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Dr. Heiko Schöning, one of the founders of Doctors for the Truth which is an association of thousands of medical doctors around the world, said that the measures of the governments regarding COVID-19 are absolutely inappropriate.

“I would also like to introduce myself. My name is Heiko SCHÖNING, I’m an ordinary doctor from Hamburg. My personal motivation is that I am a father, like many others in this country who have children. And we see that our children are suffering now, not just because the playgrounds have been closed, but because they are separated. And it’s worse for the adults.“

Watch his short interview below. And then he is arrested for Speaking the Truth

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In my recent post on the current hearings at the Old Bailey over Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States, where he would almost certainly be locked away for the rest of his life for the crime of doing journalism, I made two main criticisms of the Guardian.

A decade ago, remember, the newspaper worked closely in collaboration with Assange and Wikileaks to publish the Iraq and Afghan war diaries, which are now the grounds on which the US is basing its case to lock Assange behind bars in a super-max jail. 

My first criticism was that the paper had barely bothered to cover the hearing, even though it is the most concerted attack on press freedom in living memory. That position is unconscionably irresponsible, given its own role in publishing the war diaries. But sadly it is not inexplicable. In fact, it is all too easily explained by my second criticism.

A journalist due to testify at Julian Assange's extradition hearing makes a very pertinent point. This is the biggest attack on press freedom in our lifetimes. Why are UK editors not demanding to be heard at the Old Bailey? Where are they? Where is the Guardian? https://t.co/fFRFvGpYdi

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) September 8, 2020

That criticism was chiefly levelled at two leading journalists at the Guardian, former investigations editor David Leigh and reporter Luke Harding, who together wrote a book in 2011 that was the earliest example of what would rapidly become a genre among a section of the liberal media elite, most especially at the Guardian, of vilifying Assange.

In my earlier post I set out Leigh and Harding’s well-known animosity towards Assange – the reason why one senior investigative journalist, Nicky Hager, told the Old Bailey courtroom the pair’s 2011 book was “not a reliable source”. That was, in part, because Assange had refused to let them write his official biography, a likely big moneymaker. The hostility had intensified and grown mutual when Assange discovered that behind his back they were writing an unauthorised biography while working alongside him.

But the bad blood extended more generally to the Guardian, which, like Leigh and Harding, repeatedly betrayed confidences and manoeuvred against Wikileaks rather the cooperating with it. Assange was particularly incensed to discover that the paper had broken the terms of its written contract with Wikileaks by secretly sharing confidential documents with outsiders, including the New York Times. 

When lawyers for the US yet again quote from a book by the Guardian's David Leigh in a desperate bid to bolster their flimsy case against Julian Assange, investigative journalist Nicky Hager replies: 'I would not regard that [book] as a reliable source' https://t.co/uPk8wVX5RF

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) September 20, 2020

Leigh and Harding’s book now lies at the heart of the US case for Assange’s extradition to the US on so-called “espionage” charges. The charges are based on Wikileaks’ publication of leaks provided by Chelsea Manning, then an army private, that revealed systematic war crimes committed by the US military.

Inversion of truth 

Lawyers for the US have mined from the Guardian book claims by Leigh that Assange was recklessly indifferent to the safety of US informants named in leaked files published by Wikileaks.

Assange’s defence team have produced a raft of renowned journalists, and others who worked with Wikileaks, to counter Leigh’s claim and argue that this is actually an inversion of the truth. Assange was meticulous about redacting names in the documents. It was they – the journalists, including Leigh – who were pressuring Assange to publish without taking full precautions.

Prof Sloboda, of Iraq Body Count, joins others in offering first-hand evidence that Assange was scrupulous in redacting names. He 'resisted pressure from media partners [Guardian?] to speed up the process. Assange always meticulously insisted on redaction' https://t.co/vD2TqDVmlD

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) September 18, 2020

Of course, none of these corporate journalists – only Assange – is being put on trial, revealing clearly that this is a political trial to silence Assange and disable Wikileaks.

But to bolster its feeble claim against Assange – that he was reckless about redactions – the US has hoped to demonstrate that in September 2011, long after publication of the Iraq and Afghan diaries, Wikileaks did indeed release a trove of documents – official US cables – that Assange failed to redact.

This is true. But it only harms Assange’s defence if the US can successfully play a game of misdirection – and the Guardian has been crucial to that strategy’s success. Until now the US has locked the paper into collaborating in its war on Assange and journalism – if only through its silence – by effectively blackmailing the Guardian with a dark, profoundly embarrassing secret the paper would prefer was not exposed.

In fact, the story behind the September 2011 release by Wikileaks of those unredacted documents is entirely different from the story the court and public is being told. The Guardian has conspired in keeping quiet about the real version of events for one simple reason – because it, the Guardian, was the cause of that release.

Betrayal of Assange and journalism 

Things have got substantially harder for the paper during the extradition proceedings, however, as its role has come under increasing scrutiny – both inside and outside the courtroom. Now the Guardian has been flushed out, goaded into publishing a statement in response to the criticisms.

It has finally broken its silence but has done so not to clarify what happened nine years ago. Rather it has deepened the deception and steeped the paper even further in betrayal both of Assange and of press freedom.

The February 2011 Guardian book the US keeps citing contained something in addition to the highly contentious and disputed claim from Leigh that Assange had a reckless attitude to redacting names. The book also disclosed a password – one Assange had given to Leigh on strict conditions it be kept secret – to the file containing the 250,000 encrypted cables. The Guardian book let the cat out of the bag. Once it gave away Assange’s password, the Old Bailey hearings have heard, there was no going back.

Assange's lawyers are noting the long-known fact that Guardian journalists made the unredacted cables accessible through incompetence – they published the file's password. The point is: If anyone should be in the dock (and no one should be!), it would be the Guardian, not Assange https://t.co/4fQlUEXLTP

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) February 25, 2020

Any security service in the world could now unlock the file containing the cables. And as they homed in on where the file was hidden at the end of the summer, Assange was forced into a desperate damage limitation operation. In September 2011 he published the unredacted cables so that anyone named in them would have advance warning and could go into hiding – before any hostile security services came looking for them.

Yes, Assange published the cables unredacted but he did so – was forced to do so – by the unforgivable actions of Leigh and the Guardian.

But before we examine the paper’s deceitful statement of denial, we need to interject two further points.

First, it is important to remember that claims of the damage this all caused were intentionally and grossly inflated by the US to create a pretext to vilify Assange and later to justify his extradition and jailing. In fact, there is no evidence that any informant was ever harmed as a result of Wikileaks’ publications – something that was even admitted by a US official at Manning’s trial. If someone had been hurt or killed, you can be sure that the US would be clamouring about it at the Old Bailey hearings and offering details to the media.

Second, the editor of a US website, Cryptome, pointed out this week at the hearings that he had published the unredacted cables a day before Wikileaks did. He noted that US law enforcement agencies had shown zero interest in his publication of the file and had never asked him to take it down. The lack of concern makes explicit what was always implicit: the issue was never really about the files, redacted or not; it was always about finding a way to silence Assange and disable Wikileaks.

Cryptome and another website published unredacted cables, and only after this did @WikiLeaks republish the already published documents. The US prosecution is trying to confuse the chain of events. pic.twitter.com/zmjVMui8Ev

— Don't Extradite Assange (@DEAcampaign) September 21, 2020

The Guardian’s deceptions 

Every time the US cites Leigh and Harding’s book, it effectively recruits the Guardian against Assange and against freedom of the press. Hanging over the paper is effectively a threat that – should it not play ball with the US campaign to lock Assange away for life – the US could either embarrass it by publicly divulging its role or target the paper for treatment similar to that suffered by Assange.

And quite astoundingly, given the stakes for Assange and for journalism, the Guardian has been playing ball – by keeping quiet. Until this week, at least.

Under pressure, the Guardian finally published on Friday a short, sketchy and highly simplistic account of the past week’s hearings, and then used it as an opportunity to respond to the growing criticism of its role in publishing the password in the Leigh and Harding book.

The Guardian’s statement in its report of the extradition hearings is not only duplicitous in the extreme but sells Assange down the river by evading responsibility for publishing the password. It thereby leaves him even more vulnerable to the US campaign to lock him up.

Here is its statement:

Let’s highlight the deceptions:

1. The claim that the password was “temporary” is just that – a self-exculpatory claim by David Leigh. There is no evidence to back it up beyond Leigh’s statement that Assange said it. And the idea that Assange would say it defies all reason. Leigh himself states in the book that he had to bully Assange into letting him have the password precisely because Assange was worried that a tech neophyte like Leigh might do something foolish or reckless. Assange needed a great deal of persuading before he agreed. The idea that he was so concerned about the security of a password that was to have a life-span shorter than a mayfly is simply not credible. 

It is strictly false that the Guardian was told the password or file were temporary, hence the elaborate password handover method.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) September 1, 2011

2. Not only was the password not temporary, but it was based very obviously on a complex formula Assange used for all Wikileaks’ passwords to make them impossible for others to crack but easier for him to remember. By divulging the password, Leigh gave away Assange’s formula and offered every security service in the world the key to unlocking other encrypted files. The claim that Assange had suggested to Leigh that keeping the password secret was not of the most vital importance is again simply not credible. 

3. But whether or not Leigh thought the password was temporary is beside the point. Leigh, as an experienced investigative journalist and one who had little understanding of the tech world, had a responsibility to check with Assange that it was okay to publish the password. Doing anything else was beyond reckless. This was a world Leigh knew absolutely nothing about, after all.

But there was a reason Leigh did not check with Assange: he and Harding wrote the book behind Assange’s back. Leigh had intentionally cut Assange out of the writing and publication process so that he and the Guardian could cash in on the Wikileak founder’s early fame. Not checking with Assange was the whole point of the exercise.

4. It is wrong to lay all the blame on Leigh, however. This was a Guardian project. I worked at the paper for years. Before any article is published, it is scrutinised by backbench editors, sub-editors, revise editors, page editors and, if necessary, lawyers and one of the chief editors. A Guardian book on the most contentious, incendiary publication of a secret cache of documents since the Pentagon Papers should have gone through at least the same level of scrutiny, if not more.

So how did no one in this chain of supervision pause to wonder whether it made sense to publish a password to a Wikileaks file of encrypted documents? The answer is that the Guardian was in a publishing race to get its account of the ground-shattering release of the Iraq and Afghan diaries out before any of its rivals, including the New York Times and Der Spiegel. It wanted to take as much glory as possible for itself in the hope of winning a Pulitzer. And it wanted to settle scores with Assange before his version of events was given an airing in either the New York Times or Der Spiegel books. Vanity and greed drove the Guardian’s decision to cut corners, even if it meant endangering lives.

5. Nauseatingly, however, the Guardian not only seeks to blame Assange for its own mistake but tells a glaring lie about the circumstances. Its statement says: “No concerns were expressed by Assange or WikiLeaks about security being compromised when the book was published in February 2011. WikiLeaks published the unredacted files in September 2011.”

It is simply not true that Assange and Wikileaks expressed no concern. They expressed a great deal of concern in private. But they did not do so publicly – and for very good reason.

Computer expert at Assange hearing calls the Guardian's David Leigh 'a bad faith actor' over his publishing a Wikileaks password that opened the door to every security service in the world being able to access 250,000 encrypted cables https://t.co/QLJj1McNrJ

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) September 22, 2020

Any public upbraiding of the Guardian for its horrendous error would have drawn attention to the fact that the password could be easily located in Leigh’s book. By this stage, there was no way to change the password or delete the file, as has been explained to the Old Bailey hearing by a computer professor, Christian Grothoff, of Bern University. He has called Leigh a “bad faith actor”.

So Assange was forced to limit the damage quietly, behind the scenes, before word of the password’s publication got out and the file was located. Ultimately, six months later, when the clues became too numerous to go unnoticed, and Cryptome had published the unredacted file on its website, Assange had no choice but to follow suit.

This is the real story, the one the Guardian dare not tell. Despite the best efforts of the US lawyers and the judge at the Old Bailey hearings, the truth is finally starting to emerge. Now it is up to us to make sure the Guardian is not allowed to continue colluding in this crime against Assange and the press freedoms he represents.

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

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

“The great masses of men, though theoretically free, are seen to submit supinely to oppression and exploitation of a hundred abhorrent sorts. Have they no means of resistance? Obviously they have. The worst tyrant, even under democratic plutocracy, has but one throat to slit. The moment the majority decided to overthrow him he would be overthrown. But the majority lacks the resolution; it cannot imagine taking the risks.”- H. L. Mencken (1926). “Notes on Democracy,” p. 50, Alfred A. Knopf

Draconian measures by the State against the masses require the cooperation of the masses. This is the essence of political submission, and therefore, it is the foundation of the ruling “elite’s” plan to achieve a complete global economic and total control reset. At this stage of the plot, all is going just as the globalists expected, as the takeover of the human population is well underway.

Logic would dictate that this fake pandemic should be over for good after the new CDC death figures for the U.S. were recently exposed. That report showed that 94% of those said to have died from Covid alone did not die from Covid at all. In fact, the 94% that died who were claimed as Covid deaths had on average 2.6 other co-morbidities evident. What that means is this entire virus scam was a fraud all along, and is being used as a weapon of submission in order to gain control over the entire population. Lies on top of lies have been used to frighten people into voluntarily destroying their lives in the name of false safety, and now the damage has reached levels that will be almost impossible to overcome at any time in the near or even distant future. One would think that with this ground shattering information, all citizens would be up in arms, but that does not seem to be the case. This is extremely troubling, as without a mass uprising of the people, this horrendous plan will continue to go forward.

It is now time to consider the possible tactics that will be used by the State against all of us, especially those that continue to question, and refuse to comply with the idiocy that is called a coronavirus pandemic. Hell is coming in the form of the ruling class and its pawns in government and their plan for a captured society. Is there really a devil, or have evil men seeking power created Satin in their own image in an attempt to take over the entire planet for themselves?

All the plans of these monsters are being telegraphed in advance, just as has always happened in the past. Creating a new Pearl Harbor has taken on a whole new meaning with this manufactured virus scare, but it will only get worse from here. It is imperative to understand that nothing happening is organic or natural; it has all been purposely designed to achieve a particular outcome. That outcome is total world domination by the few, and in order to be successful in this venture, the current economic system must be destroyed, and a new digital monetary system that can be monitored and controlled from the top must be created and implemented.

Even though the CDC released death numbers that completely contradict the mainstream narrative, and show that this pandemic is a fraud, it is still little reported, and it seems that many would pay no attention to this revelation even if it were reported more widely. This alone shows the weakness and apathetic mindset that permeates the American populace today.

Considering the attitude of the masses, and the lack of reason and logic evident among the herd, what is coming should be obvious. The powerful will not relent so long as the people remain indifferent to their own existence. With that in mind, expect a wave of new and exaggerated fear mongering techniques. The more the people rebel, if at all, the stronger any response by the state apparatus will be. If enough question the validity of this virus pandemic, a new and more dangerous strain will magically emerge. If resistance continues to gain favor, then a new and possibly deadly biological agent could be released, although it would need to be isolated so as to not get out of hand and threaten those responsible for its distribution among the public. If the flu season, along with a very weakened immune response of the now compromised citizenry does not keep the people in check, the release of other toxic agents is not only possible in my opinion, but also probable.

There are many scenarios that could emerge depending on what the ruling and controlling classes deem necessary in order to gain and retain total control. Once the people are frightened enough, the new vaccine will be immediately introduced. It is my belief that this vaccine is already available, and is being held until fear is at such a high level that most will voluntarily line up for injection. If this happens, control over the people will have reached a stage that is irreversible due to multiple reasons. Any Covid vaccine will introduce several viruses into the human system, and in addition, many very dangerous and problematic toxins and harmful adjuvants. But that is only part of the risk, as there could be other unknown ingredients as well, and these could be a part of a covert plan not divulged to the recipients of any vaccine.

Just recently in this article from Steemit, it was announced that the FDA is nearing approval of a biochip implant that could be injected by use of a hydrogel solution. This is supposedly an implant to detect Covid by linking the human body and mind to a computer system, and could easily be a part of any vaccine. This is insanity, but is only the beginning of any number of body and mind altering artificial intelligence methods meant to produce a transhuman society that could be controlled through technocratic means.

Beware of any bio-terror attack blamed on an outside enemy, whether an individual, a third world country, or any mainstream claimed enemy of the U.S. such as China, Iran, or Russia. An attack of this nature now would most assuredly be from within this country, and perpetrated by internal forces to stoke more fear.  That additional fear, and any bio-weapon release meant to look like a virus could be claimed to be the pre-planned second wave, and this alone would turn most of the country against any that question the official narrative. Those exposing the lie that is Covid and resisting the state mandates would be severely marginalized or worse if total fear grips America.

With resistance beginning to grow due to the draconian measures initiated by the state, including lockdowns, quarantine, job loss, and mask wearing, the risk of additional manufactured terror attacks, virus releases, bio-weapon deployment, other false flag events, or vaccine-related illnesses certainly should be expected. This is the world we live in, a dystopia brought about because the people allowed it to happen.

The turning point of all this insanity is near, and will advance in the state’s favor during this farce called the presidential election. This election will bring with it untold chaos, including looting, rioting, property destruction, and hatred among the population at large. This chaos will be used against all in this country, as even more division will be forthcoming, and with it, more uncertainty and violence, leading to more state interference in our lives. This is exactly what the claimed ruling elite desires, as the more fear and hatred that exists, the easier it is to control us all. This abhorrent election, regardless of the outcome, will be a disaster, and only extend the terror we have been facing since March of this year.

The push toward totalitarian rule is heading into the final stage this winter. That has been proclaimed openly by the dregs of the ruling and political classes. We are on the verge of losing any sovereignty we have left, and becoming just a cog in the wheel of a centralized federal power structure bent on creating a technocratic slave society to be used to support the top tier of the tyrannical few. Stop it now or submit your body, mind, and soul to your new position as a servant to your ‘human’ masters.

“The slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.”

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Gary D. Barnett [send him mail] is a retired investment professional living and writing in Lewistown, Montana. Visit his website.

Featured image is from Pixabay

My home country, the United Kingdom, once known for its promotion of libertarian causes, has been taken-over and its citizens utterly betrayed. The last vestiges of parliamentary democracy have been buried, so that the Prime Minister, members of the Cabinet Office and senior civil servants can operate via ‘rule by decree’, effectively taking over the levers of governance with little or no recourse to parliamentary debate or public consultation. These are dangerous times.

This ‘putsch’ has not taken place overnight, but has been steadily poisoning the arteries of government for decades. It took the chimera of Covid-19 to act as the tailor-made alibi to enforce the final act of treason. A move taken in the name of ‘protecting the health and welfare of British citizens’ “against the biggest threat this country has faced in peace time history.” (Matt Hancock, Minister of Health).

In reality, ‘the biggest threat in peace time history’ is coming from the government itself. The threat of a despotic, totalitarian take-over by fake leaders’ who have mastered the art of the lie.

The British media is fully complicit, ever ready to ram the fear doctrine down peoples’ throats and abandon any attempt at investigative journalism.

It has been recognised by those with a keen eye, that the UK has long since housed a devious seem of schematic criminality within its higher echelons of state, furtively open to selling the country to the highest bidder, or for favours of rank.

The corporation of the city of London leads the world in surreptitious arrangements of almost any tax evasion and money laundering exploit it is asked to undertake, provided the reward is not less than six figure.

For decades plans have been honed to install a cabal within the halls of Westminster that would appear to be operating according to constitutional practice, but would actually wrest the reins of power away from the practice of public consultation and parliamentary debate.

With the advent of Tony Blair as Prime Minister in 1997, this process was greatly speeded-up. It exploited already existing strong links to international criminal syndicates and collusion centred around the Bush family and the 9/11 trigger point for invasion of the Middle East. Gordon Brown kept this line going throughout the financial crash, and with the arrival of David Cameron as Prime Minister, the seal was set for the publicly announced introduction of “chaos” as a leading policy position of the ruling Conservative party.

The ‘chaos’ from which a new ‘order’ can be imposed, neatly dressed-up as a saviour from the organised anarchy.

Ominously, and in spite of the bizarreness of this announcement, it failed to engender any significant kick-back from the electorate. An electorate already seduced by the long standing deluge of half-truths and outright lies fed to it by a highly sophisticated and doctrinaire PR system, closely aligned with the secret service and leading media moguls.

So when Cameron announced that his government was going to introduce “chaos” into the management systems of the country, most simply ignored the pronouncement or wrote it off as typical ‘politician’s craziness’. But it was nothing of the kind – it meant exactly what it said.

Theresa May, next in line to take over from Cameron – who was ditched after having called the referendum on Brexit whose result went against many insider expectations –  took the reins, having served in the Home Office and-up built close affiliations with MI5.

 May’s appointment coincided with Mark Carney taking over as director of the Bank of England., a post carrying very significant powers to shape what is now called ‘The Great Reset’.

By then ‘Global Warming’ had become entrenched in gullible minds as “The biggest ever threat to the future of the planet” and Carney clearly demonstrated which way the cards were falling by brutally announcing that any business not conforming to the strictures of a united push for ‘Zero Carbon’ “would be bankrupted”.

The Green New Deal/Fourth Industrial Revolution – was looming large and Extinction Rebellion was assigned the role of conditioning young peoples’ minds to become accustomed to living under a permanent pall of fear concerning Global Warming. Fake green arguments emanating from the United Nations and Al Gore were now proclaimed by Greta Thunberg and most Green NGO’s; all repeating – ad nauseam – the same siren like mantra concerning the ‘cataclysmic effects’ of CO2 emissions.

Let us briefly remind ourselves: carbon is what enables plant life to grow and humans and animals to breathe the oxygen they emit. ‘Zero Carbon’ means zero life. Scientific data reveals that the volume of anthropogenic CO2  in the upper atmosphere measures just 0.0379% of total atmospheric components. Weirdly, this percentage figure is almost identical to the percentage of the world’s population deemed to have died form CV-19. The masters of deception have managed to alter the direction of the entire planet based on evidence that reveals the presence of a distinctly minor atmospheric and human ailment – and sold it as a major disaster for mankind and the biosphere. A piece of egregious spin never likely be surpassed.

In spite of the exceptionally high profile awarded to the CO2 hoax in the UK, its progress was thwarted by an equally high level of contradictions inherent in its phony science and the fact that climate scientists at the University of East Anglia were caught fixing the emission figures.

Theresa May was ordered – by her hidden masters – to put her attention to getting the Brexit affair sorted, and public opinion was suitably divided on what this should mean in practice. This division ‘  – pro and anti Brexit camps – eroded the cohesion of family life across the country by setting one segment of society against another, thus engendering a distraction from the rapid erosion of civil liberties and responsible statesmanship going on behind the headlines. 

As the ever watchful UK Column News noted, this was “a Brexit without the exit”, and while May scuttled to and fro to Brussels supposedly negotiating the exit, the cabal was actually engaged in the selling-off of the British military to the ‘EU Defence Army’ – answering the predominantly French and German call to build ‘military union’ and a rapid deployment force to provide for international hegemonic ambitions under the label of ‘peace missions’.

This covert betrayal of the people of Great Britain has therefore been extended into a betrayal of nationhood itself, something that used to be called ‘high treason’. A country unable to defend its shores cannot be described as an independent nation state, and Britain is rapidly approaching this state of demise.

The sense of abdication of statehood was heightened when, on December 19^th 2019,  the Queen opened the new parliament not wearing her crown or any ceremonial clothes. One could almost smell the betrayal in the air. Queen Elizabeth’s 1953 Coronation Oath, in which she swears allegiance to the nation via a formal commitment to uphold various moral protocols, appeared to have been severed – at least symbolically. Was this a barely disguised admission that the United Kingdom was no longer a nation state under the leadership of those committed to some form of democratic rule of law, or ‘constitutional monarchy’ as it is known in more formal terms?

May was soon displaced. The hidden cabal needed a Prime Minister of a different calibre to “get Brexit done” and take the country into uncharted territory where a totalitarian technocracy could ‘occupy the throne’ leaving a parliamentary democracy and royal tradition to be sidelined into the annals of history.

Already the traditional non-partisan values of the civil service were being eroded as a more corporate influence started exerting itself. What’s more, the head of the civil service, Sir Mark Sedwell, was also put in charge of national security and a number of other key posts, giving him large powers of leverage within the state control agenda of the day.

By the time Boris Johnson was selected as Prime Minister, the new power base was already in place and an EU style bureaucrat was shaping the political course of the country, closely linked to a powerful Brussels based lobby of EU technocrats.

Ordinary members of parliament have found themselves taking an increasingly back seat with all key decision making taking place outside the halls of Westminster, in special meetings involving private ‘advisors’, social engineering agencies, behavioural psychologist insight teams and a few senior cabinet ministers. An almost complete shield has been formed between the general public and those running the country.

Any attempt by members of the electorate to get an answer to questions concerning political decisions – is now met with complete silence. I have personally sent formal letters to local authority leaders and parliamentarians on urgent concerns – and have been greeted with a stony silence. Not even a note to confirm receipt of the letter.

Johnson, with his a fake Churchillian style of delivery, sports an exaggerated rhetoric that makes “beating covid” sound sound like an urgent call to arms in defence of the realm. Ironic, when the actual defence of the realm is being dismantled in front of his eyes and with his tacit agreement.

I never expected to witness my country of birth being taken-over by a government of occupation. Powerful interests in the banking and corporate sector, tied-in with US and other international power brokers, have colluded with political leaders to usurp power while other supposedly ‘responsible parties’ have resorted to an eerie and arrogant silence. A refusal to engage with humanity.

Covid-19’s arrival on the scene was not by chance, and the criminal imposition of a plethora of draconian rules and regulations concerning its supposed containment – accompanied by intense media fear mongering – has simply capped the inescapable truth that a treasonous regime change is at hand. A change that is laying the ground for the establishment of a New World Order under the title World Economic Forum’s planned ‘Great Reset’.

A plan whose coordinated clamp-downs on human civil liberties are happening simultaneously in almost every country of the world, accompanied by the lauding of ‘rule by robot’ with its deeply sinister techno-fascist undertones.

Contrary to what one might believe, this does not mean that all is lost for the British Isles; resistance is real and is growing. Rising up through the enforced chaos are the seeds of a fresh vision of what constitutes genuine governance; and it starts with ‘self governance’. The ability to overcome fear and nurture belief in one’s self as an agent of higher spiritual calling.

England will not die, the deeper, older spirit of the country will hold firm – and will rise again – ridding these islands of the sickly fake governance that has stultified their true expression for far too long. A phoenix will rise from the ashes and overcome the present gross imposition of tyranny.

It will not be a purely national phoenix, but a joined-up pan-planetary unfolding of the wings of truth, justice and emancipation, in which all who hold reverence for life uppermost in their hearts and minds, will be in the vanguard.

No, it will not be a New World Order – it will be a True World Order.

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Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer, international activist, entrepreneur and teacher. His latest book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ is particularly prescient reading for this time: see www.julianrose.info 

As the Senate reconvenes this week, a lobbying blitz to grant corporations special immunity protection is ramping up. Global meat companies are helping lead the charge, and it’s easy to see why. The Food and Environment Reporting Network (FERN) reports that as of September 4 at least 200 meatpacking workers (mostly immigrants or refugees) have died due to COVID-19, and almost 42,000 workers have tested positive. Time and again during the pandemic, these global meat companies have resisted providing protective equipment for workers, granting paid sick leave and publicly reporting testing results. Congress should ditch demands for absolute corporate liability protection and instead confront the risks and harm of a handful of global meat companies with too much market and political power that aren’t acting in the public interest.

The handful of global companies that control much of U.S. meat production, like Tyson, JBS, Cargill and Smithfield, are already facing lawsuits from workers and their families charging that the companies did not provide a safe workplace in the face of the pandemic. As the pandemic continues, and worker illnesses and deaths rise, more legal challenges are expected.

Meatpacking workers abandoned

Meatpacking workers are left with little recourse after the Trump administration has abandoned them by taking a series of steps, often at the direction of global meat companies, that leave workers and their families at risk of COVID-19 infection and transmission. Just a few days after an April full page ad by Tyson Foods in The Washington Post called on President Trump to use the Defense Production Act to re-open closed or slowed-down meatpacking plants, the president issued an executive order that did just that. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) have issued only voluntary, not mandatory, worker protection guidelines and do not require the companies to report cases.

OSHA additionally offered to support meatpackers in any litigation brought by workers related to workplace exposures to the virus, if the companies made a good faith effort to comply with the voluntary guidelines. During the pandemic, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has granted waivers to companies so they can increase line speeds in meatpacking plants and is now proposing a new rule to ramp up poultry line speeds even further. Faster speeds require workers to stand closer together to keep up with the line and increase their COVID-19 risk. Trump’s Health and Human Services Administrator has dutifully echoed the meat industry’s talking points by blaming workers’ “home and social conditions” for spreading the disease. And when Colorado public health officials wanted to shut down the JBS plant in Greeley due to an outbreak, Vice President Mike Pence intervened and pushed back to keep the plant running.

Meatpackers had warning of risk to workers

The Trump administration’s all out defense of the meatpackers shouldn’t obscure just how unprepared these global giants were for a pandemic they should have seen coming. Smithfield’s parent company, the China-based WH Group, has processing plants in Wuhan, the presumptive site of origin of COVID-19, and in surrounding Chinese provinces. These plants were shut down in late January to prevent further transmission of the virus. U.S.-headquartered Cargill, with extensive operations in China including Wuhan’s province Hubei, has boasted that it had learned valuable lessons from its COVID-19 experience in China. Tyson Foods has multiple plants in China and after the outbreak there formed an internal coronavirus task force as early as January.

The industry was warned years before the COVID-19 outbreak about the risk to workers from a pandemic. ProPublica reported how 15 years ago the U.S. meat industry was part of a pandemic planning task force during the Bush administration. Over the ensuing years, the industry repeatedly received warnings about how a pandemic could spread within its workforce, how a pandemic would require social distancing inside plants and that each company should start to stockpile protective gear for workers. Yet, these global companies, with extensive risk management divisions, largely ignored the threat or chose not to plan for it.

The meatpacking plant production model developed by these global companies is particularly at risk for the spread of the virus, whether the plant is in Iowa, China, Germany or Brazil (all of which have seen COVID-19 outbreaks at plants). These processing plants are known for their sheer size, factory-style design, and continuous push to increase line speeds and process more animals quickly. The global meatpackers directly recruit immigrant or refugee workers, with little power in the workplace to push for protections, working elbow-to-elbow to keep up with faster lines. These are conditions that former OSHA administrator Debbie Berkowitz warns are ideal for the spread of COVID-19.

