy incubation period, up to two weeks in which a carrier could be blithely spreading it to everyone they meet, creating a constant threat of a “boom” in cases just around the corner.

China’s economy, of course, is being hit the worst, and the epidemic’s timing could not have been more disastrous from Beijing’s point of view, coming on the eve of the Lunar New Year holiday. At this time, some 400 million Chinese travel around the country to see family, mostly in the high-speed bullet trains that have their hub in – you guessed it – Wuhan. With much of this travel having occurred before the city was quarantined, cases are likely in their incubation phase all over the country, making today’s numbers look like a rounding error.

Correspondingly, the situation couldn’t be better for the American ruling class: a pandemic that targets Asians striking China just when it’s most vulnerable is a powerful blow to the rising superpower. And in case anyone still believes the circumstances of the virus’ ascendance are merely an extended string of coincidences, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross took that plausible deniability and stomped on it last month, unable to stop himself from gushing that coronavirus would “help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America” in an interview with Fox News. Prefacing his victory lap by saying he didn’t “want to talk about a victory lap over a very unfortunate, very malignant disease,” he pointed out that businesses will be forced to take China’s inexplicable susceptibility to deadly viruses into account when reviewing their supply chains. Unmentioned, but adding to the perfect economic storm, was Trump’s signature on the USMCA trade agreement, supposed to bring in an extra 1.2 percentage points in GDP growth.

“On top of all the other things, you had SARS, you had the African Swine virus there, now you have this,” Ross said, hammering home the point by linking coronavirus to other suspect plagues. Just as many scientists concluded SARS was a manmade bioweapon, many – scientists and statesmen as well as alternative media – have raised the alarm about coronavirus. Good luck finding any of their statements on Google, however. Facebook, Youtube and Twitter have been hard at work removing coronavirus “rumors,” and Google has memory-holed hundreds of search results regarding Chinese accusations of biowarfare. Even on platforms that don’t censor on government orders, the baseless claims from Shoham and other disinfo artists about Chinese biowarfare have muscled any comments from Chinese officials out of the way. Even the former Malaysian PM’s comments are obscured behind a Farsi language barrier – his original comments inexplicably missing from English-language media and reprinted only by Iran’s IRIB News Agency (this author can no longer even find the tweet that alerted her to those comments, but would like to thank that person).

Coronavirus is not the doomsday epidemic it is being portrayed as by irresponsible media actors. But as the Lock Step scenario makes clear, one does not need massive die-off or victims exploding in geysers of blood in the streets to achieve desired social goals. It’s possible the novel coronavirus epidemic is a “dry run,” a test of both China’s readiness to handle an outbreak and of the international community’s reaction to such a plague. It’s even possible, though unlikely, that the epidemic was a mistake – that the virus escaped from a lab, likely American, by accident.

It’s also possible the plague may suddenly become more virulent. Certainly the media buzz the first week of February is that coronavirus is close to being declared a “pandemic” by the WHO, which will necessitate the type of control measures hinted at in Lock Step and described more exhaustively in Event 201. From “limited internet shutdowns” and “enforcement actions against fake news” to government bailouts of “core” industries, mandatory vaccinations, property seizures, and other police-state provisions laid out in the Model State Emergency Health Powers Acts passed in many US states in the paranoid aftermath of 9/11, the totalitarian nature of these provisions is limited only by the imagination of the regime carrying them out. Once events proceed to that stage, it is extremely difficult to reverse them. We would be wise not to allow this to happen.

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Helen Buyniski is a journalist and photographer based in New York City. Her work has appeared on RT, Global Research, Ghion Journal, Progressive Radio Network, and Veterans Today. Helen has a BA in Journalism from New School University and also studied at Columbia University and New York University. Find more of her work at http://helenofdestroy.com and http://medium.com/@helen.buyniski or follow her on Twitter at @velocirapture23. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

As millions of people in the United States cast early ballots for the upcoming presidential and Congressional elections, tensions are escalating over the future of racial politics inside the country.

On October 26, the police killing of an African American man in Philadelphia resulted in a rebellion where people fought law-enforcement agents and attacked private property well into the following morning.

Police claim that Walter Wallace, 27, had refused to put down a knife while initially standing on his front porch.  The police therefore used this scenario to justify Wallace being shot ten times by two officers.

Wallace walked away from his porch between two vehicles and after emerging, he was gunned down by the police. Such a rationale for the shooting death of civilians by law-enforcement agents is a familiar one amid ongoing demonstrations and rebellions since the public police execution of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.

Events in Philadelphia represented the second occurrence of violent unrest since late May. The city has a sordid history of police misconduct going back decades where acting with impunity, law-enforcement personnel have utilized lethal force often without any fear of legal retribution or accountability.

Image on the right: Philadelphia father Walter Wallace, Sr. speaks after his son was shot to death by police (Source: Tom Gralish/TNS)

Police spokespersons in Philadelphia said that 14 shots were fired at Wallace. The father of the victim, Walter Wallace, Sr., told members of the press that his son was on medications and had suffered with mental illness for many years.

Law-enforcement agents claimed that they had been summoned to the predominantly Black Cobbs Creek neighborhood in West Philadelphia saying that Wallace was armed with a knife in the street. At least two people were seen in a video posted on social media following Wallace urging him to put down the weapon.

After police pumped multiple rounds into his body, a woman, said to have been his mother, began to throw objects at the police. Soon after the shooting and the viewing of the video by many people online, crowds gathered denouncing the police action saying that the killing of Wallace was completely unnecessary.

During the course of the evening, dumpsters and police vehicles were firebombed. Riot police mobilized their units along 52^nd street where the community engaged in resistance activities against the cops and local businesses.

In nearby Malcolm X Park, located at 51^st and Pine, people gathered in a spontaneous demonstration chanting “Black Lives Matter.” 52^nd street was the center of the unrest which erupted during late May.

An article on the October 26-27 rebellion was published by the Philadelphia Inquirer saying:

“For hours, protesters confronted officers who stood in a line with riot shields behind metal barricades at the station. People in the crowd could be seen throwing objects at the officers. A group also marched into University City, at least one TV news vehicle was vandalized, and police reported that windows had been broken on Chestnut Street. Between 100 and 200 people then moved to the 52nd Street commercial district and caused considerable property damage from Market to Spruce Streets. Shortly before 1 a.m., a speeding black truck ran over an officer at 52nd and Walnut Street. The incident was captured on an Instagram livestream. The condition of the officer was not immediately known.”

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolfe has deployed the National Guard in an attempt to control the communities in case of further demonstrations. The White House of President Donald Trump has offered to send in federal troops ostensibly to “restore law and order.”

Social Tensions Escalate Around the U.S.

The recent outbreak of unrest in Philadelphia is by no means an isolated incident. Scores of similar clashes between police, racist vigilantes and thousands of people have taken place leading to many injuries and deaths.

Cities such as Kenosha, Wisconsin, Portland, Louisville, Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit and others, have been the scene of police and right-wing attacks on anti-racist demonstrators. The administration of President Donald Trump has appealed to law-enforcement agencies to dominate the streets and to liquidate the leadership of the demonstrations and campaigns which have been persistent over the last several months. Trump, and his Attorney General William Barr, have deployed federal forces to numerous municipalities under the guise of fighting crime, anti-racist rebellions and to restore law and order.

In Denver, where demonstrations have been held over the last year demanding justice for Elijah McClain, an African American man killed by the Aurora police, the city has experienced mass demonstrations which have blocked streets and expressways. Only 9.8% of Denver residents are African American while people of Latin American descent represent nearly 30%.

A right-wing demonstration on October 10 in Denver resulted in the death of a participant at the hands of a private security guard hired to protect a camara crew. As Lee Keltner of the pro-police rally used pepper spray against Matthew Dulloff, the guard, he was immediately killed. See this.

Dulloff has been charged with second-degree homicide in the shooting. Such an incident is reminiscent of previous events in Portland and Kenosha when the activities of right-wing zealots has ended in violent deaths to both Trump supporters and anti-racists.

On October 24 in Shelby Township, Michigan, a suburb northeast of Detroit, 100 people gathered at a shopping mall for a rally and later march in response to statements made by the local police chief and a board trustee. Both engaged in racist provocations related to the advent during the summer of Black Lives Matter demonstrations and rebellions nationally.

SHIFT and Detroit Will Breathe activists rally in Shelby Township on Oct. 24, 2020 (Photo by Abayomi Azikiwe)

A leaflet circulated by the locally-based Suburban Solidarity for Social Justice (SHIFT!) organization at the rally emphasized that:

“Our cause is to insist that Shelby Twp. take progressive and corrective steps to become an environment of diversity, inclusion, and address its own systematic racism. Our goals speak to a national movement for social change and racial justice that is rooted in a demand for true and thorough responsibility and accountability from leadership. Until our demands are met, we will continue to assemble, march, and protest, as protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”

As the activists from Shelby Township and other communities stepped off into the street for a march, they were immediately attacked by police. Public transport buses were commandeered as potential paddy wagons. Several people were grabbed and thrown to the concrete highway on 23 Mile Road west of Van Dyke and placed under arrest.

Activists from SHIFT!, Detroit Will Breathe, Moratorium NOW! Coalition, Detroit Eviction Defense, among others, then marched through residential areas of the Township. At least 30 police cars from several jurisdictions were deployed against a peaceful anti-racist demonstration. As a result of the arrests, five people have been indicted on felony charges while several people suffered injuries due to police action.

Demonstrators later arrived at the Shelby Township police station to demand the release of their fellow activists. The protesters were then subjected to further harassment and arrest. The following day on October 25, members of some of the same organizations staged a press conference outside the Macomb County Municipal Center and Courthouse in Mt. Clemens to denounce the behavior of the police and to reiterate the call for the immediate release of those held in detention. Another march was held through downtown Mt. Clemens as well as residential areas. The five detainees were released on October 26 having to post bond in relationship to the charges filed by the prosecutor’s office.

According to an article in the Macomb Daily:

“Congressman Andy Levin, who represents much of Macomb County in Congress, is making a personal plea to interim Macomb County Prosecutor Jean Cloud to drop felony charges against five people involved in racial protests in Shelby Township last weekend. The five were among 10 arrested Saturday (Oct. 24) during a protest by members of SHIFT (Suburban Solidarity for Social Justice) Michigan and Detroit Will Breathe. Of those 10, five were released pending further investigation. The remaining five were charged with various offenses, including assaulting, resisting and/or obstructing a police officer and disturbing the peace.”

These struggles which have unfolded in cities and suburbs over the last five months prompted by state repression and right-wing assaults on democratic rights, portend much for the unfolding social crisis in the U.S. Irrespective of the electoral outcome of the November 3 poll, the heightening contradictions within U.S. society will not be resolved until fundamental changes are realized.

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

Featured image: A man carries a sign along with other protestors Monday afternoon.David Angell–For The Macomb Daily David Angell

Relations between Venezuela and Canada are currently at its worst moment.  Although previous Canadian governments did not hide their dislike for our policies aimed at reclaiming sovereignty over our natural resources and prioritizing social policies, none had so actively imitated the U.S. regime change policy as much as the current Trudeau Administration.  Canada is making a calculated and ill-intentioned use of human rights discourse in order to effectively undermine Venezuela’s democratic institutions and promote illegal sanctions that cause enormous pain on the majority of all Venezuelans.

Although Trudeau had been Prime Minister since 2015, it was in 2017, after Donald Trump took office, when Canada escalated its interventionism in Venezuela’s affairs. Prior to that, our foreign ministries were in constant communication and met at least 9 times in 2016 to discuss bilateral issues.  After notorious disagreements with Trump over climate change and to a lesser extent, on the terms of a new free-trade agreement for North America, Trudeau found in Venezuela an issue he could openly support Trump in and in exchange obtain regional leadership that would help him win a seat in this year’s election to the U.N. Security Council. In addition, he would also help the interests of corporate Canada who was longing for occupying Venezuela’s place as the heavy crude supplier in U.S. refineries, and why not even take over Citgo, a U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s State oil company, PDVSA.

Nowhere to be seen in this plan was real concern for Venezuelan democracy, human rights or even stability. Trudeau picked up a playbook designed by the likes of John Bolton and issued four rounds of illegal coercive measures against Venezuela imitating and in some cases even amplifying the list of U.S. targets. Officials sanctioned are responsible for organizing elections, carrying out diplomatic duties, and even implementing the country’s official human rights policy. Even Olympic athletes known to sympathize with the government have been blocked from entering Canada and completing their trials for the next Olympics. However, former general Manuel Christopher, who in April of 2019 plotted a failed coup against President Maduro, was swiftly pardoned and erased from the list.

Since 2017, Canada, under U.S. close supervision, engaged in the creation of the Lima Group, a cartel of neoliberal governments in the American continent who failed to carry the majority of votes at the Organization of American States (OAS) to harass Venezuela and were seeking a platform to portray Venezuela as a regional threat in order to benefit the pro U.S. opposition. Where were Canada’s humanitarian concerns when through the Lima Group it sought to revive the Rio Treaty to be used as a framework for a potential military intervention?

Venezuelan democracy has also taken a backseat in this interventionist policy. During the elections of May 20, 2018, Canada was the only country in the world that specifically forbade Venezuelan diplomatic missions – the Embassy in Ottowa and the consulates in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver – from opening as voting centers for Venezuelan citizens living in Canada. Rather, Ottawa’s government has engaged in recognizing self-proclaimed interim President Juan Guaidó in violation of the Venezuelan Constitution.  Since, Canada has politically and materially supported Guaido’s lobbying to other governments in the region and appointed a special advisor, Allan Culham, to use his “network of contacts to advocate for expanded support to pressure the illegitimate government”, as it refers to the democratically-elected government of President Nicolas Maduro.

In supporting Guaido’s Washington-designed farce, Canada has also been complicit in the plunder of Venezuela’s foreign assets. Citgo’s Simon Bolivar Foundation, once dedicated to financing social programs such as low-cost heating oil for low-income North American families or specialized bone marrow treatment for Venezuelan patients, now uses its funds to finance a so-called NGO – the Venezuelan Engagement Foundation, whose board in Canada is filled by Orlando Viera-Blanco and his family, an opportunists who Ottawa recognizes as Guaido’s Ambassador to Canada.

This week, during the Canada continued lobbying the European Union on behalf of the U.S. with the purpose of questioning the upcoming Legislative Elections of December 6.  Millions of Venezuelans -both government and opposition supporters – want to vote, to renew the National Assembly and fulfill the Constitutional mandate, yet Canada, always seeing itself above Venezuelan law, considers otherwise.

On August 20, I had the rare pleasure of addressing Canadians at the invitation of the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute on these issues. Today, I reiterate the invitation to minister Champagne and the Canadian government to return to diplomacy, to seek a realistic understanding among our nations and to cease this dead-end policy that the Trump Administration has laid out for Ottawa. Unconstitutional and illegal adventures should no longer be encouraged by Canada. Our invitation is to return to electoral politics as an option, to diplomacy as an option. Only then will Canada be again looked upon as a good neighbor and not as the accomplice to the greatest aggression to the Venezuelan people in its modern history.

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Featured image is from Venezuelanalysis.com

There’s nothing natural about US-engineered coronavirus and economic collapse that made the dismal state of the nation much worse.

Things are unlikely to return to their former state when the current storm passes that won’t  happen any time soon.

Improvement from destructive fallout may never happen in the lifetimes of many people in the US and West.

Things are likely to worsen ahead to more greatly benefit privileged US interests than already by exploiting most others at home and abroad.

According to Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), super-wealth of US billionaires increased by nearly $800 billion this year.

Their gain has come at the cost of human misery affecting tens of millions of US households and countless millions more elsewhere.

It’s not enough for Trump, calling for another capital gains tax cut to further enrich the US super-rich, himself, his family, and cronies.

Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once explained that super-wealth and democracy are incompatible. They can’t coexist with each other.

America is a land of extremes. According to ATF, citing Forbes magazine, “of the $3.7 trillion in collective wealth of America’s 650 or so billionaires,” (around) $1 trillion…is held by just the top dozen.”

The dirty dozen includes Jeff Bezos topping the list, followed by Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison, Steve Ballmer, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Alice Walton, Jim Walton, and Rob Walton.

They didn’t get super-rich by being good guys. Balzac explained that “(b)ehind every great fortune there is a crime.”

On Fox Business, Trump said if reelected,

“I’m going to do a capital gains tax cut to 15% in (a) second term…I’ll get that done easily (sic).”

The current rate is 20%. For wages, salaries, interest and other income, the top rate is 37%.

Billionaires benefitting mostly from capital gains pay less taxes  than average-earning US workers.

Warren Buffett once said he paid less taxes than his secretary.

According to entrepreneur.com, he and other billionaires pay low taxes by:

• Mainly paying them at the capital gains rate.
• Making large contributions to charity, lowering their tax obligation.
• Having accountants legally reduce their effective tax rate.
• Are rewarded with tax reductions and credits by creating jobs.
• Are benefitting hugely from the 2017 tax cut.
• ATF explained that extraordinary increase in “billionaire wealth is mostly if not all due to capital gains—growth in the value of stock holdings, private businesses and other investments,” adding:

If Trump is reelected and gets capital gains cut to 15%, “America’s tycoons will contribute a quarter less in tax revenue when they cash in their profits.”

According to ATF’s executive director Frank Clemente:

“By demanding even more tax cuts for the rich at this crucial moment President Trump shows he is as out of touch with our nation’s needs as America’s billionaires are disconnected from our nation’s misery.”

Billionaire Bonanza 2020 author Chuck Collins noted that for America’s super-rich,

“this is a heads-we win, tails-you-lose economy, boosted by Trump policies to funnel wealth to the top,” adding:

“This oligarchic dozen of billionaires owning over $1 trillion is an unprecedented and disturbing indicator of the concentrated wealth during a pandemic.”

According to the Tax Policy Center (ATC), three-fourth of capital gains are held by the “highest-income 1%,” over half the total by the top 0.1%.

If the capital gains tax rate is cut to 15%, America’s wealthiest 1% will get 99% of the benefit, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) explained.

During unprecedented hard times for ordinary Americans, increased taxes on the wealthy are needed to aid the unemployed and others in their time of extreme need.

According to ATF, millions of US households are food insecure. Around “40 million families face eviction” because of little or no income to pay rent or service mortgages.

Most working-age Americans are either unemployed or way underemployed earning poverty wages.

According to ITEP, the wealthiest 5% of Americans will get over half the benefits from the 2017 tax law this year.

America’s top 1% “will get an average tax cut of $50,000,” said ATF.

This year alone, America’s super-rich increased their wealth enormously at a time of vast human misery because of engineered coronavirus and economic collapse.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

How do you call something “Russian disinformation” when you don’t have evidence it is? Let’s count the ways.

We don’t know a whole lot about how the New York Post story about Hunter Biden got into print. There are some reasons to think the material is genuine (including its cache of graphic photos and some apparent limited confirmation from people on the email chains), but in terms of sourcing, anything is possible. This material could have been hacked by any number of actors, and shopped for millions (as Time has reported), and all sorts of insidious characters – including notorious Russian partisans like Andrei Derkach – could have been behind it.

None of these details are known, however, which hasn’t stopped media companies from saying otherwise. Most major outlets began denouncing the story as foreign propaganda right away and haven’t stopped. A quick list of the creative methods seen lately of saying, “We don’t know, but we know!”:

1. Our spooks say it looks like the work of their spooks.A group of 50 “former senior intelligence officials” wrote a letter as soon as the Post story came out. Their most-quoted line was that the Post story has “all the classic hallmarks of a Russian information operation.” Note they said information operation, not disinformation operation — humorously, even people with records of lying to congress like James Clapper and John Brennanhave been more careful with language than members of the news media.Emphasizing that they didn’t know if the emails “are genuine,” these ex-heads of agencies like the CIA added “our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case,” noting that it appeared to be an operation “consistent with Russian objectives.” Politico, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, the Daily Beast, and many other outlets ran the spook testimonial.
2. It was prophesied.The Washington Post needed four reporters — Shane Harris, Ellen Nakashima, Greg Miller, and Josh Dawsey — to tell us that “four former officials familiar with the matter” spoke of a long-ago report that the would-be source of the Postemails, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, had been “interacting with people tied to Russian intelligence” in Ukraine. As such, any information he “brought back” from there “should should be considered contaminated by Russia.” Therefore, by the transitive property of whatever, the New York Post story should be dismissed as part of an “influence” operation.
3. Authorities are investigating if it might be Russian disinformation.“The FBI is probing a possible disinformation campaign,” announced USA Today, citing the omnipresent “person familiar with the matter.” Officially, of course, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said “Hunter Biden’s laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign,” to which FBI spokesperson Jill C. Tyson officially said the bureau had “nothing to add at this time.”Many of the outlets who covered this sequence of events described the F.B.I. statement as “carefully worded,” inviting us to read in things left unsaid. Thomas Rid in the Post went so far as to say Tyson was “hinting that actionable intelligence might yet be developed,” which is technically true but also technically meaningless.

   Another neat trick was to discuss the Post story and in the same sentence refer to a present-tense description of an apparently confirmed operation to discredit Joe Biden. CNN’s construction was like this: “The FBI is investigating whether the recently published emails that purport to detail the business dealings of Joe Biden’s son in Ukraine and China are connected to an ongoing Russian disinformation effort targeting the former vice president’s campaign.”

   That “ongoing Russian disinformation effort” is a story again sourced, as so many stories of the last four years have been, to assessments of intelligence officials. Thus the essence of these new headlines comes down to, “Intelligence officials are checking to see if the new story can be connected to prior claims of intelligence officials.”

4. Even if it isn’t a Russian influence operation, we should act like it is.Johns Hopkins “Professor of Strategic Studies” Thomas Rid came up with the most elegant construction in a Washington Post editorial, stating bluntly: “We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation — even if they probably aren’t.” Err on the side of caution, as it were. As the bosses in Casino put it, why take a chance?
5. The Biden campaign says it’s Russian disinformation (even though they can’t say for sure it’s disinformation at all).The press has elicited from the Biden campaign a few limited, often contradictory comments about what is and isn’t true in the New York Post story. For instance, the campaign’s chief communications officer Andrew Bates said about allegations Joe Biden met with Burisma executive Vadym Pozharski, “We have reviewed Joe Biden’s official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place.”In the same article, reporters noted, “Biden’s campaign would not rule out the possibility that the former VP had some kind of informal interaction with Pozharskyi.” So no meeting took place (although we’re not saying no meeting took place).