Meatpackers repeatedly resisted protective action

Once the outbreak hit in the U.S., time and again these companies acted to block, delay and deflect meaningful action to protect workers,such as slowing production lines, requiring and providing masks, installing Plexiglass shields, improving filtration in their ventilation systems and other recommended safety measures. The Washington Post reported in April that Smithfield, Tyson and JBS continued to operate business as usual, not providing their employees with protective gear. FERN reported in May that Tyson, JBS, Cargill, National Beef and Smithfield were all holding numbers of COVID-19 cases as confidential business information, neither sharing the data with workers, community members or local and state public health officials nor providing national and international-level data. The companies also actively resisted efforts by workers and state and local officials to increase worker protections.

Chinese-owned Smithfield had to be pressured by a worker lawsuit in Missouri to finally add appropriate protections at its Milan processing plant. The company tried unsuccessfully to block federal investigators looking into labor violations connected to the company’s Sioux Falls plant outbreak. In Wisconsin, Smithfield hid the number of employees who had tested positive and pressured them to keep working while unprotected, according to The Intercept. In Iowa, Smithfield refused to release test data in May from its Des Moines plant. Smithfield’s CEO, in a letter to the Nebraska Governor, dismissed safety protections for their workers, writing, “Social distancing is a nicety that makes sense only for people with laptops.”

Brazil-owned JBS issued a cease and desist order in Colorado when a union representative criticized the company for rushing to re-open a plant with over 120 positive tests. In Texas, the company initially refused efforts by health officials to test its workers. Workers at JBS’s Green Bay plant had to file a complaint with OSHA in order to get proper protective gear. In Minnesota, the company refused to allow worker safety officials to enter its Worthington plant for an inspection in April, according to the Star Tribune. Minnesota’s Department of Health had to test all 2,000 of the workers there after the company refused to do so. The Star Tribune also reported that JBS may have actually helped spread the disease by transporting workers from the COVID-19 hotspot Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls to the JBS plant in Worthington. A ProPublica investigation showed JBS exerting political pressure to resist public health officials in Nebraska and Colorado calling to shut down plants over worker safety concerns.

U.S.-headquartered Tyson Foods, which has by far the most COVID-19 cases among meatpackers, resisted efforts to disclose the number of workers affected at its Sioux City plant and its Storm Lake plant, in North Carolina and in East Texas. The company finally announced in July it would be more forthcoming on testing. Tyson poultry plants in the South were slow to issue protective gear leading to extensive exposure to workers, according to the workers union. A Tyson employee in Georgia died from COVID-19 after being ordered back to work by the company, reported the New York Times. In Arkansas, Tyson refused to hear from workers who requested paid sick leave related to COVID-19, as it drafted media quotes for local officials to tout the safety of their plants. In Kentucky, the company blamed its Burmese refugee workers for the spread of the virus at their plant. In Kansas, Tyson heavily lobbied behind the scenes to get exceptions for meatpacking workers under quarantine guidelines, allowing exposed workers (without symptoms) to stay on the job, despite knowing that many carriers are asymptomatic. In June, Tyson Foods announced it would return to its previous policy of punishing workers who missed time due to illness.

The push for immunity

Now, it’s a full court press in the Senate, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, to grant corporations sweeping immunity protection for five years, as long as the company can show it made a reasonable attempt to comply with voluntary CDC/OSHA safety guidelines to protect workers. A Public Citizen analysis of the proposed corporate immunity bill outlines the gaping loopholes in the CDC/OSHA voluntary guidelines for meat and poultry processing. The loopholes would make it nearly impossible for workers to successfully sue meatpackers under the proposed law. The Intercept reported that Smithfield has a lobbying team focused on winning immunity protection for the company. The company increased donations to Republican State Attorneys General, which immediately jumped to call for broad business immunity from civil claims related to the pandemic. The meat industry and other powerful sectors are building upon work at the state level led by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which has already passed some variation on corporate immunity protections in 13 states.

Given the industry’s track record, corporate immunity would likely open the door for more abuses that directly put workers lives and those that live in meatpacking plant communities at risk. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union President Marc Perrone commented, “Immunity laws could send dangerous messages that the safety of these workers is not the company’s responsibility.” More than 200 organizations, including IATP, have urged Congress to reject the industry’s push for corporate immunity.

Rising calls for accountability and enforcement

The debate over corporate immunity comes as the global meat companies’ pandemic response is drawing increased scrutiny from some members of Congress.

• In August, Sen. Michael Bennett from Colorado called for an Inspector General investigation within the U.S.  Department of Agriculture and the Department of Labor on federal actions that may have helped to spread COVID-19 crisis in meatpacking plants, including how the president’s use of the Defense Production Act may have affected workers.
• In June, Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) launched their own investigation of the industry, concluding that the meatpackers continued to be evasive about reporting cases, increased consumer prices and lower prices paid to farmers and ranchers, even as the companies increased exports.
• 19 senators called on the Justice Department to investigate the beef industry, specifically around the companies’ actions during the COVID-19 crisis. The senators’ call followed a similar request from State Attorneys General from 11 beef producing states for the Justice Department to investigate competition issues in the beef industry. The Justice Department was already investigating the poultry and beef industries for price fixing, issuing subpoenas to Cargill, Tyson, JBS and National Beef seeking information on possible collusion.
• In April, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) called on the Federal Trade Commission to launch an antitrust investigation into “growing concentration in the meatpacking and processing industry, and any anti-competitive behavior resulting from this concentration.

Concern about excess market power in the meat industry is not new for workers, farmers and ranchers. One hundred years ago, the federal government launched an investigation into market manipulation and price fixing, followed by an antitrust consent decree with the five big meatpackers of the time and the passage of the Packers and Stockyards Act (PSA). The PSA was designed to ensure competition and transparency in the marketplace.

In 2009, the Obama administration’s Department of Agriculture and Department of Justice held hearings around the country to investigate anti-competitive behavior within the agriculture sector, including powerful testimony from farmers and ranchers on unfairness they experienced in meat and poultry markets. The result was a report, no concrete action, and increased farmer and rancher cynicism that the government will stand up to the industry. In 2018, USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue ended the stand alone agency that enforced the PSA and moved it under the department’s Agriculture Marketing Service, whose mission is to promote the industry.

Now, nearly 100 years after the passage of the PSA, Congress and federal agencies are long overdue to examine whether the meat industry has too much power over farmers, workers and our food supply.

Since the PSA was passed, fewer companies (for example, four companies control 80% of the beef industry) control the sector. The giants in the industry have operations all over the world and have become horizontally powerful with a company like Tyson dominant in beef, poultry and pork — the so-called protein market. The introduction of corporate contracting in poultry and hogs has shifted the costs and risk to farmers, while allowing companies to become vertically integrated, owning the animals, the processing and the product in the supermarket. The companies have driven the rapid expansion of large-scale confined animal feeding operations and associated water and air pollution, and the disappearance of small to mid-sized producers and processors.

An assessment of the industry and our laws to hold it accountable is badly needed. Last year, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) introduced the Food and Agribusiness Merger Moratorium and Antitrust Review Act. It would impose a temporary moratorium on mergers and acquisitions between large farm, food and grocery companies, and establish a commission to review large agriculture, food and beverage manufacturing, and grocery retail mergers, concentration and market power. The commission would make recommendations on how to improve the Sherman Act, the PSA and other federal regulations to ensure a fair and competitive agriculture marketplace. IATP is one of 219 groups that signed onto a letter to Congress in support.

The pandemic has also raised larger, more troubling issues about the enforcement of existing rules. In several of the cases chronicled above, these global companies told local and state government officials “no” when asked to take action to protect workers or to make public health data available. Their political influence brought protection from the president, his administration and state governments.

OSHA has the power to issue an emergency mandatory protection standard for meatpacking workers, but bluntly refuses to do so. Worker-led organizations like the Food Chain Workers Alliance and the United Food and Commercial Workers and over 200 organizations have called on Congress to pass the Every Worker Protection Act to compel OHSA to do its job — to issue an emergency standard and enforce employer compliance with it.

The pandemic has exposed the risk to meatpacking workers, farmers and rural communities, and consumers from allowing a handful of global meat companies to control the sector. The absolute liability protection the meatpackers and other corporations are demanding will allow them to continue to put lives at risk, with impunity. Instead, Congress should stand up to global meatpackers and immediately compel OSHA to protect workers — and take steps to address the broad-reaching risks of concentrated corporate control of the industry.

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With the news and outrage cycle in need of a fresh Trump reset now that the first presidential debate is just two days away, on Sunday afternoon – almost exactly two years after the NYT first published a report alleging how Trump “engaged in suspect tax schemes as he reaped riches from his father“, the NYT published what to many anti-Trumpers is the holy grail of Trump bomshells: a 10,000+ word summary of more than two decades of Trump tax documents which reveal that the president paid no income taxes for 10 of the 15 years before he was elected president, with his income tax payments in 2016 and 2017 amounting to just $750. The reason, as was already largely known, Trump had generated nearly $1 billion in casino-linked losses in the 1990s and onward (incidentally, loss carryfowards or NOLs are perfectly acceptable and legal instrument which anyone can apply against future income) and which offset much of the money that he made.

The NYT also claims the documents show Trump losing millions of dollars from his golf courses, “vast write-offs, an audit battle and hundreds of millions in debt coming due” and that Trump earned $73 million abroad.

Combined, Trump initially paid almost $95 million in federal income taxes over the 18 years. He later managed to recoup most of that money, with interest, by applying for and receiving a $72.9 million tax refund, starting in 2010.

“The Apprentice,” along with the licensing and endorsement deals that flowed from his expanding celebrity, brought Mr. Trump a total of $427.4 million, The Times’s analysis of the records found. He invested much of that in a collection of businesses, mostly golf courses, that in the years since have steadily devoured cash — much as the money he secretly received from his father financed a spree of quixotic overspending that led to his collapse in the early 1990s.

The NYT report focuses closely on the specifics of the $73 million refund:

A large refund has been crucial to his tax avoidance.

Mr. Trump did face large tax bills after the initial success of “The Apprentice” television show, but he erased most of these tax payments through a refund. Combined, Mr. Trump initially paid almost $95 million in federal income taxes over the 18 years. He later managed to recoup most of that money, with interest, by applying for and receiving a $72.9 million tax refund, starting in 2010. The refund reduced his total federal income tax bill between 2000 and 2017 to an annual average of $1.4 million. By comparison, the average American in the top .001 percent of earners paid about $25 million in federal income taxes each year over the same span.

The $72.9 million refund has since become the subject of a long-running battle with the I.R.S.

When applying for the refund, he cited a giant financial loss that may be related to the failure of his Atlantic City casinos. Publicly, he also claimed that he had fully surrendered his stake in the casinos. But the real story may be different from the one he told. Federal law holds that investors can claim a total loss on an investment, as Mr. Trump did, only if they receive nothing in return. Mr. Trump did appear to receive something in return: 5 percent of the new casino company that formed when he renounced his stake. In 2011, the I.R.S. began an audit reviewing the legitimacy of the refund. Almost a decade later, the case remains unresolved, for unknown reasons, and could ultimately end up in federal court, where it could become a matter of public record.

One argument made by the NYT is that by the time Mr. Trump announced his candidacy in 2015, “his revenue streams from “The Apprentice” and licensing were drying up”, his “proceeds from fame continued to tumble, falling below $10 million in 2017 and to $2.9 million in 2018” and Trump “was in need of financial reinvigoration.” This is where the idea to run for president came form.

The question then is, since there appears to be no discovery of legal malfeasance, did Trump’s businesses benefit from the presidency which the NYT responds affirmatively “in some respects” pointing to the flood of new members in Mar a Lago “starting in 2015 allowed him to pocket millions more dollars a year from the business.”

And without a blockbuster “gotcha” that would confirm that Trump had violated the law, the NYT simply concludes by noting that “in the end the financial picture for Mr. Trump is fraught” and that “as he approaches one of the most consequential elections in American history — down in most polls, under I.R.S. audit and heavily in debt — his businesses may not be well equipped to navigate what lies ahead.”

While notable, and hardly unique to just the president, this is probably not the damning climax so many in the anti-Trump field were expecting in the 4-year-long crusade to get Trump’s tax returns. Oh yes, and then there is the audit, the same audit Trump has said prevents him from publishing his tax filings:

Hanging over his head is the audit. Should the I.R.S. reverse the huge refund he received 10 years ago, Mr. Trump could be on the hook for more than $100 million.

Since the question of where all this information came from will likely be scrutinized, the NYT noted that “all of the information The Times obtained was provided by sources with legal access to it” adding that “while most of the tax data has not previously been made public, The Times was able to verify portions of it by comparing it with publicly available information and confidential records previously obtained by The Times.”

Those arguing that the report may paint a one-sided picture of Trump’s tax returns will be out of luck hoping that the NYT would publish the source data:

“We are not making [Trump’s tax] records themselves public because we do not want to jeopardize our sources, who have taken enormous personal risks to help inform the public.”

The article also admits “the filings will leave many questions unanswered, many questioners unfulfilled,” and also kills off the idea that President Trump’s finances were somehow linked to Russia. The piece reads: “Nor do [the tax returns] reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia.”

This must've been a real heart-breaker for the NYT pic.twitter.com/VohduSuBwe

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 27, 2020

Of course, to the rabid Russian conspiracy theorists, not even this admission will suffice as Matt Taibbi put it succinctly:

Here @davidfrum doubles down on his witch-hunting propaganda about Trump tax returns, classifying those who advised caution as "people who defended Trump." We weren't defending Trump: we were defending the basic press standard of not making unsupportable public allegations. https://t.co/YzY0F6zbot

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) September 27, 2020

For those pressed for time, here is a recap of the key revelations in the NYT article, which the NYT recapped in a separate article:

• Mr. Trump paid no federal income taxes in 11 of 18 years that The Times examined. In 2017, after he became president, his tax bill was only $750.
• He has reduced his tax bill with questionable measures, including a $72.9 million tax refund that is the subject of an audit by the Internal Revenue Service.
• Many of his signature businesses, including his golf courses, report losing large amounts of money — losses that have helped him to lower his taxes.
• The financial pressure on him is increasing as hundreds of millions of dollars in loans he personally guaranteed are soon coming due.
• Even while declaring losses, he has managed to enjoy a lavish lifestyle by taking tax deductions on what most people would consider personal expenses, including residences, aircraft and $70,000 in hairstyling for television.
• Ivanka Trump, while working as an employee of the Trump Organization, appears to have received “consulting fees” that also helped reduce the family’s tax bill.
• As president, he has received more money from foreign sources and U.S. interest groups than previously known. The records do not reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia.

While the media will be going through all of these revelations with a fine-toothed comb, it’s also notable what the report fails to show: unless the NYT has saved the kicker for a subsequent article, “there appears to be no wrongdoing, no Russia ties, and nothing of substance beyond what most corporations do”, as the National Pulse’s Raheem Kassam writes.

Also of note, the New York Times failed to include the details of the returns in its reporting, admitting in its own article: “The Times declined to provide the records, in order to protect its sources.”

When asked during a Sunday news conference about the NYT revelations, Trump called the central claim the NYT makes – that he only paid $750.00 in federal income taxes – “fake news.”

In a statement to The Times, Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten said “most, if not all, of the facts appear to be inaccurate” and reportedly took issue with the amount of taxes Trump has paid: “Over the past decade, President Trump has paid tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes to the federal government, including paying millions in personal taxes since announcing his candidacy in 2015.”

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To stamp out pesticides from our fragile food systems is to protect those most prone to ill health, Friends of the Earth’s senior staff scientist, Kendra Klein explains to Yasmin Dahnoun.

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From seed to harvest, the food that arrives on our plates is far from its natural form. Whilst the majority of the population trust in farmers, supply chains and environmental regulations, we are often exposed to a toxic concoction of chemicals. This has the potential to affect our mood, health and bodily functions to a far greater extent than ever imagined.

In an interview with Kendra Klein, a senior scientist from Friends of the Earth US,  Klein reveals how even the smallest of exposures to pesticides matter and how switching to an organic diet can dramatically decrease the pesticide build-up in our bodies by around 70 per cent in just six days.

Yasmin Dahnoun: How did you become involved in the field of organic farming?

Kendra Klein: My mother had breast cancer when I was a young girl and again while I was at college, and that has really shaped my interest in the connection between our health, the environment and toxic exposures. My work at Friends of the Earth brings together my background in both public health and organic agriculture.

I am not just working on what the problem is and talking about cancer and other health problems linked to toxic exposures. I am talking about the solution and where we need to go, and this allows me to remain hopeful.

YD: It’s often argued that our exposure to pesticides from food is so minimal it won’t affect our health. Would you disagree?

KK: Yes, there are a number of reasons why. At different points in our lives we’re more vulnerable to toxic exposures, and that’s in utero, childhood and adolescence when our bodies are rapidly developing. At those points of development very small exposures can actually lead to lifelong problems. These factors are often not accounted for by safety regulations because they are set for a healthy adult eater.

Regulations for ‘safe’ levels of exposure are also set chemical-by-chemical, as if we’re not exposed to a toxic soup of pesticides and other industrial chemicals every day. We know exposure to multiple pesticides can amplify the negative impacts of each one. Another reason why we are concerned about small exposures is the science on endocrine disruptors – chemicals that can mimic, block or scramble the hormone messages of our body.

Endocrine disruptors can increase our risk of cancers, reproductive problems, neurological problems, obesity, diabetes and many other negative health outcomes. Over 50 pesticides, including glyphosate and all of the pesticides we tested in our organic diet studies are associated with endocrine disruption.  It only takes a small amount of pesticide exposure to impact health in this way.

YD: Are we just exposed through our food?

KK: Food is not the only way we are exposed. Pesticides such as Roundup (aka glyphosate) are used in city parks, playgrounds, and in homes. The families we tested were not using pesticides in their homes, we ensured that, but people who are using insecticides and herbicides in their gardens would be exposed.  So that’s one reason why shifting your diet to organic is not going to completely eliminate your exposure.

YD: Your study found that switching to an organic diet is effective in eliminating toxic chemical build-up, how does this affect families who can’t afford organic foods?

KK: We found families that didn’t eat organically and tested them for six days on their typical diets and then we tested them while switching out their diets for completely organic food for six days. What we found was that in six days, every pesticide we tested for, dropped.

Glyphosate dropped 70 per cent on average. And some other compounds for another cancer-causing pesticide called malathion dropped by 95 per cent. So that’s great news, it means we can quickly get rid of much of our pesticide body burden by switching to an organic diet. But the bad news is that we are all being exposed to pesticides through the food we eat because it’s not common that we’re eating 100 per cent organic and most people can’t do that.

YD: So this raises the question: why are pesticides are still used in our food?

KK: That is the fundamental question about industrial agricultural systems. In the past three of four decades, the use of toxic pesticides have increased despite having a growing body of scientific evidence telling us how harmful these chemicals are.

Glysphosate was flagged as a probable human carcinogen in 1983 by the US Environmental Protection Agency, yet the agency has allowed an ever-increasing use of it since then.

This history has come to light recently as a result of very high-profile court cases against Monsanto, linking people’s non-Hodgkin lymphoma (a type of blood cancer) to exposure with glyphosate. Pesticide applicators, farmers, farm workers, some homeowners and home gardeners who are consistently using these products are ending up with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The three cases that came out of the court were decided in favour of the plaintiffs with high settlements.

The case gave an insight into the decades-long efforts of Monsanto to ensure this toxic product stayed on the market.

A multi-channel effort was made, both through influencing the science and the public narrative and through direct lobbying of legislators who had connections with regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

YD: How are large corporations, such as Monsanto (now owned by Bayer), able to sway public opinion?

KK: By producing ghost-written science and trying to influence the scientific literature. And through attacking researchers who are putting out good science critiquing their products and through covert public relations campaigns.

A number of reporters have done a good job of digging into that and uncovering the truth. Why do we have common use of toxic pesticides? It’s because of the power of the pesticide industry. This is not an isolated case, glyphosate is really indicative of a systematic failure that has allowed these companies to influence regulatory processes to benefit their own bottom line at the expense of our health.

YD: The government are not keeping regulations up to date of the science. You must feel extremely frustrated.

KK: Yes. We are working on science-based environmental and health efforts, but there is such a huge disconnect between the science and our regulations. We know this with climate change, we know this with other toxic chemical exposures. We know this with tobacco use and lung cancer. This is an old story. There is an excellent report that came out of the EU called Late lessons from early warnings that compiles a whole set of stories where the science was indicating harm but regulators didn’t act.

I think that it’s important to understand that we keep repeating this same failure. Where science is indicating harm, we wait for the body count to rise before regulators are compelled to act. I do take some small hope from the story of big tobacco. Despite it being a decades-long effort, we have made some real success in curbing use. And maybe decades from now we will be able to celebrate some big wins on pesticides.

YD: Organic food is often seen as a shopping preference, what are the human rights implications of this perspective?

KK: The UN rapporteur on food released a report a few years ago on the freedom from pesticides exposure as a human rights issue all throughout the supply chain. Farmers and farm workers are on the frontline of exposure. Farm workers are vulnerable because they don’t have decision making power over what pesticides are being used and often don’t know what they are being exposed to.

When we talk about getting pesticides out of the food system, we are talking about protecting those who are on the frontlines and suffering higher rates of cancer, asthma, birth defects, Parkinson’s disease, all sorts of health problems. And when we move through the food chain and we think about eaters and think about people who don’t have access to organic food, that’s a human rights issue.

We think about organic food as if it’s a shopping preference, and it has this tarnish of elitism, because it often is more expensive. But really, it’s a public good. This is about protecting the entire public from exposure to pesticides that we know are harmful to our health.

YD: Many people would argue that we need mass farming and pesticides in order to feed the growing world population, what would you say to this?

KK: The myth that we need pesticides to feed the world, is a very purposefully perpetuated myth promoted by the pesticide industry. This is part of what has been uncovered in these Monsanto documents and other investigative research that our colleagues have done. It is so perverse because the opposite is true.

The current system is sawing off the branch we’re sitting on by destroying the biodiversity, soil, water and climate we need to keep growing food. If we want to continue feeding all people, we will need to rapidly shift from a pesticide-intensive system to an organic system and that is a major paradigm shift. We will need to think differently about what is good agriculture.

The entire idea of industrialized countries feeding the world is a myth – it is predominately small farmers around the world who are feeding themselves and their communities. I think on so many fronts we need a paradigm shift to an ecological system, that is so clear in agriculture. Expert report after expert report comes to the same conclusion that we need a shift towards agro-ecological farming.

YD: It seems like agriculture is in a very dire situation, what’s the good news?

KK: The really good news is that we know how to shift to organic farming. There is a growing market for organic food and farmers are transitioning to organic production. We can take hope in knowing that we actually already have the solution. We just need to grow it.  And that’s where public information comes in because when we understand that this is a human right, we can engage far more people in working to create the policies that we need.

No one is going to fight for a luxury good. So, when we change our understanding of what organic food is, from a shopping preference to a public good, we realize that actually, this is a place where we need to be putting more energy.

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Featured image is from NI

First published on May 11, 2016

‘Conspiracy theory’ is a term that strikes fear and anxiety in the hearts of most every public figure, particularly journalists and academics. Since the 1960s the label has become a disciplinary device that has been overwhelmingly effective in defining certain events as off limits to inquiry or debate. Especially in the United States, raising legitimate questions about dubious official narratives destined to inform public opinion (and thereby public policy) is a major thought crime that must be cauterized from the public psyche at all costs… CIA Document 1035-960 played a definitive role in making the ‘conspiracy theory’ term a weapon to be wielded against almost any individual or group calling the government’s increasingly clandestine programs and activities into question. – From CIA Document 1035-960

We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false. — William Casey, Ronald Reagan’s first CIA Director (from Casey’s first staff meeting, 1981)

It is quite easy for a disinformation agent to spin a rich disinformation tale and then craft several different versions of the tale with new ‘facts’ to support the story in each one. These tales are usually a good mix of verifiable facts and cleverly designed lies, so that people who check the ‘facts’ tend to believe the lies that are mixed in. –– from: http://www.wanttoknow.info/g/disinformation-agents

It wasn’t very many years after the world-wide web became operational that it was contaminated by secret disinformation agencies and also by individuals that were eventually called internet trolls. Trolls (defined below) began interjecting themselves – uninvited and unwanted – into otherwise useful and productive conversations involving web-groups of like-minded individuals.

These trolls, intent on scurrilously confusing various website commenters, seemed to delight in angering up certain online groups. Typically, a lot of time and effort was wasted in such fake arguments before members of the group finally realized that they had been ambushed by a disinformation agent.

Many folks might recall how promising were the prospects for the internet’s new method of communication that was affordable, quick and paperless. Many envisioned an internet that was “without commercial interruptions” and a way to promote healthy interactions between well-meaning people of different races, religions, politics, commitments, lifestyles and cultures.

Progressive-thinking folks without ulterior motives saw the internet as a new way to explore and solve some of the common threats to them or the planet. Peacemakers saw the internet as a tool that could expose the ideological enemies of the exploited 99% and perhaps even unite against the predatory elites in the ruling 1%. Some saw opportunities to expose and then eliminate fascism, racism, militarism, corporatism, bigotry, pollution, over-population and income inequality (and, more recently, global climate change) and to foster understanding and cooperation between various cultures.

Tragically, before you could say “corrupt crony capitalism”, the web was dominated – and then essentially owned – by profiteering corporations that saw world peace and cooperation as a threat to their greedy profiteering goals. (Peace is never as profitable as war or the rumors or war.)

In the viewpoint of amoral corporations, the internet was seen as just another way to market their products to otherwise inaccessible consumers, even if their infernal advertisements were uninvited and unwanted by most internet users (albeit sometimes entertaining) .

But, while Big Business and the investor classes took over the internet, the web also became a recruitment tool for assorted hate groups like white supremacists, religious bigots, racists and neo-fascist talk show hosts who all developed a following and websites that allowed them to spew their hate, bigotry and disinformation much more efficiently.

Why and How Propaganda Works

The internet, like so much of what passes for technological advancement in our commercialized society, has, predictably, become a force for ill, not unlike how Joseph Goebbels and the Nazi Party used the universally-accessible and very affordable radio to spew their right-wing hate propaganda in the 1930s and 40s (after first smashing the liberal media’s printing presses, of course).

But the ruling elites who own the trans-national mega-corporations also own our legislative bodies and our major media. That often nefarious Gang of Four has brain-washed their way into our hearts, minds and bank accounts. Many of them can be seen eagerly pig feeding at the trough of more than one government bureaucratic agency that may be busily granting no-bid contracts behind closed doors.

These corporations, in the interest of unlimited (and unsustainable) stock price growth, have been compelled by their stakeholders to plunge head-long into the soul-destroying muck of the dog-eat-dog-competition that exists in both business and political spheres. The muck has become much less embarrassing – but no less odious – since the democracy-destroying Citizen’s United Supreme Court decision of 2011 that legalized the anonymous bribery of most political candidates and made the fiction of corporate personhood the law of the land.

As an example of how propaganda works, we need to examine the CIA, America’s major national intelligence agency and propaganda machine. The unofficial motto of the CIA, “Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations.” was blurted out by Porter Goss, GW Bush’s second CIA director in 2005. The official motto of Britain’s CIA-equivalent MI6 is “Semper Occultus” (Always Secret) and, according to the whistle-blowing, ex-Israeli Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky, the Mossad’s motivating motto has always been “By Way of Deception, Thou Shalt Make War” (derived from a phrase from the book of Proverbs).

Weaponizing the term “Conspiracy Theory”

But the fact (not just the theory) of widespread official conspiracies (along with the obligatory disinformation and cover-up operations) isn’t really new. As one prime example, the CIA (which by law is forbidden to have anything to do with domestic affairs [the FBI’s job]) has been a huge disinformation agency for as long as it has been in existence.

The CIA institutionalized the term “conspiracy theory” in its very successful attempt to derail the honest attempts to investigate the roles of various governmental agencies and individuals that were involved in the execution of President Kennedy in 1963. (See the documentation of that assertion at the end of this column.)

Of course, all clandestine state-sponsored secret service agencies (like the CIA, MI6 and the Mossad) routinely and shamelessly make use of lies, secrecy, deception and false flag operations in their daily affairs. It is a fact of life for such secret agencies and it is all accomplished in the name of “national security”.

The CIA has admitted that it routinely “plants” stories in the mainstream media. Those “press releases” contain disinformation that influences the perceptions of the electorate and thus national policy. See the evidence for that in the following video (and the narrative that follows):

http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2012/02/29/cia-admits-using-msm-to-manipulate-the-usa-video/.

It is a certainty that the FBI, the NSA, the Pentagon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the White House (not to mention most corporations) do the same.

Secret intelligence agencies such as the CIA routinely concoct conspiracies that involve spying, regime changes, de-stabilization of governments, expansion of military bases and even torture, disappearances, “suicides” and extrajudicial assassinations as a matter of course. Of course, all leaked evidence of what are often unethical, immoral or even criminal deeds must be denied.

On 9/11/01, for example, many investigative journalists and alert citizens saw with their own eyes that the three WTC towers had obviously been suddenly and unexpectedly brought down by controlled demolitions. Their suspicions were affirmed by the multitude of video and science-based evidence that abounds online. (Start your own edification by listening to real experts who know the real science of controlled demolitions by clicking on: http://www.ae911truth.org/.)

If You See Something, Say Something (Unless it’s Conspiratorial)

We American citizens have been advised by our government to “say something if we see something”, so those patriots who loved their country enough to have a lover’s quarrel with it, kept pointing out the improbability – indeed impossibility –  of the Bush White House’s conspiracy theory (that a group of Saudi Arabian nationals conspired to fly two jets into two buildings, causing office fires that rapidly burned down three concrete, massively steel-reinforced, essentially non-flammable high-rise towers, with ach of the three buildings successively collapsing into fine powder in less than 10 seconds). Unbelievable.

Bush failed in trying to silence those patriotic observers from speaking out by holding a very unconvincing press conference denigrating those who espoused “outlandish conspiracy theories”. However, the mainstream media (including the New York Times, which falsely claims to publish “all the news that’s fit to print”) got thoroughly on board with the cover-up. Sadly, since then, anybody who didn’t see what really happened on that day has been effectively brain-washed to believe whatever the major media dis-informed them on, and that includes most of the millennials who were either unaware or unborn at the time of the deed!

Tragically, most of the distracted, deceived or too busy Americans succumbed to the totally blacked-out propaganda efforts and their in-bred need to be obedient to authority figures; and thus most Americans were led to believe the deniers of the truth rather than the powerful evidence of conspiracy.

One of the reasons that I am addressing this topic in this column is the fact that recently there have been a number of examples of disinformation in my local media about real conspiracies about which I have enough expertise to be able to disprove the claims that were made.

A recent letter to the editor in my local newspaper regurgitated the disproven “conventional wisdom” that live virus, mercury-containing or aluminum-containing vaccines are all safe and effective, that they never cause neurological damage to infants and that the infamously-smeared British gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield’s research on autism and vaccines was a fraud.

(For those uninformed or misinformed about the Big Pharma-manufactured Wakefield pseudo-controversy: In 1998, the once-prestigious British Lancet medical journal published Dr Wakefield’s ground-breaking research that proved the connection between (the British pharmaceutical company) GlaxoSmithKline’s live measles virus-containing MMR vaccine and a disabling measles virus-caused inflammatory enterocolitis disorder in a group of severely-regressed autistic kids (each of whom had been developing normally until being injected with the scheduled MMR vaccination). The validity of the study, incidentally, has been replicated by other researchers, but the pharmaceutical firm Glaxo cunningly executed a massive disinformation campaign that resulted in the complicit British Medical Association stripping Wakefield of his license to practice medicine!) For documentation of the Wakefield smear campaign, go to a series of videos, starting with this one:

Another recent article in my local newspaper falsely claimed that the persistent aerosol spray that can occasionally be seen coming from large, non-commercial jets are simply “contrails” that are capable of making hazy the cloudless blue skies that the weatherman had forecast the night before. (Contrails are an abbreviation of “condensation trails” that can indeed represent frozen water vapor from jet engine exhaust, but that only momentarily freezes at the extremely cold temperatures at extremely high altitudes and then evaporates rapidly.) The proven fact of the matter is that any jet plane trail that lasts longer than a few seconds is actually a “chemtrail” that is composed of metallic nanoparticles like aluminum, barium or strontium that are sprayed, as part of secret governmental/military weather modification experiments, but which persist in the air, potentially cooling the earth slightly by reflecting the sun’s rays upward (watch www.geoengineeringwatch.org for the documentation).

Definitions to Help Understand Disinformation Agendas

Therefore, in an attempt to explore the interactions between the pejorative term “conspiracy theory” and the prevalence of “disinfo agents”, I include here some relevant definitions of terms, obtained from easily accessible online sources:

Conspiracy theory: An explanatory proposition that accuses two or more people, a group, or an organization of having caused or covered up, through deliberate collusion, an event or phenomenon of great social, political, or economic impact. Such conspiracy theories are frequently proven to be truthful when the bullying disinformation campaigns that try to silence them are revealed as false, misleading, impossible and/or unscientific.

False flag operation: A covert operation that is designed to deceive in such a way that the operation appears as though it is being carried out by entities other than those who actually planned and executed them. Usually there is an ulterior motive, such as starting a war or invasion under false pretenses and blaming the war on some other entity, such as the victim of the false flag op.

Misinformation: False or inaccurate information.

Disinformation: False information that is intended to mislead, especially propaganda issued by a government organization or a corporate advertiser.

Troll: A supernatural creature of Scandinavian folklore, whose ancestors were thought to have carried massive stones into the countryside (although actually the result of glaciers). Living in hills, mountains, caves, or under bridges, they are stupid, large, brutish, hairy, long-nosed, and bug-eyed, and may also have multiple heads or horns. Trolls love to eat people, especially small children.

Internet troll: A person, usually operating under a pseudonym, who posts deliberately provocative messages to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of provoking maximum disruption and argument. They are often paid by nefarious sources but sometime are motivated to do so for their own amusement. They often try to provoke dissension and doubt by writing dis-informational letters to the editors of newspapers.

Another good definition of an internet troll: A person who purposely and deliberately starts an online or media argument in a manner which attacks others on a forum without in any way listening to the arguments proposed by other commenters. He will often use ad hominem attacks.

Internet shill: Someone who promotes something or someone online for pay without divulging that they are associated with the entity they shill for. Shills promote companies, products, public figures and viewpoints for profit, while pretending to have no motivation for doing so other than personal belief. Alternatively, they sometimes denigrate someone or something, such as a political viewpoint or a competitor’s product, that is in conflict with the entity they serve. Shill jobs are telecommute positions or are conducted from temporary offices which are frequently moved to avoid detection.

Conventional wisdom: opinions or beliefs, often theoretical and even erroneous, that are held or accepted by most people. Often such “wisdom” contradicts known facts. (Ex: “The earth is flat” was at one time conventional wisdom for over 99% of the population.)

Propaganda: Information of a biased or misleading nature and used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. Corporations call it advertising.

Clandestine/Covert: Referring to secrecy or concealment, especially for purposes of subversion or deception.

Hate group: A group whose members have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people. They all have websites. (A few examples from the courageous Southern Poverty Law Center are at: https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map: Ku Klux Klan, White Nationalist, Racist Skinhead, Christian Identity, Neo-Confederate, Holocaust Denial groups, Anti-LGBT groups, Anti-Immigrant groups, Anti-Muslim groups, etc.

How Disinformation Agents Spread Their Webs of Deception

Information obtained from: http://www.wanttoknow.info/g/disinformation-agents

It is quite easy for a disinformation agent to spin a rich disinformation tale and then craft several different versions of the tale with new ‘facts’ to support the story in each one. These tales are usually a good mix of verifiable facts and cleverly designed lies, so that people who check the ‘facts’ tend to believe the lies that are mixed in.

The disinformation agent has only to feed these versions of his tale to several of the many conspiracy oriented websites out there, and it’s all over the Internet – but not on reliable websites. These same disinformation agents will use pseudonyms to join in on the discussions generated by their “news” so that they can manipulate the direction that comments take.

Below are excerpts from a short article that was published on the GlobalResearch.ca website on January 22, 2013:

CIA Document 1035-960 and Conspiracy Theory:

the Foundation of a Weaponized Term

https://memoryholeblog.com/2013/01/20/cia-document-1035-960-foundation-of-a-weaponized-term/

‘Conspiracy theory’ is a term that strikes fear and anxiety in the hearts of most every public figure, particularly journalists and academics. Since the 1960s the label has become a disciplinary device that has been overwhelmingly effective in defining certain events as off limits to inquiry or debate. Especially in the United States, raising legitimate questions about dubious official narratives destined to inform public opinion (and thereby public policy) is a major thought crime that must be cauterized from the public psyche at all costs.

…it was the Central Intelligence Agency that likely played the greatest role in effectively ‘weaponizing’ the term. In the groundswell of public skepticism about the Warren Commission’s findings on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the CIA sent a detailed directive to all of its bureaus, titled ‘Countering Criticism of the Warren Commission Report’.

The dispatch played a definitive role in making the ‘conspiracy theory’ term a weapon to be wielded against almost any individual or group calling the government’s increasingly clandestine programs and activities into question.

“This important memorandum and its broad implications for American politics and public discourse are detailed in a forthcoming book by Florida State University political scientist Lance deHaven-Smith, titled Conspiracy Theory in America. Dr. deHaven-Smith devised the State Crimes Against Democracy (SCAD) concept to interpret and explain potential government complicity in events such as the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the major political assassinations of the 1960s, and 9/11.

The agency was especially interested in maintaining the CIA’s own image and role as it “contributed information to the [Warren] investigation.

The memorandum lays out a detailed series of actions and techniques for ‘countering and discrediting the claims of the so-called conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries’.

The agency also directed its members ‘[t]o employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose’.

CIA Document 1035-960 further delineates specific techniques for countering ‘conspiratorial’ arguments centering on the Warren Commission’s findings. Such responses and their coupling with the pejorative label have been routinely wheeled out to this day in various guises by corporate media outlets, commentators and political leaders against those demanding truth and accountability about momentous public events.

Today, more so than ever, news media personalities and commentators occupy powerful positions for initiating propaganda activities closely resembling those set out in 1035-960 against anyone who might question state-sanctioned narratives of controversial and poorly understood occurrences.

…the almost uniform public acceptance of official accounts concerning unresolved events such as the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building bombing, 9/11, and most recently the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, is largely guaranteed.

The effect on academic and journalistic inquiry into ambiguous and unexplained events that may in turn mobilize public inquiry, debate and action has been dramatic and far-reaching. One need only look to the rising police state and evisceration of civil liberties and constitutional protections as evidence of how this set of subtle and deceptive intimidation tactics has profoundly encumbered the potential for future independent self-determination and civic empowerment.

Dr Kohls is a retired physician from Duluth, MN, USA. He writes a weekly column for the Reader, Duluth’s alternative newsweekly magazine. His columns mostly deal with the dangers of American fascism, corporatism, militarism, racism, malnutrition, psychiatric drugging, over-vaccination regimens, Big Pharma and other movements that threaten the environment or America’s health, democracy, civility and longevity. Many of his columns are archived at http://duluthreader.com/articles/categories/200_Duty_to_Warn and at http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/gary-g-kohls.

On Saturday, Trump nominated US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett for SCOTUS.

If confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate as expected pre-November elections, it’ll shift the High Court to a far-right 6 – 3 majority, potentially for many years to come. 

More on Barrett below.

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In his book titled “Democracy for the Few, Michael Parenti called the US Supreme Court the “aristocratic branch” of government.

Its appointed members have lifetime tenure if they wish, able to use their power for good or ill, more often the latter than former.

Parenti explained that majority High Court justices most often side with privileged interests over the general welfare.

Throughout most of the New Deal 1930s, SCOTUS “was the activist bastion of laissez-faire capitalism.”

Throughout US history, the Supreme Court largely “opposed restrictions on capitalist power, but supported restrictions on the civil liberties of persons who agitated against that power,” Parenti explained.

The Warren Court was an exception to the rule, supporting civil liberties and economic rights of all Americans, not just for the privileged few alone.

Its notable Brown v. Board of Education ruling (1954) held that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” — a major step ahead of 1960s civil and voting rights legislation.

From inception to now, privileged interests have run the US for their own benefit at the expense of ordinary people at home and abroad.

America was always ruled by men, not laws, who lie, connive, misinterpret and pretty much do what they want for their own self-interest and powerful constituents.

Majority SCOTUS justices today are from, affiliated with, and/or favor extremist Federalist Society views.

FS favors rolling back civil liberties.

It’s for ending remaining New Deal/Fair Deal/Great Society social programs.

It opposes reproductive choice, government regulations, labor rights and environmental protections.

It aims to subvert social justice in defense of wealth and powerful interests exclusively.

Majority SCOTUS justices Roberts, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Thomas are current or former FS members.

In 1803, Marbury v. Madison was a defining High Court ruling.

According to then-Chief Justice John Marshall, it established the principle of judicial supremacy, the High Court being the final arbiter of what is or is not the law.

By judicial majority, justices define the Constitution — the highest law of the land — according to how they interpret it.

Notable SCOTUS rulings for ill over good included Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857).

The Court ruled that black slaves and their descendants had no constitutional protections, no due process or equal protection rights under law, no right to become US citizens, no right to abolish their property status.

In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Court affirmed segregation in public places.

In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886), SCOTUS granted corporations personhood under the 14th Amendment with all accruing rights and privileges but none of the obligations.

In Korematsu v. United States (1944), the Court ruled for Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order (EO) 9066 constitutional, ordering the internment of Japanese Americans during WW II — because of their race and cultural heritage.

In Bush v. Gore (2000), the Court overruled the majority vote (and later the Electoral College majority for Gore) to make GW Bush president.

In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), the Court ruled that government can’t limit corporate spending in political elections — solidifying US money-controlled elections over democracy the way it’s supposed to be.

Notably throughout US history, for every Justice William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, they’ve been numerous John Jays (the first chief justice), Roger Taneys, William Howard Tafts, Scalias, Burgers, Rehnquists, and Roberts — along with countless other right-wing extremists like those on today’s High Court.

If confirmed as expected, Amy Coney Barrett will strengthen their ranks.

Her presence on the Supreme Court may make it harder to prove discrimination, further weaken Miranda rights, dilute or reverse Roe v. Wade, weaken unreasonable searches and seizure, support Big Brother surveillance, back business over labor rights and economic equity, and favor greater executive power.

According to the New Civil Rights Movement (NORM), Trump nominated “right wing extremist” Barrett for SCOTUS without “interviewing any other candidates,” adding:

She’s “anti-LGBTQ, anti-choice, and would vote to strike down Roe v. Wade and same-sex marriage.”

“She has made clear she does not respect stare decisis, the legal tenet that says Supreme Court decisions are settled law.”

Aged-48, she could serve on SCOTUS for decades.

The New York Intelligencer called her nomination and likely confirmation “the triumph of Phyllis Schafley,” adding:

“Schafley’s far-right, anti-feminist ideology has taken over the Republican party” — Barrett cut out of her mold.

She’s a member of People of Praise, “a ‘covenant community’ that promotes strict gender roles with an emphasis on the submission of women, and which once called female members ‘handmaidens.’ ”

She’s an anti-feminist in favor of abolishing the right of women over their own bodies.

A former clerk to right wing Justice Antonin Scalia, she’s ideologically like him.

She said abortion is “always immoral.” Roe enables “abortion on demand,” a false statement.

In 2019, she dissented from a majority 7th Circuit ruling that affirmed the 8th Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

Months earlier, she argued against entry to the US of immigrants who may one day need public assistance.

Her staunch Catholicism isn’t an issue.

What’s disturbing is her ideological extremism against equity and justice under international and constitutional law.

She hasn’t ruled directly on abortion, but votes she cast indicated opposition to Roe.

She backs gun ownership rights for convicted felons with a proviso.

In one case, she argued that absent evidence of violent behavior, a businessman found guilty of mail fraud retained his 2nd Amendment right to “keep and bear arms.”

At the same time, she said “legislatures have the power to prohibit dangerous people from possessing guns. But that power extends only to people who are dangerous.”

In a campus sexual violence case, she supported the right of an accused student to challenge how school authorities handled the case, saying:

“The case…boiled down to a ‘he said/she said’ ” situation, adding that school officials may have believed the female student “because she is a woman.”

Perhaps they disbelieved the accused “because he is a man.”

Of concern to supporters of equity and justice for all is how Barrett may rule on women’s reproductive rights, retaining or ending Obamacare, and virtual house arrest if ordered again to deal with increased COVID-19 outbreaks if occur.

It’s a somewhat more contagious form of seasonal flu/influenza, why misdiagnosis is widespread.

Millions of Americans contract seasonal flu/influenza annually. Hundreds of thousands are hospitalized, and tens of thousands die.

In terms of the human toll and cost, it’s far more serious than COVID-19.

Yet no lockdowns are ordered or contemplated, no media-promoted fear-mongering or mass hysteria.

If November’s presidential election outcome is contested, Barrett will have a say on its outcome.

It may be a heavily contested repeat of Bush v. Gore that could leave things unresolved for weeks or longer.

As a Trump appointee to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and SCOTUS, will Barrett be biased in his favor if confirmed by the GOP controlled Senate?

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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.

He was very much one of those cricketers who made the pulse race, a figure for the advocates of a faster variant of the game.  Nothing of the solid blocker in the man, though he could, if needed, linger at the crease.  Australia’s Dean Jones sported equipment perfect for the shorter format of the game: lightning quick between the wickets, leaving his tubbier counterparts ragged and puffed; an obsessive about keeping the runs flowing; a spirited entertainer.  A stunning fielder of accuracy.  An explorer in the field.  Then, the slashing shots: the on drive to a delivery he would enthusiastically dispatch to the boundary on skipping to it; the lifted off drive, which would propel the ball into the stands.

In India, a country which deifies its cricketers, and burns the occasional one in effigy, the reactions of warmth and shock have been genuine.  It was in a Mumbai hotel where he collapsed.  It was in that same hotel that fellow cricketer and former Australian fast bowler Brett Lee attempted to revive him.  India, and the subcontinent more broadly, became a place Jones promoted, coached in, commented upon.  These were not outposts of hostility but places of veneration.   

It was also India which witnessed one of the more remarkable, and courageous innings, of Test cricket.  It was 1986. Jones had made his Test debut two years prior.  He had been left out of the tour of England in 1985.  Captain Allan Border heralded the Victorian’s return to the side, slotting Jones in at the No.3 position.  He played an innings of near-death in the dehydrating heat of Chennai’s MA Chidambaram Stadium, making 210 and ensuring the second Test cricket tie in history.  “My body still shakes when it’s over 37 degrees,” he revealed in 2016.

Jones was a Rabelaisian mess for much of an effort lasting eight hours and 23 minutes: fluids, much of it involuntary, excreted liberally in conditions of high humidity; vomiting bouts, dramatically regular.  All the time, pungent sewerage smells wafting from a neighbouring canal.  Psychologically, he was also given a bruising by his bullying captain.  When asked if he could retire hurt on 202, Border suggested that they “get a Queenslander (the next man Greg Ritchie) out here.”  His deplorable physical state has, over time, rendered that innings singular, a case as much for medical analysis as cricketing prowess.   

Courage can be a disputed mantle.  The innings did not impress the grounded and blunt Greg Matthews, who took ten wickets in the same match in fittingly jaunty fashion.  Three decades after the match, he was gruff in memory.  “The guy (Jones) was 23, in his prime, fit as a Mallee bull.  If you are not fit enough to walk out there and play, don’t come whingeing to me.  He lost a few kilos – just blows me away.”   

The stadium was certainly no hell on earth for the batsmen, if statistics are your sort of thing.  Jones “batted on a road.  1488 runs were scored for the loss of 32 wickets.”  The match had also seen three other centurions: David Boon, with 122; Border, with 106 and India’s Kapil Dev, whose 119 was a feast of merriment and slaughter.   

The spinner seemed more impressed by the Indian umpire V. Vikramraju, whom he regarded as the truly brave one in giving India’s last batsman, Maninder Singh, out leg before wicket.  As for his own team mates, Ray Bright stood out in the chronicles of courage.  “Ray was 33, unfit, Ray was sick and Ray got up.”

Such views were deftly fielded by Jones, who remarked that Matthews lacked “medical accreditation”.  In his mind, he had come close to death and, as he noted in his autobiography, it was not something to be recommended. “Sometimes I feel like a man watching his own funeral from a distance, sometimes I have to refer to descriptions written at the time to fill in huge gaps in my own consciousness.” 

Such gaps were not in issue at the Adelaide Oval in 1989.  His 216 off 347 deliveries was a spanking display against the menacing West Indian attack of Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and Patrick Patterson.

Jones would proceed to add to the complement of Australian cricket consciousness, withered by the retirement of that titanic trio of Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rodney Marsh; devastated into submission by the West Indian pace batteries that seemed to spring eternal; and outfoxed by English sides captained by David Gower (1985) and Mike Gatting (1986-7). 

Border’s captaincy, assumed with grave reluctance, was aided by Jones, who, along with other future demigods of the game, made their names in the 1987 World Cup victory and 1989 Ashes Tour.  “To 52 Tests and 164 one-day internationals,” remarked Australian cricket’s wordsmith Gideon Haigh, “he brought style, vitality and chutzpah, in a period of Australian cricket, just pre-Shane Warne, that sometimes wanted for it.”

In his sporting achievements, Jones is best associated with the one-day game: the ticking scoreboard, the thwacking of deliveries, sprinting, sun glasses, protective sunscreen, and an almost manic boisterousness.  He is remembered for his faux pas at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1993 during a World Series Cup match in which he riled the great West Indian fast bowler Ambrose.  The request to the bowler was simple but impolitic: remove the white wristbands which were making the white cricket ball harder to see.  The giant Ambrose, furious, picked up the pace.  Australia lost that match and, eventually, the series. 

Ambrose, ever sporting, remembered the man they called Deano.  “He was a wonderful player.  When he was walking to the crease you could see that confidence in his stride.”  No signs of fear or nerves.  “He was a bit of a thorn in our flesh.”  A thorn of spirited entertainment, with more than a touch of talent. 

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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]

The Trump administration on Friday moved closer to its goal of stripping conservation protections from the nation’s largest national forest, putting over 9 million acres at risk of clear-cut logging and bulldozing for roads and sparking warnings of “irreversible ecological consequences.”

The proposal targets southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, which is described as “the crown jewel of the National Forest System” and “the still-thumping heart of a rainforest that once stretched uninterrupted from Northern California through Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska.”

“Of all the things our federal government could be devoting resources toward in 2020, slashing a rule to make way for clear-cutting in one of the world’s last intact temperate rainforests shouldn’t rank as a priority,” said Kate Glover, Juneau-based staff attorney with Earthjustice.

The U.S. Forest Service announced (pdf) Friday its Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the widely-opposed plan to fully strip the area from the Clinton-era Roadless Rule protections. The “preferred alternative” described in the statement “removes all 9.37 million inventoried roadless acres on the Tongass from roadless designation.”

The plan “would revert a net total of 168,000 old-growth acres and 20,000 young-growth acres previously identified as unsuitable timber lands to suitable timber lands,” the EIS states.

A record of decision finalizing removal of the Roadless Rule is expected in 30 days.

Greenpeace USA senior forests campaigner Dr. Amy Moas warned that the

“move by the Trump administration has irreversible ecological consequences, and sets a dangerous precedent for timber industry lobbyists and politicians in other states to secure access to our prized wild places.”

“Forests are our guardians in our fight against the climate crisis, and we need forest protections more than ever if we are to avoid the worst impacts of the growing climate emergency,” Moas continued. “Greenlighting logging, road building, and other destructive development in previously untouched portions of our national forests will be catastrophic for our future—both increasing pollution and limiting our ability to reduce it.”

“What’s more,” she added, “a healthy Tongass is essential to the wellbeing of Alaska Natives, the local economy in Southeast Alaska, and an abundance of wildlife.”

Indeed, the forest is key habitat for species including bears, wolves, and salmon and essential to the food security and way of life for the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian peoples.

Audubon Alaska released a video Friday highlighting the voice of Joel Jackson, president of the Organized Village of Kake, who asks, if the large-scale logging in Tongass is approved, “Are we even going to have future generations?”

With the EIS now released, Greenpeace’s Moas said “it’s imperative that Congress acts” and pointed to legislation proposed in May as a means to counter the administration’s planned assault on Tongass.

“We need our legislators to codify one of the most popular conservation measures of the last century so nothing and no one can threaten our last wild places again. The Roadless Area Conservation Act could reverse this decision and place wildlife, recreation, and the health of our planet at the center of intact wild places instead of the interests of wealthy elites,” said Moas.

“Without forests,” she added, “we are without a future.”

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Featured image: Brown bear and cubs fishing at Anan Creek in Tongass National Forest. (Photo: U.S. Forest Service/Mark Meyer)

On Thursday, state-owned China Daily called Trump regime actions against ByteDance’s TikTok video-sharing firm “banditry,” adding:

Beijing “is unlikely to condone the White House’s strong-arm acquisition…(N)o deal is better than (one) made under duress.”

Trump falsely accused TikTok of threatening US national security, part of his regime’s war on China by other means.

The hugely popular platform has over 100 million US users, millions more worldwide.

By executive order, Trump gave ByteDance 90 days to divest from TikTok or its platform would be banned from the US.

Trump’s EO demanded TikTok to sell its US operations to a corporate America firm.

On September 17, Bloomberg reported that Byte-Dance, Oracle, and Trump’s Treasury Department “tentatively agreed” to terms for US investors to acquire a majority stake in TikTok, including 20% ownership for Oracle.

On September 24, Reuters said the deal “is under heavy scrutiny” by the White House, its exact terms not yet finalized.”

On Saturday, Reuters said “(a) judge will hold a hearing on Sunday on whether to allow a Commerce Department ban on new TikTok downloads from Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc Google app stores from taking effect,” adding:

ByteDance “made a preliminary deal for Walmart Inc and Oracle Corp to take stakes in (TikTok), exact terms…remain unclear.”

If finalized and approved by US and Chinese authorities, the deal will create a separate US company.

It excludes transfer of TikTok’s proprietary technology and algorithms, Oracle allowed to inspect the source code for security checks.

On Thursday, China’s official People’s Daily broadsheet said Oracle’s access to TikTok’s source code risks it falling into US hands, adding:

This would “put the private data of Chinese citizens and China’s national security at a risk.”

“We have enough reasons (already) to question the motivation of the US government.”

On Thursday, China’s Commerce Ministry said Beijing’s Municipal Commerce Bureau received ByteDance’s application for a tech export license.

“We will process it according to the relevant laws and regulations,” a ministry statement said.

On Saturday, China’s Global Times said Beijing will “protect TikTok at ‘all cost,’ ” adding:

State authorities will prevent “TikTok and its advanced technologies from falling into US hands…even if…the video sharing app (is) shut down in the US…”

Letting US interests “seize the firm and its technology will…set a dangerous precedent for other Chinese firms…”

It’ll “also pose a direct threat to China’s national security…”

On Sunday, a US judge will hear arguments on and may rule whether to allow the Trump regime to ban TikTok downloads, what his Justice Department seeks.

The Global Times called what’s going on an unacceptable “mafia-style robbery of a lucrative Chinese business and cutting-edge technologies.”

In its court filing, Trump’s Justice Department called ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming a CCP “mouthpiece.”

It claimed his “close relationship” with Beijing threatens the security of US citizens – no evidence cited to back the dubious accusations.

According to China Electronics Standardization Institute technology expert Liu Chang:

“What the US wants, we definitely cannot give,” adding:

“From the perspective of” TikTok, its ByteDance owner, and Beijing, “this cannot be allowed to happen.”

It the US gets access to TikTok’s source code, it can “use it to attack (China) or any user of the software from anywhere around the world,” what Beijing won’t allow.

Citing Chinese technology experts following the TikTok/Oracle/Walmart deal, the Global Times believes that Beijing is “unlikely to approve it,” adding:

It “will take all necessary measures to protect the Chinese business and technologies from the US robbery, even if that could cost the Chinese firm (loses access to) the US market.”

According to China Cybersecurity Review Technology and Certification Center’s Qi Yue, if the US gets its way on the Tik/Tok/Oracle/Walmart deal, “it would not be a good trend for our country.”

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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 InfoBrics

Web-based video-conferencing platform Zoom has cancelled a webinar hosted by San Francisco State University in which Palestinian resistance icon Leila Khaled was to be one of the guest speakers.

Facebook and YouTube have also chosen to censor the event, both of whom – according to Electronic Intifada – have a long history of censoring Palestinians on behalf of Israel.

“Zoom is committed to supporting the open exchange of ideas and conversations, subject to certain limitations contained in our Terms of Service, including those related to user compliance with applicable US export control, sanctions, and anti-terrorism laws,” Zoom said in a statement.

“In light of the speaker’s reported affiliation or membership in a US designated foreign terrorist organization, and SFSU’s inability to confirm otherwise, we determined the meeting is in violation of Zoom’s Terms of Service and told SFSU they may not use Zoom for this particular event,” the statement continued.

The Jerusalem Post reports that Zoom’s cancelling of the SFSU webinar came amid pressure by Israeli and Jewish lobby groups including the Lawfare Project and the newly established #EndJewHatred movement.

Naturally the first case of Zoom blatantly censoring content at a university was done to silence Palestinians on behalf of Israel. Will all the “free speech” and “cancel culture” warriors speak up? https://t.co/yiNeaDfcJI

— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) September 23, 2020

Khaled, who as a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and notable in the hijacking of the El Al Flight 219 on 6 September 1970, was due to speak yesterday at an event hosted by SFSU’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) study programme, titled “Who’s Narratives? Gender, Justice and Resistance: a conversation with Leila Khaled”.

SFSU’s President, Lynn Mahoney, said in an open letter entitled “Academic Freedom Debate Continues” that the university disagreed with Zoom’s decision but recognised its right as a private company to enforce its policies.

“We worked hard to prevent this outcome and have been actively engaging with Zoom,” Mahoney said.

“Based on the information we have been able to gather to date, the University does not believe that the class panel discussion violates Zoom’s terms of service or the law.”

The decision was welcomed by Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister, Orit Farkash-Hacohen, who tweeted

“Glad to see @Zoom_us preventing PFLP terrorist Leila Khaled from abusing its platform to spread her bigotry and calls for Jewish State’s destruction at a @SFSU event today. Tech companies need to uphold policies & protect the safety of all of its [sic] users against such hate-speech.”

The Workers World Party (WWP) condemned the censoring of the event and their own Facebook page has been threatened with being unpublished following their endorsement of the event. They have reiterated their support in working with the event organisers to defend the continued access to “these important digital organizing spaces”.

GUPS statement in response to the Zoom cancellation of the “Whose’s Narratives? Gender, Justice & Resistance” open classroom.

Follow us and @AmedStudies for updates. Thank you. pic.twitter.com/rKNWnZNhzD

— GUPS SFSU (@GUPS_SFSU) September 23, 2020

Following the Zoom cancellation, AMED shared a statement on how to follow AMED and the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS). According to Samidoun, the Palestinian Prisoners Solidarity Network, video footage of the event, which still took place, will be distributed soon.

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Featured image: Palestinian resistance icon Leila Khaled in Vienna, Austria on18 January 2009 [FunkMonk/Wikipedia]

American “democracy” is neither dead nor defeated; it is simply decaying day by day. This reality is the reflection of an exhausted and worn out capitalist system on a global scale. Facts surrounding the 2020 Presidential Election in the U.S. are the best evidence of this realism. Both elite political parties have already clearly shown that they are not interested in counting the actual “votes” of the election; they would rather project their presumption of what the majority wants.

In 2000, during the controversial Presidential election, the U.S. Supreme Court intervened on behalf of the Republican candidate George W. Bush to be the next president. The ladies and gentlemen of the Supreme Court in the black robes were able to restore peace then. This time around, the armed men and women in uniform will restore “law and order” after the election. In short, the antagonistic factions of the 1% will rely on the “bullet” rather than “ballot” to resolve their unsolvable feud. President Trump has already made it known on many occasions that “The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged”. On the other side, Mrs. Clinton on behalf of the Democratic Party has resolutely stated that: “Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances”.