   The campaign continues to not take a concrete position about the veracity of the emails, but allows people like “senior Biden advisor” and former Assistant Secretary of State Michael Carpenter to say things like, “This is a Russian disinformation operation… I’m very comfortable saying that.”

   The natural follow-up question there should have been, “If it’s disinformation, are you saying the emails aren’t real?” But we haven’t seen many questions of that sort, probably because no one wants to be the member of the White House pool six months from now wearing the scars of interactions like this:

   I asked Joe Biden: What is your response to the NYPost story about your son, sir?

   He called it a “smear campaign” and then went after me. “I know you’d ask it. I have no response, it’s another smear campaign, right up your alley, those are the questions you always ask.” pic.twitter.com/Eo6VD4TqxD

   — Bo Erickson CBS (@BoKnowsNews) October 17, 2020

6. Accuse anyone who asks questions about the story of being in league with Russia.Reporters who merely retweeted the story or even just defended its right to not be censored, like Maggie Haberman of the New York Times or Marc Caputo from Politico, were instantly blasted as accomplices to foreign disinformation plots. As a result, many backed away from asking even basic questions about the piece (including to question seeming inconsistencies in the Post report).The poor fellow who asked Biden about the story on the tarmac in the above clip, Bo Erickson of CBS, got raked over the coals by the most aggressive Heathers in the giant high school that is America, fellow media members.

   Remember that the press consistently cheered as brave defenders of truth professional gesticulators like CNN’s Jim Acosta when they hit Trump with “tough” questions, but Erickson was reamed by colleagues for his mild query of Biden.

   Matthew Dowd of ABC snapped, “Lordy, you ask someone about an article that has already been proven false and having Russia propaganda as its basis? I would suggest taking a look in the mirror.” Ben Rhodes, former Obama Deputy National Security Adviser and MSNBC contributor — a member of the growing spook-to-on-air-personality club — made the accusation more explicit:

   Maybe because Bo is acting as the far end of a Russian disinformation operation. https://t.co/oGUPOin3R0

   — Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) October 17, 2020

7. Adam Schiff says it is! For the last four years, whenever the Democratic Party has sought to make unsupportable claims, it’s usually combined anonymous leaks to legacy outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post with public statements by a party spokesperson willing to say things on record without evidence. That person has often been California congressman Adam Schiff. Sometimes hinting that he’s seen intelligence he can’t speak of publicly, Schiff has repeatedly made statements that later proved false.In March of 2017, he told Chuck Todd, “I can’t get into the particulars, but there is more than circumstantial evidence now” that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to interfere with the 2016 election. He would continue making statements like this for nearly two years, until information was declassified showing that Schiff early on had been told in secret testimony, by people like the aforementioned Clapper, “I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election.”

   In January of 2018, Schiff dismissed claims of FBI malfeasance in obtaining secret surveillance authority on Trump aide Carter Page: “FBI and DOJ officials did not ‘abuse’ the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign.” He was later proved incorrect on all of these points by a report by Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

   As Glenn Greenwald pointed out, Schiff “fabricates accusations… the way that other people change underwear.”

   Of course, no one ever brings up Schiff’s record of wrongness. He gets a clean slate each time, and is rarely asked to substantiate anything he says, as was the case in this exchange last week with Wolf Blitzer, when he used the word “Kremlin” 14 times in one segment:

   SCHIFF: The origins of this whole smear are from the Kremlin, and the president is only too happy to have Kremlin help and try to amplify it.

   BLITZER: It’s not like Rudy Giuliani is peddling this information in a vacuum, Congressman. Take a look at this picture of the president in the Oval Office holding up a copy of the New York Post touting this conspiracy theory. It’s made its way all the way to the commander in chief with a big smile on his face.

   SCHIFF: Yes. Well, look, I think we know who the driving force behind this smear has been all along and it’s been the president and the Kremlin.

8. This reminds us of that other time! One of the first reactions by press was to note how the release of the Burisma emails reminded them of 2016, when “Russian hackers and WikiLeaks injected stolen emails from the Hillary Clinton campaign into the closing weeks of the presidential race.”The New York Times went so far as to say it had spoken with “U.S. intelligence analysts” who “contacted several people with knowledge of the Burisma hack,” claiming they’d heard “chatter” that stolen Burisma emails would be released as part of an “October surprise.”

   These people, the Times wrote, expressed concern that the Burisma material “would be leaked alongside forged materials… a slight twist on Russia’s 2016 playbook when they siphoned leaked D.N.C. emails through fake personas on Twitter and WikiLeaks.”

   Politico, meanwhile, said the Post story “drew immediate comparisons to 2016, when Russian hackers dumped troves of emails from Democrats onto the internet — producing few damaging revelations but fueling accusations of corruption by Trump.” (Actually a lot of the accusations of corruption came from supporters of Bernie Sanders, but who’s counting?).

9. Just say it! One of the beautiful things about the post-evidence era in media is that pundits can simply say things willy-nilly, provided it’s the right thing. David Corn and Mother Jones, who this time four years ago were publishing some of the first pebbles from the towering Matterhorn of bullshit that was the Steele dossier, ran a headline proclaiming, “Giuliani and the New York Post are pushing Russian disinformation.” Trudy Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer declared the Post story “reads as if it came straight from Russian propaganda playbook 101.” Ken Dilanian of NBC employed a creative double-negative, noting that Ratcliffe’s statement “didn’t say the FBI has ruled out the possibility of foreign involvement.”My favorite, however, was probably former lead impeachment counsel Daniel Goldman, who noted that while the laptop might not be foreign disinformation, it was “part” of foreign disinformation, which feels like the Twitter version of a Magritte painting:
   

   Someone needs to explain to @DonaldJTrumpJr how Russian disinformation works, since he clearly did not learn his lesson from the June 2016 TT meeting.

   The laptop itself is not disinformation. But it is part of a Russian disinformation campaign that has been going on for years. https://t.co/HFOLKuoBx8

   — Daniel Goldman (@danielsgoldman) October 24, 2020

10. Everyone quote everyone else! Donald Trump has taken a lot of grief — deservedly — for his “a lot of people are saying” method of backing up public statements. The response to the New York Post story has been the same kind of informational merry-go-round. Each of the above methods has often been backed up by others on the list, using A=A=A style rhetorical constructions.The “50 former senior intelligence officials” letter cited “media reports” that “say that the FBI has now opened an investigation into Russian involvement.” They cited the USA Today story that cited the “person familiar with the matter” in making that claim, adding that, “according to the Washington Post, citing four sources, U.S. intelligence agencies warned the White House last year that Giuliani was the target of an influence operation.”

    The Washington Post in the person of professor Rid then turned around and citedthe 50 former intelligence officials, while David Corn cited Rid in warning the whole story was “highly suspicious behavior,” especially against the “backdrop of 2016,” and so on.

    In other words, this is a story about media commentators citing intelligence sources who in turn are citing media commentators citing intelligence sources.

    Of course it’s possible there’s a foreign element to the Post expose. But there’s nothing concrete to go on there, which has forced the press to levitate the claims through such propaganda spin-cycles. It’s amazing how quickly these machines get built now…

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Featured image is from Matt Taibbi

Prior to the appearance of COVID-related restrictions and lockdowns, neoliberal capitalism had turned to various mechanisms in the face of economic stagnation and massive inequalities: the raiding of public budgets, the expansion of credit to consumers and governments to sustain spending and consumption, financial speculation and militarism.

Part and parcel of this has been a strategy of ‘creative destruction’ that has served to benefit an interlocking directorate of powerful oil, agribusiness, armaments and financial interests, among others. For these parties, what matters is the ability to maximise profit by shifting capital around the world, whether on the back of distorted free trade agreements which open the gates for plunder or through coercion and militarism which merely tear them down.

In the so-called ‘developed’ nations, notably in the US and the UK, along the way millions of jobs have been offshored to cheap labour economies. In effect, societies have become hollowed out. They have increasingly resembled empty boxes whereby the main component lurking inside is a giant mechanical hand of government and media propaganda with the threat of state violence lying in wait. And its only function is to pull the lid shut if anyone ever dares to tear it open and shed light on things. If successful, they will see the immorality, the lies, the hypocrisies.

And they would also be able to identify cynical methods of social control that have assumed a different level in 2020 with constant COVID fear propaganda being pumped out on a daily basis. If we take the UK, the fact is that excess deaths in 2020 are not out of the ordinary when looking back over a 25-year period.

But we continue to see the rolling out of near-endless restrictions and tiered lockdowns across the country based on questionable PCR tests and the designation of healthy, asymptomatic people as ‘cases’. The narrative has shifted from COVID deaths and ‘flattening the curve’ to an obsession with ‘cases’ as the curve became flattened and COVID-related deaths bottomed out. Even at the height of government- and media-driven COVID paranoia, over 90% of ‘COVID deaths’ were most likely due to the serious co-morbidities listed on the death certificates of the mainly over-75s who make up the vast majority of such deaths.

 

But this is precisely what is supposed to happen when we acknowledge that it is all part of the ‘great reset’ as explained by the recent article ‘Klaus Schwab and his great fascist reset’ which appeared on the OffGuardian website: a transformation of society resulting in permanent restrictions on fundamental liberties and mass surveillance as entire sectors are sacrificed to boost the bottom line of the pharmaceuticals corporations, the high-tech/big data giants, Amazon, Google, major global chains, the digital payments sector, biotech concerns, etc.

In other words, a ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ which historian Luciana Bohne recently noted on her Facebook page is going to result in a different economy based on new businesses and sectors. In turn, this means older enterprises are to be driven to bankruptcy or absorbed into monopolies. It also entails massive job losses.

Although COVID is being blamed, Bohne notes that the shutting down of the old economy was already happening as there was insufficient growth, well below the minimum tolerable 3% level to maintain the viability of capitalism.

Bohne quotes the World Bank to underline her point:

“In order to reverse this serious setback [COVID] to development progress and poverty reduction, countries will need to prepare for a different economy post-COVID, by allowing capital, labor, skills, and innovation to move into new businesses and sectors.” World Bank, October 2020 Report.

Economies are being ‘restructured’ and ‘downsized’ and COVID restrictions and lockdowns are being used as a battering ram to implement this agenda.

It is very revealing that Matt Hancock, British minister for health, gave a speech to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Fourth Industrial Revolution in October 2017. Klaus Schwab was also in attendance.

Hancock stated:

“And I’m delighted to speak alongside so many impressive colleagues who really understand this, and alongside Professor Klaus Schwab who literally ‘wrote the book’ on the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Your work, bringing together as you do all the best minds on the planet, has informed what we are doing, and I’m delighted to work with you.”

If readers take time to read the aforementioned piece, they may well be disturbed by many of the beliefs Schwab holds for the future. And now, three years on from Hancock’s presentation, we are seeing him play an active role in implementing the type of scenario Schwab has set out in his various books and speeches by rolling out further restrictions and phased lockdowns, mass surveillance measures, vaccination projects, authoritarian government and economic devastation.

Hancock really does seem to be taking his cue from the influential Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum.

COVID is being used to inject neoliberal capitalism with new life by destroying livelihoods and implementing a social and economic tectonic shift. If people in the richer countries are perplexed by the destruction of livelihoods under the pretext of COVID, they need look no further than India to appreciate why governments wage financial and social war on their own people and the type of brutality they are capable of and whose interests they ultimately serve.

There is a plan for the future of that country and most of its current farmers do not have a role in it. India remains an agrarian-based society with over 60% of the population still relying on agriculture either directly or indirectly for their livelihood.

Successive administrations have been making farming financially unviable with the aim of moving farmers out of agriculture and into the cities to work in construction, manufacturing or the service sector, despite these sectors not creating anything like the number of jobs required. By uprooting the agrarian base, we are seeing a fundamental attack on Indian society.

The aim is to displace the existing labour-intensive system of food and agriculture with one dominated by a few transnational corporate agribusiness concerns which will then control the sector. Agriculture is to be wholly commercialised with large-scale, mechanised (monocrop) enterprises replacing family-run farms that help sustain hundreds of millions of rural livelihoods, while feeding the urban masses.

As is currently happening in the West, small independent concerns (in this case, smallholder farmers) are being driven to bankruptcy. So why would anyone set out to deliberately run down what is effectively a productive system of agriculture that feeds people, sustains livelihoods and produces sufficient buffer stocks? Similarly, why in 2020 are governments facilitating economic destruction?

Politicians are effectively facilitating the needs of global capital and all it entails: a system based on endless profit growth, crises of overproduction and market saturation and a need to constantly seek out, create or expand into new, untapped markets to maintain profitability.

India’s agrarian base is being destroyed at the behest of predatory commercial interests (via the Indo-US Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture, World Bank directives and WTO policies) and the peasantry is being dealt a knock-out blow so global agribusiness and retail concerns can capture financially lucrative markets and further incorporate the agri-food sector into their global supply chains.

Looking at the Industrial Revolution in England, historian Michael Perelman has detailed the processes that whipped the English peasantry into a workforce coerced into factory wage labour. Peasants left their land to work for below-subsistence wages in dangerous factories being set up by a new, rich class of industrial capitalists. Perelman describes the policies through which peasants were forced out of agriculture, not least by the barring of access to common land. A largely self-reliant population was starved of its productive means.

It was brutal, just like ongoing developments in India. And what we are now seeing are vested interests forcing through a Fourth Industrial Revolution across the world. This too is brutal and is also having dire consequences in places like India as I have previously outlined in the article ‘Coronavirus Capitalism: Entrenching Dispossession and Dependency’.

The encouragement of identity politics, narcissism, apathy and consumerism’s irretrievable materialism, among other things, have undermined ordinary people’s capacity for action. Not so the billionaire class pushing through the ‘great reset’ which is acutely aware of its own interests.

A lack of class consciousness among ordinary people debilitates their ability to unite and recognise that their interests and those of the government and the people they really serve are diametrically opposed. Free from the shackles of mainstream propaganda, ordinary people would be better placed to resist current restrictions and challenge the prevailing narrative on COVID.

Unfortunately, those who might be expected to be pivotal in this – prominent figures and media outlets which claim to be of the ‘left’ – have failed to lead by example and have capitulated to the agenda of those who are driving the COVID narrative, the restrictions, the fear, the rolling out of draconian surveillance and rushed-through vaccines and the economic devastation leading to millions of job losses.

What must be regarded as the ‘establishment left’ has done little more than cheerlead restrictions and lockdowns.

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Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.

At the request of Syria’s government in September 2015, Russia intervened in the country to combat ISIS and other US/NATO/Israeli-backed jihadists.

Moscow’s freedom-fighting operations turned the tide of battle, enabling Syrian forces to liberate most parts of the country.

Most of Idlib province remains occupied by many thousands of jihadists — heavily armed and trained by the Pentagon and CIA.

Along with illegally occupied northern and southern parts of the country by US forces, Idlib remains to be liberated so Syrians again may be free from the scourge of US aggression — launched by Obama/Biden, continued by Trump.

There’s nothing “civil” about a near-decade of US-launched war in Syria — part of its longstanding aim to redraw the Middle East map to control the region unchallenged.

In his important truth-telling book titled “The Dirty War on Syria,” Tim Anderson explained what US involvement since March 2011 is all about.

Separately he said the following:

“Washington and its allies tr(ied) another ‘regime change’ in Syria.”

“A fake ‘revolution’ uses Islamic gangs, during an ‘Arab Spring.’ The Western media constantly lie about this covert, dirty war.”

US, NATO, Israeli, Turkish, Saudi-backed jihadists “carry out a series of massacres, falsely blaming them on the Syrian Army and President Assad.”

“Most of Syria’s opposition backs the state and army against terrorism. Washington calls a puppet exile group ‘the Syrian opposition.’ ”

So-called “moderate rebels” are US-recruited jihadists.

What’s been ongoing in Syria for a near-decade is a failed US imperial effort to transform the country into a vassal state — replacing legitimate President Assad with puppet leadership subservient to US and Israeli interests.

It’s also about wanting Iran isolated regionally. Longstanding US policy calls for gaining control over all independent states not bending to its will — by whatever it takes to achieve its aims, endless wars by hot and other means its favorite strategies.

On Tuesday, Sergey Lavrov explained what Moscow faces on the world stage, saying the following:

“Washington and a number of EU capitals have redoubled their efforts to contain Russia’s development.”

“They are trying to punish us for an independent foreign policy, for consistently upholding our national interests.”

“To justify their actions, the introduction of ever new anti-Russia sanctions, they throw in various accusations and insinuations.”

“At the same time, no one has shown any facts or evidence.”

Anti-Russia Western “rhetoric is always being kept at the ‘highly likely’ innuendo level.”

“Those claims are based on fabricated accusations and run contrary to even elementary logic.”

“All the proposals we make to set up a professional dialogue on any concerns remain without any reaction.”

“So we have no other choice but to conclude we cannot count on” respect from Washington and EU governments.”

“(T)he West has made it a rule to talk with Russia based on the presumption of its guilt.”

Western nations forgot “what diplomacy is and have sunk to the level of vulgar rudeness. Our retaliatory steps in the US and EU are well known.”

Among other issues, hardliners in the US, UK, and other Western nations are smarting over defeat of their imperial project in Syria by Russia’s involvement.

Yet they continue endless war and efforts to starve and otherwise immiserate 17 million Syrians into submission — part of endless US war on the country.

On Monday, Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for the Middle East and African countries/Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov met with Syrian ambassador to Russia Riyad Haddad, saying the following:

Views (were exchanged) on the current situation in and around Syria,” adding:

“The Russian side reiterated its unfailing solidarity with the Syrian people, support to its sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, as well as its readiness to continue efficient cooperation in restoring the socio-economic infrastructure.”

In mid-October, Russian airstrikes in southwestern Idlib reportedly killed or wounded “over 200…Turkish-backed” jihadists in response to their “shelling and rocket fire,” according to AMN News.

Southfront reported that these elements are “being trained on anti-tank weapons and mountain warfare by Turkish officers and private contractors…”

“(P)hotos released by RusVesan.RU confirm that the strikes targeted military installations located far from any urban area.”

Claims of numerous civilian casualties were fabricated like most always in response to Syrian and Russian military strikes on US/Western/Israeli or Turkish-backed jihadists — serving as their proxies against Syrian sovereign independence.

On Tuesday, RT reported that leaked documents revealed a “UK-(run) secret training and PR (operation) for” jihadists in Syria, “costing millions” of dollars, adding:

“(T)he hacktivist collective Anonymous…expose(d) a variety of covert actions undertaken by the UK government against the Syrian state over many years.”

Britain partners with all US wars of aggression against invented enemies.

Efforts to replace Syria’s Bashar al-Assad with pro-Western puppet rule failed.

Yet endless war continues despite Trump’s earlier vow to exit US troops from the country.

More recently he said that US troops are in Syria “only for oil…to “secure the oil” — code language for stealing it.

A near-decade of US proxy war with Pentagon air support is all about gaining control over the country and replacing the government of an Israeli rival state.

On Tuesday, AMN News reported that “Turkish-backed” jihadists “resumed…large attack(s)” in northern Idlib province — in “retaliation” for Russian airstrikes against their fighters that took a heavy toll.

They “launched dozens of rockets and artillery shells towards the government areas…mostly hit(ting) open fields…”

“At the same time, Russian and Syrian military reconnaissance planes are conducting flights over the militant positions to identify where the shelling and rocket fire is coming from” to strike back.

The struggle for Syria’s soul continues to keep the country and its people free from US imperial control.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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The Dirty War on Syria

Author: Tim Anderson

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-8-4

Year: 2016

Pages: 240

List Price: $23.95

Special Price: $15.00

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US war on China by other means risks direct confrontation between two superpowers if things are pushed too far — what’s been happening since before Trump took office.

On Tuesday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin addressed unacceptable US regional actions, notably its escalating hostile policies toward Beijing.

In response to newly announced US arms sales to Taiwan — the island state considered a breakaway province by Beijing to be reunited with the mainland — Wang denounced them, saying:

“US arms sales to the Taiwan region severely violate the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiques…seriously undermine China’s sovereignty and security interests…”

They “send out wrong signals to ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces, and gravely undermine China-US relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

Calls by Wang and other Chinese officials for the Trump regime to cancel the sales fell on deaf ears in Washington.

Worsening bilateral relations are likely to continue in the wrong direction next year if Biden/Harris succeed Trump.

Wang responded to his UN envoy’s hostile to China New York Post op-ed.

Last week, Kelly Kraft falsely called Beijing “the biggest threat to (the) integrity and effectiveness” of the UN.

Reinventing reality, while ignoring US war on humanity worldwide, she falsely accused China of “increasingly aggressive efforts to manipulate UN agencies to whitewash its bad behavior, silence criticism and advance authoritarian government.”

It’s how the US operates against all nations, entities, and individuals not subservient to its imperial interests.

At the same time, she unacceptably slammed Syria, Venezuela and Iran — nations successfully resisting US efforts to transform them into subservient pro-Western states.

She lied about Chinese treatment of Uighurs and other Xinjiang minority groups.

She reinvented US foreign policy, falsely claiming its policymakers foster “multilateralism” — what they systematically seek to eliminate in pursuit of their aim to rule the world unchallenged.

Saying she, Trump, and Pompeo “fight every day on the side of freedom” is polar opposite how both right wings of the US one-party state operate.

In response to her hostile remarks, Wang accused her of “ignorance and bias,” adding:

The US has a long disturbing history of “criticizing other countries’ cooperation with the UN by wantonly distorting facts.”

Kraft’s “groundless allegation(s) insult…international staff members from various countries (including China), fulfill(ing) their duties according to the collective will of member states.”

Like many other US officials, “Kraft provoke(s) confrontation among great powers and interfere(s) in the internal affairs of other countries at the UN, which is deeply unpopular.”

She’s “complacent about…tell(ing) lies with such pretense and no scruples…not knowing that she has already violated international law and the basic norms of international relations.”

China and many other countries reject US cold war policies.

Right-wing extremist Pompeo — responsible for driving US international relations to a new low — is militantly hostile to peace, equity, justice and the rule of law.

As US world body envoy, Kraft expresses his unacceptable worldview.

Commenting on Pompeo’s India visit, Wang slammed his “attacks and allegations against China,” calling them “nothing new.”

He continued his hostile war of words on China with remarks like the following:

“(I)f China were to go away suddenly, that we all pray might happen…the (US) relationship” with India would benefit (sic).

“(H)undreds of millions of Chinese would like to be out under…the jackboot of the Chinese Communist Party (sic).”

Pompeo again falsely blamed made-in-the-USA covid outbreaks worldwide on Beijing.

He also falsely accused China of an array of US high crimes, notably its rage to the rule the world unchallenged by whatever hostile actions it takes to achieve its hegemonic aims.

He reinvented hostile to democratic values USA as a champion of its principles.

According to Wang, Pompeo represents US “Cold War mentality and ideological bias.”

The so-called “China threat” he pushes doesn’t exist.

US actions on the world stage, “undermine…peace and stability,” Wang correctly explained.

A day earlier, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the following about hostile to China designations of six of the country’s media operations as “foreign missions” by the US:

“In recent years, the US government placed unwarranted restrictions on Chinese media agencies and personnel in the United States…”

It “purposely made things difficult for their normal reporting assignments, and subjected them to growing discrimination and politically-motivated oppression.”

“(I)n total disregard of China’s legitimate and reasonable demand and solemn warning (against these unacceptable actions, the US) ramped up political repression and stigmatization of Chinese media agencies and personnel.”

If what’s going on doesn’t change, “more countermeasures from China” will follow.

Hostile US policies toward Beijing risk rupturing bilateral relations or something worse.

Things could turn hot by accident or design because of US rage to replace all independent governments with pro-Western vassal ones.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from www.fmprc.gov.cn

The world’s largest automotive market, China, is looking to become a dominant player in the rising global electric vehicle market. Chinese EV manufacturers are expected to start expanding overseas, while Beijing already controls a large part of the global EV supply chain, beginning with critical minerals processing.

The United States has started to realize that China could dominate the future of transportation—electric transportation—if it does not counter the current Chinese influence over critical parts of the EV supply chain, from battery metals sourcing and processing to battery manufacturing.

China is the world’s top EV market, and the government is looking to have new energy vehicle (NEV) sales at up to 25 percent of all sales by 2025, although it is not looking to ban sales of new gasoline-powered vehicles anytime soon.

Having supported EV manufacturers and sales over the past few years, Beijing now looks to expand its presence outside China.

“Over the next five years we anticipate Chinese players across the EV supply chain to aggressively enter the overseas market,” UBS said in a note last week, as carried by CNBC. “We believe China materials costs are lower than the overseas market. If this advantage can sustain, China could realize a cost advantage over ex-China players,” according to UBS analysts.

Chinese EV brands are set to challenge Tesla and the western automakers outside China, while Beijing’s dominance in the supply chain is of great concern for U.S. energy security policy experts, as well as to the White House.

U.S. President Donald Trump declared last month a national emergency to deal with the threat that America’s dependence on critical minerals, especially on China, poses to national security and the U.S. economy.

“Our dependence on one country, the People’s Republic of China (China), for multiple critical minerals is particularly concerning. The United States now imports 80 percent of its rare earth elements directly from China, with portions of the remainder indirectly sourced from China through other countries,” President Trump’s executive order said.

China controls a large part of the EV supply chain, analysts say. It is a common misconception that China holds most of the natural resources—in fact, 23 percent of global supply of all battery raw materials comes from China, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. However, China dominates chemical production of battery-grade raw materials with a whopping 80 percent of total global production. China will host a total of 101 lithium-ion battery plants currently planned or under construction to 2029 out of all 136 plants planned globally by that date, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence said.

China controls 80 percent of the world’s raw material refining in the lithium-ion battery supply chain, 77 percent of the world’s cell capacity, and 60 percent of the world’s component manufacturing, BNEF said in a report last month.

“The next decade will be particularly interesting as Europe and the U.S. try to create their own battery champions to challenge Asian incumbents who are already building capacity in both places. While Europe is launching initiatives to capture more of the raw material value chain, the U.S. is slower to react on this,” said James Frith, BNEF’s head of energy storage.

China’s push to adopt EVs and support its electric car manufacturing and supply chain industries is not only the result of clean air policies.

“By committing to adopt EVs that reduce its dependence on oil, Beijing would make itself less vulnerable if tensions between the United States and China were to increase. In addition, EVs create opportunities for Chinese companies to benefit from a growing EV industry, and gain global recognition and credibility by developing sophisticated technology at a low cost,” U.S. advocacy group Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE) said in a report in September.

The U.S. and its partners need to develop a supply chain of critical minerals less dependent on China to counter Beijing’s dominance, General James Conway and Peter Ackerman, members of SAFE’s Energy Security Leadership Council, wrote in an op-ed in the Financial Times last week.

“We risk a scenario in which we swap our dependence on a chaotic oil market dominated by Opec countries that do not share our strategic goals, for a reliance on China for our future transportation needs,” the authors wrote.

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At my blog, Café Hayek, I recently posted several entries in opposition to the Covid-19 lockdowns specifically, and, more generally, to Covid-caused hysteria. These posts sparked negative reaction in the comments section and in my email box. This negative reaction is, I think, unwarranted.

Unwarranted Faith

Among the most frustrating features of the pro-lockdown argument is the blind faith that those who make it place in the politicians who issue the orders and oversee the enforcement. This frustration is hyper-charged when such faith is displayed by classical liberals and libertarians, who normally understand that politicians and their hirelings have neither the knowledge nor the incentives to be trusted with much power. Yet in the face of Covid, executive-branch government officials are assumed somehow to become sufficiently informed and trustworthy to exercise the unbounded discretionary power – that is, the arbitrary power – required to prohibit vast swathes of normal human interaction ranging from the commercial through the educational to the personal (such as prohibiting family gatherings above a certain size).

Why this faith? The proffered answer, of course, is that Covid-19 is unusually dangerous and, therefore, we have no choice but to put faith in government officials. This answer is bizarre, for it insists that we must now trust with unprecedented power people who regularly act in ways that prove them to be unworthy to hold lesser amounts of power. My head explodes….

Moving on, and without pausing to explore just what is meant here by “unusually,” let’s grant that Covid-19 is indeed unusually dangerous. But also unusually dangerous is arbitrary government power. Is it unreasonable for those of us who fear this power to require that proponents of lockdowns meet a higher standard of persuasion before we accede to the exercise of such power? Given that the initial spark for the lockdowns, at least in the United Kingdom and the United States, was Neil Ferguson’s suspect and widely criticized Imperial Model – a model, recall, offered by a man with an awful record of dramatically exaggerating the likely mortality rates of diseases – is it unreasonable to demand that much stronger evidence be offered before we turn silent as governments continue massively to interrupt normal life?

If you’re tempted to answer these questions in the affirmative, recognize that there’s at least one important difference between pathogens and power – a difference that should be, but isn’t, taken into consideration by pro-lockdowners. The difference is this: Population immunity, either through a pathogen’s natural spread or through a vaccine, will at some point significantly reduce that pathogen’s danger; in contrast, for protection against government power there is no population immunity or vaccine. When such power expands, the ratchet effect documented by Robert Higgs ensures that that power remains more elevated and widespread than before.

Unlike pathogens, government power continues to nourish itself as it grows into an ever-greater danger. Quaking at the very thought of Covid while discounting the danger that lurks in the immense expansions of government power done in the name of fighting Covid is wholly unreasonable.

Where’s the Perspective?

Several of Café Hayek’s commenters and my email correspondents push back against anti-lockdown arguments by observing that ordinary people support lockdowns because they don’t wish to die, to become severely ill, or to have their loved ones stricken with Covid. This observation is accurate – as is an accompanying observation that Covid is spread from person to person. But as an argument for lockdowns it’s without merit, for it begs several questions.

How many lives are actually saved, on net, by the lockdowns? Obviously, the Covid-induced expansions of government power are not justified if the net number of lives saved is small. And remember, against the lives saved by lockdowns must be counted the lives lost because of the lockdowns – lives lost to suicide, to the reduced health and safety that comes from lower income, and from the failure to diagnose and treat non-Covid illnesses.

Yet those who insist that the desire not to be killed by Covid justifies the lockdowns largely ignore these questions and trade-offs. It would be as if a sincerely expressed desire not to be killed as a pedestrian by an automobile were taken as justification to prohibit automobiles. Such a prohibition would result in approximately 6,000 fewer pedestrians in America being killed annually by automobiles – itself alone an undeniably happy result. Yet would such a prohibition be justified by this objective fact? Would your answer change if someone with a superficial familiarity with economics declares that the danger posed to pedestrians by automobile traffic is a “negative externality”?

And whose lives are being saved by the lockdowns and for how long? I’m baffled by the ongoing failure in the public discussion to recognize that Covid kills mostly very old or sick people, and is practically of no danger to people under the age of 50. This reality alone should utterly discredit the case for locking down entire economies and life events. (Note, by the way, that I write this essay as a 62-year-old.) Not only does Covid pose no real – and much less no unusual – danger to most people, the group of persons to whom Covid does pose an unusual danger is easily identified.

As the Great Barrington Declaration sensibly argues, preventive efforts should be focused on helping this (relatively small) group of vulnerable persons. Keeping them isolated or otherwise protected from the coronavirus simply does not require the vast majority of the population to be locked down, “socially distanced” from each other, or saddled with other restrictions. In fact, as the Declaration’s authors note, by delaying population immunity, lockdowns likely increase the long-term threat to old and sick people.

Public Panic

It’s no good response to note that the general public is panicked by Covid. This panic is indeed real. It explains why the public isn’t more resistant to the lockdowns. But this panic does not justify the lockdowns.

Consider: The risk in America of being killed by terrorism is, as Bryan Caplan describes it, “microscopic.” Between 1970 and 2012 the chance that an American would, in any one year, be done in by terrorism was 1 in 4 million – much less than half the chance of being killed by a home appliance. Yet the 9/11-sparked panic over terrorism has resulted in a permanent increase in efforts to protect Americans from this virtual non-threat.

How much prosperity – including increased health and safety – are we failing to produce because we now waste billions of dollars worth of resources on protection from this minuscule risk? Too much.

And don’t forget that government’s response to 9/11 also includes America’s seemingly permanent war stance in the Middle East and a scaling up of government’s violation of our privacy. How much of our freedom has been permanently lost because of excessive fear of terrorism? Much too much.

Rather than accept as given the public’s irrational fear of terrorism, the far better course is to stop stoking this fear and, instead, to calm it by broadcasting accurate information about terrorism’s relative risks. (Aren’t we constantly told that one of the core functions of government is to produce and spread accurate information as a “public good?”) The spread of better information would prompt the public to demand better policies.

The same must be said about Covid. Tamping down the Covid hysteria by making available accurate information about this disease is what well-informed and public-spirited governments would do. Yet such governments are largely mythical. Real-world governments behave quite differently. Most governments, in the U.S. and elsewhere, chose – and continue to choose – a course precisely the opposite of what ‘good’ governments would choose. The reason, alas, isn’t mysterious: As H.L. Mencken observed, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Covid-19 is the perfect hobgoblin. And while its dangers are not imaginary, their degree and impact certainly are. Governments’ failure to ensure that their citizens are accurately informed about Covid is itself sufficient reason to distrust governments with the powers they’ve seized over the course of this hellish year.

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Donald J. Boudreaux is a senior fellow with American Institute for Economic Research and with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University; a Mercatus Center Board Member; and a professor of economics and former economics-department chair at George Mason University.

The UK government’s decision to resume selling arms to Saudi Arabia, following a one-year pause, is set to face another legal challenge. 

Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) announced on Tuesday that it had launched a judicial review application into the UK’s decision to renew selling arms to the Saudi-led coalition involved in Yemen.

In June 2019, all new British arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bahrain and Kuwait were suspended after a lengthy legal battle. The Court of Appeal ruled that the UK government had failed to make an assessment of whether there was a risk that the weapons could be used to breach international humanitarian law in Yemen.

Britain has since resumed arms sales to the coalition, after International Trade Secretary Liz Truss told MPs in July that there were no patterns or trends of violations of international law by Saudi forces in Yemen, and any breaches were “isolated incidents”.

CAAT has accused the government of providing little information on how it came to this conclusion and of prologing the conflict through arms sales.

“Tens of thousands of people have been killed in this brutal bombardment, yet arms companies have profited every step of the way,” Andrew Smith, a spokesperson from Campaign Against Arms Trade, said.

“Last year the Court of Appeal found that the government had acted illegally, and nothing that we have seen since suggests otherwise.

“The government may think that the widespread destruction of schools, hospitals and homes can be dismissed as ‘isolated incidents’ but we do not. These arms sales are immoral, and we are confident that the court will confirm that the decision to renew them was illegal.”

Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in Yemen’s civil war in March 2015, and have since carried out more than 20,000 air strikes in an effort to roll back the Houthi rebels, who seized the capital Sanaa in late 2014. One-third of those strikes have been on non-military sites, including schools, factories and hospitals, according to the Yemen Data Project.

Rosa Curling, from the law firm Leigh Day, which represents CAAT, said that every international body that had investigated violations of international human rights law by Saudi Arabia in Yemen had found repeated violations.

“Despite this, our government has determined it appropriate to continue to arm the coalition, a decision which our client considers unlawful and a decision we hope the court will overturn as a matter of priority,” Curling said.

In August, a British soldier born in Yemen was arrested after he publicly protested against UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Ahmed al-Batati, a 21-year-old lance corporal from Sheffield, stood outside Whitehall in his military uniform, and reportedly blew a whistle every 10 minutes for nine and a half hours to symbolically mark how often a child dies in Yemen.

“We are soldiers that serve the government, so why should I continue my service to a government that continues to prioritise money over the victims of Yemen,” Batati told MEE at the time. “My message is clear: I refuse to serve them until they make the right decisions to end the unlawful arms trade with Saudi Arabia.”

New figures released by the UK government just this month revealed that Saudi Arabia was by far the world’s biggest defence spender over the past decade, having purchased $116bn in arms – twice as much as any other country.

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A Sotheby’s auction of rare objects from the Museum of Islamic Arts in Jerusalem has been halted at the last minute following an outcry from the Israeli government and culture officials. 

One hundred and ninety Islamic artifacts from the museum’s collection, including ceramics, textiles, and illuminated manuscripts, were set to hit the block in a single-owner sale on October 27 in London, while an additional 68 timepieces owned by the institution were to be included in an Important Watches sale the next day.

But less than 24 hours before the first event went live, the museum and its endower, the Hermann de Stern Foundation, announced plans to postpone the sale.

The news came in response to a public appeal from Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, and followed a discussion between the museum and Israel’s Culture Ministry.

“The foundation’s management hopes that the postponement will make it possible to reach agreements that will also be acceptable to the Culture Ministry in the coming weeks,” the museum said in a statement.

In a separate statement sent to Artnet News, Sotheby’s clarified that the sale was moved to November. The statement did not specify what objects would be included in the auction.

“The aim of these sales remains to safeguard and further the founding vision of the museum and to advance its work in fostering cross-cultural dialogue and understanding,” a representative from the auction house said. “Sotheby’s looks forward to working with the museum to bring these plans to fruition in the near future.”

The deaccession plan was put in place to support the museum’s long-term financial outlook, according to the Art Newspaper. The auction had been in the works for over two years, and the institution said the 258 objects set to hit the block were either kept in storage, or were duplicated by other examples in the permanent collection.

But shortly after the auction was announced in September, museum officials and antiquities experts in Israeli questioned this claim, raising additional questions about the ethics of a state-sponsored museum selling off its holdings.

Image on the right: An early Iznik blue and white calligraphic pottery hanging ornament, Turkey, circa 1480. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

Michael Sebbane, chief director of national treasures for the Israel Antiquities Authority, said the museum’s move suggested a “lack of professionalism.”

“They are selling items that are very important, very unique, and the moment they sell them, the public will have lost them,” he told the Washington Post.

The backlash reached its peak on Sunday, when Israeli president Rivlin called for a halt to the sale.

“We must find the means available to the State of Israel in the legal and international spheres to prevent the sale of these cultural assets from the region as a whole,” Rivlin said in a statement.

He added that institutions like the Museum of Islamic Art “are the repositories of enormous spiritual and material assets for the State of Israel and the Middle East, and we must do all we can to keep them in Israel.”

The Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem was established in 1974 by British-Jewess heiress Vera Salomons. It includes more than 5,500 objects in its collection, which spans the 7th to the 19th centuries.

Among the artifacts set to be deaccessioned were an 11th–12th century page from a Qur’an written in eastern Kufic script from Persia, and a calligraphic hanging pottery ornament from Turkey, circa 1480. Both were expected to fetch between £200,000 and £300,000 ($261,000–$392,000).

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Featured image: A silver-inlaid Aqqoyunlu turban helmet, Turkey or Persia, second half 15th century. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

The media portrayal of Brazil’s annual fire season — which in 2020 is trending worse than in 2019 — is “surreal” according to the country’s vice-president, Hamilton Mourão, who spoke during a web seminar on 27 August. Not flames and deforestation, but “development” is the biggest challenge ahead for the Amazon, the VP said then.

“The Brazilian state is not present in the Amazon,” the former general told the Wall Street Journal one week later. “That is why illegality thrives.” Yet, an enhanced government presence alone is not a solution, he added. Only viable economic opportunities can end the poverty which, according to the VP, is the root cause of environmental destruction there.

Mourão’s contention that “development” will save the rainforest may feel counterintuitive to outsiders and especially conservationists, but his words echo the intertwined policies of national “security and development” which have served as the cornerstones of the Brazilian armed forces’ vision for the Amazon for more than half a century.

And his words carry considerable weight: The 67-year-old VP was named head of the Conselho Nacional da Amazônia Legal (the National Council of the Amazon; CNAL) last January. Consisting predominantly of former military officers, this governmental super body is to “coordinate and supervise the implementation of all public policies related to the Amazon.”

CNAL is hardly the only public institution “militarized” during the watch of President Jair Bolsonaro, himself a former Army Captain. Research by Brazil’s Federal Audit Court shows that the current administration employs more than 6,000 active and former military personnel, by far the most since the end of the military dictatorship which ruled the country between 1964 and 1985.

Yet, despite this infusion of military high brass into the heart of the nation’s civil administration, “it is important to understand that the Bolsonaro government is not a military government,” cautioned Joao Roberto Martins Filho, professor of social sciences at the University of Sao Carlos and an expert on the role of the military in Brazilian politics. “It is a government leaning towards fascism, which is supported by the military, as it is supported by other factions. I don’t believe Bolsonaro is controlled by the military. It is much more ambiguous that that. He needs them and they need him.”

Image on the right: Vice President Hamilton Mourão (left) greets President Jair Bolsonaro — both of them, Brazilian military men. Photo credit: Palácio do Planalto on Visualhunt / CC BY-NC-SA

Inside the Amazonian elite

Joao Roberto Martins Filho offers an academic window into the Brazilian military mindset — and potentially the mindset defining the current administration. At first glance, he notes, the president and vice president could not seem more different. Bolsonaro, born in 1955 in a tiny village in the interior of Sāo Paolo state, is a populist who often addresses his core supporters in very crude terms.

Mourão, on the other hand, “is a product of the Amazonian elite,” Martins Filho told Mongabay in an exclusive interview. “This is something little talked about in Brazil, but his family continues to take up important positions in the state of Amazonas.” The VP also shies away from the limelight and tends to choose his words far more carefully than the chief executive.

During the early 20^th century rubber boom, Mourão’s grandfather traveled from Recife in northeastern Brazil to Manaus deep in the Amazon, where he eventually became a judge. His grandmother was a plantation owner’s daughter of Indigenous descent. Mourão followed in the footsteps of his father, who served in the military, to become a general and commander of the nation’s South. Bolsonaro, never made it beyond the rank of captain.

However, the two leaders also share a similar, very conservative, worldview likely born out of the military dictatorship. Both, for example, refuse to perceive the 1964 military takeover as a coup. Both also openly have praised Colonel Carlos Alberto Ustra, the military regime’s chief torturer.

And maybe most critically, both view the Amazon rainforest first and foremost as Brazilian territory subject only to Brazilian sovereignty, that must be aggressively protected from national security threats — including foreign influence and invasion, whether by other countries or international NGOs.

No surrender

“We have to be realistic about why Bolsonaro appointed Mourão head of CNAL,” Martins Filho said. “Bolsonaro’s policy for the Amazon has been one of destruction. He promised to destroy the mechanisms created to control deforestation, to not add one centimeter to the Indigenous territories, and to never reprimand a garimpeiro[artisanal gold miner]. And that is what he did. The problem is that his policy caused enormous international criticism, which could prove costly for Brazil.”

Last June, a group of important international investors threatened to withdraw their funding from Brazil if the government did not clean up its environmental act. Shortly after, 38 Brazilian firms and four business associations called upon CNAL for strong measures against deforestation. France and several other European countries have also signaled they will not ratify the EU Mercosur free trade agreement — the largest single global trade agreement ever negotiated, and vital to Brazil — unless Bolsonaro gives up his Amazon development plans.

“That’s why Bolsonaro called in the help of those who consider themselves the ‘Lords of the Amazon,’ which is the military,” explained Martins Filho. “The Brazilian armed forces see themselves as protectors of the Amazon. [And] Bolsonaro needs their support to shield him from international pressure, and of course for his own personal project: reelection.”

The conquest and colonization of the Brazilian Amazon has a long, often tragic history, which was brutally accelerated under the nation’s military dictatorship. In 1970, the military government launched the National Integration Plan (PIN) under the slogan “Integrar Para Não Entregar,” — integrate to not surrender.

The program oversaw the construction of thousands of miles of roads piercing the Amazon, including the TransAmazonian Highway — roads deemed necessary to protect Brazilian national security. Mining and agriculture were promoted in the rainforest and the first plans for major hydroelectric projects were drawn up. People from Brazil’s drought-stricken northeast were encouraged to resettle in the Amazon under the slogan: “Unite the people without land, with a land without people.”

But at that time, the Amazon, the alleged “land without people” was inhabited by many thousands of Indigenous and traditional inhabitants, who were shoved aside, uprooted, and even killed when they resisted resettlement by the military.

A column of tanks in a show of power along the streets of Rio de Janeiro in April 1968, during the Brazilian Military Dictatorship. Image by Correio da Manhã in the Public Domain.

The French Connection

“The military perceived the Amazon as an empty space that needed protection, as an empty space that can easily be infiltrated” by outsiders Martins Filho explained. “But obviously there is a problem with this logic, as the Amazon is home to multiple Indigenous peoples.”