The political situation in the United States is forcing the powerful elite and wealthy minority to move toward some sort of totalitarian governance. Mr. Trump (amid the Covid-19 crisis, mass unemployment, and gross injustice and poverty) has boldly declared himself as the “law and order” president for the “Great America”. At the same time, Mr. Biden as a “compassionate” and “pro-worker” candidate supports the same idea in the name of “peace” against “violence”. Both candidates rely on elements in the Justice Department, the Police and mainly the Military for a successful transition of power.

After the November 3rd election, despite the duration of the political purge and violence among the hostile factions of the 1% and regardless of which candidate will be the next occupant in the White House, the one thing that will definitively intensify is POLITICAL OPPRESSION against the working people and dissents. Both parties are in agreement that the growing working people’s resistance is a major threat to the interest of the elite as a whole. Workers, teachers, students, women, youth, immigrants and oppressed minorities have already demonstrated their will and power for meaningful changes. Naturally, the majority of people who are losing their homes, jobs and hopes for a better future for their children due to the policies of indifferent politicians -who are constantly fighting among themselves- will fight back and seek alternative solutions outside the useless Congress and its incompetent representatives.

However, working people don’t have a solid, conscious organization or party of their own. In the struggle against an authoritarian president or a repressive government that is reshaping itself today, the working people in the U.S. must reject the middle-class liberal leadership. Historically, all “progressive” leaders or so-called “socialists” distract the working people or they capitulate to the interest of the 1%. Political characters like Mr. Sanders or the union bosses have shown many times that they are NOT trustworthy.

Working people and democratic-minded people must stay out of the 1% faction fights. While on this difficult path of emancipation; the fascistic-minded president Trump is an obvious obstacle, the Democratic Party is more like a quagmire that tends to slowly swallow the young and enthusiastic activists. In the final analysis, Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden have to compete with other capitalist countries for the world market and suppress their people to maintain their power in the government. That means pursuing a major war against China or Russia and at the same time conducting an unprecedented repressive war domestically against working people.

The fight against the authoritarian regime

Working people in the U.S. must independently organize and demand their basic democratic rights and win the support of the middle class who for the first time find themselves among the impoverished people. The concept of “revolution” for many is only understood in its historical sense. The American Revolution is explained by historian and political pundits who represent the interest of the 1%, as a historical period that had happened in the past and is inconceivable for another revolution to occur today in the U.S.! This is a false argument. On the contrary, the revolting elements in the U.S. not only are gaining in numbers; they are also maturing politically to separate friends from foes as their struggle intensifies.

It is not surprising that suddenly in the 2020 Presidential election the nation is bombarded with the “threat of socialism”, or the “danger of fascism”. Both words rarely were mentioned in the previous elections. So, what has happened since the 2016 election whereby the concepts of “socialism” and “fascism” have become a critical factor? The answer to this question is vital for working people and especially young activists.

What is socialism? What is fascism?

The radicalization of the working people in the United States which had been interrupted for decades after WWII; is now on the rise! Today, two words – Socialism and Fascism- are the talk of the day for the functionary pundits of the corporate media.

However, for the “Political Strategists”, these two words are not quite defined and simply are used as labels to defame and crush their opponents. So basically, if someone is concerned about the environment or is a parent and has some opinion about the question of schooling children during the Covid-19 crisis, they are immediately labeled as “socialist”. For example, FOX NEWS channels constantly propagate the idea that the root of all problems in the U.S. is those “socialists” who are in charge of the Blue States! By that, they mean Mayors, Governors and Chief of Police who are Democrats! This of course has nothing to do with the idea of socialism.

At the same time, the word fascism is constantly used as a cuss word against the Trump administration and their followers. The fact is that not every heinous act that is committed by some authority or a fascistic-minded President like Mr. Trump against innocent people means those victims are living under fascism. For any society to progress to socialism or descend into the abyss of fascism, certain political conditions are necessary. Socialism or Fascism is not a decree that would be possible by a kind “socialist” leader or a wicked “fascist” ruler.

Only the working class can open the gate of social equality and economic prosperity for all by abolishing private property in the means of production and through nationalization of all major industries, corporations and banks. These entities would operate the same as before but now as the public property – the workers’ government- and not for the private profit.

Also, in the U.S. the only way that a “savior” with an iron fist would be able to establish fascism is when the working class has been defeated and demoralized in their long and hard struggle. Today, the working class is on the rise and determined more than ever; which is far from the political and social conditions that brought Hitler to power in Germany.

Today, the working people who are the producers of life and prosperity are standing up without a united leadership and at the same time, the 1% is seeking an authoritarian system of government to hold on to the power. This period of uncertainty gradually creates a revolutionary condition before the working people as a result of the capitalist deepening crisis. In this historical class struggle, both sides are fighting very hard to protect their political gains and stand their ground. Today the resistance from the 1% and 99% is reaching the undeniable stage of “do or die”. A period in American history that everyone –one way or another- is ready and willing to change the status quo.

A genuine discussion among activists in their workplaces and communities is needed to reject the political influences of both Democratic and Republican parties. In the struggle against the dictatorial presidency, working people must focus on creating their independent organizations in unity at the local, national and global scale and exercise their awesome power of the general strike and mass demonstration.

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Massoud Nayeri is a graphic designer and an independent peace activist based in the United States. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

In the early hours of Monday 21 September, a large number of young people from the Swiss Climate Strike movement occupied the Federal Square in Bern, opposite the Federal Palace – hence its name – seat of the Swiss Government and Parliament. The young activists set up various tents and structures where meetings and small events could be held. This occupation was extremely well organized and respectful of the current conditions in which we find ourselves – practically ALL young people and those involved in the occupation wore masks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The main objective of this action was to draw attention to the urgency of the climate crisis and to demand concrete measures against global warming from the Swiss government. As written in the document presenting the movement’s demands:

“For years, (hundreds of) thousands have been mobilising against the threat of the climate catastrophe. However, the calls for effective climate and environmental protection fall on deaf ears among professional politicians. We realize that we, who are concerned about a future worth living for all, are being let down. The urgency of the problem is by no means reflected in the political processes of parliament and government. Areas such as the agricultural and financial sectors are completely ignored in Swiss climate policy, even though they are largely responsible for environmental degradation and climate crisis. At the same time, those in power in the economy still cling to the fairy tale of eternal growth. They are not interested in our future and only want to increase their wealth and influence.

The existing political and economic system has far failed to provide an answer to the climate crisis. We must free ourselves from social, economic and political systems that exploit people and nature for the sole purpose of enriching a few. It is time to redesign our society so that an ecological and social future is possible.”

This short text raises the problem with the necessary clarity. In relation to Switzerland, a single sentence in this document, in the chapter on ‘Climate Justice’, places the central demand with the same precision:

“Switzerland shall acknowledge its historical and global responsibility for the climate crisis and act accordingly.”

Nothing fairer. As expected, the action of the young climate activists in front of the Swiss government headquarters attracted the attention of the press, politicians and society in general. Several TVs in Switzerland, in the main languages of the country – German, French and Italian – sent teams to the site.

In the camp there was an atmosphere of joy and peace, colourful clothes, flags and posters everywhere. At no time did the occupation put any obstacles in the way of the Swiss government, there was no blockade at the entrance to the Federal Palace. Nor was there any violent activity or even noise that could hinder the functioning of the parliament that was – and still is – in session.

However, an old law of the City of Bern prohibits demonstrations on the Federal Square when the Parliament is in session. Another law also prohibits camping in the square.

The political parties of the Right and many Swiss citizens, bothered by the demonstrations of the young activists, started to exercise an aggressiveness that was comparable to what we see with Bolsonarism in Brazil (not in numbers because Brazil has a bigger population). Most of the press was hostile to the movement – as in Brazil to the Workers Party (PT in Portuguese) – and several parliamentarians, under the pretext of the laws I mentioned above, demanded that the administration of the City of Bern, responsible for the security of the Federal Palace and the Parliament, immediately expel the demonstrators. The city government first sought a dialogue with the activists, proposing that they withdraw. But the activists announced their intention to maintain the occupation until next Friday, with the aim of reminding the parliament in session of the need to confront the reality of climate change.

In the early hours of this Wednesday the police force invaded the camp and expelled the demonstrators who resisted only with non-violence, remaining seated, singing, until they were removed.

The question of the illegality of the occupation was the main theme in the public discussions, not the climate change! Some brave Swiss parliamentarians, in defence of the activists, pointed to this contradiction, such as the Social Democrat Party MP Jacqueline Badran from Zurich, who gave a live testimony on Swiss TV about the real issue, in the face of journalists who insisted on asking about the question of the legality of the occupation, deliberately ignoring the main reason for the movement.

It has to be said that there are many things that are absolutely legal but unethical. The bottling of water sources by the Swiss company Nestlé all over the world, producing a huge amount of plastic waste for which the company has no responsibility, is absolutely legal but unethical. The production and sale of poisons by Syngenta – which contaminates soils and water in several countries, causing poisoning and the death of countless farmers and peasants – is absolutely legal. And in the case of Syngenta it is even legal for the company to continue producing and exporting to southern countries types of pesticides declared illegal by Switzerland and the European Union!

The confrontation in Bern between activists and the law was a conflict between ethics and legality. There is certainly an ethic above and beyond the law, and the rights of nature and the survival of the planet must take precedence over any other issue, even legal ones.

For the time being, in this battle in the capital of Switzerland, smallness and mediocrity have overcome hope, joy and rationality. There would be no problem in letting the demonstrators remain peacefully in the Federal Square and use the demonstration as an opportunity – as several Swiss parliamentarians have proposed – for a broader dialogue with youth and on the urgency of the problem of climate change. It would be a demonstration of responsibility, of real concern for the fate of the planet and care for future generations.

But the capitalist hysteria fuelled by the press and by the Swiss Right-wing, voicing in all media and demanding respect for the LAW and ORDER was stronger. Many of the Swiss parliamentarians who defended the youth movement suffered unbelievable criticism and aggression in the social media, just as the most exalted Bolsonarists behave in Brazil. For at the basis of Bolsonarism there is the same capitalist hysteria present in all extreme right-wing movements in the world, panic and indignation at any questioning about the priority of capital, uncontrollable and visceral anger at anyone who dares to defend other priorities – be it the environment, the dignity of work, human rights or the planet itself. For capital wants and must be above all, even above life itself. It is up to nature to submit to the dictates of capital, and together with most human beings to bow to capitalist exploitation and profit above all else. The young people in Bern defended other priorities and with their joy, intelligence and determination pointed to other paths, that’s why they had to be expelled. But this was only a battle, the struggle continues. One way or another a breach has opened up in Swiss society too, the debate will continue.

And from Brazil came a message of unexpected and fundamental solidarity for the Swiss movement: a letter of support addressed to the Swiss government itself, sent to the Swiss Ambassador in Brazil, signed by leaders of some of Brazil’s main social movements such as the Landless Movement (MST) and 54 Brazilian parliamentarians. This letter is already in the hands of the activists and many Swiss parliamentarians and personalities. (For the letter see article)

And in this way, we have united in the fight against Bolsonarism, against the hysterical and deranged capitalism, both in Brazil and in Switzerland. For the future of the planet, with generosity, tenderness, courage and determination.

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People have been using masks for a long time. The oldest masks ever found were 9,000 years old. Masks have been used for religious rituals, for fun, in factories to protect against breathing in chemicals and dust particles, for protection against smog, to punish slaves and gossipy wives, to commit crimes, and, of course, for Halloween. But the focus of this article will be about the medical use of masks.

Bubonic plague recurred in Europe for centuries. In 17th Century Europe, doctors who tended plague victims believed that it spread through poisoned air known as miasma that could create an imbalance in a person’s bodily fluids or humors. To protect themselves, physicians wore a long coat covered in scented wax, a hat and gloves made of goat leather, and a mask with a 6” long bird-like beak filled with herbs, cinnamon, myrrh, and perfume among other things. They also carried a long rod to poke or fend off victims with. Of course, all these silly outfits did was make them look ridiculous.

Image on the right: Carl Flugge

The first doctors to wear a mask in an operating room were Polish surgeon Johann Von Mikulicz Radecki and French surgeon Paul Berger in 1897. They advocated using masks during surgery due to the findings of German bacteriologist Carl Flugge who discovered pathogenic bacteria in saliva. Back then, surgical masks were made of several layers of gauze. The purpose of the surgical mask was, and still is, to prevent respiratory droplets from the physician’s nose and mouth from entering a patient’s open wound, and to protect the surgeon from sprays and splashes from the patient during an operation. But most doctors refused to go along with Radecki and Berger so it took many years after that before surgical masks became standard operating room equipment.

The first physician to have the lay public wear gauze masks was Chinese Doctor Wu Lein Teh during the Manchurian plague of 1910-1911 which killed around 63,000. This paved the way for some cities in our country to force the general public to wear masks during the 1918 influenza pandemic. It became known as the Spanish flu because the first cases were reported in Spain. But it may not have originated there. Due to WWI, news reporting in many countries was disrupted unlike Spain which had remained neutral. The Spanish flu killed between 50-100 million worldwide out of a back then global population of 1.8 billion.

Time Magazine ran a May 1, 2020 article hinting that forcing people to wear masks helped save lives during the 1918 influenza pandemic. Some mask advocates on social media sites like Facebook dogmatically make that claim. The scientific literature disagrees.

A May 12, 2020 article published in the peer review journal Health Affairs emphatically states: “Experts reviewing the evidence from 1918 concluded that flu masks failed to control infection.” The article goes on to cite a 1919 study by Wilfred H. Kellogg for the California State Board of Health: “…mask ordinances applied forcibly to entire communities did not decrease cases and deaths, as confirmed by comparisons of cities with widely divergent policies on masking.” Kellogg concluded: “The case against the mask as a measure of compulsory application for the control of epidemics appears to be complete.” Two other studies cited in the article, one from 1918 and another from 1921, reached the same conclusion.

Before we get into what modern science has to say about masks, it’s important to understand what isn’t science. Authoritative statements made by people with M.D. or PhD after their names is not science–the same goes for celebrities and billionaires. Decrees, directives, and executive orders made by politicians, corporate CEOs, directors of institutions, and public health authorities is not science. They may or may not be telling the truth. You have to check their sources and see if they represent any special interests that could create bias. To blindly believe them because they are so-called experts is to commit the appeal to authority fallacy. A logical fallacy is a mistaken belief based on unsound reasoning.

There are two kinds of scientific research. Observational and experimental. Statistical correlations and computer modeling (epidemiological studies) are examples of observational science. They can be useful in pointing the way to what needs to be looked at more closely and for quality control regarding treatments in clinical practice. These kind of studies can often wind up being very inaccurate if used by themselves.

The gold standard in science are randomized controlled trials with verified outcomes because they eliminate bias and speculation. For example, hormone replacement therapy. Originally, estrogen therapy was thought to reduce heart attacks. This was based on an observational study. But when a randomized controlled trial or experimental study was done it showed that estrogen therapy actually increased the risk of a heart attack. To make it simple, compare what I just said with going on a trip. Epidemiological and other observational studies are the travel route, randomized controlled trials with verified outcomes are the destination.

In the case of masks, some observational/epidemiological studies show that they lowered COVID-19 cases and death rates in places that mandate mask wearing as opposed to places that don’t. But there are also studies that show the opposite. For example, Michigan, population 10,045,000, very punitive lockdown restrictions, strict mask mandates. Sweden, population 10,110,405, no punitive lockdown restrictions, no mask mandates. Total COVID-19 deaths in Michigan: 7,019. Total COVID-19 deaths in Sweden: 5,880. One can cherry-pick this kind of data adnauseam, but it’s all speculation. The bottom line question is: do masks block viral particles? Only experimental studies or randomized controlled trials with verified outcomes can answer this question by testing the masks directly. Such studies have been done numerous times.

Source: Fast Company

Of the most comprehensive studies on masks was done in the United Kingdom in 2008 by the HSE (Health Safety Executive), it’s like our OSHA, entitled: “Evaluating the protection afforded by surgical masks against influenza bioaerosols” “Gross protection of surgical masks compared to filtering facepiece respirators” (N95 masks).

Background: “There is a common misconception amongst workers and employers that surgical masks will protect against aerosols…However, surgical masks are not intended to provide protection against infectious aerosols.”

Aerosols are very fine particles, much smaller than respiratory droplets, that are suspended in the fluid air for long periods of time and can travel quite far. We release these aerosols through breathing and speaking—they can contain large amounts of pathogenic viruses—the part of our body most vulnerable to them is the respiratory system.

In the HSE study, different kinds of masks were tested on a dummy’s head which was exposed to aerosols containing influenza virus particles to see if the masks would filter them out. Influenza virus is supposed to be similar in size to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that supposedly causes COVID-19.

Page 21: “Live infectious virus was extracted in enumerable quantities from the air from behind all the surgical masks tested. This suggests that influenza virus can survive in aerosol particles and bypass/penetrate a surgical mask and that a residual infectious aerosol hazard may exist.”

Page 22: “Even if the mask is manufactured from high efficiency filtering media, a high proportion of particles challenging the surgical mask will enter the breathing zone via breaches in the face seal. Furthermore, a high efficiency filtration media and fluid-resistant layers are likely to increase breathing resistance. This, together with a poor face fit, will increase the degree of leakage around the face seal.”

Page 23: “As surgical masks cannot be fitted well to the face, their use may not be adequate for protection against a residual airborne infection hazard.”

A June 26, 2019 study in Peer J—Journal of Life and Environmental Sciences: “Optimal microscopic study of surface morphology and filtering efficiency of face masks” demonstrated that cloth masks are even worse than surgical masks.

Background: “Low-cost face masks made from different cloth materials are very common in developing countries. The cloth masks (CM) are usually double layered with stretchable ear loops. It is common practice to use such masks for months after multiple washing and drying cycles. If a CM is used for long time, the ear loops become stretched. The loop needs to be knotted to make the mask loop fit better on the face.”

Conclusions: “Filtering efficiency of CM for ambient PM (particulate matter) was poorer than in SM (surgical masks). The poor efficiency was due to the presence of larger sized pores. Our study also demonstrated that washing and drying cycle deteriorates the filtering efficiency due to change in pore shape and clearance. We also found that stretching of the CM surface alters the pore size and potentially decreases the filtering efficiency. The findings of this study suggest that CM are not effective, and that effectiveness deteriorates if used after washing and drying cycles and if used under stretched condition.” And what does the CDC recommend? Washing cloth masks.

Bottom line: all masks, doesn’t matter what kind, have a network of microscopic pores/holes in them. If they didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to breath at all. Unlike the 1911 Manchurian plague which was caused by a bacterial pathogen, respiratory diseases like the Spanish flu are caused by viruses. The average size of most bacteria is between 0.2 and 2.0 microns. Viruses are a lot smaller. SARS-CoV-2 is between 0.06 and 0.14 microns which makes it a lot smaller than the pores in any mask. N95 masks have the smallest pores at 0.3 microns. But viruses don’t travel through the air by themselves—they travel via droplets and aerosols which are larger than the virus, but still small enough to go through the pores in any mask. The larger the pores in the mask the more particles and droplets will get through.

A June 1, 2020 study from AAPS (Association of American Physicians and Surgeons) reported on the filter efficiency of cloth masks and scarves for microscopic particles ranging in size from 0.02 – 1.0 microns: “Cloth masks 10% to 30%,” “Scarves 10% to 20%.” “All of the cloth masks and materials had near zero efficiency at 0.3 um (microns), a particle size that easily penetrates into the lungs.” The study further reported on the efficiency of 44 surgical masks and N95 respirators for particles ranging in size from 0.08 to 0.22 microns: “N95 FFR filter efficiency was greater than 95%.” “Medical masks – 55% efficiency” “General masks – 38%.”

Two things to keep in mind: one virion (cell free virus particle) is enough to cause infection if it enters into a cell and multiplies. This debunks the assertion that masks are better than nothing because they block some viral particles. Additionally, the CDC does not recommend N95 masks be worn by the general public in order to reserve them for health care workers. In order to block at least 95% of infectious viral particles, N95 masks have to be properly fitted to a person’s face in a clinical setting. Instead, the CDC recommends that the general public wear cloth masks which at best filters out only 30% of viral particles. Now I ask you: is this really about public health? Simply stated: wearing any kind of mask to prevent viral diseases is a waste of time.

The most thorough and comprehensive kind of scientific study is a systematic review usually combined with meta-analysis. It sits at the very top of the “Evidence Pyramid.” To quote the North Central University Library in Minnesota: “A systematic review is a high-level overview of primary research on a particular research question that systematically identifies, selects, evaluates, and synthesizes all high quality research evidence relevant to that question in order to answer it. In other words, it provides an exhaustive summary of scholarly literature related to a particular research topic or question. A systematic review is often written by a panel of experts after reviewing all the information from both published and unpublished studies.”

Numerous systematic reviews have been done on masks. All of them came to the same conclusion. Here are two of them:

Peer-review journal: Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, 2011 study “The use of masks and respirators to prevent transmission of influenza: a systematic review of the scientific evidence” They reviewed 17 studies (see Discussion) and concluded: “None of the studies we reviewed established a conclusive relationship between mask/respirator use and protection against influenza infection.” The authors go on to say: “In conclusion, there is a limited evidence base to support the use of masks and/or respirators in healthcare or community settings.”

Probably the most comprehensive study ever done was by the peer-review journal Canadian Family Physician (CFP) in July 2020: “Masks for prevention of viral respiratory infections among health care workers and the public” “PEER umbrella systematic review” This study included 11 systematic reviews and 18 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of 26,444 participants. The result:

Synthesis: “Overall, the use of masks in the community did not reduce the risk of influenza, confirmed viral respiratory infection, influenzalike illness, or any clinical respiratory infection.”

Community setting:“The use of masks in community settings in general did not reduce the risk of confirmed influenza…or confirmed viral respiratory infection. Results were not statistically significant in any subgroup analysis (masks worn by all, just the sick person, or just the healthy family members at home).”

Health care setting: “Of the 6 RCTs examining the use of masks by health care workers, only two had a control group assigned to no mask. In these trials, masks did not reduce influenzalike illness…any clinical respiratory infection…or confirmed viral respiratory infection compared with no masks.”

Discussion: “Particularly in the community setting, we wanted to see if there was any evidence of benefit from systematic use of masks by the general public outside the home, but we found no such evidence.”

There you have it. The latest most up to date body of knowledge on masks. Dr. Denis Rancourt, PhD summed it up best In his April 2020 paper “Masks Don’t Work” “A review of science relevant to COVID-19 social policy” published in Research Gate. Page 4: “No RCT study with verified outcome shows a benefit for HCW” (health care workers) “or community members in households to wearing a mask or respirator. There is no such study. There are no exceptions.”

Nevertheless, politicians, public health authorities, and the media continue to drone on about a growing body of evidence showing that masks worn by the general public are effective. In its June 5

“Interim Guidance” on masks, the WHO (World Health Organization) admits on page 6 that mask use by the general public “is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence…” Instead, they assert that “a growing compendium of observational evidence” indicates their possible effectiveness.

A July 31 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) warned that “observational studies” might “reduce the likelihood of a properly designed trial being performed, thereby delaying the discovery of reliable truth…if leaders, commentators, academics, and clinicians cannot restrain the rush to judgment in the absence of reliable evidence, the proliferation of observational treatment comparisons will hinder the goal of finding effective treatments for COVID-19—and a great many other diseases.” (page 4-5)

Another factor to consider is the detrimental effects masks have on the people wearing them. Food servers, friends, and people in general have told me how much they hate wearing masks saying that they can’t breathe, have headaches, and feel exhausted after working in them all day. Still, other people have told me that wearing a mask doesn’t bother them in the least. The couple of times I wore a mask while getting a chair massage and when I went to a city hall to testify against the passage of a mask ordinance, I too felt discomfort and anxiety. In science, these statements are considered anecdotal. An anecdote is a personal narrative about how someone experiences and perceives something minus any scientific data. Sometimes anecdotal evidence is all we have to go on. When it comes to making decisions in our personal lives, it’s usually all we need. Not everything can nor probably ever will be answered via the scientific method. But when it comes to government policies like forcing people to wear masks, socially distance, etc. scientific evidence is a must.

We must breathe air to live. Without air most people would die within 3-5 minutes. Our nose and mouth were not meant to be obstructed. Obviously, masks obstruct breathing. You don’t need science to tell you that. We breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide or CO2. Carbon dioxide is a waste product of various metabolic and biochemical processes. Symptoms of not enough oxygen in the blood and tissues (hypoxemia/hypoxia) and too much CO2 in the blood (hypercapnia) include: headache, difficulty breathing, coughing, wheezing, dizziness, confusion, inability to concentrate, fatigue, panic, depression, rapid heartbeat, convulsions, hyperventilation, and death.

The WHO (World Health Organization) explicitly says not to exercise with a mask on. The CDC shamelessly tiptoes around the issue by saying that people may not be able to wear a mask while exercising if it causes difficulty breathing. But the CDC does explicitly say that anyone who has trouble breathing shouldn’t wear a mask. Also keep in mind that with a mask on you’re breathing back in bacteria and viruses that you have exhaled, some of your own CO2, any dyes and chemicals in the material the mask is made from, and if you smoke or vape your own tar and nicotine along with other toxins. Here is what the scientific literature has to say:

National Taiwan University Hospital, 2005 study from the U.S National Library of Medicine: “The Physiological impact of N95 Masks on Medical Staff.” Detailed Description: “Wearing N95 masks results in hypooxygenemia and hypercapnia which reduce working efficiency and the ability to make correct decision.” The study goes on to say: “Medical staff are at an increased risk of getting ‘severe acute respiratory syndrome’ (SARS), and wearing N95 masks is highly recommended worldwide. However, dizziness, headache, and short of breath are commonly experienced by the medical staff wearing N95 masks.” (SARS only killed 774 people worldwide)

A 2008 study on how surgical masks effect surgeons performing operations was published in Neurocirugia, the Journal of the Spanish Society of Neurosurgery (SENEC) entitled: “Preliminary report on surgical mask induced deoxygenation during major surgery.” The study was conducted on 53 surgeons 24-54 years old, non-smokers without any chronic lung disease. A pulse oximeter was used to evaluate whether their oxygen saturation of hemoglobin was affected by a surgical mask during major operations.

Introduction: “…Surgeons in the operating room frequently experience physical discomfort, fatigue, and possibly even deterioration of surgical judgment and performance…the surgeon beneath the surgical mask is often very inadequately conditioned despite the universal air conditioning standard of operating theaters. Thus they either wear masks improperly or refrain from using them altogether. As it is known that heat and moisture trapping occur beneath surgical masks, it seems reasonable that some of the exhaled CO2 may also be trapped beneath them, inducing a decrease in blood oxygenation.”

Results: “Oxygen saturation of hemoglobin decreased significantly after the operations in both age groups.” Meaning, surgeons under 35 and over 35.

Don’t confuse the Neurocirugia study with YouTube videos of surgeons and lay people sticking an oxygen meter tube under a mask they’re wearing and coming up with a reading. This is worthless for two reasons: it’s not a controlled environment and oxygen levels in the blood have to be measured at different intervals while wearing the mask. Usually, the lay people show lower oxygen levels while the doctors who are pro mask show no decrease in oxygen levels. But it doesn’t matter because devices like the ALTAIR 5X Multi Gas Detector that’s used in one of these videos weren’t designed to measure what’s going on inside a face mask.

Another problem with masks is that they are virtual breeding grounds for pathogenic microbes. A 2018 study in the Journal of Orthopaedic Translation: “Surgical masks as source of bacterial contamination during operative procedures” found:

Abstract: “This study aimed to investigate whether SMs” (surgical masks) “may be a potential source of bacterial shedding leading to an increased risk of surgical site infection.”

Methods: “We investigated the difference in bacterial counts between the SMs worn by surgeons and those placed unused in the operating room (OR), and the bacterial count variation with indicated wearing time.”

Results: “The bacterial count on the surface of the SMs increased with extended operating times…Moreover, the bacterial counts were significantly higher among the surgeons than the OR. Additionally, the bacterial count of the external surface of the second mask was significantly higher than that of the first one.”

Conclusions: “The source of bacterial contamination in SMs was the body surface of the surgeons rather than the OR environment. Moreover, we recommend that surgeons should change the mask after each operation, especially those beyond 2 hours.”

A 2019 study in BMC Infectious Diseases yielded similar results measuring viral contaminants.

A major factor in pathogenic microbes building up in masks is sweat. And what happens when people walk around wearing masks on hot humid days? They sweat. To make matters worse, just about everyone doesn’t properly wear or clean them. Instead of taking off their masks, people will be lazy and just wear them around their neck. The CDC explains this will contaminate them. Or they’ll stuff them in their pockets or purses, or they will drop them on the floor and put them back on their face. A lot of people will wear the mask below their nose, and who can blame them–they want to breathe. Go to the CDC website “How to Wear Masks” and see if you or anyone else is obsessive-compulsive enough to follow the guidelines listed there. And since most people won’t even bother to read the guidelines much less follow them, forcing people to wear masks will wind up spreading disease and poor health rather than preventing it. To quote the WHO: “Sweat can make the mask become wet more quickly which makes it difficult to breathe and promotes the growth of microorganisms.”

Bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx, CDC Director Robert Redfield, Surgeon General Jerome Adams, and the WHO know the aforementioned facts. This is why they originally advocated against wearing masks. Don’t be conned by Fauci’s baloney that he lied due to a shortage of N95 masks. He could have advised the public to wear cloth masks from the beginning. Why didn’t he? Why the 180?

In a May 27 CNN interview, Fauci said he wants masks to be “a symbol” of what we should be doing even though “it’s not 100% effective” because it shows “respect for another person.”

An April 1, 2020 article in the New England Journal of Medicine by three MDs and an RN was even more explicit: “We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any protection from infection…It is also clear that masks serve symbolic roles…masks are not only tools, they are also talismans that may help increase health care workers perceived sense of safety…”

In other words, masks are worthless. Lots of viral pathogens will always get around and go through any mask. The science proving this hasn’t changed. It is the political agenda that has changed.

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Michael J. Talmo has been a professional writer for over 40 years and is strongly committed to the protection of civil liberties. He can be reached at [email protected].