Many Indigenous people revolted against the military regime’s development efforts on their lands. Often with bloody consequences. The National Truth Commission report issued in December 2014 estimated that the Brazilian army killed at least 8,350 Indigenous people during the dictatorship.

“Over the years I have spent a lot of time with the military,” said Martins Filho. “I’ve talked to soldiers, officers, brigadiers and generals. And I’ve always been stunned at how rudimentary their thinking is. To them the Indigenous [person] is still a savage who needs civilizing and is an obstacle to progress.

“The military sees the Indigenous as a threat to Brazilian sovereignty,” he added. They fear that “Their territories, with [the] help of the international community, could one day become independent. This is madness of course, but it is what they believe until this very day.”

France plays a surprising role as villain in this distrustful scenario. It was former French president François Mitterand who in 1989 first launched the concept of the internationalization of the rainforest by suggesting: “Brazil must accept relative sovereignty over the Amazon.” Adding to that national security concern is the presence of French Guyana on Brazil’s northern border — from which a French incursion might be launched.

“This sounds unbelievable,” said Martins Filho. “But ask members of the Brazilian armed forces if France could intervene in the Amazon and 99% will say yes.”

This mindset helps explain Bolsonaro’s move shortly after taking office of reviving a plan of the military dictatorship to extend the BR-163 highway north from the Amazon River, hundreds of miles through undisturbed rainforest, to the nation’s northern border, likely as a means of assuring the quick deployment of troops.

The plan to extend the BR-163 highway to the border with Suriname was originally drawn up by the Brazilian military dictatorship in the 1970s and has since been revived by President Jair Bolsonaro. Image by Júlia Lima.

Calha Norte

In the 1970s, the military’s protective Amazon policy was an integral element of the country’s National Security Doctrine (NSD), which consisted of two major parts: internal and external security, coupled with economic development.

“In the early 1970s, there was still a real concern for a surge of leftwing guerillas,” Martins Filho explained. “Once this had been contained, and the Brazilian left became a democratic movement, the focus shifted to the frontiers. The military feared problems with Guyana, Columbia and potentially Cuba. This played a role throughout the Cold War. Once the Cold War was over, the main question became: How do we react when one day a foreign power invades the Amazon?“

Unlike in Chile and Argentina, Brazil’s dictatorship did not come to an abrupt end, severing past policies. Instead, the military authorities carefully planned a transition back to civilian rule. That included a policy for the Amazon known as the Projeto Calha Norte (PCN): a plan for “development and security in the region north of the Solimões and Amazon rivers.”

In order to better protect the region between the two rivers, and all the way to Brazil’s northernmost border, the PCN called for an increased state presence there, strengthened by border posts, better infrastructure and economic development.

That plan, an initiative of the National Security Council (NSC), was formulated by a multi-ministerial team and embraced by José Sarney, Brazil’s first civil president after 21 years of military rule.

“The most interesting aspect of the PCN is a formerly secret document from 1986, in which NSC for the first time ever warns of the grave consequences of deforestation in the Amazon,” said Martins Filho. “It states that deforestation will lead to a reduction in rainfall, changing river flows, large scale soil erosion, siltation of rivers and climate change.

“So, trained in discovering threats to the country, the military actually admitted that deforestation will have negative consequences for the whole of Brazil,” Martins Filho added. “The position they took later on was to negate all ecological issues related to Amazonia. But we now have this document, which clearly states otherwise.”

The area across which the proposed extension of the BR-163 Highway will cut is a rich patchwork of conservation units and traditional territories; 40% of the species that live there are found nowhere else on Earth. Image by Júlia Lima.

Good cop, bad cop, same cop

The PCN is of extreme importance to Amazon policy in Brazil today. One of the first things Bolsonaro did following his presidential inauguration was to approve R $150 million (US $40m) for the Ministry of Defense, mostly going to its PCN department.

Three weeks after Bolsonaro’s inauguration, former general Maynard Marques de Santa Rosa launched the Barão do Rio Branco project. In line with the PCN, it proposes the construction of a very expensive bridge across the Amazon River, the building of a power plant north of the river, and the extension of the BR-163 highway to Brazil’s northern border with Suriname.

A PowerPoint presentation related to the project obtained by Open Democracy states: “Calha Norte must be implemented in the Amazon basin to integrate it with the rest of the national territory in order to fight off international pressure for the implementation of the project called Triple A.” The so-called Andes–Amazon–Atlantic project, or “Triple A” is an international proposal to create an ecological corridor in the northern Amazon — and, according to conservationists, has nothing to do with a challenge to Brazilian sovereignty.

Advocates of the Rio Branco Project have warned of a “globalist threat” to the Amazon, pointing variously to the perceived French threat, the increased recent Chinese presence in Suriname, along with international socioenvironmental NGOs operating through local allies, including Indigenous and traditional communities, and quilombos — communities composed of the descendants of runaway slaves.

All indications are that Vice President Mourão is military old school, and always considering Amazon development within the context of Brazilian national security and sovereignty. As part of that framework, the VP supports Bolsonaro’s plan to hand landgrabbers legal deeds to land often claimed by traditional communities, showing that these military men are willing to reward what was obtained illegally to develop the region.

On examining the current Brazilian power structure, Mourão may seem the more reasoned of the two leaders. Yet, he is very much pedaling in the same direction as his seemingly less sophisticated presidential counterpart. Martins Filho concludes: “If ever Mourão were to take over as president, I don’t think his policies would be very different from Bolsonaro’s.”

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Featured image: Commodities on the move on the completed southern section of the BR-163 Highway. A planned extension of the BR-163 could result in major new deforestation along a 300-mile corridor stretching north from the Amazon River to the Suriname border. Image by Roosevelt Pinheiro courtesy of Agência Brasil.

In a recent letter written to Secretary of State Pompeo, a number of Congressmen led by Eliot Engel (D–NY) and Michael McCaul (R–TX) expressed their “deep concern” as “strong supporters of the Syrian people” that various countries are attempting to normalize relations with the secular dictator of Syria, Bashar al-Assad.

This they say is unacceptable due to the barbaric war crimes Assad has committed in his country against his own people. Topical as ever, the Congressmen add that Russia and Iran are his allies and have aided in some way to the conflict that has killed at least half a million people since Arab Spring, and led to around 12.5 million to flee the country, many thousands of whom drowned while crossing the Mediterranean.

The hypocrisy contained in the letter is breathtaking, as well as the presumption that the 116^th Congress of the United States of America is also the 116^th Congress of the entire world.

“Congress has also used legislation to outline the behavioral criteria that the Syrian regime must meet to rejoin the international community,” reads the letter, published on the House Foreign Affairs Committee website.

Exactly why is it that the elected officials of the American republic get to dictate how and when the other 200 or so countries of the world get to open diplomatic relations with Syria: because they passed the Caesar Syrian Civilian Protection Act? Was that passed as a United Nations treaty, or as United States law?

Engel and McCaul should stick with more obscure rhetoric, as the examples they use to make their case would be the very same that any journalist paying attention to the war over the years would also use to accuse presidents and congresses past of war crimes, and even treason, of the highest degree.

The Gas Attacks

As the one major accusation that both Obama and Trump invoked to grant themselves authority to use the American people’s military to bomb sovereign Syrian military property, one would imagine that developments in the stories of alleged gas attacks in Khan Shaykun and particularly in Douma, would immediately come to the attention of those seeking to use them continuously as a casus belli.

However the fact that Engel specifically notes the “June 2019 report by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW),” on chlorine and sarin gas attacks of March 2017 in the area of Ltamenah, shows this is not so.

With the Ltamenah accusation consisting of nothing more than a tweet from unvetted witnesses —doctors allegedly present at the hospital treating the victims, and the word of the OPCW investigators, an organization that has been revealed to be heavily politicized and guilty of covering up conflicting reports from the alleged sarin attacks in Douma that showed it was staged, Engel et al. demonstrate once again that our Congress is filled with unintelligent buffoons, or liars and war criminals.

Support for Militia Groups

“United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic released a report documenting extensive war crimes by the Russian Federation, the Assad regime, and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham between November 2019 and June 2020,” reads the letter.

As indirectly confirmed as legitimate by a press release from the UK Foreign Office, a series of leaked documents last month demonstrated that the well-known operations within the Obama Administration to arm and train Sunni veterans of the 2003 Iraq War to try and overthrow the government in Syria, was also accompanied by a massive propaganda campaign by the US and UK.

It was done through media agencies run by former-British and American intelligence officers, and helped to “create the entire western media conflict narrative”. Companies like ARK Media Solutions worked to “soften the image” of the so-called moderate rebels which included at least one group, Harakat Nur al-Din al-Zinki, which joined with several al-Qaeda allies to form the new entity Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which Engel and the other Congressmen so diligently remind us are guilty of war crimes, and in doing so quite accidentally accuse some prominent former politicians of treason with those who attacked us on 9/11.

Two of the three governments who attempted to block the testimony and denigrate the OPCW whistleblowers were funding these propaganda campaigns, along with the terrorists themselves, so demanding that Syria “cease its support for terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, [and] Hamas” once again reeks of hypocrisy.

“We are pleased that the Administration has imposed sanctions under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, which we strongly supported,” the letter concludes. “We look forward to working with you to ensure ongoing robust implementation of the Caesar Act, including sanctions, in order to communicate to the international community that the United States opposes any efforts to rehabilitate Assad and his cronies absent the behavior changes outlined in law”.

Like a difficult boss, Engel is uninterested in whether other nations might feel certain allegations against Assad are not enough to warrant the complete exile of the Near-Eastern dictatorship, or that the price of noncompliance to laws made in another country halfway around the world should not be total economic destruction and endless insurgent war.

America wanted to wage a regime change war in Syria, which they lost, utterly destroying the country in the process. Men like Pompeo and Engel believe that if they tell us lies until the end of their terms in office, it will somehow make their conduct justified, but whomever the “various countries” are that are trying to bring Syria in from the cold, they should ignore the United States and continue to work so that the people of Syria might be free from sanctions, Wahhabi militias, Turkish invasions, and “moderate rebels”.

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Andy Corbley is founder and editor of World at Large, an independent news outlet. He is a loyal listener of Antiwar radio and of the Scott Horton Show.

Featured image is from Syria News

The US-brokered humanitarian ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh collapsed immediately after its start on the morning of October 26. Clashes between the sides did not stop even for a minute and Yerevan and Baku immediately accused each other of sabotaging the peace efforts.

As of the evening of October 26, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan officially stated that the US-brokered ceasefire failed, while Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that “the mediators must either achieve the withdrawal of occupying forces, or move away from the path of Baku”. It seems that the estimation of the Karabakh conflict as an ‘easy case’ by US President Donald Trump did not stand the test of reality.

In a separate statement, the Azerbaijani President said that Turkish F-16 jets, which are deployed in Azerbaijan (just a few days ago the top leadership of Turkey and Azerbaijan was denying this) will be employed to protect his country in response to any act of ‘foreign aggression’. It is interesting to look how the official narrative of Azerbaijan and Turkey has been shifting from claims about Turkish non-involvement in the war to admitting the direct military participation of Ankara in the military escalation. The town of Qubadli and nearby villages were also captured by Azerbaijan as its media and diplomats were blaming Armenians for ceasefire violations.

Apparently, the coward Armenian forces violate the ceasefire regime by attacking the peacefully advancing Azerbaijani troops. The setbacks in the south of Karabakh was confirmed by the Armenian Defense Ministry, but insisted that the situation is still under full control. If this is under full control, it’s hard to imagine how the Armenian side sees the variant of the situation when all is not under control.

During the past days, the Azerbaijani-Turkish bloc continued its advance towards the Lachin corridor, a strategic area where the shortest route between Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is located. According to reports, after the recent gains Azerbaijani troops are now about 10-12km from the area. Azerbaijani forces are now working to secure their recent gains and establish strong points there. After this, they will likely establish fire control over the route thus undermining the Armenian ability to send supplies to Karabakh. Then, the Turkish-Azerbaijani bloc will likely push towards Stepanakert.

Armenian sources ease the retreats with regular statements about the losses of Azerbaijan accompanied by videos and photos from the ground. For example, on October 26, the Armenian Defense Ministry released a new report claiming that Azerbaijan lost 6,674 troops, 600 armoured vehicles, 6 rocket launchers, 24 planes, 16 helicopters and 220 UAVs since the start of the conflict. While the numbers provided by both sides are expectedly overestimated, the evidence demonstrates that Azerbaijani forces in fact suffered notable casualties in their advance on Karabakh. The problem for Yerevan is that Armenian forces experienced losses of similar or even higher scale.

Members of Turkish-backed militant groups that remain in Syria and are yet to move to some conflict zone to die for Erdogan’s Neo-Ottoman dream also suffer hard times. At least 78 Turkish-backed militants were killed and over 100 others were injured in a recent series of Russian airstrikes on their training camps and HQs in the Syrian region of Idlib. The main strikes targeted a former air defense base of the Syrian Army near Al-Duvayla. This area is controlled by Turkish-backed militants and the former military base itself is currently a training camp for members of Faylaq ash-Sham. Syrian sources link the increased number of Russian strikes on Turkish proxies in Syria with their deployment to the Nagorno-Karabakh combat zone to support Azerbaijan.

Russia sees the increase of the presence of radical militant groups there as an unacceptable scenario. It is likely that this lies behind the recent decrease of reports and evidence on the deployment of Turkish proxies from Syria to Karabakh. The Turkish-Azerbaijani bloc estimate the risks and prefers to avoid the situation of the involvement of some third power in the conflict on the side of the Armenians.

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Spread across different economic sectors, some of the global most affluent families continue to amass more wealth. Despite the recent economic uncertainty, the wealthiest families in the world appear to be doing just fine.

Data presented by Buy Shares indicates the top five wealthiest families in the world control a cumulative wealth of $621 billion as of October 2020. The Walton Family, known for the Walmart retail chains, controls the highest wealth at $215 billion. India’s Ambani family that manages Reliance Industries holds wealth amounting to $81.3 billion.

The research also compared the wealth of the five wealthiest people globally. The group’s cumulative wealth is only $3.1 billion less compared to the most affluent families. Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos still hold the top spot with a fortune of $188.7 billion. Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk is currently the fifth richest person on the planet with a $93 billion net worth.

Challenges of preserving generational wealth among families

Family intergenerational wealth has emerged to be a powerful thing. It often prevails through market crashes, social turmoil, and economic uncertainty, with this year being no exception. For example, the Walton family has been making money for over three generations now and continues to hold about a significant stake in the company to date.

Notably, it is a challenge to preserve wealth over the long-term within family generations. The highlighted families have remained resilient since family-owned operating businesses can shift from booming to declining. The decline usually occurs when a family’s investment portfolio might not be well-diversified or has issues with generational transitions.

The spotlight on the world’s wealthiest comes amid the growing economic inequality in the US and other leading global economies. According to critics, inequality exists due to regimes that allow market dominance and low tax rates imposed on capital, especially in the United States. To some critics, the vast wealth is evidence that capitalism needs fixing. In some jurisdictions, inequality has become an explosive political issue.

Global wealthy families and individuals concentrated in U.S

Contrasting the wealthiest families and individuals shows they are spread across different industries. For instance, most of the wealthy individuals emanate from the technology sectors. The individuals are concentrated in the United States.

For families, their wealth comes from different operations. For example, the Mars family is known for its successful candy manufacturing operations. On the other hand, the Al Saud family draws its wealth from its vast oil reserves while the Ambani family runs Reliance Industries that owns businesses across energy and textiles. For the Koch dynasty, the wealth comes from  Koch Industries, involved in manufacturing, refining, and distribution of petroleum, and chemicals.

It is worth highlighting that the wealth of individuals skyrocketed this year in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Since they are concentrated in technology, the sector was vital in providing support during the pandemic. For example, Amazon grew in popularity as stores remained closed forcing people to stay at home, leaving delivery outlets as the go-to options. Additionally, Walmart under the Walton family benefited due to the delivery of essential items during the pandemic.

Notably, global stock markets have since rebounded, making up much of the losses. The shares in some technology companies, which are often owned by billionaires, have risen very significantly.

The billionaires have mostly benefited from betting on the recovery of global stock markets. The markets crashed back in March and April, with the global economies going into lockdowns. During economic crises like those created by the pandemic, wealthy families and individuals combine their huge investing and purchasing power alongside government resources to profit from financial uncertainty. Also, with wealth-friendly tax laws and loopholes, some of the wealthiest individuals can stay on top.

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Justin is an editor, writer, and a downhill fan. He spent many years writing about banking, finances, blockchain, and digital assets-related news. He strives to serve the untold stories for the readers.

Featured image is from Buy Shares

The recent conflicts in the Russian zone of influence have attracted attention around the world. But little has been said about the possibility that such conflicts are part of a single common plan, designed to geopolitically destabilize Russia. This possibility is what we can deduce when we recall some recent writings of the renowned think tank RAND Corporation, which, in 2019, openly defended the adoption of a series of measures to weaken Moscow, exploiting its vulnerabilities. Among such measures in the economic sphere the document proposed the manipulation of oil and gas prices that affect the Russian defense budget, as well as the imposition of increasingly rigid sanctions and in the political sphere – the spread of regional conflicts in its “periphery” which could perfectly include Nagorno-Karabakh, Kyrgyzstan and others.

Several of the points highlighted in the RAND’s document entitled “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia”, in its more than 350 pages, have been implemented so far, especially in the “immediate periphery”. The recent Belarusian political crisis itself, for example, highlights the role of external agents interested in the destabilization of this historic Russian ally – something that is openly defended in such a document which proposes a colorful revolution in Belarus. In addition, the incitement of conflicts in the Caucasus and Central Asia, the deterioration of the Syrian and Ukrainian situations, among others, are also strategic points raised by the dossier.

RAND’s goal is to define the areas where the US can compete most effectively, providing reports and proposals based on concrete data. Such reports must accurately define the vulnerabilities in the economic and military spheres of each nation against which the United States is competing, helping Washington to create its strategies. Several of the policies adopted by the US are the result of advices from RAND’s analysts. In this sense, RAND’s analysis about Russia and its draft strategy for a competition between the US and Russia today proposes that the best way to weaken Moscow is through a siege of conflicts in its territorial proximities. Obviously, it is not proposed to attack Russia, but to create wars along its entire border, destabilizing international security in the region – a scenario from which many other possibilities arise.

Despite all the complex political and military strategy, in the RAND document it is highlighted that the biggest Russian weakness in a dispute with the US is the economic issue. The think tank’s proposal focuses on heavy investment in energy production, mainly renewable energy, as well as encouraging domestic production of such energy sources in countries allied to the US, with the aim of reducing Russian exports – which would strongly affect Russian defense budgets. The central role of the US in the boycott against the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is a clear example of how such strategies are being put into practice.

Another type of measures that RAND recommends is in the ideological and informational spheres. The Corporation advises a vigorous pro-Western information campaign aimed at highlighting aspects allegedly present in the Russian regime, such as endemic corruption. In any case, RAND considers this disinformation strategy to be “risky”, as it would encourage Moscow to highlight the weaknesses of Western democracies, leading to a new ideological war through disinformation campaigns.

Interestingly, Russia is constantly accused of interfering in the American electoral process through campaigns of disinformation and cyber war since the rise of Donald Trump four years ago. Now, with the new elections, the tendency is for such accusations to grow exponentially, showing a strategy of mass disinformation meticulously planned by strategists with clear goals.

In fact, there is no doubt about the power of influence of RAND Corporation’s analysis in the construction of US foreign policy strategies. The siege that is being proposed in the document gradually materializes, with strategies of economic suffocation, disinformation and inciting regional conflicts, but it remains to be seen what the consequences for the US domestic scenario will be. The RAND report had no way of predicting the emergence of a global tragedy such as the new coronavirus pandemic. In the context of more than 220,000 deaths due to the virus in the US, popular rebellions and inflamed racial tensions across the country and in the midst of a decisive electoral process, will the Washington be able to maintain such a siege strategy? Is it sustainable for the US to stir up conflict in the vicinity of Russia when its internal bases are crumbling?

Perhaps the strategies designed by RAND last year are absolutely useless today. The pandemic structurally changed the dynamics of world geopolitics and currently the idea of an American siege against Russia is not conceivable. The tendency is that all conflicts will diminish as no major military power will intervene. The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh shows how the tendency is for conflicts to gradually stabilize. On the contrary, within the US, everything just tends to get worse. Perhaps Washington is taking a step beyond its reach. Or perhaps the interests of strategists at RAND Corporation and the American Deep State do not exactly imply what is best for the US.

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

I have recently completed a large painting (oil on canvas), exploring the emotional and spiritual side of mandatory masks, and what they symbolize. Visual art can serve as a medium to express sentiments from an angle that cannot be achieved verbally. (Jordan Henderson)

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This painting is the culmination of a long, careful, visual exploration of the world that I see today, the world that I see when I go to get groceries, or run an errand.

The mundane world only looks boring because we are used to it, we see it everyday, but the prosaic has never been more than a deceptively simple facade for a fascinating place where nearly everything we do has spiritual, and ethical significance.

Often we must observe the everyday world with great care to perceive these things, but sometimes they surface in an obvious manner.

Imagine throwing dust on an otherwise invisible person, masks are like that; power struggles, and beliefs are now proclaimed, for all to see, with a prominent symbol.

 

Link to the painting webpage.

Oil on Canvas – 30 x 48 inches

 

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Jordan Henderson is a renowned artist from Washington State. He works in oil on canvas and charcoal on paper. A portfolio of his works can be viewed at jordanhendersonfineart.com

US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) Study Refutes Official Covid-Sars-2 Narrative

By Makia Freeman, October 27 2020

In June of 2018, Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi was arrested in Germany on his way back to Vienna. He has been accused of involvement in a plot to bomb a rally of supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization (MEK), a terrorist group that seeks the overthrow of the Iranian government. Mr. Assadi has been incarcerated since his arrest, without trial.

There are many troubling aspects to this arrest. In order to better understand them, we contacted Professor Eileen Denza, a globally known and distinguished Professor of International Law. She has no close association to Iran; in fact, she has criticized the Iranian government when she felt it was in violation of international law. She looks at the law, without regard to political considerations. Her responses to our questions are below.

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Robert Fantina: As you know, Assadollah Assadi, a diplomat of the Islamic Republic of Iran, was arrested on his way back to work in Vienna while crossing Germany in July 2018, and his case was sent to court in July 2020 after two years. Was the German Government authorized to do so under the 1961 Vienna Convention?

Professor Eileen Denza: On the information given to me, Mr Assadi was a member of the diplomatic staff of the Iranian Embassy to Austria, and at the time of his arrest he was in transit through Germany in order to return to his post. Under Article 40 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations he was therefore entitled to ‘inviolability and such other immunities as may be required to ensure his transit or return.’ Germany was therefore not entitled to arrest him.

RF: Given the text of Article 40 of the Convention and the emphasis on the duty of the third State vis-à-vis a diplomat returning to his workplace, has there not been a clear violation of the Convention concerning our country’s diplomats?

PED: On the information given to me, Germany was in violation, but I have not seen the judgments of the German court and so do not know the reasons why they took a different view.

RF: Were the actions of the German and Belgian Governments contrary to the purpose of the Convention on Diplomatic Relations enshrined in its preamble, that is to develop friendly relations between States and to ensure the effective functioning of diplomatic agents?

PED: On the assumption that there was a breach, it would clearly have an effect on relations between Germany and Iran and on relations between Belgium and Iran.

RF: In your opinion, legally speaking, what should be the response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to this violation of international law?

PED: On the assumption that Iran believes there was a breach of the Vienna Convention, their first response should be to protest to the Governments they believe to be in breach.

RF: In your opinion, what can be the role of the legal community and lawyers, especially professors and researchers of international law, in this case?

PED: In the first instance to ensure that they are fully informed as to the facts of the case and the reasons why courts in Germany and in Belgium took the view that Mr Assadi was not entitled to inviolability under Article 40 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

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During this time of global instability, caused mainly by the United States, it is increasingly vital that all nations adhere to international law. There are two main issues in this situation:

• Germany violated international law by arresting Mr. Assadi, and holding him for so long without trial, and
• The MEK is recognized in most countries, with the United States being the most notable exception, as a terrorist organization. Germany must answer for why it was allowing a known terrorist organization, with a history of deadly violence, to hold a rally within its borders.

Much of the world seems to take its cue from the United States, a violent, racist and brutal regime. The administration of President Donald Trump, which may or may not be ending in three months, has torn the mask off any semblance of support for self-determination and respect for international law that the U.S. pretended to encourage. Without the rule of law there will be total chaos internationally, a situation that the U.S. has sewn in many nations and wants to sow in Iran. Terrorist organizations must be condemned, and people around the world must be supported in choosing their own form of governments.

The words and judgment of Professor Denza support law, and the rogue nations of the world, such as the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, must abide by international norms.

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Are international relations a field for cautious minds, marked by permanent setbacks, or terrain where the bold are encouraged to seize the day?  In terms of dealing with the existential, and even unimaginable horror that is nuclear war, the bold have certainly stolen a march. 

The signature of Honduras was the 50^th required for the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Parties to the treaty are barred from possessing, developing, acquiring, testing, stockpiling, transferring, stationing, or threatening the use of nuclear weapons, amongst other prohibitions.  The treaty also makes it illegal for any of the parties to “assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited” by the document. 

Set to enter into force on January 22, 2021, the signing was cheered by the UN Secretary General António Guterres through his spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, who saluted “the work of civil society, which has been instrumental in facilitating the negotiation and ratification of the Treaty.”  It was also a harvest for those who had survived nuclear explosions and tests, “the culmination of a worldwide movement to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequence of any use of nuclear weapons.” 

Beatrice Fihn, Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), was also celebratory in calling the coming into force of the TPNW as “a new chapter for nuclear disarmament.  Decades of activism have achieved what many said was impossible: nuclear weapons are banned.” 

ICAN, in a statement released on Sunday, promised that this was “just the beginning.  Once the treaty is in force, all States’ parties will need to implement all of their positive obligations under the treaty and abide by its prohibitions.” In a pointed warning to those states yet to join the TPNW, the organisation suggested that the document’s “power” would reverberate globally in discouraging companies from continuing to manufacture nuclear weapons and institutions from investing in those companies. 

In looking at the debates on nuclear weapons, one tension remains ineradicable.  Those who do not possess such weapons, nor put their stake in their murderously reassuring properties, have little interest in seeing them kept.  They can moralise, stigmatise, and condemn from summits of humanitarian principle.  They aspire to the credit of sanity. 

Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) and their allies promote themselves as the world weary adults, soberly reliable in the face of such immature flights of fancy.  The opposite is true; their philosophy is a cultivated lunacy accepting of the very thing they wish to do away with.  Everyone might well agree to the abolition of nuclear weapons but disagree on how, exactly, the goal is to be achieved.  If changes are to take place, the school of cultivated lunacy insists it be done gradually, achieved through more acceptable, if constipated fora, such the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).  The result is that disarmament takes place slowly or suffers, as is happening now, reversals, usually in moves to modernise current arsenals.   

The march of the TPNW is something nuclear weapons states have fought from negotiating rooms to chambers of ratification.   US Assistant Secretary for International Security and Non-proliferation Christopher Ford stated the common wisdom on that side of the fence in August 2017.  The TPNW suggested that advocates for the ban were “fundamentally unserious about addressing the real challenges of maintaining peace and security in a complicated and dangerous world, and unserious about trying to make that world a genuinely safer place.”   

The joint statement released by the United States, United Kingdom and France on July 7, 2017 was sternly disapproving, even ill-wishing.  The countries promised to avoid signing, ratifying or ever becoming parties to it.  Obligations towards nuclear weapons on their part had not, and would not change.  It would, they stated menacingly, do nothing to alter or add to the nature of customary international law.  They could point, triumphantly, at the absence of other nuclear weapon states and those relying on nuclear deterrence in the creative process. 

Such sentiments have been reiterated with the promise that the TPNW will enter into force.  In a letter to signatories from the Trump administration obtained by Associated Press, the United States claimed that the five original nuclear powers (US, Russia, China, Britain and France), along with NATO, stood “unified in our opposition to the potential repercussions of the treaty”. The document “turns back the clock on verification and disarmament” and threatened the NPT, “considered the cornerstone of global non-proliferation efforts.”  Already divisive, the TPNW risked “further entrenching divisions in existing non-proliferation and disarmament that offer the only realistic prospect for consensus-based progress”. 

The two words – “nuclear deterrence” – remain ludicrously attractive to policy classes who learned to love the nuke from its inception.  The nuke is paternally comforting, a stabilising foothold in a treacherous world.  While it has, at its core, a terrifying rationale, it brings with it, claim its defenders, the power to keep the peace, albeit through terror.  As the joint statement served to remind the starry-eyed abolitionists, nuclear deterrence had been vital “in keeping the peace in Europe and North Asia for 70 years.”  The TPNW did little to address the security dimension and would not serve to eliminate “a single nuclear weapon and will not enhance any country’s security, nor international peace and security.” 

Countries such as Australia insist that their alliance obligations with powers possessing nuclear weapons – in their case, the United States – make signing and ratifying the TPNW incompatible.  Under the Security Treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the United States (ANZUS), goes this argument, Australia would be expected to participate in joint operations that might involve the deployment of nuclear weapons.  In the blunt assessment of Australia’s former foreign minister, Gareth Evans, joining the TPNW would effectively see Canberra “tearing up our US alliance commitment”.  A very orthodox reading, though not necessarily accurate, given that the ANZUS regime is not, strictly speaking, a nuclear one. 

More to the point is the elevation of extended nuclear deterrence to the level of a state religion, streaked with schizophrenia.  The Australian 2013 Defence White Paper discloses this in full: “As long as nuclear weapons exist, we rely on the nuclear forces of the United States to deter nuclear attack on Australia.  Australia is confident in the continuing viability of extended nuclear deterrence under the Alliance, while strongly supporting ongoing efforts towards global nuclear disarmament.”  Richard Tanter of the Nautilus Institute could only describe such a policy as “absurd, obscene and reckless,” not least because it is premised on an assurance that has never been given. 

Certain voices earning their keep in this field argue that the regimes of the TPNW and the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty are not exclusive but complimentary projects.  A claim has been made that the TPNW, far from diverging from the NPT with heretical defiance, is compatible with it.  As Thomas Hajnoczi suggests, the NPT was not intended as a complete and “comprehensive regulation of all aspects that were indispensable for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, non-proliferation, and nuclear disarmament.”  The TPNW added to the “existing ‘building’ a layer necessary to realize a world without nuclear weapons.”   

The international law fraternity is divided on this.  Arguments rage over the vagueness of the TPNW about legal obligations, along with potential tensions vis-à-vis the NPT.  Newell Highsmith and Mallory Stewart go so far as to see the lineaments of discrimination in the TPNW, seeing it as an unviable “legal vehicle for disarmament” with prospects to harm non-proliferation.  The result? Two estranged regimes, parallel and never meeting. 

For the establishment veterans and their converts in the nuclear disarmament business, nuclear weapons remain a perverse form of reassurance and currency.  It keeps arms chair theorists, planners, technicians and engineers in jobs.   Abolishing them would be tantamount to altering the power balance of international relations.  It might discourage that daily quotient of self-hate and suspicion that makes the human world go round.  For the fantasists of nuclear deterrence, this would be even more diabolical. 

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

As explained many times before, Security Council members alone may legally impose sanctions on nations, entities and individuals.

When used by countries against others, they breach the UN Charter, how the US, NATO and Israel operate time and again.

The Charter’s Article II mandates all member states to “settle…disputes” according to the rule of law.

US/Western sanctions are weapons of war by other means — used to pressure, bully and terrorize targeted nations into submission.

Though widely used, most often they fail to achieve intended objectives.

US sanctions war and other hostile actions against Cuba for 60 years, Iran for 40 years, Venezuela for 20 years, and against countless other nations largely shot blanks.

Most often, they’re counterproductive.

Hardships imposed on people in targeted nations fuel anti-US sentiment — blaming Washington, not their governments, for what they endure.

Under international law, nations are prohibited from intervening in the internal affairs of others.

Military action against an adversary is only legal in self-defense if attacked — never preemptively for any reasons.

Hardcore US bipartisan policy targets all independent nations unwilling to subordinate their sovereign rights to its interests.

That’s what US hostility toward China, Russia, Iran, and other targeted countries is all about.

Since WW II, no nations threatened the US militarily or politically.

Like all other empires in world history now gone, a similar fate awaits the US — because of its counterproductive geopolitical policies, over time making more enemies than allies, weakening, not strengthening, the state.

Last week in response to US sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the following:

“(T)his unfriendly and destructive policy of constant introduction of various restrictions in relation to us, our economic operators, our economy, unfortunately, this has already become an integral part of unfair competition, undisguised hostile takeover competition on the part of Washington.”

Last month, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed the US, saying:

“We condemn (US) calls for forging a certain coalition against the pipeline, wherein German and other companies have already made multi-billion dollar investments.”

In response to EU sanctions on Russia over the Navalny novichok poisoning hoax, its Foreign Ministry demanded to know “who is behind the anti-Russian provocation,” adding:

“In response, we get aggressive rhetoric and outright manipulation of the facts” — by the EU in cahoots with the US.

Sergey Lavrov slammed Berlin for being in breach of its international obligations for failing to provide Moscow with information it claims to have about the Navalny incident — because none exists.

In mid-October, protesters outside the US embassy in London accused Washington of attempting to “strangle” Cuba’s economy by a virtual blockade on the island state.

The so-called Rock Around The Blockade solidarity campaign called for breaking the illegal action, chanting “Cuba si! Yankee no! Abajo el bloqueo/Down with the blockade!”

Despite annual UN General Assembly measures against US blockade of the island state, it’s been in place for decades without success because of Cuban resiliency.

Trump regime Office of Foreign Assets Control threatened to sue “anyone who trades with Cuba” or has property in the country.

Despite decades of US war on Cuba by other means, aiming to regain imperial control over the island state, policies of Republicans and Dems consistently failed.

US war on China by sanctions and other means widens the breach between both countries.

On October 21 in a Foreign Affairs article titled “How China Threatens American Democracy” (sic), Trump regime national security advisor Robert  O’Brien invented nonexistent threats.

Instead of fostering productive bilateral relations with all nations, policies of both right wings of the US one-party state go the other way against nations Washington doesn’t control — how the scourge of imperialism operates.

China fosters cooperative relations with other nations, threatening none — polar opposite longstanding US policy, seeking dominance over planet earth, its resources and populations.

Undeclared US initiated Cold War against China, Russia, and other targeted nations threatens to turn hot by accident or design — especially in East Asia, the Middle East, and near Russia’s borders.

On Sunday, O’Brien expressed frustration, saying:

“One of the problems that we have faced with both Iran and Russia is that we now have so many sanctions against these countries that we have very little (opportunity) to do anything about it,” adding:

“But we are looking at all possible deterrent measures that we can apply to these countries, as well as others…”

Last Thursday, the US Treasury Department announced new sanctions on Iran’s IRGC, its Quds Force, and Bayan Rasaneh Gostar Institute “for having directly or indirectly engaged in, sponsored, concealed, or otherwise been complicit in foreign interference” in US November 3 elections.

Fact: Throughout US history, no evidence showed that any foreign nations ever interfered in its electoral process — a US specialty against scores of nations throughout the post-WW II period.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh slammed the hostile action, saying:

Its government “strong(ly) reject(s) baseless and false claims” by the US, adding:

“(I)t makes no difference for Iran who wins the US election.”

On core domestic and foreign policy issues, both right wings of the US one-party state operate largely the same way.

Rare exceptions prove the rule.

On Monday, Pompeo announced more illegal sanctions on Iran — part of longstanding US war on the country by other means.

Tehran’s “Ministry of Petroleum and Minister of Petroleum, the National Iranian Oil Company, the National Iranian Tanker Company, and 21 other individuals, entities, and vessels” were targeted for unjustifiable reasons.

Iran, its ruling authorities, and entities foster cooperative relations with other countries — hostile actions toward none, except in self-defense if attacked, the legal right of all nations.

US imperial policy targets all countries, entities and individuals not subservient to its rage to rule the world unchallenged.

US maximum pressure on Iran and other nations is all about wanting them transformed into vassal states.

Separately on Monday, convicted felon/US envoy for regime change in Iran and Venezuela Elliott Abrams said the following:

“The transfer of long-range missiles from Iran to Venezuela is not acceptable to the United States and will not be tolerated or permitted,” adding:

“We will make every effort to stop shipments of long-range missiles, and if somehow they get to Venezuela they will be eliminated there.”

Was the above threat a possible US declaration of hot war on Venezuela, on Iran as well?

Last week, Pompeo announced new US sanctions on “the State Research Center of the Russian Federation FGUP Central Scientific Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics (TsNIIKhM).”

He falsely claimed the research institute conducts “malware attacks (that threaten) cybersecurity and critical infrastructure (sic).”

No evidence was cited because none exists, including alleged Russian malware against “a petrochemical plant in the Middle East,” along with “scann(ing) and prob(ing) US facilities.”

Pompeo falsely accused Russia of “engag(ing) in dangerous and malicious activities that threaten the security of the United States and our allies (sic).”

The above is what the US and its imperial partners do time and again — falsely blaming others for their own high crimes.

The Trump regime also imposed unlawful sanctions on Iran for supplying Venezuela with gasoline — the legal right of both nations to conduct bilateral trade relations.

Last month, former Trump regime acting DNI Richard Grenell met secretly with Venezuelan Vice President for Communications Jorge Rodriguez in Mexico, according to Bloomberg News.

It was a futile attempt to get President Maduro to step down ahead of US November 3 elections, Trump seeking a foreign policy success to tout that failed.

US war on Venezuela by other means, notably by Trump, imposed great hardships on its people alone — failing to achieve regime change.

US-designated puppet-in-waiting Guaido’s involvement in the scheme made him widely despised by the vast majority of Venezuelans.

Separately, Russia’s US embassy responded to unacceptable tightening of visas for its journalists by the Trump regime, creating “artificial barriers (that impede) their normal work,” adding:

“In particular, the limitation of the period of stay for foreign media employees to 240 days (with the possibility of extension up to 480 days) will not allow them to consistently cover local events.”

Journalists “will have to leave the United States for a considerable time to obtain a new visa.”

This new policy flies in the face of what “freedom of speech and equal access to information” is supposed to be all about.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed US accusations of alleged Moscow cybersecurity threats, calling them “unfounded,” adding:

“(T)his time (the US outdid itself) in anti-Russia rhetoric with extremely harsh statements occasionally bordering on bizarre rudeness.”

“Such an approach will not benefit the State Department and is indicative of the fact that they treat the culture and norms of state-to-state communication with disdain.”

Businessman Trump sought improved relations with Russia — the aim thwarted by surrounding himself with Russophobic hardliners.

The same holds for US hostility toward China, Iran, and other countries on its target list for regime change.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from podur.org

Until the 1970s, the constant flow of energy that Earth receives from the sun was offset by heat reflected back into space, so the planet’s overall energy level did not change very much over time. The amount of incoming solar energy has not changed, but rising concentrations of greenhouse gases are trapping ever more of the reflected heat, preventing it from leaving the atmosphere. Climate scientists call this Earth’s Energy Imbalance.

The excess energy is not distributed evenly through the Earth System. Although global warming is usually expressed as increased air temperatures, the ocean is actually much better at storing heat than the atmosphere — one degree of ocean warming stores over 1000 times as much heat energy as one degree of atmosphere warming — so it isn’t surprising that the ocean has taken up most of the excess solar energy. Just seven percent warms the air and land and melts snow and ice — 93 percent is absorbed by the ocean.[2]

Scientists measure the ocean’s heat content in joules — the amount of energy required to produce one watt of power for one second. In a commentary on the latest data, Lijing Cheng of China’s Institute of Atmospheric Physics calculates that the increase in ocean heat content over the past 25 years required the addition of 228 sextillion joules of heat — that’s 228 followed by 21 zeroes.

“That’s a lot of zeros indeed. To make it easier to understand, I did a calculation. The Hiroshima atom-bomb exploded with an energy of about 63,000,000,000,000 Joules. The amount of heat we have put in the world’s oceans in the past 25 years equals to 3.6 billion Hiroshima atom-bomb explosions.”[3]

That’s about five Hiroshima bombs a second — and the rate is accelerating.

Since 1987 the ocean has warmed 4.5 times as fast as in the previous three decades. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects that even if emissions are substantially reduced, by 2100 the ocean will heat 2 to 4 times as much as it has since 1970 — and if emissions are not cut, it will heat 5 to 7 times as much.[4]

By absorbing and storing immense amounts of heat, the ocean delays the impact of Earth’s Energy Imbalance on the global climate system. In oceanographer Grant Bigg’s words, the ocean “acts as a giant flywheel to the climate system, moderating change but prolonging it once change commences.”[5] The price paid for that storage and delay is record-setting ocean heat that is disrupting the world’s largest ecosystem in a multitude of ways.

• Since 2010, the Atlantic ocean has been hotter than at any time in the past 2900 years.
• The Arctic is warming two to three times as fast as the rest of the world. Summer sea ice may disappear entirely by 2035.
• Sea levels are rising, threatening coastal communities and destroying sensitive wetlands. Depending on emission levels, by 2100 the oceans will be from 0.5 to 2.0 meters higher than today.
• Warmer water contains less oxygen, causing many fish species to shrink. A recent study found an average five percent reduction in maximum body size for each 1.0ºC increase in water temperature.
• Animal migration towards the poles is happening much faster in the ocean than on land. Marine biodiversity in tropical areas is declining, and food webs in cooler areas are being disrupted by the entry of new species.
• Populations of organisms that cannot migrate are shrinking. Half of the corals in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef are dead.
• Hurricanes and tornadoes that form over warmer water tend to be stronger, wetter and more destructive. Climate models indicate that by 2100, the number of Category 5 storms will increase 85% globally and 136% in the Atlantic.

Permanent Heatwaves

Most climate change forecasts emphasize long-term global average changes. Those are important metrics, but they can be misleading when the average conceals serious short-term or regional changes and events. For example, although climate negotiations focus on future global average temperatures, regional heatwaves with atmospheric temperatures much higher than historical averages are already increasing in intensity, frequency and duration.[6]

The same is happening in the ocean.

The very idea of marine heatwaves is new: the term itself first appeared in 2011, in a government report on “a major temperature anomaly” in which “water temperatures off the south-western coast of Western Australia rose to unprecedented levels.”[7] As recently as 2015 only five articles in English-language scientific journals had marine heatwave in the title, but in 2019 there were 92 — an increase that reflects what the journal Nature recently said is “the appearance an entirely new subdiscipline: the study of marine heatwaves (MHWs), discrete periods of unusually warm temperatures in the ocean.”[8]

The sudden growth of scientific interest in marine heatwaves is no accident. It reflects a real shift in the ocean’s climate in the past two decades: a radical increase in the frequency, intensity and duration of periods of when water temperatures are much higher than normal. Such extreme events can have devastating impacts on ocean ecosystems: organisms that have evolved to live within a limited temperature range must adapt, flee or die when that range is exceeded.

Marine heatwaves are usually defined as five or more consecutive days in which sea surface temperatures are in the top ten percent of the 30-year average for the region. Using an even stricter definition — temperatures in the top one percent — the IPCC recently concluded that since 1982, marine heatwaves

“have doubled in frequency and have become longer lasting, more intense and more extensive,” and “the observed trend towards more frequent, intense and extensive MHWs … cannot be explained by natural climate variability.”[9] Climate scientists at the University of Bern, Switzerland, report that “the occurrence probabilities of the duration, intensity, and cumulative intensity of most documented, large, and impactful MHWs have increased more than 20-fold as a result of anthropogenic climate change.”[10]

The 21st century has seen particularly devastating marine heatwaves in the Mediterranean (2003), Bay of Bengal (2010), western Australia (2011), northwest Atlantic (2012), northeast Pacific (2013–2016), Tasman Sea (2016), and New Zealand (2016). All had profound and lasting impacts on plant and animal life. Off the coasts of western Australia and Tasmania, for example, high temperatures killed massive kelp forests, home to innumerable fish species, and invasive warm water sea urchins then took over the seafloor, preventing kelp and other plants from regrowing.

The 2013–2016 northeast Pacific heatwave was largest, longest and deadliest MHW to date. It was nicknamed The Blob after the 1958 science fiction movie, and, like its space monster namesake, it grew rapidly and destroyed much of the life it enveloped. After forming in the Gulf of Alaska in the autumn of 2013, in less than a year it expanded south to Mexico, ultimately covering about 10 million square kilometers and penetrating up to 200 meters down.