The facts about the alleged “crimes against humanity” being hurled against Venezuela and its government can be found in these three documents here, here and here. However, the Trudeau government obviously did not wait – or did not want – to read them before issuing a Twitter statement accusing the Maduro government of “crimes against humanity.” This haste is hardly surprising. The Trudeau government is, with the notorious right-wing human rights violator Colombia, the principal architect of the Lima Group responsible for the latest allegations against Venezuela. The Canadian government tweet begins with “Canada is deeply troubled…”

Which Canada is it talking about? The problem is that Trudeau’s foreign policy has no legitimacy in Canada or internationally. Despite having spent millions of dollars and multiple diplomatic efforts by phone and in person, Trudeau’s bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) suffered a humiliating defeat last June. It was the second such defeat in recent years. As a result, the Trudeau government is disqualified from speaking in the name of Canadians.

The UNSC Trudeau Defeat and Legitimacy

How did this come about? The Canadian Foreign Policy Institute (CFPI) published a petition signed by more than one hundred Canadian personalities and organizations and others, such as Noam Chomsky and Roger Waters (Pink Floyd). It was moreover endorsed by more than 3,500 Canadians and published in a mainstream corporate outlet. The Petition was entitled: “Canada does not deserve a seat on the UN Security Council.”

One of our petition planks asserts: “Echoing Trump’s foreign policy, Canada has backed reactionary forces in the Americas. The Trudeau government has led efforts to unseat Venezuela’s UN-recognized government, while propping up repressive, corrupt and illegitimate governments in Haiti and Honduras. Canada also lent its support to the economic elites and Christian extremists who recently overthrew the democratically-elected, Indigenous president of Bolivia.”

Other organizations joined in the movement, such as those in solidarity with Palestine. It just kept building and building. Social media including YouTube were used to reach out to all member states of the United Nations. The flow of grassroots support succeeded to a large degree in throwing off the shackles imposed by Trudeau apologists on Canadian foreign policy. This is no small achievement, given how Trudeau has been carefully groomed in Canada and internationally as the liberal poster boy. It was also very encouraging to see how the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry used its Twitter accounts to raise the issue of the Trudeau bid in the international arena.

When the result of the UNSC vote was announced, it was evaluated by commentators from across the political spectrum, both in Canada and elsewhere, as meaning that the main cause of his shameful defeat was Trudeau’s foreign policy being in lockstep with the Trump administration. Following this critical defeat, the Trudeau government has failed to acknowledge the significance of the vote. A close examination of the Trudeau government’s stand on international issues indicates that it is “business as usual.” Canada is still echoing the talking points of the Trump administration on all foreign policy matters.

Trudeau Foreign Policy: Fundamental Reassessment Needed

Nevertheless, encouraged by the success of our work and that of our many partners on the UNSC vote, the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute launched another petition: “Time to fundamentally reassess Canadian foreign policy.” It was immediately signed by many former and current members of Parliament, as well as key actors on the Canadian political scene. It states that “The world’s rejection of Canada’s bid for a seat on the Security Council is a unique opportunity for a review of Canadian foreign policy.”

Among the 10-point programme: “1. Should we have a foreign policy driven by Washington or an independent foreign policy? 2. Why is Canada involved in efforts to overthrow Venezuela’s UN-recognized government, a clear violation of the principle of non-intervention in other country’s internal affairs?”

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Arreaza “In Canada”: No Show by Trudeau Government

Encouraged by the movement, the Venezuelan Minister of People’s Power of Foreign Affairs, Jorge Arreaza was invited to participate in a Zoom conference organized from Canada. The theme: “Canada’s interference in the internal affairs of Venezuela.” Representatives of the Canadian government were also invited to take part in the August 20 event, but all declined. Tens of thousands of people were made aware of the event through social media in Canada, Venezuela and elsewhere. Hundreds viewed it live, and thousands are still viewing it.

We cannot pretend to speak in the name of “Canada” on foreign policy as Trudeau does. Nor can we even assert that our position reflects the views of the majority. This is to be expected, because the vast majority of mainstream media censors our views, leaving the wider public uninformed. However, when Canadians do have an opportunity to find out the facts, the balance falls in our favour.

Not in Our Name

When the Canadian government asserts that “Canada is deeply troubled…” about the Venezuelan situation, it is speaking in its own name and that of Trump. The Trudeau government lost any legitimacy it may have had to speak in the name of Canadians on foreign affairs, after the UNSC vote. In contrast, based on the work of the CFPI and others, we and other Canadians at the grassroots have more legitimacy than Trudeau. And our position is based on a commitment to non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations and respect for international law, according to the principles of the United Nations.

Venezuelans and the peoples of the world should know that Justin Trudeau does not represent Canada. At the CFPI, our many partners and the grassroots fully support the right of self-determination of the Venezuelan people and its elected government. We suggest that Trudeau, and the mainstream Canadian press, read the three documents linked in the first paragraph. It is not too late for “Canada” to distance itself from the Trump policy of bringing violence to Venezuela and the surrounding region, right in the middle of the pandemic, in order to bring Venezuela into the realm of US-led domination. The UNSC vote and its aftermath indicates the need for a fundamental reassessment of Canada’s foreign policy. We can start with Venezuela. We are on the verge of a possible US-led military intervention against the Maduro government. Let that sink in.

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This article was originally published on The Canada Files.

Arnold August is a Montreal-based author, journalist, speaker and Fellow at the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute. He has written 3 books on Cuba, Latin America and the US. His articles appear in English, Spanish and French in North America, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. Current focus: geopolitics of the relations between U.S., Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and the role of Canada.

Featured image is from TCF

23/09/2020. Continuano nel mar Mediterraneo orientale, a largo delle coste greche, cipriote e turche, le tensioni militari tra la Grecia e la Turchia, due paesi facenti parte della NATO. Nell’area, dove sono stati scoperti giacimenti di gas naturale, gli Stati Uniti hanno schierato il cacciatorpediniere Churchill, capace di lanciare quasi 100 missili da crociera anche a testata nucleare. A poca distanza, nel Mar Nero, e a ridosso delle acque territoriali russe, è presente l’unità Roosevelt della marina statunitense.

Il segretario di Stato USA, Mike Pompeo, il 20 marzo 2019, ha siglato un accordo con il premier israeliano Benjamin Netanyahu, con il presidente cipriota Nikos Anastasiadis e con l’allora premier greco Alexis Tsipras per controllare l’EastMed, un gasdotto progettato per portare in Europa il gas del Mediterraneo orientale.

Secondo il giornalista, esperto di geopolitica, Manlio Dinucci, la strategia degli Stati Uniti è chiara: “Ridurre e infine bloccare le esportazioni russe di gas in Europa, sostituendole con il gas fornito o comunque controllato dagli Usa. A tal fine Washington ha bloccato nel 2014 il SouthStream, il condotto che attraverso il Mar Nero avrebbe portato il gas russo in Italia e negli Stati dell’Unione Europea e tenta adesso di fare lo stesso con il TurkStream che, attraverso il Mar Nero, porta il gas russo nella piccola parte europea della Turchia, con l’obiettivo di farlo arrivare in Europa”. In questo scenario, secondo Dinucci, l’Italia ha assunto una posizione subalterna, mentre avrebbe bisogno di una seria politica energetica sovrana.

The US is ruthlessly waging an intense Hybrid War on Russian energy interests in Europe by targeting the Eurasian Great Power’s relevant projects in Germany, Belarus, and Bulgaria, banking on the fact that even the partial success of this strategy would greatly advance the scenario of an externally provoked “decoupling” between Moscow and Washington’s transatlantic allies.

The American writer Mark Twain once observed that there were three kinds of lies. Lies, damn lies and statistics. In the 21st century that list might usefully be added to and include lies of omission. The modern mainstream media do not so much write and broadcast actual lies, although it is not difficult to detect actual examples, as lie by omission.

There are multiple examples of this failing, but a few illustrations will suffice to make the point. The first is the charmed life that the State of Israel enjoys in the local media, in all its forms. There are multiple illustrations of this. In 1968 Israel fought a brief war with its neighbours, including Syria, in the course of which Israel seized Syrian territory in the Golan Heights.

They have been there ever since. This is in violation of multiple facets of international law, including the fundamental principle that foreign land seized in the course of conflict may not be retained when that conflict is concluded. In the case of the Syrian Golan Heights not only has that law been violated, but the United Nations has also passed multiple resolutions demanding that Israel return the occupied land to its rightful owners. The Israelis have simply ignored those resolutions.

The particular point of relevance to Australia, however, is that in the multiple United Nations General Assembly resolutions condemning various Israeli transgressions of international law, Australia is one of a literal handful of countries that voted against each and every such resolution. During the term of the last Labor government Australia abstained on those votes, but the return of the Liberal-National coalition saw a return to the small group of those voting “No”.

That is sufficient cause for concern. What compounds the issue, however, is that the Australian media is almost totally silent on this Australian isolation from the overwhelming majority of United Nations members. This silence extends to a similar almost complete absence of mainstream reports on the, again totally illegal, Israeli bombing of Syrian government targets.

The courtesy of silence is not confined to Israel in the Middle East. In January of this year the Iraqi government passed a resolution demanding the removal of all (unwanted) foreign troops. This was explicitly aimed at the United States and its allies, including Australia, who had occupied the country since the initial invasion in 2003. The Iraqi resolution was barely reported; the ignoring of it by the Australians even less reported.

It needs to be recalled that the original invasion was justified in terms of Iraq’s alleged “weapons of mass destruction,” which Saddam Hussein was going to unleash on the world, or more specifically, the United States’ allies in the region. The allegation was a complete lie. The invasion was also based on a further series of lies long since refuted, but the United States and Australia are still there.

The Americans are still stealing Iraqi oil (as they are in Syria). Australia as a willing accomplice of the Americans is just as guilty as they are of this illegal occupation and theft. But again, where is the political opposition? Where is the critical mainstream media? In both cases, missing in action. Silence in this case does not just imply consent. Australia is a willing accomplice in a major violation of international law and the mainstream media are almost completely missing in action.

I have written before about the multiple lies that accompanied the illegal invasion and continuing occupation of Afghanistan, now in its 20th year. The mainstream media have at least reported on that ongoing fiasco, although two elements of the invasion and occupation are totally absent from the mainstream discourse.

The first is that one of the principal reasons for the original invasion and continuing occupation is geography. Afghanistan shares borders with a number of countries, all of whom are of intensive geopolitical significance to the Americans. Those neighbours include Iran, long a foe of the Americans; Pakistan, closely aligned with China, not least through a major rail link that will provide China with an alternative outlet in the event of an American and Australian blockade of the Straits of Hormuz; and former members of the USSR are now the subject of fierce Russian-United States competition for influence; and China itself.

The inexorable rise to economic and political influence of China has led to an unprecedented campaign against that nation by the Americans, aided in all possible ways by Australia, despite the economic suicide that Australia will inevitably experience in its increasingly anti-China stance.

Again, one sees a willing complicity between pro-American ideologues in the ruling Australian coalition, from the Prime Minister downward, and their allies in the mainstream media such as Peter Hartcher, foreign editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, whose anti-China rhetoric scales ever more ridiculous heights. Were it not so pathetically tragic it would be almost funny to watch a nation commit suicide with such utter disregard for its true national interests.

The latest manifestation of the folly is the rather pathetic attempt to muster an alliance between Japan, India, Australia and the United States. This is also a manifestly anti-China alliance and is doomed to fail on multiple grounds.

India has an uneasy relationship with China and there have been several relatively small skirmishes over several decades, almost always involving territorial disputes. But India has had historically close ties to Russia and these continue to the present day with a major economic development between the two countries via Iran currently being developed.

Japan is still treated as an occupied country by the Americans, but it also has growing economic links with China. The forced retirement of Prime Minister Abe presents an opportunity for Japan to reassert its independence. Japan also faces major demographic challenges with its population projected to decline from its current 127 million to below 100 million in 2053 and 88 million in 2065.

Japan is not unique among developed nations in facing the demographic challenge, but its historical aversion to immigration puts it in a unique category. Confronting those demographic challenges will be a major government policy issue in the coming decades. The last thing that Japan wants or needs is a militarily hostile relationship with China, also facing demographic challenges, but from a vastly higher initial base.

Because of historically high migration input Australia does not have the same demographic challenges as many other developed nations. Its challenges are more geopolitical in nature. The most significant of those geopolitical challenges arise from its current status as effectively an American colony as evidenced by multiple government foreign policy decisions since the 1975 overthrow of the Whitlam government.

It is now caught in the relentless fight between the United States and China. The former nation is not responding well to the irresistible decline in its military and economic position respectively viz a viz Russia and China and is engaging in a vicious battle to halt its relative decline. The danger for Australia is that it will be collateral damage in that battle between the superpowers.

It is not too late for Australia to assert its independence and take a variety of steps to ensure both its political independence and its prosperity. The history of the past 40 years would, however, suggest that is a vain hope.

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James O’Neill is a retired Barrister at Law and geopolitical analyst. He can be contacted at [email protected].

In 1973, the world economy was brought almost to a halt by a supposed shortage of oil. The ostensible trigger for this alleged shortage was the so-called Yom Kippur War in which the armed forces of the Anglo-American Empire’s settler-colonial offshore enterprise in Palestine, also known as the State of Israel, repelled the forces of Egypt and Syria, which had moved to reoccupy the territory stolen from them by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. One response to the Anglo-American Empire’s support of its client state against those states Israel wished to conquer was an oil embargo proclaimed by OPEC, with the largest producer– the autocratic Anglo-American protectorate Saudi Arabia at the lead.

Portrayed in the mainstream Western media as a sign of Arab economic strength– also as anti-Semitism in some quarters– the embargo led to massive economic disruption in all the countries that had to import oil, mainly Europe and its former colonies.

This embargo created the impression of a global oil shortage—which although there was none, could not be overcome without violating the power of the oil cartel. While the OPEC embargo formally restricted the sale of crude oil to Israel’s sponsors, there was no real oil shortage since oil supplies to Europe and the US have always been in the hands of the majors (now super-majors), then known as the “seven sisters”.[1] OPEC’s announcement of an embargo at the well had no impact on the enormous upstream reserves held by the mainly American majors. However it did provide the pretext for massive price increases at the pump– presented as shortage-induced.[2]

Unnoticed except in the aftermath and ignored generally in popular debate or historical literature was the far more insidious deal made secretly while everyone from Bonn to Boston and Lyon to Los Angeles was queuing for petrol or the dole. In 1971 Richard Nixon had announced that the US dollar would no longer be redeemable for gold– at any price. This decision had been largely induced by the enormous debt incurred funding the US war against Vietnam. In the course of this fateful decision, secret negotiations were undertaken with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which led to an agreement that Saudi Arabia and OPEC would not sell oil in any currency except US dollars. The oil crisis pushed the price of oil to such heights that many countries in Europe and especially the newly independent countries, soon exhausted their foreign exchange reserves and were compelled to borrow US dollars to pay for oil imports. The result was a boom for the US regime, e.g. oil and banking– not its ordinary citizens– as the demand for US currency led to an inflow of foreign exchange and an overall improvement in its current accounts. Meanwhile the US Treasury could literally print dollars to buy oil– when the time was right.

Even today this story is told in a way to cast aspersions on the Arab states– although all the major oil-producing Arab states involved were and are entirely dependent upon the Anglo-American Empire and its military force for their very survival. It is a false parable used to exaggerate the innocence or helplessness of the settler-colonial state “surrounded” by “ragheads” instead of “redskins” who have all the oil, while poor Israel only has atomic bombs and the biggest foreign aid subsidy per capita of any country the US funds.

Why do I take the trouble here to recount history, which is or ought to be well known– at least to the historically literate?

It is worth recalling here that the Seven Sisters, as they were then called, are actually fewer now due to mergers. The upstream oil industry is still dominated by the Standard Oil companies (yes, Rockefeller, i.e. ExxonMobil) and their allies as well as the Rothschild-Nobel companies.[3] Together they assure that oil prices and distribution are closely controlled– if not absolutely– and that the commerce in oil is billed in the leading currency of the Empire, the US dollar.

The Anglo-American Empire, amazingly similar in composition to the dream of Cecil Rhodes and his personal banker Lord Rothschild[4], relies not only on oil and the financial transactions connected with it. There are two other major businesses that support the value of lead currencies, like the USD, GBP or even the EUR. They are war– and hence both legal and illegal arms sales– and drugs, both licit and illicit. All three “markets” are entirely controlled by cartels and state regulation. Moreover they provide windfall profits because they are all addictive and toxic. That means the traders get money and the buyers get garbage.

Stemming from the 19th century Opium Wars, Great Britain became the biggest dope pusher in the world. The opium trade made the British East India Company shareholders and those who traded with and for it wealthy beyond compare.[5] While the US American schoolchild may learn about the Boston Tea Party, in which a few ruffians dumped British East India Tea into the harbour as a protest against taxation like the Townshend Acts[6], they won’t learn that proud New England families not only funded the Ivy League colleges with slave trading but with the income from opium business.

It is essential to recall that every crime is simply the unauthorised version of an activity otherwise deemed legal. The difference between marriage with dowry and prostitution is simply the statute book. The difference between war and murder is the sovereign authorisation. Seagram (Bronfman) produced whiskey in Canada that was legal and sold it more profitably in the US during Prohibition where it was illegal. The leading pharmaceutical companies are the brothers of the heroine, cocaine and synthetics pushers. And between all these folks who are all just merchants, there is the State– the armed bureaucracy that regulates these businesses in accordance with the most powerful to permit each side of these businesses to extract the maximum profit– yes, from us.

That said, as I have written in previous articles[7], the question of history arises not from the need to find the “true past” but to answer questions in the present. It is the most urgent present question with which I have been preoccupied for the past six months. Why in a global system dominated by the religious ideology of Business and the absolute priority of “the economy” have we seen the leading authorities, autocratic and bureaucratic, suspend the “economy” and disregard Business because of a new, improved version of the seasonal influenza? There are rational and irrational explanations. That is because power may be understood rationally but those who hold and exercise it are often– if not always clinically insane (it is just because they own the clinics and the doctors that no one can utter this diagnosis!).

Again I want to remind the impatient reader– who implicitly strains my patience by not reading or remembering anything longer than the last Facebook or Instagram post– that all meaningful organisational decisions are made in secret by those who have the most power in the organisation– whether it is the classroom in which you send your child to be bullied (or bully) or the workplace you freely attend to earn money to pay the bank for the privilege of living in whatever house they let you buy. If you work in a big enough company or institution your boss and the bank know what your credit future will be like before you do. But never mind this bit of mundane reality. The point is simply nothing of any importance is ever decided in public where you have anything to say about it.

Having gotten that embarrassing sentimentality out of the way, let us consider what has happened since March 2020.

The Pandemic

Following events in China, the OPEC of the pharmaceutical cartel, aka the World Health Organisation (in an earlier article I also wrote that “witch-hunting” is also part of their job), performed some international bureaucratic gymnastics– like several years ago with the so-called “swine flu”– to declare a high grade pandemic phase alert (see table).[8] This decision was presented as some kind of service to public health— this euphemism is deliberately conflated with concern for the wellbeing of ordinary humans, but is nothing of the sort. To make this quite clear: most genuine public health issues arise from poor nutrition, vile working conditions, polluted air, water and food, and poverty.[9] None of these “pathogens” is part of the WHO brief. The World Health Organisation was established solely to market Western medical products worldwide and at the most profitable rates possible. This means among other things by arranging that poor countries devote precious foreign exchange for the purchase of bulk pharmaceuticals of dubious value under the pretext of being able to treat their indigent populations for illnesses that are almost entirely due to poor nutrition, vile working conditions, polluted air, water and food and poverty. Long before the Bush-Clinton clique promoted “humanitarian interventionism”, the WHO was poisoning the poor for humanitarian purposes (also known as eugenics).

Click here to larger view.

N.B. anyone who has not grasped the consequences of the US regime’s ownership of the UN and its agencies should read the story of the UN in Korea and in the Congo for a start.[10]

But I am digressing if only slightly. OPEC has never included all the oil producing countries and it was only effective as a cartel because it had the deep if covert collaboration of the Anglo-American oil majors. Without the pumps– wholly controlled upstream by either Rockefeller or Rothschild/ Nobel– Saudi oil would have been worthless. While we all imagine that oil is what drives our cars and heats our homes that is in fact a relatively minor and expendable part of the oil economy. Upstream the truly lucrative oil flows into petrochemicals, e.g. plastics, fertilizers, and– guess what, pharmaceuticals! Indeed the oil business, which started with “snake oil”, has never left it. Petroleum, that stuff that sticks to duck feathers and suffocates fish is the same gooey slime that forms the basis of much of the medicine you take. Think about it a minute: Monsanto (now part of IG Farben legacy, Bayer AG[11]) started as a poison producer when the US Army panicked about a potential natural sugar shortage during the Great War and gave John Francis Queeny the inspiration to sell the US Government coal tar as a sweetener. Some readers may recall when saccharine was finally prohibited. However it had been identified as a carcinogen already in the 1920s!

Pharmaceuticals– until the dawn of genetic manipulation, a largely petrochemical or opiate driven product stream– is an integral part of the triad that drives modern capitalism: drugs, oil and guns. The oil industry is tightly held; mainly by two dynastic groups. And surprise, surprise the drug industry is too– the successors to the Anglo-American opium trade dominate the licit pharmaceuticals side and the illicit opium-based and cocaine drug trade.[12] Since these businesses cannot be regulated in boardrooms alone, more than occasional persuasion is needed. So guns are just as important. But the gun trade is a topic for another day.

So what happened in March, really? My previous observations and summaries have not yet been rebutted. Nonetheless I do believe that beyond the obvious manifestations of the West’s confrontation with China, aside from the hyper-policing regime that is being created, there is a useful analogy which is perhaps more powerful than the US regime’s destruction of the New York World Trade Center buildings. That act of armed propaganda by other government agencies was certainly powerful in expanding the police and military power of the degenerate US Empire. However, like the US war against Vietnam it has been extremely expensive. All the president’s accountants and all the president’s lawyers have not been able to put Humpty Dumpty (at least not his bank account) together again.

So like those who tried to command Richard Nixon– and finally deposed him– the ruling class of the Anglo-American Empire is determined to eliminate another “Nixon” outsider (although Nixon always thought he really “belonged”) and restore order. Nixon, like the reigning POTUS, enjoyed wide popular support. However he had lost the support of the Establishment (which has come to be called the “Deep State” so as to imply that there is no Establishment or to lend its overt members legitimacy while denying the means by which it actually exercises power). Nixon actually saved the Establishment but it did not want to be saved by an outsider. It did not want to anyone outside its own exclusive circle. So a pretext was found– and he was dismissed. He knew that the alternative was a “Kennedy solution”.

The present POTUS has been trying to save the US regime from the antagonism of those it has abused both domestically and foreign. He has tried to harness the latent populism– what too many people confuse with “Left”– and channel it back into that revival tent in a way no Oreo Obama could have done– despite his Kennedy plagiarism.

But that is all really a sideshow for the financial disaster that the Reagan-Bush-Clinton dynasty (and its obscene scions in Britain and Germany) left the dying Anglo-American Empire. Nixon presided over the clever back channel negotiations to open China, bring Pepsi to the Soviet Union and save the USD by linking it to oil. Everything indicates that Trump has no clue of any of this– and no one is going to tell him either.

But the USD domination is under attack from all sides, by the weak and the strong. The Empire has been losing its wars but paying its bankers trillions and trillions for that privilege– beyond the capacity of anything the Empire can produce. Without a reinforced US dollar no one in the Empire can imagine the future.

So hark, the sneeze heard around the world.

The WHO assumed the role OPEC played in 1973. It declared a global pandemic under the most spurious conditions with the full knowledge that this would not only permit a shutdown of the economy (for political and economic benefits I have detailed elsewhere) but to create something only logical– the Pharmadollar. To keep it poetic, we now have the three P’s of global monetary domination: pistol dollar, followed by the petrodollar and now the pharma-dollar.

An emerging and potentially infinite demand for pharmaceuticals– legal or illegal– safe or unsafe—will offer the Western pharmaceutical cartels untold and unlimited profits and because these are all countries working in the USD / EUR markets, together with the WHO will be guaranteed potentially unlimited profit streams. So from the first circle of hell we descend into the second circle. Can we get any closer to damnation?

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Notes

[1] Anthony Sampson, The Seven Sisters (1974)

[2] John M. Blair, The Control of Oil (1976)

[3] https://www.corbettreport.com/bigoil/

[4] To avoid confusion: Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild (1840-1915)

[5] See John Newsinger, The Blood Never Dried (2006) and Nick Robins, The Corporation that Changed the World(2006)

[6] For readers not schooled in US mythology, the Townshend Acts (1767) were consumption taxes imposed on British North American colonies intended inter alia to defray the costs of defending the colonies with British troops. Every US school pupil learns that these were great injustices—because the colonials were not represented in the British parliament. What they do not learn is that the colonies were all run as business ventures for private profit and the use of British troops to protect private investment could not be seen as a charitable exercise by those who ran the British Empire from London. See Gerald Horne, The Counter-Revolution of 1776 (2014)

[7] https://dissidentvoice.org/2020/04/the-first-circle/ and others posted there since.

[8] https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=598s&v=X7I5LzLgNSI

[9] A popular misconception lies in the belief that the aim of Public Health as a discipline is human health. In fact, schools of public health, e.g. the first one funded by the Rockefeller fortune at Johns Hopkins University, now sponsored by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, were created to teach professionals how to protect the rich from the diseases of the poor. This was defined as a management objective, implemented either using business or military models of organisation. Many of the people involved in terrorising the population as representatives of health departments or public health agencies are not physicians but professional managers of healthcare facilities and products. However since our society has been trained to believe economists and business executives like those of the Middle Ages believed priests, it is virtually impossible to break the power of the medical fetishes these managers hold. See E. Richard Brown, Rockefeller’s Medicine Men (1979).

[10] See Bruce Cumings extensive scholarship on the Korean War, esp. his two volume Origins of the Korean War (1981) but also his shorter derivative work and/ or watch the Thames TV documentary Korea: The Unknown War, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3c_vwqKxPneoViQPywTVCp8RkKXuuKsi

For the treacherous role of the UN in the Congo: Ludo de Witte (2002).

[11] After Mr William “Bill” Gates III made substantial investments in the entity. IG Farben was the German international chemicals and pharmaceuticals cartel that was technically divested by order of the US Military Government in Germany for its participation in war crimes under the NSDAP regime. In a fashion not unlike the US divestment order dissolving the Standard Oil trust, IG Farben was “punished” as a holding entity (1952) but its constituent corporations were reconstituted with immunity because they had not existed separately under the National Socialist regime, Bayer, Hoechst, BASF, Agfa, Chemische Fabrik Griesheim-Elektron, and Chemische Fabrik vorm. Weiler Ter Meer.

[12] For a good overview of the US regime’s international drug market management system, see Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Wolf (2004) and The Strength of the Pack (2009) and its integration into the national security (Phoenix) state, The CIA as Organised Crime (2016) A declassified OSS (Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA) report summarises the use of opium by the Japanese as a weapon of war. When the US entered Southeast Asia after Japanese withdrawal, they adopted the Japanese business model, Opium: A Japanese Technique of Occupation (1945) prepared by Mrs Katherine Lyman.

On August 20th, Russian opposition figure and self-styled “anti-corruption” activist Alexei Navalny fell seriously ill while in mid-flight from Tomsk, Siberia to the Russian capital. The Moscow-bound plane was abruptly re-routed to make an emergency landing in the Siberian city of Omsk where the anti-Kremlin politician was subsequently hospitalized for suspected poisoning and placed in a medically-induced coma. Two days later, Navalny was airlifted to Germany in an evacuation arranged by a Berlin-based “human rights” NGO at the request of Pussy Riot spokesman Pyotr Verzilov. His transport on a medically-equipped plane with German specialists was permitted by the Russian authorities who now stand accused of culpability in the alleged attack, all in the midst of the ongoing pandemic.

While the Russian doctors in Omsk (who saved Navalny’s life) maintain they did not find any evidence of chemical weapons substances in his system, upon examination the German government quickly announced that its military lab had discovered “unequivocal evidence” Navalny was poisoned by a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent and demanded an explanation from the Kremlin — without providing any of said evidence to Moscow or the public, of course. Despite being the supposed victim of an extremely deadly military-grade nerve agent, three weeks later Navalny came out his comatose state and off ventilation, defiantly vowing a return to Russia. Was he ever tested for COVID-19? At this point it seems more likely than this propaganda stunt we are expected to believe.

It is unconvincing precisely because it follows a pattern of improbable events questionably attributed to the Kremlin. As many have noted, the incident strikingly resembles the alleged March 2018 poisoning in Salisbury, England of disgraced former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, visiting from Moscow which caused a similar diplomatic row. Skripal, who had been a double agent for MI6 and served ten years imprisonment for high treason, was exiled to the UK after his sentence in a spy-swap between Russia and Britain in 2010. While residing in southern England, Skripal was reportedly in close contact with a security consultant who worked for the author of the salacious but fabricated dossier on U.S. President Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russia, former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele — and may have even been the source of its unverified contents.

Skripal and his daughter were discovered unconscious on a park bench, but were said to have been initially contaminated hours earlier by the extremely fast-acting substance applied to the door handle of his residence. Similarly, Alexei Navalny is said to have been contaminated by a water bottle in his hotel room, not in the tea he drank at the Tomsk Bogashevo airport cafe before boarding his flight as originally believed. How is the elapsed time in both of these cases possible? The toxin in Navalny’s case was also not discovered until examination in Germany, meaning a bottle laced with a chemical warfare agent was transported all the way to Berlin? None of those who came to Navalny’s aid or treated him suffered any noxious effects, unlike the Skripals where multiple police officers at least showed minor symptoms. Still, both Navalny and the Skripals fully recovered from their supposed exposure to an extremely lethal toxin considered even more deadly than sarin or VX gas. After their release from the hospital, the Skripals immediately went into hiding which has left the enormous questions surrounding the incident still unresolved two years later. However, the damage was already done as the UK government immediately blamed Moscow and more than 100 Russian diplomats were expelled by Britain and its Western allies.

Months later in June 2018, two British nationals were the victims of an accidental poisoning (one fatally) after they discovered a discarded but unopened perfume bottle containing the same poisonous agent. Then that September, Scotland Yard released CCTV footage of two Russian men alleged to be GRU military intelligence agents in Salisbury at the time of the attack. However, no verifiable evidence was ever provided by the British government showing that the two were responsible, though it was conveniently claimed that the would-be culprits clumsily left vestiges of the fatal chemical agent in their hotel room. So, not only is Russian intelligence incapable of carrying out successful assassinations, but carelessly unable to cover their tracks? The premise was already absurd enough but made even more fanciful by Britain’s refusal to comply with the Chemical Weapons Convention in providing Moscow with requested samples of the toxin which purportedly poisoned the treasonous ex-spook and his daughter. Thus far in the Navalny case, Germany is following the same script.