Food webs that have sustained life for millennia collapsed in unprecedented heat. Populations of phytoplankton, copepods, krill and other small heat-sensitive creatures plummeted, and animals that normally eat those creatures, including over 100 million cod and millions of seabirds, starved to death. So did thousands of sea lions when their prey disappeared. Hundreds of kilometers of kelp forests wilted and died. Heat killed 95% of Chinook salmon eggs in the Sacramento River. The largest toxic algae bloom ever seen released deadly neurotoxins, forcing the closure of clam and crab fisheries from Vancouver Island to California.

The Blob finally dissipated in 2016, but intense marine heatwaves continue to affect the northeast Pacific. The second and third largest marine heatwaves ever seen in that area occurred in 2020 and 2019, respectively. As I’m writing this, in October 2020, the latest iteration covers 6 million square kilometers, down from 9 million a month ago.

Until five years ago, no one imagined that a marine “temperature anomaly” might encompass an area as large as Canada and last over two years. Past research on ocean climate change has focused on the effects of long-term changes in average water temperatures but now, as eighteen leading specialists in the field write, “discrete extreme events are emerging as pivotal in shaping ecosystems, by driving sudden and dramatic shifts in ecological structure and functioning.” They warn that marine heatwaves “will probably intensify with anthropogenic climate change [and] are rapidly emerging as forceful agents of disturbance with the capacity to restructure entire ecosystems and disrupt the provision of ecological goods and services in coming decades.”[11]

A major study published in December 2019 projects that the size and frequency of marine heatwaves will increase so much that many parts of the ocean will reach “a near-permanent MHW state” by late in this century. The researchers project that even if greenhouse gas emissions start falling by mid-century, by 2100 about half of the global ocean will experience heatwaves 365 days a year. If emissions don’t decline, by 2100 there will be permanent heatwaves in 90% of the ocean, and over two-thirds of those will be Category IV, the most extreme level. (For comparison: the Blob, which disrupted ecosystems in 10 million square kilometers of the Pacific, killing millions of fish, birds and marine animals and displacing millions more, was only Category III.)

It may then be necessary to introduce new categories, “allowing for identification of increase in ‘extreme extremes,’ as Category V, Category VI, etc.” By 2080, if emissions remain high, the Earth System will be in a “time when the MHW climate has changed completely from the range that species have previously experienced, and represents a qualitatively different climate.”[12]

‘Misery on a global scale’

All by itself, ocean warming is a major threat to the stability of the world’s largest ecosystem — but ocean warming does not occur “all by itself.” The deadly trio of ocean warming, loss of oxygen and acidification are all consequences of disrupting the global carbon cycle. Burning massive amounts of long-buried carbon has changed the ocean’s chemistry, heated the water and driven out oxygen. Those processes take place simultaneously and reinforce each other, making the ocean increasingly inhospitable, even deadly, for living things from microbes to whales.

Worse, the deadly trio isn’t acting alone. Overfishing has wiped out many species, and it’s predicted that most wild fish populations will be 90% depleted by 2050. Pollutants, including tons of plastics that essentially last forever, are poisoning marine life from coastlines to the deepest trenches. Nitrogen fertilizer run-off has created a thousand or more dead zones in coastal waters and estuaries. Off-shore oil wells are leaking deadly hydrocarbons, and mining companies are preparing to dredge rare minerals from the deep sea floor, destroying some of the few remaining undamaged parts of Earth’s surface.

As environmental geologists Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams write, “a wholesale refashioning of the marine ecosystem” is now underway. If business as usual continues, “pervasive changes in the physical, chemical and biological boundary conditions of the sea … [will] transform, irreversibly, and for the worse, the Earth and its oceans.”[13]

The effect of that transformation was summed up by Agence France-Presse, in its account of the IPCC’s 2019 report on the oceans: “The same oceans that nourished human evolution are poised to unleash misery on a global scale unless the carbon pollution destabilizing Earth’s marine environment is brought to heel.”[14]

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Notes

[1] Lijing Cheng et al., “Record-Setting Ocean Warmth Continued in 2019,” Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, February 2020.

[2] Kate S. Zaital, “Disrupting the Deep: Ocean Warming Reaches the Abyss,” Earth, March 8, 2018.

[3] Chinese Academy of Sciences, “Record-setting Ocean Warmth Continued in 2019,” News Release, January 14, 2020.

[4] Lijing Cheng et al., “Record-Setting Ocean Warmth Continued in 2019,” Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, February 2020.

[5] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate(IPCC, 2019), 62.

[6] Grant R. Bigg, The Oceans and Climate, 2nd ed. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006), x.

[7] S. E. Perkins-Kirkpatrick and S. C. Lewis, “Increasing Trends in Regional Heatwaves,” Nature Communications 11 (July 2020)

[8] A. Pearce et al., The “Marine Heat Wave” Off Western Australia During the Summer of 2010/11 (Western Australian Fisheries and Marine Research Laboratories, 2011), 1. The quote marks around “Marine Heat Wave” indicate that this was not yet the accepted term.

[9] Mark R. Payne, “Metric for Marine Heatwaves Suggests How These Events Displace Ocean Life,” Nature 584 (August 8, 2020), 43.

[10] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate(IPCC, 2019), 67, 607.

[11] Charlotte Laufkötter, Jakob Zscheischler, and Thomas L. Frölicher, “High-impact Marine Heatwaves Attributable to Human-induced Global Warming,” Science 389 (September 25, 2020), 1621.

[12] Dan A. Smale et al., “Marine Heatwaves Threaten Global Biodiversity and the Provision of Ecosystem Services,” Nature Climate Change 9, no. 4 (March 04, 2019).

[13] Eric C. J. Oliver et al., “Projected Marine Heatwaves in the 21st Century and the Potential for Ecological Impact,” Frontiers in Marine Science 6 (December 2019). doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00734). The study used the IPCC emissions scenarios RCP4.5 and RPC8.5, and the climate modelling system CMIP5.

[14] Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams, “The Anthropocene Ocean in Its Deep Time Context,” in The World Ocean in Globalisation, ed. Davor Vidas and Peter Johan Schei (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 34.

[15] “Oceans Turning From Friend to Foe, Warns Landmark UN Climate Report,” Agence France Presse, August 29, 2019.

Featured image: In this handout picture released by the U.S. Army, a mushroom cloud billows about one hour after a nuclear bomb was detonated above Hiroshima, Japan on Aug. 6, 1945. Japanese officials say a 93-year-old Japanese man has become the first person certified as a survivor of both U.S. atomic bombings at the end of World War II. City officials said Tsutomu Yamaguchi had already been a certified “hibakusha,” or radiation survivor, of the Aug. 9, 1945, atomic bombing in Nagasaki, but has now been confirmed as surviving the attack on Hiroshima three days earlier as well. (AP Photo/U.S. Army via Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, HO) ** NO SALES, CREDIT MANDATORY **

“Every day I ask myself the same question: How can this be happening in America? How can people like these be in charge of our country? If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I’d think I was having a hallucination.”—Philip Roth, novelist

Things are falling apart.

How much longer we can sustain the fiction that we live in a constitutional republic, I cannot say, but anarchy is being loosed upon the nation.

We are witnessing the unraveling of the American dream one injustice at a time.

Day after day, the government’s crimes against the citizenry grow more egregious, more treacherous and more tragic. And day after day, the American people wake up a little more to the grim realization that they have become captives in a prison of their own making.

No longer a free people, we are now pushed and prodded and watched over by twitchy, hyper-sensitive, easily-spooked armed guards who care little for the rights, humanity or well-being of those in their care.

The death toll is mounting.

The carnage is heartbreaking.

The public’s faith in the government to do its job—which is to protect our freedoms—is deteriorating.

It doesn’t take a weatherman to realize when a storm is brewing: clouds gather, the wind begins to blow, and an almost-palpable tension builds.

It’s the same way with freedom.

The warning signs are everywhere.

“Things fall apart,” wrote W.B. Yeats in his dark, forbidding poem “The Second Coming.” “The centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned … Surely some revelation is at hand.”

The upcoming election and its aftermath will undoubtedly keep the citizenry divided and at each other’s throats, so busy fighting each other that they never manage to present a unified front against tyranny in any form. Yet the winner has already been decided. As American satirist H.L. Mencken predicted almost a century ago:

“All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

In other words, nothing will change.

You cannot have a republican form of government—nor a democratic one, for that matter—when the government views itself as superior to the citizenry, when it no longer operates for the benefit of the people, when the people are no longer able to peacefully reform their government, when government officials cease to act like public servants, when elected officials no longer represent the will of the people, when the government routinely violates the rights of the people and perpetrates more violence against the citizenry than the criminal class, when government spending is unaccountable and unaccounted for, when the judiciary act as courts of order rather than justice, and when the government is no longer bound by the laws of the Constitution.

For too long, the American people have obeyed the government’s dictates, no matter now unjust.

We have paid its taxes, penalties and fines, no matter how outrageous. We have tolerated its indignities, insults and abuses, no matter how egregious. We have turned a blind eye to its indiscretions and incompetence, no matter how imprudent. We have held our silence in the face of its lawlessness, licentiousness and corruption, no matter how illicit.

We have suffered. Oh how we have suffered.

How much longer we will continue to suffer at the hands of a tyrannical police state depends on how much we’re willing to give up for the sake of freedom.

It may well be that Professor Morris Berman is correct: perhaps we are entering into the dark ages that signify the final phase of the American Empire. “It seems to me,” writes Berman, “that the people do get the government they deserve, and even beyond that, the government who they are, so to speak. In that regard, we might consider, as an extreme version of this… that Hitler was as much an expression of the German people at that point in time as he was a departure from them.”

For the moment, the American people seem content to sit back and watch the reality TV programming that passes for politics today. It’s the modern-day equivalent of bread and circuses, a carefully calibrated exercise in how to manipulate, polarize, propagandize and control a population.

As French philosopher Etienne de La Boétie observed half a millennium ago:

“Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.”

The bait towards slavery. The price of liberty. The instruments of tyranny.

Yes, that sounds about right.

“We the people” have learned only too well how to be slaves. Worse, we have come to enjoy our voluntary servitude, which masquerades as citizenship.

This presidential election is yet another pacifier to lull us into complacency and blind us to the monsters in our midst.

I refuse to be pacified, patronized or placated.

Here’s my plan: rather than staying glued to my TV set, watching politicians and talking heads regurgitate the same soundbites over and over, I’m going to keep doing the hard work that needs to be done to keep freedom alive in this country.

That’s why, almost 40 years ago, I founded The Rutherford Institute: as a nonpartisan, apolitical organization committed to the principles enshrined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights that would work tirelessly to reshape the government from the bottom up into one that respects freedom, recognizes our worth as human beings, resists corruption, and abides by the rule of law.

It’s a thankless, never-ending job, but someone’s got to do it. And I can promise you that when I do eventually turn on the TV, John Carpenter—not Donald Trump or Joe Biden—will be my pick for escapist entertainment.

Carpenter’s films, known primarily for their horror themes, are infused with strong anti-authoritarian, overarching themes that speak to the filmmaker’s concerns about the unraveling of our society, particularly our government. Even among a pantheon of dystopian films such as Minority Report, Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Matrix, V for Vendetta, and Land of the Blind, Carpenter’s work stands out for its clarity of vision.

Carpenter sees the government working against its own citizens.

Yet while Carpenter is a skeptic and critic, there’s also a strange optimism that runs through his films. “A close view of Carpenter’s work reveals a romantic streak beneath the skepticism,” John Muir writes in his insightful book The Films of John Carpenter, “a belief down deep—far below the anti-establishment hatred—that a single committed and idealistic person can make a difference, even if society does not recognize that person as valuable or good.”

In fact, Carpenter’s central characters are always out of step with their times. Underneath their machismo, they still believe in the ideals of liberty and equal opportunity. Their beliefs place them in constant opposition with the law and the establishment, but they are nonetheless freedom fighters. When, for example, John Nada destroys the alien hypno-transmitter in They Live, he restores hope by delivering America a wake-up call for freedom.

This is the theme that runs throughout Carpenter’s films—the belief in American ideals and in people. “He believes that man can do better,” writes Muir, “and his heroes consistently prove that worthy goals (such as saving the Earth from malevolent shape-shifters) can be accomplished, but only through individuality.”

Thus, John Carpenter is more than a filmmaker. He is a cultural analyst and a keen observer of the unraveling of the American psyche. “I’m disgusted by what we’ve become in America,” said Carpenter. “I truly believe there is brain death in this country. Everything we see is designed to sell us something. The only thing they want to do is take our money.”

The following are my favorite Carpenter films.

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976): This is essentially a remake of Howard Hawks’ 1959 classic western Rio Bravo—much beloved by Carpenter. A street gang and assorted criminals surround and assault a police station. Paranoia abounds as the police are attacked from all sides and can see no way out. Indeed, Carpenter repeatedly has his characters comment, in disbelief, that “This can’t happen, not today!” or “We’re in the middle of a city … in a police station … someone will drive by eventually!” Or will they?

Halloween (1978): This low-budget horror masterpiece launched Carpenter’s career. Acclaimed as the most successful independent motion picture of all time, the story centers on a deranged youth who returns to his hometown to conduct a murderous rampage after fifteen years in an asylum. This film, which assumes that there is a form of evil so dark that it can’t be killed, deconstructs our technological existence while reminding us that in the end, we all may have to experience Orwell’s stamping boot on our faces forever.

The Fog (1980): This is a disturbing ghost story made in the mode of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963). Here the menace besieging a small town is not a pack of winged pests but rather a deadly fog bank that cloaks vengeful, faceless, evil spirits from which there may be no escape.

Escape from New York (1981): This is the ultimate urban nightmare. A ruined Manhattan of the future is an anarchic prison for America’s worst criminals. When the U.S. president is captured as a hostage, the government sends a disgraced, rebellious war hero into Manhattan in what seems to be an impossible rescue mission. In fact, this film sees fascism as the future of America.

The Thing (1982): Considered by many as one of Carpenter’s best films, this is a remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic of the same name. A team of scientists in a remote Antarctic outpost discover a buried spaceship with a ravenous, mutating alien that eventually creates a claustrophobic, paranoid environment within their compound. The social commentary is obvious as the horrible creature literally erupts and bursts out of human flesh. This film presupposes that increasingly we are all becoming dehumanized. Thus, in the end, we are all potential aliens.

Christine (1983): This film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel finds a young man with a classic automobile that is demonically possessed. The car, representing technology with a will and consciousness of its own, goes on a murderous rampage. Do we now face the same possibility with the predominance of artificial intelligence?

Starman (1984): An alien from an advanced civilization takes on the guise of a young widow’s recently deceased husband. The couple then takes off on a long drive to rendezvous with the alien spacecraft so he can return home. Surprisingly, as John Muir recognizes, this film is a Christ allegory with the alien visitor possessing extraordinary powers to heal the sick, resurrect the dead, and perform miracles. The question posed is whether the only hope for humanity is a visitor from another world.

They Live (1988): This film, which I explore in detail in my books, assumes the future has already arrived. John Nada is a homeless person who stumbles across a resistance movement and finds a pair of sunglasses that enables him to see the real world around him. What he discovers is a monochrome reality in a world controlled by ominous beings who bombard the citizens with subliminal messages such as “obey” and “conform.” Carpenter makes an effective political point about the underclass (everyone except those in power, that is): we, the prisoners of our devices, are too busy sucking up the entertainment trivia beamed into our brains and attacking each other to start an effective resistance movement. As the Bearded Man in They Live tells us:

The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are non-existent. They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices . . . They are dismantling the sleeping middle class. More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery.

In the Mouth of Madness (1995): A successful horror novelist’s fans become so engrossed in his stories that they slip into dementia and carry out the grisly acts depicted in his books. When this film was being conceived, politicians were criticizing horror movies for promoting violence. Carpenter parodied this argument while noting that evil grows when people lose “the ability to know the difference between reality and fantasy.” As we lose ourselves in ever-evolving technology, we are increasingly blurring that distinction. Does that mean evil will eventually overcome us all?

Madness. Delusion. Denial. Paranoia. Inhumanity. These are some of the monsters of our age.

In the cinematic world of John Carpenter, whenever freedom falls to tyranny, it is because the people allowed it to happen.

It works that way in the real world, too.

The lesson, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People: they—the tyrants, the bogeymen, the strongmen, the enemies of freedom—live, because “we the people” sleep.

Time to wake up, America, and break free of your chains.

Something wicked this way comes.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Per la Festa di San Francesco, il ministro della Difesa Lorenzo Guerini (Pd) ha inviato i caccia delle Frecce Tricolori a sorvolare la Basilica di Assisi. «È l’omaggio più forte che la nostra Italia abbia potuto rendere al Poverello, a cui si affidano migliaia di persone mentre la pandemia aggrava la povertà», ha scritto la rivista dei Francescani.

Omaggio discutibile: un’ora di volo dei nove caccia delle Frecce Tricolori costa oltre 40.000 euro in denaro pubblico, cifra con cui si potrebbero pagare 27 stipendi medi netti mensili.

A sorvolare Assisi, l’anno prossimo, saranno i nuovi, più potenti caccia da addestramento avanzato T-345A prodotti dalla Leonardo, di cui l’Aeronautica sta acquistando 23 esemplari con una spesa di circa 380 milioni di euro. Essi assicureranno una migliore «efficacia addestrativa», preparando i piloti all’uso degli F-35 e altri aerei da guerra.

«Il nostro grazie va ai Generali e al Ministro della Difesa Lorenzo Guerini. – hanno scritto i Francescani dopo il sorvolo delle Frecce Tricolori – Stasera andremo tutti a dormire con la speranza di un giorno migliore».

Parole tranquillizzanti, pronunciate mentre altri caccia italiani, i Tornado PA-200 di Ghedi che stanno per essere sostituiti dagli F-35A, erano già in Germania per partecipare alla Steadfast Noon, l’esercitazione annuale Nato di guerra nucleare sotto comando Usa. Vi partecipano, con le proprie forze aeree, Italia, Germania, Belgio e Olanda, che mantengono sul proprio territorio, pronte all’uso, le bombe nucleari Usa B-61, tra non molto sostituite dalle più micidiali B61-12.

Violano in tal modo il Trattato di non-proliferazione e rifiutano il Trattato Onu sull’abolizione delle armi nucleari che, avendo raggiunto le 50 ratifiche il 24 ottobre, entrerà in vigore entro 90 giorni. Non vi aderiscono però i nove paesi dotati di armi nucleari e i trenta della Nato. In Europa, il Trattato Onu è stato ratificato solo da Austria, Irlanda, Malta, Liechtenstein, San Marino e Santa Sede.

Perché si possa realizzare il vitale obiettivo del Trattato, è indispensabile una vasta mobilitazione dell’opinione pubblica per il disarmo nucleare, attualmente inesistente poiché la minaccia di guerra nucleare viene taciuta dagli apparati politico-mediatici, oggi ancor più di prima dato che parlano solo della minaccia del virus.

Vengono così nascosti i sempre più pericolosi passi che l’Italia sta facendo nella preparazione della guerra e della conseguente crescita della spesa militare.

Alla riunione dei ministri della Difesa della Nato, il 23 ottobre, il ministro Guerini ha confermato la partecipazione dell’Italia a un nuovo Centro Spaziale Nato a Ramstein (Germania) e al potenziamento delle forze nucleari necessario, secondo il segretario generale della Nato Jens Stoltenberg, a «mantenere sicuro ed efficiente il nostro deterrente nucleare», di fronte alla «grave sfida del crescente arsenale di missili nucleari della Russia».

Il ministro Guerini ha inoltre firmato per conto dell’Italia, con altri nove paesi Nato, una lettera di intenti per la realizzazione di un sistema missilistico con base a terra, formalmente quale difesa contro missili a raggio corto e intermedio, in realtà utilizzabile per il lancio di missili nucleari a raggio intermedio, analoghi agli euromissili Usa degli anni Ottanta.

Infine, il ministro Guerini si è impegnato ad accrescere ulteriormente la spesa militare dell’Italia, dagli attuali 26 a 36 miliardi di euro annui. Per tale obiettivo sono già stati stanziati 35 miliardi aggiuntivi, soprattutto da parte del Ministero dello sviluppo economico, più altri 30 miliardi di euro che si vuole trarre dal Recovery Fund.

«Le risorse destinate alla Difesa – ha dichiarato il ministro Guerini – rappresentano una leva strategica per l’economia del Paese». Occorre quindi «far meglio comprendere ai nostri concittadini che nell’industria del settore dell’Aerospazio, della Difesa e della Sicurezza c’è un pezzo rilevante della competitività dell’Italia, che potrà garantire il futuro delle giovani generazioni».

Il futuro non è quindi così nero: parafrasando il noto film, finché c’è guerra c’è speranza.

Manlio Dinucci

il manifesto, 27 ottobre 2020

The IMF-World Bank semi-annual meeting starts this week. Earlier the IMF kicked off the show with a warning that the poor countries of the world are heading for a catastrophe from the pandemic slump, leading to defaults on the debts that their governments and companies owe to investors and banks in the ‘global north’.

According to the IMF, about half of Low Income Economies (LIEs) are now in danger of debt default.  ‘Emerging market’ debt to GDP has increased from 40% to 60% in this crisis.

And there is little room to boost government spending to alleviate the hit. The ‘developing’ countries are in a much weaker position compared with the global financial crisis of 2008-09. In 2007, 40 emerging market and middle-income countries had a combined central government fiscal surplus equal to 0.3 per cent of gross domestic product, according to the IMF. Last year, they posted a fiscal deficit of 4.9 per cent of GDP.  The government deficit of ‘EMs’ in Asia went from 0.7 per cent of GDP in 2007 to 5.8 per cent in 2019; in Latin America, it rose from 1.2 per cent of GDP to 4.9 per cent; and European EMs went from a surplus of 1.9 per cent of GDP to a deficit of 1 per cent.

For example, Brazil is now running a consolidated government deficit of 15% of GDP.  India’s is 13%.  Both countries will see their sovereign debt levels rise towards 90% of GDP by the end of next year and approach 100% of GDP in 2022.