What a coincidence that the attack comes just as Nord Stream 2, the second line of the massive natural gas pipeline under construction from Russia to Germany opposed by the U.S. and several NATO allies, is near completion. Suddenly, the diplomatic fall-out has put the controversial project in limbo, with Chancellor Angela Merkel and the German government under pressure from Washington to withdraw from the project which would increase Russian influence on Europe’s energy infrastructure and rival the U.S.’s costlier exports. As pointed out by Die Linke’s Dietmar Bartsch, where were the calls to halt the purchase of Saudi oil imports after the grisly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi? It is clear that the Anglo-Americans are simply desperate to halt the resurgence of Moscow on the international stage, threatening their German counterparts with sanctions as the final sections of the pipeline conveying Russian gas across the Baltic Sea is being constructed. The attack on Navalny could not occur at a more auspicious time for the Atlanticists and a worse time for Moscow.

The notion that Russian President Vladimir Putin would try to assassinate an opposition figure who holds a minuscule 2% support amongst the population, far behind other opponents nonexistent to Western media but the one who just so happens to be favored by Washington, is contrary to any reason or common sense. Not to mention, at the exact moment it would jeopardize a project essential to Russia’s economic growth and frugality, as the pipeline would link Moscow with Western Europe bypassing neighboring transit countries such as the Ukraine (also opposed to Nord Stream 2) which have costly transit fees. Is it really the Russian government who stands to massively benefit from this fiasco? The answer to “cui bono?” could not be more clear: U.S., Saudi and Emirati oil and gas interests, not the Kremlin. Russia was also recently the first nation to develop a COVID-19 vaccine candidate with its Sputnik V registered in August, an international competition that has been heavily politicized by Washington which is eager to cast aspersions on Moscow’s accomplishment. Meanwhile, Germany is also the one Western European country where Washington’s anti-Russian propaganda is falling flat, as recent polls consistently show that the vast majority of Germans don’t see Russia as a threat, likely a result of their high rate of media literacy.

Despite Navalny’s recovery, there are already calls to legislate a ‘Navalny Act’ as a follow-up to the Magnitsky Act, a bipartisan bill previously passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012 under the Obama Administration which sanctioned Russian officials accused of being responsible for the 2009 death of Sergei Magnitsky, an unscrupulous Russian tax lawyer who helped dodgy international financiers like the US-born British tycoon William Browder commit massive tax evasion in Russia. Magnitsky died under mysterious circumstances while in custody awaiting trial for facilitating Browder’s skullduggery and suffering from poor health, with the Russian prison officials first accused of depriving him of medical treatment and then allegedly beating and torturing him to death. The fascinating 2016 documentary The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes explores the case from the perspective of Westernized Putin critic and filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, who through the course of his investigation unexpectedly discovers that the mainstream media narrative of Magnitsky’s death was a fiction concocted by Browder. Suddenly, Nekrasov’s entire perspective on Russia comes into question and the film takes on a metanarrative of the nature of propaganda itself.

What we are being told about Navalny is likely another fairy tale like the implausible story forged by Mr. Browder about the death of the auditor he hired to enrich himself exploiting Russia’s tax loopholes. Incredibly, the American-born investor is the grandson of Earl Browder, the leader of the Communist Party USA during its heyday until his expulsion at the end of World War II. When the wartime US-Soviet alliance fell apart and the Cold War began, the elder Browder proved more loyal to American imperialism than the communist movement and presided over the liquidation of the CPUSA until it was reestablished with his dismissal as General Secretary. Having grown up in a Russian-speaking family, decades later his grandson decided to cash in on the collapse of the former Soviet Union through various investment ventures as manager of the hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management. When Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin and numerous oligarchs went into exile or landed themselves in prison, Bill Browder was forced to flee the country after defrauding the Russian government of millions with the help of the late Mr. Magnitsky.

One of those banished oligarchs, billionaire media tycoon Boris Berezovsky, also died under dubious circumstances in the UK when he was found hanging in his apartment bathroom in Berkshire, England in 2013. Like Magnitsky, Putin and the Russian government were suspected of involvement in Berezovsky’s death by the media without a shred of evidence, even though his suspicious purported “suicide” actually came shortly after expressing a written willingness to return to Russia and reconcile with Putin — which almost certainly would have been a stroke of good luck for Russian counter-intelligence and a threat to the West, not the Kremlin. Berezovsky had been close with a former agent of the Federal Security Service (FSB, the KGB’s successor), Alexander Litvinenko, a defector renowned for claiming he had been ordered by Putin to assassinate Berezovsky and subsequently lived in the UK as a consultant for British intelligence until his own polonium poisoning in 2006, the first of a series of episodes framing Moscow. Consistently, however, in every one of these cases it is never the Kremlin which stands to gain.

There is a reason Putin consistently polls over 70% in favorability with the Russian people and that is his directing the country away from Western domination under the ruinous neoliberal economic policies of his corrupt and inebriated predecessor Boris Yeltsin which auctioned off the former state-owned assets to foreign investors such as Browder and oligarchs like Berezovsky. Meanwhile, Navalny has a level of support well under 5%, with recent polls placing him behind the Communist Party’s Pavel Grudinin and the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky. While Navalny’s own rhetoric has shifted over the years, he has controversially maintained his own cozy relationship with ethnic nationalists who make up a significant amount of his right-wing populist base, even co-organizing annual marches dominated by racist skinheads.

Navalny infamously coined the slogan “Stop Feeding the Caucasus!” advocated by xenophobic nationalists calling for the defunding and secession of the Muslim-majority North Caucasus from Russia, while making frequent Islamophobic statements and stoking anti-immigrant sentiments against Central Asians. You would never know this reading Western media who have completely sanitized Navalny’s politics (if they ever address them at all), while they remain obsessed with the perceived ingratiation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin even though the former’s politics have far more in common with Navalny than the Russian President. Given the U.S. support for far right nationalists in the 2014 anti-Russian coup d’etat in Ukraine, Washington has no qualms about backing fascists to undermine Moscow.

In 1831, Russia’s most famous and revered poet, Alexander Pushkin, composed “To the Slanderers of Russia”, a patriotic ode in response to members of the French parliament who were advocating for a military intervention to assist the Polish uprising against the Russian Empire. Pushkin asserted that the Polish uprising was an inter-slavic “ancient, domestic dispute”, while the Poles considered it an issue of national independence which their European allies were eager to exploit against Moscow. For the great Russian writer, the Polish alliance with the tyrant and invader Napoleon was unforgivable. He also reportedly communicated to General Alexander von Benckendorff, the chief of the Tsarist secret police assigned to censor and surveil him, that the Europeans were still bitter over the failed French invasion of Russia in 1812 and had not yet attacked with weapons but were doing so with “daily mad slander.”

Fast forward nearly 200 years later and little has changed in Russia-West relations. The only thing that has arguably transformed is Russia’s standing on the world stage following the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917 and the Soviet Union almost 75 years later, the latter of which was masterminded by a Polish-born National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose Russophobic worldview was a product of the deep-seated “ancient, domestic dispute” Pushkin wrote of a century earlier. Contrary to the Western portrayal of the resurgence of Moscow in the new millennia under Vladimir Putin as neo-tsarist expansionism, post-Soviet Russia is actually a relatively weak capitalist state that has found itself a target of regime change by the West which seeks the colonization and balkanization of Eastern Europe.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 caused a spike in oil prices that generated huge profits for Chevron and ExxonMobil, but also had the unintended consequence of benefiting Russia’s state-run oil industry just as Putin was re-nationalizing its energy assets and banishing financial criminals like Browder and Berezovsky. While its strength and influence has certainly been restored, its foreign investments remain low even in the Ukraine where Moscow has been accused of territorial expansion with the so-called “annexation” of Crimea, where the mostly Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainian population actually voted to join its neighbor in a referendum. Russia may no longer be an empire (or communist), but yet it remains in the crosshairs of Western imperialism, whose political leaders and subservient corporate media are still conducting the “mad slander” that Pushkin opined.

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Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst. His writing has appeared widely in alternative media. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Max may be reached at [email protected]

Featured image is from the author

The senior Health Service Executive doctor who resigned from his post days after he criticised “draconian” anti-Covid-19 restrictions has insisted that we must “stop scaring the nation” and encourage personal choice.

Dr Martin Feeley, who was the clinical director of Dublin Midlands Hospital Group, which includes the State’s biggest hospitals, resigned with immediate effect in mid-September.

Writing in today’s Irish Times, Dr Feeley said the number of people who have so far died of Covid-19 in Europe, up to August 10th, stood at 182,639, “slightly above the number who died three years ago as a result of flu (152,000)”.

The number of patients who died in Europe from the 1917-1918 Spanish flu was about 2.64 million – proportionately, this would be equivalent to about 7.4 million deaths of today’s European population.

“It is not for want of good reason that deaths are now referred to as Covid-19-associated deaths,” he writes, adding that 88 per cent of a group of New York patients had “more than one underlying condition”.

The presence of a chronic illness in patients “is the all-important factor in determining the risk, even in the elderly”, he said, saying 83 per cent of the 6,000 nursing home residents who had tested positive for Covid-19 had recovered.

However, Dr Feeley was sharply critical of how the HSE was presenting data about the Covid-19 risks facing overweight people: “The best-kept secret regarding Covid-19 is the vulnerability of overweight individuals.”

The information is not published “for reasons unknown”, he said, while the lack of awareness among the population at large “is exacerbated, if not caused, by HSE-published data on risk factors.

At-risk category

Someone is obese, according to the HSE’s calculations, if they have body mass index of 40 “whereas most international literature uses a BMI of 30”. Using the lower number, a person 178cm (5ft 10in) in height is obese if they weigh more than 95kg (15st).

Under the BMI 40 rule used by the HSE, 3 per cent of the State’s adult population is considered at risk, but this number rises to 23 per cent if a BMI of 30 is applied: “The HSE data therefore grossly understates the obesity risk,” he complains.

Questioning the State’s strategy, Dr Feeley said the costs were being met by younger people, “not by over-65s who are guaranteed their pension”, or those with guaranteed salaries “who decide to impose these draconian measures”.

Saying that many people were facing “an existence, not living”, he went on: “You can’t postpone youth. In essence, those least at risk are paying the highest price both financially and in their quality of life.”

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Our thanks to the Irish Times and to Shane Quinn for brining this article to our attention

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Featured image is from Natural News

It’s important to explain the context of the island leadership’s provocative comments in order to better understand why everything isn’t as simple as they try to make it seem.

Video: Covid-Gate, The Political Virus                                                                                                                             

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, September 16, 2020

Renowned Canadian Constitutional lawyer Rocco Galati characterizes the COVID Operation as “the biggest example of misinformation and lies on a global scale that we’ve seen.”

“The Constitutional challenge that he has filed with the Ontario Superior Court seeks to pull back the shroud of secrecy imposed by the Trudeau and Ford governments which, he says, are currently and have been “ruling by decree” beneath the pretexts of “COVID Measures” and “Emergency Measures”.

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Dr. Sherri Tenpenny and guest Constitutional Lawyer Rocco Galati discussion and commentary on current world events.

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“Scientists are doing an awful lot of damage to the world in the name of helping it. I don’t mind attacking my own fraternity because I am ashamed of it.” –Kary Mullis, Inventor of Polymerase Chain Reaction

In the US, we have all but abandoned classical diagnostic medicine in favor of biotech, or lab result medicine.  This has been going on for a long time and is a dangerous turning.  The “Corona test” is named with characteristic tech-tedium: “CDC 2019-nCoV Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel.”  That means it is a needle in a DNA haystack test. A PCR test.

It finds fragments, nucleic acids. According to Nobel Laureate Dr. Kary Mullis inventor: “PCR detects a very small segment of the nucleic acid which is part of a virus itself. The specific fragment detected is determined by the somewhat arbitrary choice of DNA primers used which become the ends of the amplified fragment. “

Celia Farber ( quoted from complete article)

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What do we mean when we say somebody has ‘tested positive’ for the Corona Virus? The answer would astound you. But getting this “answer” is like getting to a very rare mushroom that only grows above 200 feet on a Sequoia tree in the forbidden forest.

I say that for dramatic effect, but also because I wound up, against all odds, finding it.

Every day I wake up and work at shedding one more layer of ignorance —by listening carefully. I got lucky with scientists many years ago; Epic, incredible scientists, happening to cross my path when nobody else wanted to talk to them. Now their names are emerging, their warnings and corrections crystallizing. True “science” (the nature of the natural world) is never bad news. Globalist science is nothing but bad news.

How many of us are “infected” with this novel Corona virus, and how scared should we be?

People die—yes. But people don’t die at the mercy of malicious, predatory pathogens, “lurking” on every surface, and especially other humans. That’s not “science.” That’s social engineering. Terrorism.

Let’s proceed.

What do we mean when we say a person “tests positive” for Covid-19?

We don’t actually mean they have been found to “have” it.

We’ve been hijacked by our technologies, but left illiterate about what they actually mean. In this regard, I spent time with, and interviewed the inventor of the method used in the presently available Covid-19 tests, which is called RT-PCR, (Polymerase Chain Reaction.). His name is Kary B. Mullis, (image left) he passed away in August of last year. He was one of the warmest, funniest, most eclectic-minded people I ever met, in addition to being a staunch critic of HIV “science,” and an unlikely Nobel Laureate, i.e. a “genius.”

One time, in 1994, when I called to talk to him about how PCR was being weaponized to “prove,” almost a decade after it was asserted, that HIV caused AIDS, he actually came to tears.

The people who have taken all your freedoms away in recent weeks, they’re social engineers, politicians, globalist thought leaders, bankers, foundations, HO fanatics, and the like. Their army is composed of “mainstream media,” which is now literally a round-the-clock perfect propaganda machine in support of the so-called “Pandemic”.

Kary Mullis was a scientist. He never spoke like a globalist, and said once, memorably, when accused of making statements about HIV that could endanger lives: “I’m a scientist. I’m not a lifeguard.”

That’s a very important line in the sand.  Somebody who goes around claiming they are “saving lives,” is a very dangerous animal, and you should run in the opposite direction when you encounter them.

Their weapon is fear, and their favorite word is “could.”

They entrap you with a form of bio-debt, creating simulations of every imaginable thing that “could” happen, yet hasn’t.

Bill Gates has been waiting a long time for a virus with this much, as he put it, “pandemic potential.” But Gates has a problem, and it’s called PCR.

Of Mullis’ invention, Polymerase Chain Reaction, the London Observer wrote:

“Not since James Watt walked across Glasgow Green in 1765 and realized that the secondary steam condenser would transform steam power, an inspiration that set loose the industrial revolution, has a single, momentous idea been so well recorded in time and place.”

What does HIV have to do with Covid-19?

PCR played a central role in the HIV war (a war you don’t know about, that lasted 22 years, between Globalist post-modern HIV scientists and classical scientists.) The latter lost the war. Unless you count being correct as winning. The relentless violence finally silenced the opposition, and it seemed nobody would ever learn who these scientists were, or why they fought this thing so adamantly and passionately.

And PCR, though its inventor died last year, and isn’t here to address it, plays a central role in Corona terrorism.

To read the complete article click here

Celia Farber is half Swedish, raised there, so she knows “socialism” from the inside. She has focused her writings on freedom and tyranny, with an early focus on the pharmaceutical industry and media abuses on human liberties. She has been under ferocious attack for her writings on HIV/AIDS, where she has worked to document the topic as a psychological operation, and rooted in fake science. She is a contributor to UncoverDC and The Epoch Times, and has in the past written for Harper’s, Esquire, Rolling Stone and more. Having been gravely injured in legacy media, she never wants to go back. She is the recipient of the Semmelweis International Society Clean Hands Award For Investigative Journalism, and was under such attack for her work, she briefly sought protection from the FBI and NYPD. She is the author of “Serious Adverse Events: An Uncensored History of AIDS,” and the editor of The Truth Barrier, an investigative and literary website. She co-hosts “The Whistleblower Newsroom” with Kristina Borjesson on PRN, Fridays at 10am.

This article was originally published on Asia Times.

It took one minute for President Trump to introduce a virus at the virtual 75^th UN General Assembly, blasting “the nation which unleashed this plague onto the world”.

And then it all went downhill.

Even as Trump was essentially delivering a campaign speech and could not care less about the multilateral UN, at least the picture was clear enough for all the socially distant “international community” to see.

Here is President Xi’s full statement. And here is President Putin’s full statement. And here’s the geopolitical chessboard, once again; it’s the “indispensable nation” versus the Russia-China strategic partnership.

As he stressed the importance of the UN, Xi could not be more explicit that no nation has the right to control the destiny of others: “Even less should one be allowed to do whatever it likes and be the hegemon, bully, or boss of the world .”

The US ruling class obviously won’t take this act of defiance lying down. The full spectrum of Hybrid War techniques will continue to be relentlessly turbo-charged against China, coupled with rampant Sinophobia, even as it dawns on many Dr. Strangelove quarters that the only way to really “deter” China would be Hot War.

Alas, the Pentagon is overstretched – Syria, Iran, Venezuela, South China Sea. And every analyst knows about China’s cyber warfare capabilities, integrated aerial defense systems, and carrier-killer Dongfeng missiles.

For perspective, it’s always very instructive to compare military expenditure. Last year, China spent $261 billion while the US spent $732 billion (38% of the global total).

Rhetoric, at least for the moment, prevails. The key talking point, incessantly hammered, is always about China as an existential threat to the “free world”, even as the myriad declinations of what was once Obama’s “pivot to Asia” not so subtly accrue the manufacture of consent for a future war.

This report by the Qiao Collective neatly identifies the process: “We call it Sinophobia, Inc. – an information industrial complex where Western state funding, billion dollar weapons manufacturers, and right-wing think tanks coalesce and operate in sync to flood the media with messages that China is public enemy number one. Armed with state funding and weapons industry sponsors, this handful of influential think tanks are setting the terms of the New Cold War on China. The same media ecosystem that greased the wheels of perpetual war towards disastrous intervention in the Middle East is now busy manufacturing consent for conflict with China.”

That “US military edge”

The demonization of China, infused with blatant racism and rabid anti-communism, is displayed across a full, multicolored palette: Hong Kong, Xinjiang (“concentration camps), Tibet (“forced labor”), Taiwan, “China virus”; the Belt and Road’s “debt trap”.

The trade war runs in parallel – glaring evidence of how “socialism with Chinese characteristics” is beating Western capitalism at its own high-tech game. Thus the sanctioning of over 150 companies that manufacture chips for Huawei and ZTE, or the attempt to ruin TikTok’s business in the US (“But you can’t rob it and turn it into a US baby”, as Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin tweeted).

Still, SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation), China’s top chip company, which recently profited from a $7.5 billion IPO in Shanghai, sooner or later may jump ahead of US chip manufacturers.

On the military front, “maximum pressure” on China’s eastern rim proceeds unabated – from the revival of the Quad to a scramble to boost the Indo-Pacific strategy.

Think Tankland is essential in coordinating the whole process, via for instance the Center for Strategic & International Studies, with “corporation and trade association donors” featuring usual suspects such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman.

So here we have what Ray McGovern brilliantly describes as MICIMATT – the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex – as the comptrollers of Sinophobia Inc.

Assuming there would be a Dem victory in November, nothing will change. The next Pentagon head will probably be Michele Flournoy, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy (2009-2012) and co-founder of the Center for a New American Security, which is big on both the “China challenge” and the “North Korean threat”. Flournoy is all about boosting the “U.S. military’s edge” in Asia.

So what is China doing?

China’s top foreign policy principle is to advance a “community of shared future for mankind”. That is written in the constitution, and implies that Cold War 2.0 is an imposition from foreign actors.

China’s top three priorities post-Covid-19 are to finally eradicate poverty; solidify the vast domestic market; and be back in full force to trade/investment across the Global South.

China’s “existential threat” is also symbolized by the drive to implement a non-Western trade and investment system, including everything from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Silk Road Fund to trade bypassing the US dollar.

A Harvard Kennedy School report at least tried to understand how Chinese “authoritarian resilience” appeals domestically. The report found out that the CCP actually benefitted from increased popular support from 2003 to 2016, reaching an astonishing 93%, essentially due to social welfare programs and the battle against corruption.

By contrast, when we have a MICCIMAT investing in Perpetual War – or “Long War” (Pentagon terminology since 2001) – instead of health, education and infrastructure upgrading, what’s left is a classic wag the dog. Sinophobia is perfect to blame the abysmal response to Covid-19, the extinction of small businesses and the looming New Great Depression on the Chinese “existential threat”.

The whole process has nothing to do with “moral defeat” and complaining that “we risk losing the competition and endangering the world”.

The world is not “endangered” because at least vast swathes of the Global South are fully aware that the much-ballyhooed “rules-based international order” is nothing but a quite appealing euphemism for Pax Americana – or Exceptionalism. What was designed by Washington for post-WWII, the Cold War and the “unilateral moment” does not apply anymore.

Bye, bye Mackinder

As President Putin has made it very clear over and over again, the US is no longer “agreement capable” . As for the “rules-based international order”, at best is a euphemism for privately controlled financial capitalism on a global scale.

The Russia-China strategic partnership has made it very clear, over and over again, that against NATO and Quad expansion their project hinges on Eurasia-wide trade, development and diplomatic integration.

Unlike the case from the 16^th century to the last decades of the 20^th century, now the initiative is not coming from the West, but from East Asia (that’s the beauty of “initiative” incorporated to the BRI acronym).

Enter continental corridors and axes of development traversing Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Indian Ocean, Southwest Asia and Russia all the way to Europe, coupled with a Maritime Silk Road across the South Asian rimland.

For the very first time in its millenary history, China is able to match ultra-dynamic political and economic expansion both overland and across the seas. This reaches way beyond the short era of the Zheng He maritime expeditions during the Ming dynasty in the early 15^th century.

No wonder the West, and especially the Hegemon, simply cannot comprehend the geopolitical enormity of it all. And that’s why we have so much Sinophobia, so many Hybrid War techniques deployed to snuff out the “threat”.

Eurasia, in the recent past, was either a Western colony, or a Soviet domain. Now, it stands on the verge of finally getting rid of Mackinder, Mahan and Spykman scenarios, as the heartland and the rimland progressively and inexorably integrate, on their own terms, all the way to the middle of the 21^st century.

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Pepe Escobar, a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large for Hong Kong-based Asia Times. His latest book is “2030.” He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from TheAltWorld

The lion’s share of today’s Old Bailey proceedings in Julian Assange’s extradition trial was spent on battles over mental health and dire risk.  The prosecution continued its attempt to minimise the dangers facing Assange were he to be extradited to the United States for 17 charges under the US Espionage Act and one under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. While the defence has its case on Assange’s fragile mental health well plotted, the prosecution is hoping that witnesses such as Dr Nigel Blackwood, consultant psychiatrist with the National Health Service, will punch holes in the argument.  They will certainly hope for better efforts than those made by their own witnesses, Seena Fazel, a psychiatry professor who seemed too professionally tentative to land firm blows against Assange’s diagnosis for Asperger’s syndrome, or dismiss the health risks facing him in the US prisons system. 

Blackwood and managed risk 

Blackwood had conducted his own psychiatric evaluation of Assange’s condition via phone in July 2020.  What he gave the court was a show of qualified hypotheticals.  He found the publisher to be “moderately depressed”; there was undoubtedly “some risk of suicide attempt in the event of extradition”.  He did not feel this risk to be a “high” one.  It had been “carefully managed in Belmarsh and the risk factors are modifiable.”  Assange “engages with treatments to manage that risk.” 

Reliance was placed upon the capacity for self-control in the face of such risk.  If the person facing extradition could self-manage or be “capable of controlling” their own risk of suicide, the extradition should be made.  Blackwood was excruciatingly selective, finding Assange “resourceful” and “very resilient”.  He believed Assange “retains the capacity to resist suicide.” 

An unstinting faith in the prison authorities was shown by the witness. They would have sent Assange for outside treatment had he suffered from severe depression.  The release of a video of Assange in prison, made public in June 2019, prompted the authorities to send him to the medical ward.  Edward Fitzgerald QC for the defence was unimpressed by Blackwood’s reading of this incident: confining Assange to the medical ward had been for reasons of “reputational damage” to prison officials.  A prison document of that day’s incident noted that Assange had been sent to the ward for being at risk of self-harm.  Why had Blackwood failed to mention it in his report?  The prosecution witness was moved to admit that, while multiple factors were present in the decision to send Assange to the medical ward, Assange’s considerations of self-harm was one of them.  This was a fact Blackwood omitted. 

The defence turned on the issue of whether prison conditions Assange would face in the US would be broadly on par with those in the United Kingdom.  The point is significant as previous legal authority – notably the UK High Court decision in the Lauri Love case – found much to be worried about in the assurances made by the US Bureau of Prisons, notably on their poor provision of mental health facilities and safeguards against suicide.  Blackwood conceded that his assessment drew heavily upon US Assistant Attorney Gordon Kromberg’s affidavit, which claimed that there was no “solitary confinement” in the Alexandria Detention Center (ADC), where Assange will be initially held.  “I relied on Kromberg and the academic literature on what happens in US prisons.  There may be stuff that isn’t covered, but there is broad equivalence.” 

An all too confident assessment, given the revelations of Eric Lewis, board president of Reprieve, who had previously testified to the court about his own clients’ experiences of solitary confinement and Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) deployed at ADC.  They were not findings Blackwood had cared to consult. When Fitzgerald asked Lewis, in re-direct examination, whether Kromberg was “more qualified than you are on prison conditions”, the defence witness suggested that the assistant attorney would rarely have stepped into a prison. Lewis, in contrast, was well acquainted with a range of prison conditions ranging from Guantánamo to the United Kingdom. 

Blackwood was also taken to task by the defence for being green about the US prison system: he had never visited the ADC or any US federal facility.  His modest haul included visits to a state prison in Connecticut, and a Newport, Rhode Island jail.

The prosecution witness was duly attacked for his presumptuousness in a report marked by vital subtractions and unnecessary additions.  Having failed to note the presence of solitary confinement in the ADC, he had also concluded that it would not be unjust to extradite Assange, given his mental health condition.  The defence proved stormy on this point.  “It’s not your business to decide that, whether extradition is just or unjust, that is up to the judge.”  This was a point Blackwood was left to accept.

Crosby and very high risks 

Testimony for the defence was then provided by Dr Sondra Crosby of Boston University, an authority on the physical and psychological effects of torture.  Crosby’s expertise in the area is extensive: as of March 2019, she had evaluated a touch under 1,000 survivors of torture.  She runs a clinic specialising in the care of refugees and asylum seekers, “most of whom have experienced torture.”

She had visited Assange in the London Ecuadorean embassy in October 2017 after an American doctor (left unnamed) organised an “academic evaluation of the effects of living in the embassy”.  Assange then described “symptoms of depression, symptoms of post-traumatic disorder.”  While capable of conversation and not seemingly in a “horrible state”, his physical symptoms were “worrisome”. But mental decline was evident, marked by an inability to concentrate, depression, nightmares, disturbances to sleep. 

Thoughts of suicide were first described to Crosby in 2018.  The dramatic suicide of the convicted Bosnian Croatian general Slobodan Praljak by potassium cyanide, drunk before the judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, left a deep impression.

In her February 23, 2019 session with Assange, her notes evaluating his state were taken from her by embassy staff, thereby violating doctor-patient confidentiality.  She noted the presence of cameras.  A copy of her medical license was demanded.  Her credentials had to be verified by an embassy security guard.  The incident might have formed part of the defence testimony on showing the operation of a US-backed surveillance operation, but did not.

She was also alarmed during that visit by Assange’s marked deterioration, physically and psychologically.  “I was very concerned about a very advanced tooth infection that was causing him excruciating pain, requiring him to take narcotics.” 

Visits to Assange at Belmarsh in October 2019 and January 2020 were also made.  Crosby’s December 2019 report was even more unequivocal.  Assange had “met all the criteria for major depression”; he was “essentially dead”, “tearful”, pleading.  He had called the anonymous suicide hotline Samaritans.  She also found physical symptoms indicative of anxiety or cardiac arrest, and the possibility of chronic respiratory infection.   Assange, she concluded, was “at high risk of completing suicide if he were to be extradited.”

The risk was compounded by an incomplete picture on Assange’s intentions.  He had concealed the “full extent of his depression and suicide plans” in meetings with mental health specialists and prison doctors.  He feared being subjected to “more surveillance” or further isolation if he confessed to the full scope of his “suicidal ideations”.

In cross-examination, Lewis dished up some common, misguided fare.  Any assessment of Assange’s health would surely have to be qualified by the fact that he could leave the embassy at any time.  Such a question, replied Crosby, was “complex”; Assange found himself in a position similar to one “who is being chased with an axe or a gun and locks himself in a room for safety.”  What faced Assange, were he to leave the embassy environs, were the arms of the police and the prospects of extradition, made concrete by the current proceedings.

Lewis also returned to what is becoming a favourite animus of his: the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, whose widely publicised views of Assange’s treatment are known.  “You rely on your report [to the court] on Nils Melzer,” he coldly observed.  “I think you got him involved.”  He also posed a rhetorical question verging on the inane: “Are you aware that no one ever extradited to the US from the UK has committed suicide?”  A man of true venal faith.

Cryptome: published and unpunished

The last instalment of the day came with the reading out by the defence of a witness statement by John Young, host of cryptome.org.  The role of this testimony goes to corroborating other accounts on the chronology of publication.  Cryptome, which Young founded in 1996, published the entire set of unredacted US State Department cables on September 1, 2011.  WikiLeaks followed suit the next day. 

The publication, Young’s statement reads, “remains available at present.”  Since “publication on Cryptome.org of the unredacted diplomatic cables,  no US law enforcement authority has notified me that this publication of the cables is illegal, consists or contributes to a crime in any way, nor have they asked for them to be removed.”

Other sites, and their operators, have also been spared the stern and intrusive gaze of the US Justice Department.  Assange’s defence had at hand a statement from Christopher Butler of the Internet Archive.  Butler confirmed that, to this day, the Internet Archive still hosts records of WikiLeaks’ publications.  Both he and his data have been left undisturbed.  Yet another instance showing this prosecution effort to be political, singular and selective.