New World Bank chief economist Carmen Reinhart warned that the global south faces “an unprecedented wave of debt crises and restructurings”.  Reinhart said: “in terms of the coverage, of which countries will be engulfed, we are at levels not seen even in the 1930s.”  Debts owed by non-financial companies in the 30 largest emerging markets rose to 96 per cent of gross domestic product in the first quarter of this year, more than the amount of corporate debt in advanced economies, at 94 per cent of GDP, according to the IIF.

Over the next two years the top 30 emerging economies face the highest level ever of maturing debt, both private and public.

And so these poor countries will be forced to raise even more debt to deal with the pandemic slump and meet repayments on existing debt.  Nevertheless, Reinhart argued that “while the disease is raging, what else are you going to do? First you worry about fighting the war, then you figure out how to pay for it.”

This was ironic coming from somebody who is best known for her work with fellow Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff on the economic damage inflicted by high debt levels throughout history.  In their famous (infamous?) book, This time is different, they argued that high public debt levels were unsustainable and governments would have to apply ‘fiscal austerity’ to reduce them or face a banking and debt collapse.

Worse, much of the debt is denominated in US dollars and as that hegemonic currency increased in value as a ‘safe haven’, the burden of repayment will mount for the dominated economies of the ‘south’. The level of EM corporate ‘hard currency’ debt is significantly higher now than in 2008. According to the IMF’s October 2019 Financial Stability Report, the median external debt of emerging market and middle-income countries increased from 100 per cent of GDP in 2008 to 160 per cent of GDP in 2019.

Capitalist investors and banks are now no longer investing in the stocks and bonds of the ‘global south’ – apart from China.  So the flow of private capital has dried up to fund existing debt.

As a result, the currencies of the major emerging markets have dived relative to the dollar and other ‘hard’ currencies, making it even more difficult to repay debts.

This impending debt crisis only compounds the impact of the pandemic slump on the global south.  In its report for the semi-annual meeting, the World Bank reckons that the pandemic will push between 88m and 115m people into extreme poverty this year, which the bank defines as living on less than $1.90 a day (a pathetically low threshold anyway).

More than 80 per cent of those who will fall into extreme poverty this year are in ‘middle-income’ countries, with south Asia the worst-hit region, followed by sub-Saharan Africa. “We are likely to see people who previously escaped poverty falling back into it, as well as people who have never been poor falling into poverty for the first time,” said Carolina Sánchez-Páramo, director of the bank’s poverty and equity division. “Even under the optimistic assumption that, after 2021, growth returns to its historical rates . . . the pandemic’s impoverishing effects will be vast,” the World Bank said.

The global economy is expected to contract by between 5 and 8 per cent this year on a per-capita basis, and that would set poverty levels back to their 2017 levels, undoing three years of progress in improving living standards, the World Bank estimated.

Progress in reducing poverty had been slowing before the pandemic, according to the report. About 52m people worldwide rose out of poverty between 2015 and 2017 but the rate of poverty reduction had slowed to less than half a percentage point a year during that period, after reductions of about 1 per cent a year between 1990 and 2015.

What is also clear from the report is that all the reduction in poverty rates since 1990 have been in Asia, in particular East Asia, and in particular China. Strip China out and there has been little or no improvement in absolute poverty in 30 years.

Nearly 7 per cent of the world’s population will live on less than $1.90 a day by 2030, the report said, compared with a target of less than 3 per cent under the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

In an attempt to head off the impending debt defaults, a debt service moratorium was approved by the G20 and runs until the end of this year. The IMF has also provided about $31bn of emergency financing to 76 countries, including 47 of the poorest countries under the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust. Most of these countries had high economic dependence on single commodity exports or tourism and suffered a classic external financing seizure and economic collapse when Covid-19 struck.

But mostly it’s all talk; with speeches like those of IMF chief Georgieva and Reinhart at the World bank.  As Oxfam says in a devastating new report on inequality and the lack of public services and workers’ rights, “emergency programmes have focused on closing the huge budget and balance of payments financing gaps produced by coronavirus-related revenue collapses, and on allowing more space for health and limited social protection spending to confront the crisis.” And the “IMF’s global, regional and national reports are already warning of the need for ‘fiscal consolidation’ i.e. austerity, to reduce debt burdens once the pandemic has been contained.”

Virtually all the national emergency loan documents emphasize the need for governments to make anti-corona virus spending temporary and to take fiscal adjustment measures to reduce deficits after the pandemic. For example, in June 2020, the IMF agreed a 12-month, $5.2bn loan programme with Egypt, which detailed a FY2020/21 primary budget surplus target of 0.5% to allow for spending related to the coronavirus pandemic, but demanded that it be restored to the pre-crisis primary surplus of 2% in FY 2021/22. The IMF has also been linked to large cuts in health spending, which have left countries ill-prepared for the crisis.

The World Bank has pledged $160bn in emergency funding over the next 15 months, and has advocated debt relief by other creditors, but has so far refused to cancel any debt owed to it, despite low-income countries repaying $3.5bn to the World Bank in 2020. Oxfam’s analysis shows that only 8 of 71 World Bank COVID-19 health projects included any measures to reduce financial barriers to accessing health services, even though a number of these projects acknowledge high out-of-pocket health expenditure as a major issue. Such expenditures bankrupt millions of people each year and exclude them from treatment.

The only effective way to avoid debt defaults is to cancel the debts of the poor countries owed to the banks and multinationals.  But that is the one policy that is no going to happen.

The Jubilee Debt Campaign (JDC) called for the IMF to sell some of its stockpile of gold to cover the debt payments owed by the world’s poorest countries for the next 15 months.  The JDC said selling less than 7% of the IMF’s gold would generate a $12bn profit, which is enough to cancel the debts owed by the 73 poorest countries until the end of 2021 and still leave the Washington-based organisation with $26bn more gold than it held at the start of the year.  The JDC and others have also called for a new issuance of Special Drawing Rights (SDR), in effect international money, to fund the poor countries.  Both these suggestions have been rejected.

Reinhart wails that “At the country level, at the multilateral level, at the G7 level, who has the financing to fill in all the big fiscal gaps that have been created or exacerbated by the pandemic?”  Answer there is none.

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On October 24, 2020, the United Nations announced that 50 countries had ratified the treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Passing this threshold means that the treaty will become international law within ninety days. The next day, the people who worked so hard on the treaty celebrated their victory. But now it’s time for the sober assessment that must ask whether this changes anything. The real victory will come when the ratifiers, and other nations that might join them, find collective power and real leverage to establish the conditions for peace and to enforce the treaty.

Within the global hegemon, there are many current and retired government officials (the likes of Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell) who support the abolition of nuclear weapons because they know the United States has superiority in non-nuclear weapons and military spending. It is the smaller nuclear powers who insist on having nuclear deterrence because they feel threatened by the excessive advantages of the United States. They also insist on keeping their nuclear deterrence because they point to the United States’ long history of using its military and economic superiority offensively. As long as the weaker nations insist on keeping their deterrence, the United States will keep its nuclear arsenal, and nothing will change.

Thus before we get too excited about nuclear weapons being banned by international law, as if that meant they were about to disappear, we will have to start working on a treaty to ban military aggression between states, including aggression that involves overt and covert interference in the affairs of sovereign nations. Wouldn’t the world be a great place if we had such a treaty? Oh, wait, actually we have had such a treaty since October 24, 1945 when the United Nations Charter entered into force. Note the date: the nuclear ban treaty ratification threshold was announced on the same date seventy-five years later.

The UN Charter was created because of the failures to avoid two world wars in the 20th century. The drafters of the Charter were influenced by the Nuremburg trials that defined aggressive war by one state against another the highest crime. Article 2, paragraph 4 declared:

All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

The addition of the words “any other manner consistent with…” seems to make Article 2 refer also to acts of covert and overt non-military interference in the affairs of other sovereign nations. The UN Charter gives United Nations members the right to act collectively to stop wars of aggression, but it denies the UN the right to interfere in the internal affairs of nations once a military threat has been stopped. This right to interfere collectively has been hotly contested and bent since the concept of R2P arose in the 1990s—the Right to Protect inside nations where human rights violations were said to warrant international action. Ask people being sold as slaves in Libya how that’s been working out since the intervention there in 2011.

When the United States signed the UN Charter it became a treaty obligation, and treaty obligations, under Article 6 of the US constitution, become the law of the land. That means that every time a US president and his government waged aggressive war or interfered in the internal affairs of sovereign nations, that president and that government were violating the constitution in addition to violating international law. Congress never tried to impeach any president for these crimes. Likewise, none of these crimes have ever been prosecuted in any international court because the US is, by its own definition, outside the reach of international courts.

The scholar Lance deHaven-Smith has done much work on this subject of the non-prosecution of state crimes against democracy. There is a stunningly long list of state crimes that American citizens and political parties have shown no interest in prosecuting, and these are often crimes that involve or lead to violations of international law, so the entire international community has also proven itself impotent against these crimes.

Ruins of the Al-shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan, destroyed by US cruise missiles in 1998. It stands as one testament to the many war crimes—violations of international law—that have never been prosecuted. See this eleven-minute video listing additional indictable war crimes of US Presidents since 1945.

Thus the ratification of the treaty banning nuclear weapons cannot be seen, unfortunately, as a transformative change in world affairs. Article 2 of the UN Charter, written in 1945, already implicitly made the manufacture, possession and use of nuclear weapons illegal when it outlawed “the threat or use of force.” Other proscriptions of international law also implicitly cover nuclear weapons because their use would amount to genocide, mass atrocities, violation of human rights, targeting of civilian populations, violation of the principle of proportionality, and so on. Nuclear weapons have always been morally abhorrent and illegal. The problem, as it always has been, is how to enforce international law when the hegemonic power is not only the perpetrator but also the largest financial contributor to the United Nations.

Nothing fundamentally changes with the ratification of the treaty banning nuclear weapons, but it does serve as a powerful message from the weaker nations to the stronger ones, and that in itself could lead to progress in solving the problem of enforcement. Will the fifty ratifying nations now be willing or able to collectively use diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions against the possessors of nuclear weapons? Could they ever stop using the US dollar or denounce the demonization of Russia and China by the US and its allies? Could they carry out new “Nuremburg  or Tokyo trials” for all the violations of international law since 1945? Those tribunals have turned out to be history’s exceptions to the norm.

Fundamentally, the problem is that we are focused on the physical manifestation of the enmity between nations (nuclear weapons) and not on the enmity itself that is pushing us dangerously close to nuclear war. I might stop worrying about nuclear weapons completely if NATO forces would retreat from Russia’s borders and the US fleet would stay on its side of the Pacific Ocean.

I don’t enjoy saying what I’ve written here because I’ll be accused of raining on the parade or having betrayed the cause. I wrote similar essays after ICAN won the Nobel Peace Prize for making the treaty a reality and I was politely ignored by many friends in the anti-nuclear movement. The essays weren’t shared and my views didn’t catch on, obviously, because here we are three years later and everyone is celebrating as if international law, or even domestic law, really meant something in this world. I’m against the creation of false hope and the neglect of history, and, considering President Obama’s 2016 visit to Hiroshima, I hate to see the aging Japanese hibakusha being set up yet again for disappointment. These days I would much rather focus on getting US military bases out of Okinawa and working toward ending the occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom. That nation has been waiting since 1893 for international law to be enforced. This de-militarization and de-nuclearization of the “Pacific” region would be change I could believe in.

Honorable mention goes to the Marshall Islands, one of the most nuclear-bombed countries on earth. It has not even signed, let alone ratified, the nuclear ban treaty. It depends on the United States for compensation for the damage from nuclear tests and, in exchange for ongoing compensation, it hosts US military bases where long-range missiles are tested. I don’t mean to single out the unfortunate Marshall Islands for condemnation. This sovereign nation is actually just a dramatic example of the relationship that many countries, and many of the treaty ratifiers, have with the United States. As the saying goes, the US has hostages, not allies, so, like the Marshall Islands, the countries that ratified the treaty will also lack the means and the will to follow up with the boycott, divestment and sanctions that could force the US to pack up its military empire and lead the world, by example, toward nuclear disarmament. And the last two US presidential election campaigns have made it quite clear that the majority of US citizens have absolutely no interest in applying such pressure themselves.

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Dennis Riches writes on his blog site, Lit by Imagination, where this article was originally published. 

Featured image is from Nevada State Museum

Here’s my speech to the crowd in attendance at the Stand Up X protest event in Millennium Square, Leeds, on Sunday 18th October 2020. (I would have said ‘peaceful protest,’ but the order-following thug police saw to it that things didn’t end up that way.)

I’ll stop when they stop.

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A new agreement of enormous importance to the Middle East has followed Israel’s peace deals with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – the normalization of relations between Israel and Sudan. The agreement marks a new direction in Israel’s normalization with the Arab World, especially since Sudan, a country of 40 million people, was only until very recently “supporting terrorism”, including for Al-Qaeda and Hamas.

The normalization treaty between Israel and Sudan is seen as an electoral blessing for U.S. President Donald Trump who is just days away from the next elections. He will claim credit for “paving the way” for its implementation and promote it as another foreign policy victory.

“The State of Israel and the Republic of Sudan have agreed to make peace,” Trump told reporters at the White House Oval Office during a teleconference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Sudanese counterpart, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

“Do you think Sleepy Joe could have made this deal, Bibi?  Somehow, I don’t think so,” Trump said to the Israeli prime minister in reference to Democrat Presidential Candidate Joe Biden.

To his disappointment, Netanyahu shunned the obvious electoral ploy and replied: “one thing I can tell you is we appreciate the help for peace from anyone in America.” For Israel, this is more than a partisan issue, it is part of a major regional transformation.

The Sudanese government has made it clear that this is not a peace deal but rather Khartoum will seek to normalize relations between the two countries. What has been confirmed is that Israel will provide assistance and private investment in the technological and agricultural sectors in Sudan. This will likely be accepted as the current Sudanese government is struggling to improve the economic situation of the country after coming to power last year when it toppled a decades old military dictatorship.

In addition to U.S. election goals, the deal has geopolitical implications, mainly by deepening Iran’s already significant isolation in the region. As Netanyahu hinted: “Iran is unhappy. Hezbollah is unhappy. Hamas is unhappy. But most everybody else is very happy, and they should be, because peace is a good thing.” This comment came as Sudan recognized Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

Sudan has traditionally been one of the strongest supporters of the Palestinian cause. This agreement and other two with Bahrain and the UAE, undermines the historical Arab consensus that normalization with Israel cannot take place until an independent Palestinian state exists.

The Sudanese normalization with Israel is much more transformative than the peace deals with Bahrain and the UAE. Netanyahu was not exaggerating when he said it is a “new world, and I can’t tell you how — how excited we are for cooperating with everyone, cooperating with Sudan to build a future — a better future for both of us.”

The UAE is a strong regional power that exerts its influence militarily and economically. Bahrain’s normalization with Israel is seen as precursor to Saudi Arabia doing the same eventually when considering Manama’s near reliance on the Saudi Kingdom.

Unlike the UAE and Bahrain, Sudan has been a rogue state for quite some time and is perhaps best known for the genocide in Darfur between 2003 and 2009. Sudan had provided a safe haven for terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda and Hamas. To compensate for their role in international terrorism, Sudan has agreed to pay $335 million to U.S. victims of previous terrorist attacks and their families. This compensation is due to the logistical support Sudan provided Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden in the late 1990s.

The North African country has sought a more pro-Western orientation with a renewed vigor since the powerful Omar al-Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, was ousted in a coup last year. Days before the agreement was signed, the Trump administration signed a resignation letter to remove Khartoum from the list of state terrorists.

Traditionally, Israeli relations with Sudan has been hostile. In 1967, shortly after the Israeli victory over the Arabs in the Six Day War, the Arab League announced the Khartoum Resolution. This expressed the will of the Arab states for “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiation with it.”

Following this symbolic act, and in retaliation for Sudan’s involvement in the war, the Israeli government began to actively support separatist groups operating in the southern region of Sudan. By providing high-quality weapons and training, Israel helped improve South Sudan’s military to the point where it established an autonomous zone. Israel has also been a staunch supporter of South Sudan’s successful bid for independence, which finally came in 2011.

The South Sudanese government in Juba is concerned that rapprochement between Israel and Khartoum will reduce its traditional proximity to the Jewish State. However, they refrained from acting against normalization because it is a top American project headed by Trump and on the eve of presidential elections. Juba would find it difficult to operate without American and Israeli support. Also, relations between Sudan and South Sudan have improved, and both are more concerned with their own internal affairs than with each other.

The Sudan-Israel agreement is therefore not only a triumph for Israeli foreign policy but also for the U.S. While Israel’s agreements with the UAE and Bahrain only reinforces its existing foreign policy orientation, the Khartoum agreement marks a new direction for a country of 40 million and a step away from a dark past related to fostering terrorism. It also demonstrates that Israel is willing to normalize relations with countries who have directly supported terrorism, which makes this deal more significant than the one with the UAE and Bahrain.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Despite its large population of 1.5 billion which many have considered as an impediment, China’s domestic economic reforms and collaborative strategic diplomacy with external countries have made it attain superpower status over the United States. While United States influence is rapidly fading away, China has indeed taken up both the challenges and unique opportunities to strengthen its position, especially its trade, investment and economic muscles.

On October 22, Vladimir Putin took part, via videoconference, in the final plenary session of the 17^th Annual Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club. The Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2004, with a goal is to promote dialogue between Russian and international intellectual elite, and to make an independent, unbiased scientific analysis of political, economic and social events in Russia and the rest of the world.

It is worth noting that Putin touched on a wide range of different issues at meting. What particularly interesting was his assessment of the changing politics and the economy, and rating of the global superpower.

“The world has changed several times. Meanwhile, time increasingly and insistently makes us question what lies ahead for humanity,” he said during his interactive speech with the participants.

In effect, the post-war world order was established by three victorious countries: the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain. The role of Britain has changed since then; the Soviet Union no longer exists, while some try to dismiss Russia altogether, according to Putin.

Indeed, the Soviet Union is no longer there. But there is Russia. In terms of its economic weight and political influence, China is moving quickly towards superpower status. Germany is moving in the same direction, and the Federal Republic of Germany has become an important player in international cooperation. At the same time, the roles of Great Britain and France in international affairs has undergone significant changes, he further explained.

The United States, which at some point absolutely dominated the international stage, can hardly claim exceptionality any longer. Generally speaking, does the United States need this exceptionalism? he asked rhetorically, and further cited that powerhouses such as Brazil, South Africa and some other countries have become much more influential in the world.

Amid the current fragmentation of international affairs, there are challenges that require more than just the combined capacity of a few states, even very influential ones. Problems of this magnitude, which do exist, require global attention. International stability, security, fighting terrorism and solving urgent regional conflicts are certainly among them; as are promoting global economic development, combating poverty, and expanding cooperation in healthcare. That last one is especially relevant today.

Arguably, China has worked on all aspects of its economy and external investment footprints, these combined is now recorded as its grandiose achievements. Still, for example, China is engaging a long-term competition with the U.S., and that is the challenge for the United States. China’s global investment and trade is just unimaginable and give the country the global power.

It has systematically transformed its economy at the same time, maintained the political structure. Its major cities and coastal areas are far more prosperous compared to rural and interior regions. Of course, the United States has also developed its individual states, while Russia’s regions look not too far different from the typical Soviet-era.

Experts vehemently argue and vividly show how useful the population (demography) is a factor for China’s success down the years. It is a matter of how to put the population to support the growth of the economy. With the 1.5 billion population, China has brought more people out of extreme poverty than any other country in history. China reduced extreme poverty by 800 million.

The United States has 380 million population, two times more than Russia, which has a meagre 146 million in relation to the size of the country. The population moves forth and back, Russia has to support its economy with increasing population. Since 2006, the Russian government started simplifying immigration laws and launched a state program for providing assistance to voluntary immigration of ethnic Russians from former Soviet republics. In one of his previous speeches, Putin declared that Russia’s population could reach 146 million by 2025, mainly as a result of immigration

As expected of any development process, there are still problems. Nonetheless, the level of public support for the government and its management of the country is high, with 80 – 95% of Chinese citizens expressing satisfaction with the central government, according to a 2019 survey.

That compared with Russia, Putin explained that Russia has to begin from the scratch. Lenin spoke about the birthmarks of capitalism, he reminded, and added that “It cannot be said that we have lived these past 30 years in a full-fledged market economy. In fact, we are only gradually building it, and its institutions. Russia had to do it from the ground up, starting from a clean slate. Of course, we are doing this, taking into consideration, developments around the world. After all, after almost one hundred years of a state-planned economy, transitioning to a market economy is not easy.”

On other way round, it is necessary to take a closer look at approach, economic capability and the services by the Chinese. China has such a diverse landscape, with investment and trade around the world. According to the World Bank, China has the largest economy and one of the world’s foremost infrastructural giants. China is the world’s largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods.

China holds 17.7% of the world’s total wealth, the second largest share held by any country. It has the world’s largest banking sector, with assets of $40 trillion and the world’s top 4 largest banks all being in China. In 2019, China overtook the US as the home to the highest number of rich people in the world, according to the global wealth report by Credit Suisse. It has the highest number of rich people in the world’s top 10% of wealth since 2019. There were 658 Chinese billionaires and 3.5 million millionaires.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative has expanded significantly over the last six years and, as of April 2020, includes 138 countries and 30 international organization. Along with Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa, China is a member of the BRICS group of emerging major economies.

In recent years, Russia has significantly strengthened bilateral ties with Asian countries such as China and India, with Latin American countries. An important aspect of Russia’s relations with the West is the criticism of Russia’s political system and over human rights. On the other hand, Putin’s leadership over the return of order, stability, and progress has won him widespread admiration.

Russia still has to develop its regions, modernize most the Soviet-era industries to produce export goods, not only for domestic consumption. It has oil and gas, military equipment constitute its export product abroad. Its overseas investment and trade only developing at a snail pace compared to China. After the United States, the European Union and other countries imposed economic sanctions after the annexation of Crimea and a collapse in oil prices, the proportion of middle-class could decrease drastically.

Sprawling from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, Russia has more than a fifth of the world’s forests, which makes it the largest forest country in the world. With it’s extensive mineral and energy resources, Russia is a major great power and has the potential to become a superpower. Russia can regain part of its Soviet era economic power and political influence around the world. Certainly, superpower status has to be attained by practical multifaceted sustainable development and maintaining an appreciably positive relations with the world.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah is a frequent and passionate contributor to Global Research.