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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]

Featured image is from Another Day in the Empire

With strict pressure from the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the August coup leaders have installed an interim government that will run state affairs until next elections. Plucked from obscurity, the former Defense Minister Bah Ndaw became the transitional President, while Colonel Assimi Goita serves as Vice President. The transitional committee made up of representatives of political parties, civil and religious groups agreed on both positions.

According to their biographical reports, both had part of their professional military training in the Soviet Union and Russia respectively. The transitional civilian government, swearing-in ceremony and inauguration into office took place on Sept 25, completely closed the political chapter on the political administration of Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

The military takeover, Mali’s fourth since gaining independence from France in 1960, came after months of protests, stoked by Keita’s failure to roll back a bloody jihadist insurgency and fix the country’s many economic woes.

Over the years, reform policies have had little impact on the living standards, majority highly impoverished in the country. As a developing country, it ranks at the bottom of the United Nations Development Index (2018 report). The country, however, is a home to approximately 20 million population. The primary task, right now, is to draw up “a comprehensive road map” for economic recovery.

Earlier before the Sept 25 ceremony, Assimi Goita had issued a public statement at a media-covered conference to the Malian population,

“We make a commitment before you to spare no effort in the implementation of all these resolutions in the exclusive interest of the Malian people. We request and hope for the understanding, support and accompaniment of the international community in this diligent and correct implementation of the Charter and the transition roadmap. The results you have achieved allow me to hope for the advent of a new, democratic, secular and prosperous Mali.”

While West African leaders would likely remove the economic sanctions imposed in the wake of last month’s coup, following the installation of a civilian interim president, a number of foreign countries including Russia have already recognized these new developments taken toward stability.

Russia, apparently, is exploring all possibilities to regain part of its Soviet-era influence as Mali begins to restructure and systematize its state administration. In an official statement to mark Mali’s 60th anniversary of its independence from France, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) hoped that Mali would fix in place civilian form of government and, focus on holding free and democratic elections following a short transitional period with the assistance of the Economic Community of West African States and the African Union.

It is noteworthy to recall here that Russia and Mali are linked by friendship and cooperation. In 1960, Mali attained independence following a prolonged struggle and opted for a socialist orientation. There were major projects implemented with Soviet assistance. These includes a cement factory, the Kalana gold-mining company, a stadium in Bamako, the Gabriel Toure Hospital, an airfield in Gao and a number of national education facilities. Large-scale prospecting operations were conducted, and 9,000 hectares converted into rice paddies.

Thousands of Soviet educators, doctors and other specialists worked in Mali. Over 10,000 Mali citizens received higher education in Russia.

“We hope that the time-tested Russia-Mali ties will continue to develop steadily in the interests of both states. We would like to congratulate the friendly people of Mali on their national holiday and to wish them every success in achieving nationwide reconciliation, reviving their country as soon as possible, and we wish them peace, prosperity and well-being,” the statement particularly stressed.

As Russia pushes to strengthen its overall profile in the G5 Sahel region, Mali could become a gateway into the region. Russia has made military-technical cooperation as part of its diplomacy and keen on fighting growing terrorism in Africa.

Experts suspected that the regime change in Mali could see Russia-friendly new leaders taking over the country from the French-friendly Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and his government, thereby dealing a severe blow to French influence and interests not just in Mali but throughout the Sahel zone.

Research Professor Irina Filatova at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow explained recently in an emailed “Russia’s influence in the Sahel has been growing just as French influence and assistance has been dwindling, particularly in the military sphere. It is for the African countries to choose their friends and people who are now in power will be friendlier with Russia.”

That said, the transitional government could continue to leverage with Russia. Reports indicate that Russia has established cordial relations with transitional government. On August 21, Russian Ambassador to Mali and Niger Igor Gromyko met with representatives from the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP). The CNSP is an umbrella organization of military personnel involved in the coup, which wishes to oversee an 18-month transition before returning power to civilian authorities. Russia signed a military cooperation agreement with Mali in June 2019.

In November 2019, demonstrators in Bamako urged Moscow to repel Islamist attacks in Mali as it did in Syria. At the Independence Square demonstrations in Bamako that followed the coup, protesters were spotted waving Russian flags and holding posters praising Russia for its solidarity with Mali.

Samuel Ramani, DPhil candidate at the Department of Politics and International Relations at St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, wrote in the Journal of the Foreign Policy Research Institute that “Since Russia possesses a diverse array of partnerships in Mali and Sahel countries are frustrated with the counterterrorism policies of Western powers. Moscow could leverage the Mali coup to secure economic deals and bolster its geopolitical standing in West Africa.”

According to the expert, Kremlin-aligned research institutes and media outlets have consistently framed France’s counterterrorism operations in Niger and Mali as a façade for the extraction of the Sahel’s uranium resources. Russian nuclear energy giant Rosatom, which directly competes with its French counterpart Avenda for contracts in the Sahel, could benefit from favorable relations with Mali’s new political authorities. Nordgold, a Russian gold company that has investments in Guinea and Burkina Faso, could also expand its extraction initiatives in Mali’s gold reserves.

As one of the largest on the continent, Mali is a landlocked country located in West Africa. For centuries, its northern city of Timbuktu was a key regional trading post and center of Islamic culture. Mali is renowned worldwide for having produced some of the stars of African music, most notably Salif Keita. But, this cultural prominence has long since faded.

After independence from France in 1960, Mali suffered droughts, rebellions, and 23 years of military dictatorship until democratic elections in 1992. Mali has struggled with mass protests over corruption, electoral probity, and a jihadist insurgency that has made much of the north and east ungovernable. President Ibrahim Keita, who took office in September 2013, proved unable to unify the country. With time and commitment to sustainable development and good governance, there is still hope for Mali.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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What is Covid-19, SARS-2. How is it Tested? How is It Measured? The Fear Campaign Has No Scientific Basis

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, September 23, 2020

Closing down the Global Economy as a means to combating the Virus. That’s what they want us to believe. If the public had been informed that Covid-19 is “similar to Influenza”, the fear campaign would have fallen flat…

The Death of Andre Vltchek, a Passionate Warrior for Truth

By Edward Curtin, September 25, 2020

For decades, Andre Vltchek, an old-school journalist and artist (but a young man) who traveled the world in search of truth and who always stood up straight, tried to revolve the world and encourage people to revolt against injustice.

Covid-19: How Likely Is a Second Wave?

By Prof. Paul Kirkham, Dr. Mike Yeadon, and Barry Thomas, September 25, 2020

Evidence presented in this paper indicates that the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic as an event in the UK is essentially complete, with ongoing and anticipated challenges well within the capacity of a normalised NHS to cope.

How Lethal is Covid-19? Young and Healthy Majority Need to be Allowed to Live

By Dr. Martin Feeley, September 25, 2020

Up to August 10th, the number of Europeans who died from a Covid-19 illness (182,639) was slightly above the number who died three years ago as a result of “flu” (152,000). The number of patients who died in Europe from the 1917/18 Spanish flu was approximately 2.64 million – this would be equivalent to approximately 7.4 million deaths of today’s European population.

China Ramps Up U.S. Crude Oil Imports as Elections Near

By Irina Slav, September 25, 2020

China has been buying a lot of U.S. crude oil lately, perhaps in a belated attempt to fulfill some of the energy import quotas agreed with Washington last year or perhaps in a bid to take advantage of supercheap U.S. crude. But the buying spree is about to end.

Hack Reveals UK’s Propaganda Campaign to Drive Syrian Regime Change

By Johanna Ross, September 25, 2020

On 8th September the hacker group Anonymous published shocking revelations of how a concerted and organised campaign has been waged to support the anti-government rebels in Syria. One set of documents relates to the NGO ARK, which although brands itself as a humanitarian organisation, effectively functions as a vehicle for western-led regime change.

An Anonymous Nurse Speaks Out: The RT-PCR Test is Totally Unreliable, It Does not Detect the Virus.

By Unnamed Nurse, September 25, 2020

I work in the healthcare field. Here’s the problem, we are testing people for any strain of a Coronavirus. Not specifically for COVID-19. There are no reliable tests for a specific COVID-19 virus. There are no reliable agencies or media outlets for reporting numbers of actual COVID-19 virus cases.

Small Business Outwits Tyrannical Masking Bylaw (Without Breaking the Rules)

By John C. A. Manley, September 24, 2020

If you dare enter many stores with a friendly and smiling face you could easily be subject to public shaming because of a fashionable public health dictate that lacks any scientific evidence.

“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?” – Eduardo Galeano, Upside Down, 1998

For decades, Andre Vltchek, an old-school journalist and artist (but a young man) who traveled the world in search of truth and who always stood up straight, tried to revolve the world and encourage people to revolt against injustice. In this age of arm-chair reporters, he stood out for his boldness and indefatigable courage. He told it straight. This irritated certain people and some pseudo-left publications, who sensed in him a no bullshit fierceness and nose for hypocrisy that frightened them, so they stopped publishing his writing. He went where so many others  feared to tread, and he talked to people in places that were often the victims of Western imperialistic violence. He defended the defenseless and encouraged their defense.

Now he is dead.  He died in the back seat of a chauffeur driven rental car on an overnight drive to Istanbul, Turkey. He was sleeping, and when his wife attempted to wake him upon arrival at their hotel, she couldn’t.  He was 57-years-old.

Let him sleep in peace, but let his words ring out, his passionate cries for justice and peace in a world of violent predators.

Those who knew him and his work feel a great, great loss. His friend and colleague Peter Koenig wrote this touching goodbye.

As Koenig says, Vltchek was always defending those around the world who are considered disposable non-people, the Others, the non- whites, victims of Western wars, both military and economic, in places such as West Papua, Iraq, Syria, Africa, etc. He had a chip on his shoulder, a well justified chip, against the one-sided Western media and its elites that were always lecturing the rest of the world about their realities.

He was recently in the United States, and here is what he wrote:

But notice one thing: it is them, telling us, again, telling the world what it is and what it is not! You would never hear such statements in Africa, the Middle East, or Asia. There, people know perfectly well what it really is all about, whether it is about race or not!

I have just spent two weeks in the United States, analyzing the profound crises of U.S. society. I visited Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, New York, and Boston. I spoke to many people in all those places. What I witnessed was confusion and total ignorance about the rest of the world. The United States, a country which has been brutalizing our Planet for decades, is absolutely unable to see itself in the context of the entire world. People, including those from the media, are outrageously ignorant and provincial.

And they are selfish.

I asked many times: “Do black lives matter all over the world? Do they matter in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and do they matter in West Papua?” I swear, I received no coherent answer.

Somebody has to tell them… Somebody has to force them to open their eyes.

A few years ago, I was invited to Southern California to show my documentary work from Africa (my feature documentary film Rwanda Gambit, about West-triggered genocides in both Rwanda and later in the Democratic Republic of Congo), where millions of black people are dying, in order for the vast majority of the U.S. whites to live in piggish opulence.

But before I was allowed to present, I was warned: ‘Remember, people here are sensitive. Do not show too much of brutal reality, as it could disturb them.’

Hearing that, I almost left the event. Only my respect for the organizer made me stay.

Now I am convinced: it is time to force them to watch; to see rivers of blood, which their laziness, selfishness, and greed have triggered. It is time to force them to hear shouts of the agony of the others.

But as everyone knows, it is nearly impossible to force people to open their eyes and ears when they are dead set against doing so.  Andre tried so hard to do that, and his frustration grew apace with those efforts that seemed to fall on deaf ears.

He was a relentless fighter, but he was a lover, too.  His love for the people and cultures of the world was profound.  Like Albert Camus, he tried to serve both beauty and suffering, the noblest of vocations. A lover of literature and culture, the best art and beauty ever produced, he was appalled at the way so many in the West had fallen into the pit of ignorance, illiteracy, and the grip of propaganda so tight that “what is missing is life. Euphoria, warmth, poetry and yes – love – are all in extremely short supply there.”

He sensed, and said it, that nihilism rules in the United States beneath the compulsive consumerism and the denial of the violence that the U.S. inflicts on people across the world. It was selfishness run amok. Me me me. It was, he felt, soul death, the opposite of all the ostensible religiousness that is a cover story for despair. He wrote:

It has to be stopped. I say it because I do love this life, the life, which still exists outside the Western realm; I’m intoxicated with it, obsessed with it. I live it to the fullest, with great delight, enjoying every moment of it.

Poetry, music, great literature, these he loved as he fought on the barricades for peace.

I urge you to read his article, Love, Western Nihilism and Revolutionary Optimism.

He was a rare and courageous man.  Let us ring bells in his honor.

Here’s a Kenneth Rexroth poem for Andre, the fighter with the poet’s heart:

No Word

The trees hang silent

In the heat….

Undo your heart

Tell me your thoughts

What you were

And what you are….

Like the bells no one

Has ever rung

Browse through our archive of Andre Vltchek’s writings.

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

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

Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies

Author: Edward Curtin

ISBN: 9781949762266

Published: 2020

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Nothing remotely like what’s gone on since January ever happened before in the US.

For the 27th straight week, over one million working-age Americans filed claims for unemployment insurance (UI).

Numbers for the past week include 870,000 who applied for regular state UI, along with another 630,000 applying for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) — the federal program for workers not eligible for UI.

Providing up to 39 weeks of benefits, PUA expires at yearend.

Because most states provide 26 weeks of UI, many unemployed US workers exhausted their benefits.

They’re still eligible for 13 additional weeks of Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) — available only for individuals who got state UI.

Beginning next week, as UI claims fall, PEUC claims will rise proportionately — total claims remaining at Great Depression levels with no congressional or White House programs proposed to turn things around ahead of November 3 elections.

Because reports on PEUC claims are delayed, they won’t show up until October 8.

Economist John Williams calculates economic data based on how done pre-1990 — before formulas were changed to distort reality.

His data show annualized inflation in August at 9%, not the phony 1.3% Bureau of Labor Statistics year-over-year figure.

Americans who buy food, pay rent, service mortgages, cover medical expenses, heat and/or air condition homes, and manage other daily expenses know more about inflation than TV talking head economists and government ones involved in distorting official data.

US unemployment is 28% — greater than the peak Great Depression figure — not the phony 8.4% BLS figure.

Williams forecasts continued hard times, saying “economic and systemic…collapse…should intensify” ahead, adding:

“Systemic turmoil is just beginning, with the Fed and US government driving uncontrolled US dollar creation, with annual money supply growth soaring to successive record highs.”

He sees a “continuing, rapidly deepening…US economic collapse…a hardening, protracted L-shaped recovery.”

Mass layoffs continue, affecting public and private workers.

In early September, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said layoffs of city workers are needed because of a projected FY 2020 $1.25 billion budget shortfall.

Without further elaboration, she said action must be taken because vitally needed federal aid isn’t forthcoming.

Large tax increases are also coming to deal with the largest budget shortfall in city history, Lightfoot saying:

“We can’t ask individual taxpayers to give us more if we don’t prove to them that we are being good fiduciaries of their tax dollars and that includes making painful sacrifices.”

In mid-September, Illinois Governor Jay Pritzker said “(w)e’re literally talking about thousands of people who will get laid off” statewide.

Illinois is projected to have a $3.4 billion FY 2020 budget shortfall.

According to the Florida Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research coordinator Amy Baker on September 10, budget shortfalls of $3.4, $2.0, and $1.0 billion are expected in 2020 through 2022 respectively, layoffs required to deal with them.

Chicago, Illinois, and Florida aren’t alone.

US states, cities and local communities nationwide are hard-pressed financially because of dire economic conditions with little or no federal aid in prospect.

According to the National Association of State Budget Officers:

“(S)tate revenue forecasts for fiscal 2021 (and fiscal 2022 for those states that have released estimates) are projecting more significant losses, especially without additional federal aid.”

Moody’s Analytics estimates that US state budgets could experience a fiscal shock (worsened by increased Medicaid expenses) of nearly $500 billion through 2022.

If significant layoffs of public and private workers increase ahead, US unemployment could spike much higher.

A vicious circle exists. As layoffs rise, federal, state, and local tax revenues fall that could result in further job losses and greater economic decline without significant federal aid and job-creation programs like during the Great Depression to put people back to work.

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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.

In view of recent controversies caused by an article in The Irish Times on Saturday, September 12th, I think it is important to articulate my position on the present Covid crisis and its management, and to comment also on more recent developments.

How lethal is Covid-19?

Up to August 10th, the number of Europeans who died from a Covid-19 illness (182,639) was slightly above the number who died three years ago as a result of “flu” (152,000). The number of patients who died in Europe from the 1917/18 Spanish flu was approximately 2.64 million – this would be equivalent to approximately 7.4 million deaths of today’s European population.

It is not for want of good reason that deaths are now referred to as Covid-19-associated deaths. Of 5,700 patients admitted to New York hospitals, 88 per cent had more than one underlying condition (co-morbidity) and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported that from January to May, 19.5 per cent of Covid-19 patients with co-morbidity died compared to 1.6 per cent with no other illness.

The Irish experience is very similar – up to mid-August 94 per cent of deaths were in patients with underlying medical conditions. A Stanford-led group analysed over 100,000 Covid-19-related deaths in Europe, including Ireland, and the US and concluded that “deaths for people under 65 without predisposing conditions were remarkably uncommon” .

Another important feature is the number of people who contract the virus and remain completely asymptomatic. In extremely well-defined scenarios such as the Diamond Princess cruise liner and the Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier almost 66 per cent of the positive tests were completely asymptomatic, while a report from China suggests 78 per cent of cases were asymptomatic.

To read complete article, Irish Times, click here

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Unlawful US sanctions on nations, entities and individuals are weapons of war by other means.

Since taking office in January 2017, Trump imposed sanctions on numerous countries extrajudicially, including Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.

Despite having no legal validity, they’re piled on to immiserate their populations, aiming to suffocate nations into submission — a failed objective whenever tried.

On Wednesday, the State Department announced new sanctions on Cuba, including entities on a so-called Cuba Prohibited Accommodations (CPA) List.

It prohibits or limits “transactions related to lodging at…433 properties that are owned or controlled by the Cuban (government) or certain well-connected insiders.”

The State Department defied reality, falsely claiming profits from state-owned or connected properties come “at the expense of the Cuban people” — a bald-faced Big Lie like countless others by the US against nations it doesn’t control.

A follow-up Big Lie falsely claimed “the Cuban people…face repression at the hands of their government (sic)” — what’s true about the US, other Western regimes and apartheid Israel.

Newly imposed US sanctions also ban or restrict imports of Cuban alcohol and tobacco products.

They prohibit “attending or organizing certain professional meetings or conferences in Cuba…”

They ban “participating in and organizing certain public performances, clinics, workshops, competitions, and exhibitions in” the country.

Trump’s “support” for the Cuban people is all about wanting them immiserated.

Earlier imposed Trump regime toughness on Cuba and its people remain in place for another year.

Longstanding US policy calls for transforming all sovereign independent countries into pro-Western vassal states.

In January 1959, Fidel Castro transformed Cuba from a US-controlled brothel into a nation serving the health and welfare of all its people.

Obama’s “new course on Cuba” was imperialism by another name, same dirty business as usual, new tactics.

Embargo, limited travel by Americans and other restrictions remained in place.

So did longstanding hostility toward Cuban sovereign independence.

Normalized relations aren’t possible without ending a lawless embargo. Not as long as Trump and hardliners surrounding him run things.

His anti-Cuba agenda since taking office rolled back modest Obama regime loosing of US toughness on the island state.

He banned “people-to-people” travel to Cuba. Treasury authorized US tour company group visits alone are permitted.

Americans traveling to the country face a likely punishing Treasury Department audit on return, an attempt to discourage visits to the state.

Transactions with entities linked to Cuba’s military are banned, some affiliated with the country’s tourism industry.

Trump’s hostility toward the state flies in the face of what most Americans and Cubans favor — normalized relations with a good neighbor, waging peace, stability, and cooperative relations with other nations in the region and worldwide.

New Trump regime sanctions on Cuba come ahead of US November 3 presidential and congressional elections — aiming to win support from most Cuban nationals in Florida and their descendants.

The sunshine state and Ohio are key for US presidential aspirants.

No GOP presidential aspirant ever won without taking Ohio.

In 27 of 39 US presidential elections since 1860 (the year Lincoln won), winners carried Florida, including Trump in 2016.

Races for senator and governor in the state are important.

Winners indicate which wing of the US one-party state has more support, a potential sign of how things will go in the same-year or next presidential election.

The latest Real Clear Politics polls through September 23 show Biden ahead by an average of 7 points.

They show Biden narrowly ahead in Ohio by around 2 points, in Florida by one point.

Given the margin of error, races in both states are a virtual dead heat. They could go either way as things now stand.

A Final Comment

In response to new Trump regime sanctions, President of Cuba Educational Travel Collin Laverty said the following:

New Trump regime travel restrictions to the island state “remove general licenses…for the purpose of professional events and conferences as well as public performances, sporting competitions, workshops and the like,” adding:

“(T)here are still ways US citizens can legally travel to Cuba. However, these prohibitions will create more confusion and complications.”

They mean “less travel (and) more hardships for Cuban families.”

Americans visiting Cuba will have alcohol and/or cigars on their possession confiscated on returning home.

Laverty asked: “How long will US politicians kick around the Cuban people for political victories in Florida.”

“Six decades of talking tough and tightening the embargo to please Cuban Americans has achieved nothing” except hardships for its people US politicians pretend to support.

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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.

The sixth and newest branch of the U.S. Armed Forces now has an overseas base. A squadron of 20 soldiers has been sent to an air base in Al Udeid, which is in a desert in Qatar, where the first unit abroad of the American Space Force will be deployed. The Space Force is the first new military service since the creation of the Air Force in 1947 and the speed with which it managed to install its first base abroad is surprising. On Sunday (September 20), the U.S. Space Force posted a video on its Twitter account showing the military’s oath ceremony, which took place earlier this month. The number of troops in the region is provisional and is expected to increase soon.

The missions to be carried out in the military base are not yet fully elucidated, but we already know that the activities will revolve around a monitoring service of the Persian Gulf and the local nations, which, in other words, can be identified as an explicit spy service with use of space technology. Soldiers will have to operate satellites, track enemy maneuvers in space and capture data applying space technology.

“We’re starting to see other nations that are extremely aggressive in preparing to extend conflict into space (…) We have to be able to compete and defend and protect all of our national interests”, said Colonel Todd Benson, commander of U.S. Space Force troops in Qatar during an interview.

The most worrying about the internationalization of the American Space Force is the choice of the Persian Gulf for the installation of the base. Washington chose to install a base in the Gulf region amid a moment of particular tensions between the United States and Iran, which have been progressively rising. The Trump administration recently imposed sanctions on the Iranian space agency, accusing it of developing ballistic missiles under the cover of a civilian program to place satellites in orbit. Now, by chance or not, the United States is setting up a base for military space operations in a country neighboring Iran with an admitted intention of monitoring “aggressive nations”.

Allocating weapons of mass destruction in orbit is prohibited by the 1967 Space Treaty, but no limits are established for other space war activities, either in that treaty or in other legal documents relating to outer space. If Iran is actually using a civilian satellite system to hide a nuclear missile launch project, it is committing an illegal act under international space law. But there is nothing established about the rules of espionage and remote monitoring, which are the most widely used forms of space technology for military purposes.

As long as this legal gap remains, it will be allowed to spy and collect data from other countries using space technology. However, the most dangerous thing is that not only military programs are monitored by spy satellites, but also industrial, corporate, scientific and economic data. In other words, military space technology can be used to steal all types of information and dismantle any national project of such “aggressive nations”.

It is true that all the great global military powers have complex space systems and use such technology for security and defense purposes, but the precedent set by the creation of a military base in the vicinity of a country considered an enemy – and  with an almost explicit justification for monitoring it – is really dangerous. If practices like this become widespread, we will have a chaotic scenario of proliferation of explicit spy bases around the world.

Another terrible scenario would be an Iranian reaction, with the shooting of American spy satellites, causing widespread retaliation from both sides and prompting a complete militarization of outer space. In this sense, new arms race will be generated, seeking the constant modernization of space weapons, with increasingly complex and dangerous systems dispersed in military space bases installed on all continents.

However, the activities of the US Space Force are strongly condemned in the American political scenario itself. Many politicians, experts and the military consider the creation of a space force as a “Trump vanity” and tend to believe that the budget for the new armed force will decrease with a possible defeat of Trump in the elections. In any case, the result of the elections is uncertain, and the Space Force has already been created and is working, so, regardless of future financial plans, the problems will not disappear.

There is only one way to avoid this scenario: through international law. Space law prevented a drastic militarization of outer space during the Cold War in the context of a nuclear race, but these legal documents are no longer efficient for contemporary circumstances. We need a new international treaty that effectively prohibits space espionage with a legal international court that punishes nations that disrespect such norms and prevents the generalization of violence between military powers.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

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Nearly three-quarters of hotels will have to lay off more employees than they already have during the coronavirus pandemic if they don’t receive additional government funding, according to a new survey.

Seventy-four percent of respondents to an American Hotel & Lodging Association survey of its members said they would have to lay off additional employees as it awaits the passage of further COVID-19 recovery legislation from Congress.

Currently, 68% of hotels in the U.S. have half their pre-pandemic staff working full-time. Half of hotel owners said that due to the pandemic, they are in danger of foreclosure. What’s more: More than two-thirds of hotels said that at current projected revenue and occupancy levels, without more relief, they could only last six more months.

AHLA is urging lawmakers to pass relief measures in the final few weeks before they go on recess ahead of the November election.

Without a new stimulus deal, economists warn that the economy could slip into a double-digit recession and Goldman Sachs recently reckoned there’s just a slightly better than 50% chance lawmakers will approve new relief by the end of September.

It’s not just hotels. The days are quickly counting down for thousands of pilots, flight attendants, gate agents and other airline workers who face the prospect of being laid off at the end of the month if Congress doesn’t come through with a new stimulus agreement.

Earlier this month, the Senate failed to reach the 60-vote minimum needed to pass a slimmed-down, $300 billion GOP coronavirus relief package that didn’t allocate any aid for the airline industry.

Last week, both White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke with airline industry leaders. Meadows said they asked for another $25 billion. Pelosi told Bloomberg News that a Democrat-led House bill may include additional aid for the travel industry, though she did not specifically mention hotels.

“It’s clear that travel jobs, which were hit by far the hardest of any sector, won’t recover on their own,” said Tori Barnes, an executive vice president for the U.S. Travel Association, in a statement at the time.

Six months of carnage and counting:  Travel industry struggles to rebound from COVID-19

“It’s time for Congress to put politics aside and prioritize the many businesses and employees in the hardest-hit industries. Hotels are cornerstones of the communities they serve, building strong local economies and supporting millions of jobs,” Chip Rogers, president and CEO of the AHLA, said in a statement.

Rogers spoke to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Friday as well as to business and travel leaders on a conference call.

“These are real numbers, millions of jobs, and the livelihoods of people who have built their small business for decades, just withering away because Congress has done nothing,” Rogers said on the call. “We can’t afford to let thousands of small businesses die and all of the jobs associated with them be lost for many years.”

AHLA’s survey of hotel industry owners, operators, and employees had more than 1,000 respondents; the organization conducted it Sept. 14 to 16.

Four out of 10 hotel workers are still unemployed, according to a six-month look back report of the travel industry during the pandemic released earlier this summer. Hotel occupancy for the month of August stood at 48.6%, down 31.7 percentage points, according to STR data. For the week ending Sept. 12, it was 48.5%.

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China has been buying a lot of U.S. crude oil lately, perhaps in a belated attempt to fulfill some of the energy import quotas agreed with Washington last year or perhaps in a bid to take advantage of supercheap U.S. crude. But the buying spree is about to end.

This month alone, China could import between 867,000 bpd, according to Reuters’ Refinitiv data, and 900,000 bpd, according to oilfield services company Canary. And then the flow of U.S. oil into China will decline, and it will decline sharply, Reuters’ Clyde Russell wrote this week. The reason as simple as it is worrying. The U.S. crude that has been going into China since July—and reaching major records in terms of volume, with the July daily average alone up 139 percent on the year—was bought much earlier, in April, May, and June. This was oil bought when West Texas Intermediate was trading at multi-year lows. By June it had recovered to about $40, Russell notes, so purchases since then have been more modest.

But here is the worrying part: much of the oil price recovery we’ve seen since this spring was caused by rising Chinese imports, including from the United States. Rising imports are traditionally taken to mean improving demand, but this time this has not been the case entirely. Chinese refiners have been stocking up on crude more because of the historically low prices than to satisfy growing demand.

In all fairness, oil demand has been seen as recovering pretty faster after the end of the lockdowns there but since China is not an isolated economy, its refining industry needs a recovery elsewhere in Asia and globally, and this has been slow in coming. Now, none other than OPEC is warning that a second wave of Covid-19 infections—already visible in parts of Europe, for example—will further slow down demand recovery, which will unavoidably affect Chinese oil imports.

According to Canary CEO Dan Eberhart, however, China will continue buying a lot of U.S. oil ahead of the U.S. elections. Beijing, Eberhart wrote for Forbes, would want to stay on Trump’s good side as much as possible in case he wins a second term. Reuters’ Russell is of a different opinion: he cites preliminary import estimates that point to a sharp decline in October to 500,000 bpd of U.S. oil flowing into China and a further decline in November. For Russell, it’s all about the price. For Eberhart, it’s also about politics and the trade war.

“While importing U.S. crude often doesn’t make commercial sense for China’s refiners, Beijing has directed them to continue buying as the election approaches—a sign that China knows that the trade issue with Trump will only intensify if the president wins a second term,” Eberhart wrote.

Yet not everyone agrees that politics will trump the economy. In fact, data from Chinese market research firms suggests private refiners, if not the state giants, may sharply cut their intake of foreign oil this month and next. After all, storage space is finite and Chinese energy companies have been filling it up for months now while demand has been improving but is yet to return to growth mode, even in China with its rebounding economy.

It looks like the dominant opinion is for a decline in Chinese oil imports, from the U.S. and elsewhere, in the coming months, not least because of lower refinery run rates. Reuters reported earlier this week refinery runs are set to be cut by 5-10 percent beginning this month because of a crude oil glut and weak fuel export margins. This would mean more pressure on prices. And this is not all. Some analysts expect that China may start selling the oil it bought on the cheap in the spring. Now that would be really bad news for oil prices.

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Irina Slav is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry.