During the past century, we have witnessed a long and tragic history of domestic policies that have targeted persons of Arab descent. We have been subjected to discriminatory treatment by law enforcement, immigration authorities, and by both Democratic and Republican Administrations. In addition to these hurtful policies, it is important to note the role played by the scapegoating of Arabs in American politics.

In the “The Politics of Exclusion”, published in 1990 by the Arab American Institute, we have documented painful experiences of Arab American candidates who were targeted by their opponents for their Arab ancestry or the instances in which candidates for local and federal posts baited their opponents for accepting contributions from Arab Americans or for having an individual of Arab descent on staff. As a result, some candidates became afraid of accepting the support of Arab Americans.

Examples abound. In 1983, a Democrat running for Mayor in Philadelphia was challenged by his Republican opponent for accepting contributions from Arab Americans. He responded by returning the donations. In 1984, Walter Mondale running for president returned money to Arab American donors and in 1988, Michael Dukakis’ presidential campaign rejected an Arab American endorsement. In the years that followed, a Republican Congressman running for Senate asked Arab American leaders not to contribute to his campaign as did a Democrat running for Mayor in New York City.

All of these acts of discrimination were motivated by fear of alienating Jewish voters and were prompted by a campaign launched by a number of major American Jewish organisations, including the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and AIPAC, who published “blacklists” warning of the emergence of Arab American leaders and groups who were deemed “anti-Israel” and were therefore to be shunned.

During the next two decades, especially following the signing of the Oslo Accords, this exclusion somewhat subsided, only to make a disturbing comeback during the 2008 presidential campaign. It resurfaced as an exclusively Republican-led effort and morphed into a largely anti-Muslim phenomenon.

Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin stoked anti-Arab and anti-Muslim fires in framing her opposition to the Democratic nominee Barack Obama. This effort of focusing on Obama’s “otherness” resulted in the encounter Senator John McCain, the GOP’s nominee, had at a town hall. When accosted by a questioner who insisted that Obama was an Arab, McCain famously responded “No he’s not, he’s a decent family man.” While heralded by some in the media as a sign of McCain’s nobility, Arab Americans, many of whom were “decent family men,” were less than impressed.

In 2010, we witnessed distinct Muslim-baiting used in a national campaign for the first time.

It was utilised by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich who latched onto a local New York City controversy involving plans to build an Islamic Community Centre a short distance from Ground Zero.

Using the language of anti-Muslim bigots, Gingrich said that Muslims were intending to construct a “Victory Mosque” to mark their conquering America. In that year’s Congressional elections, 17 Republican candidates ran ominous TV ads accusing their Democratic opponents of being “soft” in their opposition to the “Victory Mosque”.

While only two of the 17 won their races, the die was cast. Fuelled by the nativism and xenophobia Republicans had utilized to build the anti-Obama Tea Party and Birther Movement, they embraced anti-Muslim bigotry as a major theme in their political repertoire. By 2012, during a Republican primary presidential debate, the majority of contenders pledged that they would either refuse to appoint an American Muslim to a post in their administration or, at the very least, would insist they first take a pledge of allegiance to the US before considering them.

While this view was not shared by the eventual nominee, Mitt Romney, Muslim-baiting continued to grow within the GOP setting the stage for Donald Trump in 2016. During that year’s campaign, Muslims were one of candidate Trump’s favoured targets, along with Mexicans, refugees and immigrants, in general. In addition to building a wall to keep out Mexicans, he pledged to stop more Muslims from coming into the country and to keep a close eye on those who were here.

It was, therefore, no surprise that shortly after his inauguration, President Trump issued an executive order suspending and placing restrictions on immigrants or refugees coming from seven mostly Arab and Muslim-majority countries. It was punitive and not justified. Those excluded were mostly students, visiting family members, or businesspeople. Visas were cancelled for between 60,000 to 100,000 innocents who were detained, interrogated and many sent back to their countries of origin.

In reaction to negative court decisions that he was unfairly singling out Muslims, Trump issued new executive orders increasing the countries covered in his ban. Nevertheless, the list remained largely focused on and adversely affected Arab and Muslim-majority countries.

In an equally cruel act, Trump reduced the annual number of refugees admitted into the US, from Obama era highs of over 110,000 to less than 20,000. And while his administration has made much of its concern for Christians, this severe contraction of refugee slots coupled with the ban on immigration from targeted countries has severely impacted Arabs without regard for their faith.

The point to note in all of this is that the rhetoric espoused and the policies pursued by the Trump Administration, in fact, have their foundation in a decades-long effort by the GOP to target Arabs and Muslims, and by the failure of Democrats to vigorously confront and defeat these policies. And a by-product of this insidious history has been the role that this bigotry has played in promoting hate crimes against our communities.

The well has been poisoned and it will not be easy to undo the damage done. The challenge, however, is clear. We must put our immigration policy back on a sound non-discriminatory basis. We must dramatically increase our admission of refugees and asylees to meet the growing world demand. We must close the loopholes that make Arabs and Muslims fair game for Customs and Border Patrol officials. And we must fight xenophobia, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies and base our relationships with these communities on their being fellow Americans and not on security concern.

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The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury released on Friday a new measure against sending remittances to Cuba, as part of the policies adopted by the Donald Trump administration against the island.

As reported by OFAC, the amendment will restrict any transaction with entities on the so-called Cuba Restricted List, a State Department list that includes more than 200 Cuban entities and sub-entities prohibited by the US government, including those which process and distribute remittances on the island, such as Fincimex, AIS, CIMEX, and others.

The final rule will be officially published in the Federal Register on October 27. The Donald Trump administration had previously limited the possible amount of shipments to only $1,000 per quarter (September 2019). Western Union suspended financial transfers to Cuba from anywhere globally except the United States (February 2020).

The current US administration noted that the new measure is intended to restrict access by such entities and sub-entities to funds obtained in connection with remittance-related activities, including in their role as intermediaries or their receipt of fees or commissions for processing remittance transactions.

With its new remittances discriminatory measure, the gov. of #UnitedStates makes Cuban emigrants the only ones in the world who cannot help their relatives, also affected by the largest worldwide system of illegal and unilateral coercive measures. #NoMasBloqueo #UnblockCuba pic.twitter.com/7o7HlR7Lar

— Johana Tablada de la Torre (@JohanaTablada) October 23, 2020

For his part, the Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, declared that the new measure against remittances reaffirms that “there are no limits for a criminal government in imposing policies that limit contacts, communication and mutual aid between the families of both countries.”

For the Cuban representative, the United States Government has intensified in an extreme and unprecedented way the blockade to the island, taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Far from alleviating the coercive measures in the context of the pandemic, the United States has proposed to provoke maximum punishment to the Cuban people. The new measure against remittances damages the population and confirms that the blockade is real,” the diplomat said this Thursday through Twitter.

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Featured image is from Twitter/@BrunoRdgzP

Clearly, the Fed reckons the public is foolish enough to believe the Fed’s money will actually be “free.”

It’s pretty much universally recognized that authorities use crises to impose “emergency powers” that become permanent. This erosion of civil and economic liberties is always sold as “necessary for your own good.” Of course the accretion of ever greater power in the hands of the few is for our own good. How could it be otherwise? (Irony off)

In this environment of “emergency powers”, it’s almost refreshing to find a power grab so blatant that its sheer boldness boggles the mind. I’m talking about the Federal Reserve’s FedNow, a proposed system of instant payments and digital dollars.

This paper from the Cleveland Fed describes the system: FedNow paper from clevelandfed.org (PDF) (via Cheryl A.)

The rationale for the system is two-fold: The Fed sees the current ACH (automatic clearing house) payment system used by banks as too slow and limited. Payments need to be instantaneous and there must be a way to reach unbanked households, the roughly 9 million U.S. households without a bank account. In the current system, stimulus payments couldn’t reach these households quickly.

The solution is a new payment system in which every household and business in the nation would have an account at FedNow, so the Fed can transfer funds directly and instantaneously into every household account (and presumably every business that the Fed has chosen to fund).

The second part of FedNow is the creation of a digital dollar which is just like the existing dollar with one tiny little difference: unlike cash (for example, a $20 bill), the digital dollars won’t be anonymous. Each newly created digital dollar will be trackable.

The Fed’s rationale is that panic-hoarding of coins and cash by households is a problem, as the Treasury has to go to a lot of trouble to mint more coins and print more cash. The FedNow digital dollars will be quick and easy to create and distribute–and, ahem, track.

Do you see the monstrous power grabs this we’re-here-to-help system would institute?

1. The power to borrow and distribute money that is currently reserved for the elected representatives in Congress would be bypassed by FedNow. Why wait around for slow, corrupt Congress to agree on stimulus, Universal Basic Income (UBI), etc.? With FedNow, the Fed can create trillions out of thin air and distribute the dough to households without any Congressional approval.

What’s interesting about this is that Congress has no power to stop the Fed from printing endless trillions and distributing the money however the Fed chooses. As an independent quasi-public agency, intended to be apolitical and outside the reach of corrupt politicos, the Fed is free to create and distribute as much new digital currency as it sees fit.

With FedNow, Congress has lost the government’s monopoly power to distribute funds. Congress can still borrow and spend money, of course, but the citizenry’s elected officials no longer have the monopoly granted by the Constitution.

2. The anonymity of the nation’s money will be lost to the Fed’s digital dollars.Perhaps the Fed will declare that only those who wear their underwear outside their clothing will avoid penalties. (Referencing the 1970s film Bananas.) Who’s to say what the Fed will track, and for what purposes? The Fed, that’s who.

There’s a whiff of desperation in these FedNow power grabs. It’s possible that the Fed has concluded that the elected legislative branch of government is now so thoroughly corrupt and dysfunctional that the Fed is forced to save the day, so to speak, by grabbing the power to create and distribute endless trillions to keep the increasingly impoverished and powerless citizenry from rebelling against the status quo.

The irony of course is that the primary source of the impoverishment of soaring inequality is the Fed itself, as the Fed’s “permanent emergency powers” of sluicing trillions in free money for financiers has goosed the wealth of the top 0.1% while leaving 95% of the citizenry worse off as wage stagnation and rising inflation has eroded the standard of living / purchasing power of labor.

It’s a nice trick, isn’t it? First the Fed creates the inequality that makes rebellion inevitable and then it rides to the rescue with a power grab that nullifies the monopoly over governmental allocation of money the Constitution grants to Congress, and it destroys the anonymity of the “free money” it plans to distribute in the ultimate bread and circuses.

Clearly, the Fed reckons the public is foolish enough to believe the Fed’s money will actually be “free.” Check out what you’ve lost before declaring anything “free.”

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The Supreme Court declared in 1943, “There is no mysticism in the American concept of the State or of the nature or origin of its authority.” In reality, the cardinal doctrines of contemporary democracy are layer upon layer of mystical claptrap. The phrases which consecrate democracy seep into many Americans’ minds like buried hazardous waste.

If Joe Biden wins the presidential election, voters will be told that our political system is redeemed: the “will of the people” is now clear, Biden will rule with “the consent of the governed,” and Americans are obliged to again trust and obey the federal government. If Donald Trump is reelected, much of the same media will continue howling about imaginary Russian plots. But these notions remain dangerous delusions regardless of who is declared the winner on Election Day.

The notion that election results represent the “will of the people” is one of the most shameless triumphs of democratic propaganda. Rather than revealing the “will of the people,” election results are often a one-day snapshot of transient mass delusions. Votes which only reveal comparative contempt for competing professional politicians are transmogrified into approvals for blueprints to forcibly remake humanity.

Americans are encouraged to believe that their vote on Election Day somehow miraculously guarantees that the subsequent ten thousand actions by the president, Congress, and federal agencies embody “the will of the people.” In reality, the more edicts a president issues, the less likely that his decrees will have any connection to popular preferences. It is even more doubtful that all the provisions of hefty legislative packages reflect majority support, considering the wheeling, dealing, and conniving prior to final passage. Or maybe the Holy Ghost of Democracy hovers over Capitol Hill to assure that average Americans truly want every provision on every page of bills that most representatives and senators do not even bother reading?

A bastard cousin of the “will of the people” flimflam is the notion that citizens and government are one and the same. President Franklin Roosevelt, after five years of expanding federal power as rapidly as possible, declared in 1938, “Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us.” President Johnson declared in 1964: “Government is not an enemy of the people. Government is the people themselves,” though it wasn’t “the people” whose lies sent tens of thousands of American conscripts to pointless deaths in Vietnam. President Bill Clinton declared in 1996, “The Government is just the people, acting together—just the people acting together.” But it wasn’t “the people acting together” that bombed Serbia, invaded Haiti, blockaded Iraq, or sent the tanks in at Waco.

President Barack Obama hit the theme at a 2015 Democratic fundraiser: “Our system only works when we realize that government is not some alien thing; government is not some conspiracy or plot; it’s not something to oppress you. Government is us in a democracy.” But it was not private citizens who, during Obama’s reign, issued more than half a million pages of proposed and final new regulations and notices in the Federal Register; made more than 10 million administrative rulings; tacitly took control of more than 500 million acres by designating them “national monuments”; and bombed seven foreign nations. The “government is the people” doctrine makes sense only if we assume citizens are masochists who secretly wish to have their lives blighted.

Presidents perennially echo the Declaration of Independence’s appeal to “the consent of the governed.” But political consent is gauged very differently than consent in other areas of life. The primary proof that Americans are not oppressed is that citizens cast more votes for one of the candidates who finagled his name onto the ballot. A politician can say or do almost anything to snare votes; after Election Day, citizens can do almost nothing to restrain winning politicians.

A 2017 survey by Rasmussen Reports found that only 23 percent of Americans believe that the federal government has “the consent of the governed.” Political consent is defined these days as rape was defined a generation or two ago: people consent to anything which they do not forcibly resist. Voters cannot complain about getting screwed after being enticed into a voting booth. Anyone who does not attempt to burn down city hall presumably consented to everything the mayor did. Anyone who does not jump the White House fence and try to storm into the Oval Office consents to all executive orders. Anyone who doesn’t firebomb the nearest federal office building consents to the latest edicts in the Federal Register. And if people do attack government facilities, then they are terrorists who can be justifiably killed or imprisoned forever.

In the short term, the most dangerous democratic delusion is that conducting an election makes government trustworthy again. Only 20 percent of Americans trust the government to “do the right thing” most of the time, according to a survey last month by the Pew Research Center. Americans are being encouraged to believe that merely changing the name of the occupant of the White House should restore faith in government.

If Biden is elected, we will hear the same “redemption” storyline that was trumpeted when Obama replaced (temporarily) disgraced George W. Bush. The same media that ignored Biden’s corruption during the presidential campaign will insist that his inauguration purifies Uncle Sam. With Biden in charge, pundits and pooh-bahs will swear that it is safe to expand federal control over healthcare, education, housing, the economy, the environment, and anything else that moves.

But the benevolence of government rarely transcends the perfidy of politics. Washington will remain as venal as ever, regardless of the hallelujah chorus of PBS NewsHour panelists. When scandals erupt, citizens will be told to trust politically approved fixes to the system—even though most Washington reforms are like fighting crime by hiding the corpses of victims.

It is time to demystify democracy. The surest effect of exalting democracy is to make it easier for politicians to drag everyone else down. Until presidents and members of Congress begin to honor their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, they deserve all the distrust and disdain they receive. Americans need less faith in democracy and more faith in their own liberty.

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James Bovard is the author of ten books, including 2012’s Public Policy Hooligan, and 2006’s Attention Deficit Democracy. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Washington Post, and many other publications.

Featured image is from Mises Wire

A series of incidents involving the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad police unit (SARS) in the Federal Republic of Nigeria has brought to the surface underlying societal contradictions which have been simmering for many years.

This year represents the 60^th anniversary of national independence in Nigeria from Britain.

Moreover, 2020 marks yet another commemoration being the 1960 “Year of Africa”, where 18 former colonies won recognition and statehood amid a continental resurgence in resistance to colonialism. Events during the immediate post-World War II period throughout the continent took place at the same time as former colonies and semi-colonies in Asia and Latin America as well, experienced a yearning for genuine political power and economic liberation.

Nonetheless, the declaration of independence by numerous African colonies prior to and proceeding 1960 has been thwarted by the advent of neo-colonialism. Although most African states have been recognized by the United Nations, the former Organization of African Unity (OAU), the predecessor of the African Union (AU), founded in 2002, along with both capitalist and socialist states, the economic dependency of these post-colonial nations is  continuing to hamper their ability to achieve genuine development and the consequent sovereignty required to determine the destiny of its people.

#EndSARS Mass Demonstrations Met with State Repression

In Nigeria, with its population of 206 million, the initial demonstrations beginning on October 5 were largely peaceful. Young people held mass rallies and demonstrations in the commercial capital and financial hub of Lagos which eventually spread to other regions of the country.

Later in Abuja, the political capital and home to the national legislative structures, were the center of demonstrations as well that were brutally repressed by the police forces. After days of unrest, the military publicly threatened to intervene to restore order.

A Reuters news dispatch on the situation in Abuja on October 9 quoted participants as saying:

“They poured teargas on each and every one of us, it’s so hot I had to put water on my face. This is what Nigeria has turned into. We just got there with our placards and decided, they started throwing us teargas. That was it.” (See this)

At the Lekki Toll Plaza in Lagos, youth and their supporters had been blocking the area in order to make their voices heard in the demands being put forward to the All-Progressive Congress (APC) government of President Muhammadu Buhari. On the evening of October 20, it is reported in many accounts that armed units of the military entered the area, shutting off the streets lights only to suddenly open fire on the people engaged in the occupation.

The atmosphere prior to the evening of October 20 at Lekki Toll Plaza was one of a cultural festival where young people engaged in musical presentations, speeches, the waving of the Nigerian flag, the singing of the national anthem and other patriotic songs. Therefore, it was a shock to many when the military engaged in repressive tactics in order to clear the area of protesters.

A report documenting the reaction of demonstrators quoted them as saying:

“We never imagined they would start shooting at us because we were peaceful and not carrying weapons. The worst we expected was for the soldiers to throw tear gas to disperse us.” (See this)

There are contradictory claims related to the number of casualties and deaths on October 20 and the early morning hours of the 21^st. However, events in response to these acts of state repression were swift and violent.

Lagos State governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, addressing protesters gathered at Alausa, Lagos (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Several governmental institutions and private properties including the Nigerian High and Appeals Court, prisons in several areas of the country, the family home of the Lagos state governor, 25 police stations, the ports authority, transport vehicles at the BRT, the Nation newspaper and the leading satellite television network in the country, TVC Nigeria, were attacked and set a light by roving groups of youth. Lagos State Governor Sanwo-Olu visited victims of the shootings by the security forces at the hospitals yet did nothing to restrain the actions of the police and military units deployed in the commercial capital city Lagos home to some 20 million people.

The governor’s social media posts calling for calm and the announcement of a commission of inquiry were sharply criticized by youth and others from various political tendencies. Nigerian Human Rights lawyer Femi Falana was interviewed over Arise Television on October 22 where he accused the government of failing to seriously address the legitimate grievances of the #EndSars Movement.

President Buhari delivered a televised address on October 21 where he urged calm while strongly suggesting that the youth and community people halt their demonstrations while threatening even more repressive measures. There was no mention of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of 69 people, including 51 civilians along with 18 members of the police services and the defense forces.

Buhari’s statement was condemned by a broad array of political forces for its lack of compassion and strategic vision for the immediate future of the country. Some of the protesting youth have called for the resignation of the president and the state governor of Lagos.

Neo-Colonialism and the Economic Crisis

Undoubtedly the mass demonstrations against police brutality were influenced by events in the United States since the police execution of George Floyd on May 25 in Minneapolis. Historically, there has been an intersection between the struggles for civil rights and self-determination among the tens of millions of people of African descent in the West and their allies, where political convergences during the 1950s and 1960s linked the movements against racism in North America with the independence campaigns to end colonialism on the African continent.

Nigeria is a vast oil-producing state where multi-national firms such as Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Total, among others, are involved with the extraction of petroleum and natural gas resources. Despite its tremendous wealth in energy, the character of the neo-colonial system of dependency has deprived the majority of people from benefiting from its advances in the economic sphere.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic during the early months of 2020, the world capitalist system has undergone a significant downturn. In the U.S. and Western Europe, millions of confirmed cases of the virus have forced the partial shutdowns and attempted restructuring of economies. Millions are losing their jobs placing them in danger of food deficits, foreclosures and evictions.

With states such as Nigeria being dependent upon the sale of its energy resources to capitalist corporations for national consumption, when there is a drastic decline in demand for oil, natural gas and other export commodities, the foreign exchange earnings of these African nations are negatively impacted. Some countries such as Zambia in Southern Africa, has already reported the threat of financial default as it relates to their obligations to international financial institutions.

EndSARS protesters in Lagos (CC BY-SA 4.0)

On October 22, the S&P rating agency declared Zambia’s bond holdings as being in what they describe as “selective default.” According to a news article:

“We view the nonpayment of debt service and the statement that the government will not make debt service payments as a default on its commercial debt obligations….With most debt denominated in dollars, sharp kwacha (Zambian currency) depreciation has exacerbated Zambia’s fiscal problems and pushed debt from around 36% of GDP in 2014 to 92% by the of 2019.” (See this)

In specific reference to Nigeria, a financial publication has cited a recent statement by the African Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which accurately views the current unrest as a by-product of the economic crisis. The IMF has acted as an major impediment to African development since the 1960s through the conditionalities placed on governments, limiting their capacity for the strengthening of state institutions and a more equal distribution of income generated by the export of national resources.

This article stated in reference to the IMF report that:

“The Board blamed the civil unrest and the social instability in the Nation on the economic difficulties in the country as well as Nigeria’s economy low growth prospect. IMF reiterated that the protest in the country is not just against police brutality, but also unemployment, poverty. The Department explained that the difficult event that followed since the wake of the decline in oil prices in 2015-16 in Nigeria, has made economic prospects low in the country, and this dislocation has exerted pressure on standards of living, which fueled the protest.” (See this)

Therefore, the long-term objectives in African mass struggles is to wrestle control of the resources of the countries in order to develop the states based upon the interests of the majority of working people, youth and farmers. These efforts must take place on a continental basis through the breaking of the stranglehold of economic dependency imposed by imperialism.

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

Featured image: Resting protesters in Lagos, Nigeria (CC BY-SA 4.0)