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On Wednesday the trap sprang shut, as Judge Baraitser insisted the witnesses must finish next week, and that no time would be permitted for preparation of closing arguments, which must be heard the immediate following Monday. This brought the closest the defence have come to a protest, with the defence pointing out they have still not addressed the new superseding indictment, and that the judge refused their request for an adjournment before witness hearings started, to give them time to do so.

Edward Fitzgerald QC for the defence also pointed out that there had been numerous witnesses whose evidence had to be taken into account, and the written closing submissions had to be physically prepared with reference to the transcripts and other supporting evidence from the trial. Baraitser countered that the defence had given her 200 pages of opening argument and she did not see that much more could be needed. Fitzgerald, who is an old fashioned gentleman in the very nicest sense of those words, struggled to express his puzzlement that all of the evidence since opening arguments could be dismissed as unnecessary and of no effect.

I fear that all over London a very hard rain is now falling on those who for a lifetime have worked within institutions of liberal democracy that at least broadly and usually used to operate within the governance of their own professed principles. It has been clear to me from Day 1 that I am watching a charade unfold. It is not in the least a shock to me that Baraitser does not think anything beyond the written opening arguments has any effect. I have again and again reported to you that, where rulings have to be made, she has brought them into court pre-written, before hearing the arguments before her.

I strongly expect the final decision was made in this case even before opening arguments were received.

The plan of the US Government throughout has been to limit the information available to the public and limit the effective access to a wider public of what information is available. Thus we have seen the extreme restrictions on both physical and video access. A complicit mainstream media has ensured those of us who know what is happening are very few in the wider population.

Even my blog has never been so systematically subject to shadowbanning from Twitter and Facebook as now. Normally about 50% of my blog readers arrive from Twitter and 40% from Facebook. During the trial it has been 3% from Twitter and 9% from Facebook. That is a fall from 90% to 12%. In the February hearings Facebook and Twitter were between them sending me over 200,000 readers a day. Now they are between them sending me 3,000 readers a day. To be plain that is very much less than my normal daily traffic from them just in ordinary times. It is the insidious nature of this censorship that is especially sinister – people believe they have successfully shared my articles on Twitter and Facebook, while those corporations hide from them that in fact it went into nobody’s timeline. My own family have not been getting their notifications of my posts on either platform.

The US Government responded to Baraitser’s pronouncement enthusiastically with the suggestion that closing arguments did not ought to be heard AT ALL. They ought merely to be submitted in writing, perhaps a week after final witnesses. Baraitser appeared eager to agree with this. A ruling is expected today. Let me add that two days ago I noticed the defence really had missed an important moment to stand up to her, when the direction of her railroading became evident. It appears that because of the ground the defence already conceded at that stage, Noam Chomsky is one of the witnesses from whom we now will not hear.

I am afraid I am not going to give you a substantive account of Wednesday’s witnesses. I have decided that the intimate details of Julian’s medical history and condition ought not to be subject to further public curiosity. I know I cannot call back what others have published – and the court is going to consider press requests for the entire medical records before it. But I have to do what I believe is right.

I will say that for the defence, Dr Quinton Deeley appeared. Dr Deeley is Senior Lecturer in Social Behaviour and Neurodevelopment at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience (IOPPN), King’s College London and Consultant Neuropsychiatrist in the National Autism Unit. He is co-author of the Royal College Report on the Management of Autism.

Dr Deeley after overseeing the standard test and extensive consultation with Julian Assange and tracing of history, had made a clear diagnosis which encompassed Asperger’s. He described Julian as high-functioning autistic. There followed the usual disgraceful display by James Lewis QC, attempting to pick apart the diagnosis trait by trait, and employing such tactics as “well, you are not looking me in the eye, so does that make you autistic?”. He really did. I am not making this up.

I should say more about Lewis, who is a strange character. Privately very affable, he adopts a tasteless and impolite aggression in cross-examination that looks very unusual indeed. He adopts peculiar postures. After asking aggressive questions, he strikes poses of theatrical pugilism. For example he puts arms akimbo, thrusts out his chin, and bounces himself up on his feet to the extent that his heels actually leave the floor, while looking round at the courtroom in apparent triumph, his gaze pausing to fix that of the judge occasionally. These gestures almost always involve throwing back one or both front panels of his jacket.

I think this is some kind of unconscious alpha male signalling in progress, and all these psychiatrists around might link it to his lack of height. It is display behaviour but not really very successful. Lewis has grown a full set during lockdown and he appears strikingly like a chorus matelot in a small town production of HMS Pinafore.

There is a large part of me that wants to give details of the cross-examination because Deeley handled Lewis superbly, giving calm and reasoned replies and not conceding anything to Lewis’s clumsy attempts to dismantle his diagnosis. Lewis effectively argued Julian’s achievements would be impossible with autism while Deeley differed. But there is no way to retell it without going into the discussion of medical detail I do not wish to give. I will however tell you that Julian’s father John told me that Julian has long known he has Asperger’s and will cheerfully say so.

The second psychiatrist on Wednesday, Dr Seena Fazel, Professor of Forensic Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, was the first prosecution witness we have heard from. He struck me as an honest and conscientious man and made reasonable points, well. There was a great deal of common ground between Prof Fazel and the defence psychiatrists, and I think it is fair to say that his major point was that Julian’s future medical state would depend greatly on the conditions he was held in with regard to isolation, and on hope or despair dependent on his future prospects.

Here Lewis was keen to paint an Elysian picture. As ever, he fell back on the affidavit of US Assistant attorney Gordon Kromberg, who described the holiday camp that is the ADX maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado, where the prosecution say Julian will probably be incarcerated on conviction.

You will recall this is the jail that was described as a “living hell” and a “fate worse than death” by its own warden. Lewis invited Prof Fazel to agree this regime would not cause medical problems for Julian, and to his credit Prof Fazel, despite being a prosecution witness, declined to be used in this way, saying that it would be necessary to find out how many of Kromberg’s claims were true in practice, and what was the quality of this provision. Fazel was unwilling to buy in to lies about this notorious facility.

Lewis was disingenuous because he knows, and the prosecution have conceded, that if convicted Julian would most likely be kept in H block at the ADX under “Special Administrative Measures.” If he had read on a few paragraphs in Kromberg’s affidavit he would have come to the regime Julian would actually be held under:

So let us be clear about this. William Barr decides who is subjected to this regime and when it may be ameliorated. For at least the first twelve months you are in solitary confinement locked in your cell, and allowed out only three times a week just to shower. You are permitted no visits and two phone calls a month. After twelve months this can be ameliorated – and we will hear evidence this is rare – to allow three phone calls a month, and brief release from the cell five times a week to exercise, still in absolute isolation. We have heard evidence this exercise period is usually around 3am. After an indeterminate number of years you may, or may not, be allowed to meet another human being.

Behind Baraitser’s chilly disdain, behind Lewis’s theatrical postures, this hell on Earth is what these people are planning to do to Julian. They are calmly discussing how definitely it will kill him, in full knowledge that it is death in life in any event. I sit in the public gallery, perched eight feet above them all, watching the interaction of the characters in this masque, as the lawyers pile up their bundles of papers or stare into their laptops, as Lewis and Fitzgerald exchange pleasantries, as the friendly clerks try to make the IT systems work, and my mind swims in horrified disbelief. They are discussing a fate for my friend as horrible as that of the thousands who over 500 years were dragged from this very spot and strung up outside. They are all chatting and working away as though we were a normal part of civilised society.

Then I go back to my hotel room, type it all up and post it. The governments who are destroying Julian have through their agencies pushed the huge corporations who now control the major internet traffic gateways, to ensure my pained and grieving account is seen by very few. My screams of pain and horror are deadened by thick padded walls. We are all locked in.

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The World Wildlife Foundation, in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London, recently issued an eye-popping description of the forces of humanity versus life in nature, the Living Planet Report 2020, but the report should really be entitled the Dying Planet Report 2020 because that’s what’s happening in the real world. Not much remains alive.

The report, released September 10th, describes how the over-exploitation of ecological resources by humanity from 1970 to 2016 has contributed to a 68% plunge in wild vertebrate populations, inclusive of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish.

The report offers a fix-it: “Bending the Curve Initiative,” described in more detail to follow. The causes of collapse are found in human recklessness and/or neglect of ecosystems. It’s partially fixable (maybe) but don’t hold your breath.

What if stocks plunged 68%? What then? Why, of course, that is an all-hands-on-deck panic scenario with the Federal Reserve Bank repeatedly pressing “a white hot printing press button,” hopefully, avoiding destructive deflationary forces looming in the background. But, an astounding jaw-dropping 68% loss of vertebrates doesn’t seem to budge the panic needle nearly enough to count.

Of special note, according to the Report, tropical sub-regions were clobbered, hit hard with 94% loss of vertebrate life, which is essentially total extinction. For comparison purposes, the worst extinction event in history, the Permian-Triassic, aka: the Great Dying, of 252 million years ago took down 96% of marine life and has been classified as “global annihilation.”

According to the Report, on a worldwide basis, two-thirds (2/3rds) of wild vertebrate life has vanished in only 46 years or within one-half a human lifetime. That is mind-boggling, and it is indicative of misguided mindlessness, prompting a query of what the next 46 years will bring. What remains is an operative question?

According to the report:

“Until 1970, humanity’s Ecological Footprint was smaller than the Earth’s rate of regeneration. To feed and fuel our 21^st century, we are overusing the Earth’s biocapacity by at least 56%.” (Report, page 6) Meaning, we’ve gone from equilibrium to a huge deficit of 50% in less than 50 years. Putting it mildly, that’s terrifying!

As stated in the Report, we’re effectively using and abusing and trampling the equivalence of one and one-half planets. How long does that last? The experience of the past 46 years provides an answer, which is: Not much longer.

The denuding, destructing of natural biodiversity is almost beyond description, certainly beyond human comprehension, which may be a big part of the problem of recognition. Still, by and large, people read the World Wildlife Foundation report and continue on with business as usual. This lackadaisical behavior by the public has been ongoing for decades and not likely to end anytime soon. Therefore, an eureka moment of radical change in farming practices and ecosystem husbandry is almost too much to wish for after years, and years, of preaching by environmentalists about the ills associated with the anthropogenic growth machine.

In all, with ever-faster approaching finality, and worldwide failure to act to save the planet, the answer may be that people must learn to adapt to a deteriorating world.

More to the point, the Report is “an extermination report.” Consider the opening sentence:

“At a time when the world is reeling from the deepest global disruption and health crisis of a lifetime, this year’s Living Planet Report provides unequivocal and alarming evidence that nature is unraveling and that our planet is flashing red warning signs of vital natural systems failure.” (Report, page 4)

Accordingly, unequivocally “nature is unraveling.” And, the planet is “flashing red warning signs of vital natural systems failure.”

Why repeat that disheartening info? Simply put, it demands repeating over and over again. Yes, “nature is unraveling.” And, by all indications, time is short as “flashing red warning signs” are crying for help. But, will it happen? Or, does biz as usual rattle onwards towards total extinction of life way ahead of anybody’s best guess, which, based upon how rapidly the forces of the anthropocene are gobbling up the countryside, could be within current lifetimes. But, honestly, who knows when?

Still, with great hope but not enough fanfare, the Report proposes a new research initiative called “Bending the Curve Initiative” to reverse biodiversity loss via (1) unprecedented conservation measures and (2) a total remake of food production techniques.

One of the upshots of the breakdown in nature is the issue of “adequate food for humanity.” Accordingly:

“Where and how we produce food is one of the biggest human-caused threats to nature and to our ecosystems, making the transformation of our global food system more important than ever,” Ibid

Which implies the end of rainforests obliteration, the end of industrial farming, full stop, eliminating mono-crop farming, and “stopping dead in its tracks” the use of toxic, deadly insecticides, which kill crucial life-originating ecosystems by bucketloads, as for example, 75% loss of flying insects over 27 years in nature reserves in portions of Europe (Source: Krefeld Entomological Society, est. 1905).

What kills 75% of flying insects?

Additionally, the Report recognizes the necessity of “transformation of the prevailing economic system.” Meaning, a transformation away from the radical infinite growth hormones that are attached to the world’s lowest offshore wages and lowest offshore regulations as an outgrowth of neoliberalism, which is rapidly destroying the world. It’s a terminal illness that’s fully recognized around the world as “progress.” But, its unrelenting disregard for the health of ecosystems and for workers’ rights makes it a serial killer.

The wonderful world of nature is not part of the neoliberal capitalistic formula for success. In fact, nature with its life-sourcing ecosystems is treated like an adversary or like one more prop to use and abuse on the way to infinite progress. Really?

The Report alerts to the dangers of a “business as usual world,” an epithet that is also found throughout climate change literature. These warnings of impending loss of ecosystems, and by extension survival of Homo sapiens, depict a biosphere on a hot seat never before seen throughout human history. In fact, there is no time in recorded history that compares to the dangers immediately ahead. The most common watchword used by scientists is “unprecedented.” The change happens so rapidly, so powerfully. It’s unprecedented.

Meanwhile, people are shielded from the complexities, and heartaches, of collapsing ecosystems in today’s world by the artificiality of living a life of steel, glass, wood, cement, as the surrounding world collapses in a virtual sea of untested chemicals.

In the end, humans are the last vertebrates on the planet to directly feel and experience the impact of climate change and ecosystems collapsing. All of the other vertebrates are first in line. Maybe that’s for the best.

Still, how many more 68% plunges in wild vertebrate populations can civilized society handle and remain sane and well fed?

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Robert Hunziker, MA, economic history DePaul University, awarded membership in Pi Gamma Mu International Academic Honor Society in Social Sciences is a freelance writer and environmental journalist who has over 200 articles published, including several translated into foreign languages, appearing in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide. He has been interviewed on numerous FM radio programs, as well as television.

Featured image is from CC

Studies show that where fire is on the increase in Amazonia, biodiversity is altered, with unique rainforest flora and fauna — and vital ecological services — diminished.

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The number of fires burning in standing Amazon rainforest spiked dramatically in recent weeks, threatening the forest’s biodiversity — a richness of flora and fauna not adapted to withstand the flames.

Of all major fires detected in the Amazon this year, 43% were in standing forests, as of Sept 21,   (up from only 13% in August) according to the non-profit MAAP. The forest burned is estimated at roughly 4.6 million acres (1.8 million hectares) — an area about three-fifths the size of Belgium.

Major fires in Brazil in 2020

Fire data from MAAP’s Amazon Fire Monitoring App is updated in real time and will include data from after September 21, 2020. See it here.

Fires do not occur naturally in the Amazon rainforest. So, for fires to burn in a standing forest there, a few things must happen, namely a dry year along with lots of ignition sources on neighboring lands. These sources — almost exclusively human caused — can arise from runaway agricultural fires (routinely used to burn off croplands and pastures to remove pests, for example), or from blazes set intentionally to clear land following deforestation, much of it illegal.

“It’s difficult to know what ‘typical’ is when it comes to fire in the Amazon,” Jos Barlow, a professor of conservation science at Lancaster University, UK, told Mongabay. Barlow, who has been studying Amazon fires for over two decades, added: “Last year… we had lots of deforestation fires…. whereas, this year, it does seem to be that the fires are burning more areas of standing forest, which is a huge concern.”

The Amazon fires that drew international attention in 2019 largely followed a pattern of recent deforestation, driven by landgrabbers, emboldened by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s pro-agribusiness rhetoric. In February, more than 1,200 scientists signed a letter, stating that, “the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro is dismantling the country’s social–environmental policies.”

In comments to the United Nations this week, Bolsonaro said that the country has, “the best environmental legislation on the planet,” and that, “the fires practically occur in the same places… where peasants and Indians burn their fields in already deforested areas.” He provided no evidence for this claim.

Analysis by MAAP, NASA, INPE and others show a widespread pattern of fires throughout the Brazilian Amazon that includes significant illegal burning within conserved areas and Indigenous reserves — doing serious harm in the most biodiverse country in the world.

High-resolution satellite images show the before (left panel) on September 8, 2020, and after (right panel) on September 13, 2020, of a recent major fire in the Brazilian Amazon (Mato Grosso state). Image shows the surrounding matrix of forest fires, recently deforested area fires, and cropland fires. Photo courtesy of Planet/MAAP.

When it burns, what happens to life in the forest?

The rainforest burns slowly. A fire line could advance just 300 meters (984 feet) in 24 hours, Barlow says. Such slowly moving burns give large mobile animals plenty of time to flee. But where to? The choices are to burrow, head to water, or move into other areas. Most animals cannot simply shift into the territory of another without consequence: be that violence from a competitor, or simply a lack of resources like food and shelter. Unfortunately, the research on the impacts of such flight is limited.

“We don’t really know what happens to the larger animals that are forced to move into other territories,” Barlow said. “So, presumably, at some point, there’s a reduction in population size, because you can’t just have more animals in an area.”

Primates, for example, may get trapped in islands of unburned vegetation in the burnt forest, persisting on remaining food until they are forced to risk travel into foreign habitat. Fires in 2019 burned through the habitat of a recently discovered species, the Mura’s saddleback tamarin. But the effects on its population are unknown.

Image on the right: A brown howler monkey (Alouatta guariba) in Brazil. Larger animals can escape slow-moving fires but may be pushed into territories where they face competition for limited resources.  Image by Peter Schoen via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY SA 2.0)

“Who can survive the flames? We know arthropods nesting in the soil usually do very well,” Lucas N. Paolucci, a professor of biology at the Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Brazil, told Mongabay in an email. “But several others, like litter-dwelling invertebrates, some birds, small mammals and snakes frequently die directly due to flames.”

“You do see the small invertebrates trying to flee the flames and obviously they don’t survive,” Barlow said. “We’ve come across forest floor tortoises and [turtles] with burns scars on their shells. So, some animals do get affected and do burn.” But how many animals may die in this year’s extensive blazes, no one can say.

It is known that rainforest trees are especially vulnerable to fire. Because fire is a relatively new, and foreign element in the Amazon, the forest and the life within it have not evolved to withstand the flames. Tropical trees, for instance, lack the thick bark of a temperate fire adapted species such as sequoias or pines. A rainforest fire, burning the forest for the first time, kills most small trees and seedlings and can kill 50% of large trees. Seeds in the soil heated to high temperatures can lose their ability to germinate.

An Amazon rainforest tree in Peru. A healthy forest has a largely closed canopy. Photo by Rhett A. Butler

While bigger trees may not be immediately killed, fire damage to a trunk can cause a mortal wound, allowing pathogens to enter the trunk. These trees then take years to die. But as they succumb, they open the canopy, making surviving trees more susceptible to being knocked over in wind storms. When those large trees fall, the dark rainforest understory is compromised, with devastating consequences for the biota which has evolved in deep shade.

Barlow and his colleagues found that after Amazon forest fires, flora changes radically. Understory specialist birds, which feed in the leaf litter, “basically disappeared” with populations still not recovering ten years later. This finding is not surprising, he says, because a decade after fire, tropical forests look very different, with less biomass and an open canopy.

Image below: A royal flycatcher (Onychorhynchus coronatus) is an understory specialist in the Amazon understory. Photo by Philip Stouffer.

One study indicated that the abundance and types of dung beetle species were altered in burned Amazon forests. Dung beetles play a vital role in nutrient cycling and seed dispersal and a decline in their diversity has cascading effects on the ecosystem.

In a large experimental study, forest plots that were burned several times saw a decline in the abundance of specialist forest ant species. These species disperse seeds, play specific roles in the forest food chain, and work the soil via their burrowing. After fires, these specialist ant species were replaced by an influx of ant communities from more open-habitat areas such as savannas. The loss of these specialized forest species means the loss of the specialized work they do.

In the same experimental burn area, a different study found similar patterns of species loss for butterflies, with forest specialists decreasing in burnt areas. There is a growing body of evidence demonstrating that fire is a threat with long-term consequences to animals and plants that require the cool, moist, understory microclimate of the Amazon forest.

How do forests recover?

Because forest fires are a newer phenomenon in the Amazon, scientists are still not sure how long it takes forests there to fully recover, or even if they do. It is not surprising for researchers to examine a forest in the years after a fire and find a loss in biodiversity, but the fate of the animals on land and in the water, as well as the role of that biodiversity in supporting forest recovery, remain a mystery.

As researchers examine these landscapes, surprises emerge. For example, lowland tapirs (Tapirus terrestris), a large fruit-eating mammal that looks somewhat like a pig crossed with an elephant, may assist with the natural recovery of burned forests, Paolucci’s team found in a recent study. Tapirs travel and defecate more frequently in degraded forests, dispersing up to three times as many seeds in degraded forests.

However, these tapir experiments involve small experimental fires and occur close to unburned forests. “What happens in a fragmented landscape when a burnt area is not adjacent to an unburned patch?” Barlow asks. “Where are the seed sources going to come from then? And how does the forest recover when you don’t have forest connectivity or the ability for the large game and the birds to help disperse the seeds?”

In areas that have burned multiple times, or in areas with large amounts of deforestation and little connectivity, with little chance to recover, the forest changes from a closed canopy primary forest to, what Barlow describes as, “essentially open scrubby bamboo and vine dominated vegetation, which is very, very flammable.” This landscape, now devoid of game, food and medicines, is “of very low value to local people as well as most forest species.”

Aerial view of the Amazon rainforest canopy. Photo by Rhett A. Butler for Mongabay.

“The Amazon is like a bubble… if the trees are intact, it keeps moisture under the canopy in the forest,” Ernesto Alvarado, a professor of wildland fire sciences at the University of Washington said. Logging, roads, deforestation, and fires can pop this moisture bubble. “You open the canopy, right? It’s like a bunch of holes in the bubble, and now the moisture is better escaping and the forest becomes drier.”

Also, the Amazon dry season is getting longer and mega-droughts more common, primarily due to climate change and deforestation. Towards the end of the dry season, plants in more seasonal parts of Amazonia must rely not on rain but on water held in the soil to keep on transpiring and releasing moisture into the atmosphere. But when the dry season extends beyond that seen in past years, plants lack soil water, and some shut down their demand for moisture by dropping leaves. This dry leaf litter is ripe for burning when a fire set in a neighboring field blazes out of control.

“All these years when fires took over, plants were water-stressed,” Paulo Brando, a tropical ecologist at the University of California, Irvine, said, “and then, for animals… all sorts of problems, right? Because the resource availability in terms of fruits and energy decrease a lot if you have a combination of droughts and fire.”

The Amazon fires tomorrow

The future of the Amazon rainforest will depend on complex interactions between fire, deforestation, and deepening drought due to climate change, as well as other human causes.

Some scientists warn that the Amazon is nearing a tipping point, when precipitation diminishes until the rainforest transitions into a “derived-savannah.” However, unlike a natural savannah, which is a highly diverse and functioning system, a severely degraded Amazon may look more like, “a very impoverished [ecological] system, less diverse, providing less function,” Brando said.

Fire in the Jaci-Paraná Extractive Reserve, in Porto Velho, Rondônia state, Brazil. Taken 16 Aug, 2020. Photo by Christian Braga / Greenpeace.

The Brazilian Amazon’s southern portion is currently most vulnerable to this forest-to-savannah transformation, especially along the Arc of Deforestation where rainforest meets pasture and cropland, and where several elements, including worsening drought, a prolonged dry season, and someone ready to set the land ablaze, all come together.

One ray of hope: Because Amazon forest fires burn slowly, they are fairly easy to fight with the right resources in place, Barlow says. Brazil has the technology to both predict and monitor fires with accuracy. However, without the political will and investment to do so, the Amazon rainforest, which holds 10% of the planet’s biodiversity, will continue to burn.

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Liz Kimbrough is a staff writer for Mongabay. Find her on Twitter @lizkimbrough_

Featured image: Hotspot directly in the forest, next to a freshly deforested area in Alta Floresta, Mato Grosso state, Brazil. Photo by Christian Braga / Greenpeace.

When I reported on the leak of Integrity Initiative documents back in 2018/19 which exposed the extent of the UK’s propaganda war against Russia, I didn’t think it could get much more organised and coordinated than it was. Involving hundreds of journalists and academics across the globe to spin disinformation about Russia and paint the country in as negative a light as possible in the mainstream media, the UK government-funded campaign was as sophisticated as the information war gets. But here we are in 2020, still uncovering the true scope of western government influence on the narrative plugged by the mainstream media. And it doesn’t speak well for our ‘democracy’.

On 8th September the hacker group Anonymous published shocking revelations of how a concerted and organised campaign has been waged to support the anti-government rebels in Syria. One set of documents relates to the NGO ARK, which although brands itself as a humanitarian organisation, effectively functions as a vehicle for western-led regime change. In one of the papers it states:

‘ARK’s focus since 2012 has been delivering highly effective, politically- and conflict-sensitive Syria programming for the governments of the United Kingdom, United States, Denmark, Canada, Japan and the European Union.’

This is a somewhat different picture from the mission statement on their website:

‘ARK was created in order to assist the most vulnerable, particularly refugees, the displaced and those impacted by conflict and instability.’

Sounds lovely doesn’t it? But this organisation is far from charitable.  In the last few years it has received $66 million from western governments to drive regime change in Syria. It boasts of relationships with Syrian opposition members that have been built up ‘over the years’, and we know that they date as far back as 2011, if not before, as its  documents read ‘ARK staff are in regular contact with activists and civil society actors whom they initially met during the outbreak of protests in spring 2011’.

ARK also had a targeted propaganda campaign package for Syrian media. In the documents it is discussed how best to reach Syrian audiences to promote the regime change narrative, with success being achieved it is said, on digital media such as Facebook, but also through broadcast media. If there was ever any evidence that the mainstream media was bought, this is it:

‘To achieve a strong digital presence, ARK/Accadian will draw on its existing relationships with media organisations…Using its existing networks and connections, ARK/Accadian would target key Syrian satellite TV networks (Orient TV, Souria al-Shaab, Souria al-Ghad, Barada) and regional Arabic networks and primary international channels.’

What is extraordinary is the repeated use of the word ‘independent’ to describe the media outlets being promoted by ARK. The authors are clearly blissfully unaware that by interfering in the media of this sovereign state to promote the overthrow of the government, the media can hardly be termed ‘independent’ but instead an arm of the British state and its own particular political aims and objectives. The document reads:

‘Since ARK first began training citizen journalists in 2012, as part of HMG’s efforts to develop professional, 2 independent and self-sufficient local Syrian media organisations, it has trained more than 200 journalists and has been a key implementer of a multi-donor effort to develop media platforms inside Syria, maintaining close links with these organisations’.

It boasts having produced over 2000 news reports for various mainstream Arabic channels, including Orient, Al Arabiya, Al Jazeera and Sky Arabic which it says are ‘broadcast almost every day’.  Some of the statements are pure, straightforward admissions of propaganda:

‘ARK has also facilitated contact between the Syrian opposition and international media, seeking to address the perception of an uncoordinated opposition by fostering the image of a united front.’

It is extraordinary the sheer brassneck with which this author writes about manipulating the Syrian public through propaganda. It has the stated goal of creating the impression of a united Syrian opposition, which of course there never was.

These documents contrast with the UK government’s website on ‘what it is doing in Syria’. There we are told that British involvement is limited to humanitarian aid as it ‘suspended all services of the British Embassy in Damascus and withdrew all diplomatic personnel from Syria in 2012’. The Anonymous hack shows that this is far from the truth. There has clearly been considerable British involvement in fostering regime change in Syria. If it weren’t for these leaked documents, the UK taxpayer would remain completely ignorant as to what foreign meddling is being carried out in his or her name.

For more detailed analysis and context of the hacked documents, please see Ben Norton’s report on The GrayZone.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

An Anonymous Nurse SPEAKS OUT! Just a shame they can’t put their name to it out of fear of losing their job.

This is from a nurse.

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I work in the healthcare field. Here’s the problem, we are testing people for any strain of a Coronavirus. Not specifically for COVID-19. There are no reliable tests for a specific COVID-19 virus. There are no reliable agencies or media outlets for reporting numbers of actual COVID-19 virus cases. This needs to be addressed first and foremost. Every action and reaction to COVID-19 is based on totally flawed data and we simply cannot make accurate assessments.

This is why you’re hearing that most people with COVID-19 are showing nothing more than cold/flu like symptoms. That’s because most Coronavirus strains are nothing more than cold/flu like symptoms.

The few actual novel Coronavirus cases do have some worse respiratory responses, but still have a very promising recovery rate, especially for those without prior issues.

The ‘gold standard’ in testing for COVID-19 is laboratory isolated/purified coronavirus particles free from any contaminants and particles that look like viruses but are not, that have been proven to be the cause of the syndrome known as COVID-19 and obtained by using proper viral isolation methods and controls (not PCR that is currently being used or Serology /antibody tests which do not detect virus as such).

PCR basically takes a sample of your cells and amplifies any DNA to look for ‘viral sequences’, i.e. bits of non-human DNA that seem to match parts of a known viral genome.

The problem is the test is known not to work.

It uses ‘amplification’ which means taking a very very tiny amount of DNA and growing it exponentially until it can be analyzed. Obviously any minute contaminations in the sample will also be amplified leading to potentially gross errors of discovery.

Additionally, it’s only looking for partial viral sequences, not whole genomes, so identifying a single pathogen is next to impossible even if you ignore the other issues.

The Mickey Mouse test kits being sent out to hospitals, at best, tell analysts you have some viral DNA in your cells. Which most of us do, most of the time. It may tell you the viral sequence is related to a specific type of virus – say the huge family of coronavirus. But that’s all.

The idea these kits can isolate a specific virus like COVID-19 is nonsense.And that’s not even getting into the other issue – viral load.

If you remember the PCR works by amplifying minute amounts of DNA. It therefore is useless at telling you how much virus you may have.

And that’s the only question that really matters when it comes to diagnosing illness. Everyone will have a few virus kicking round in their system at any time, and most will not cause illness because their quantities are too small. For a virus to sicken you you need a lot of it, a massive amount of it. But PCR does not test viral load and therefore can’t determine if a osteogenesis is present in sufficient quantities to sicken you.

If you feel sick and get a PCR test any random virus DNA might be identified even if they aren’t at all involved in your sickness which leads to false diagnosis.

And coronavirus are incredibly common. A large percentage of the world human population will have covi DNA in them in small quantities even if they are perfectly well or sick with some other pathogen.

Do you see where this is going yet?

If you want to create a totally false panic about a totally false pandemic – pick a coronavirus.

They are incredibly common and there’s tons of them. A very high percentage of people who have become sick by other means (flu, bacterial pneumonia, anything) will have a positive PCR test for covi even if you’re doing them properly and ruling out contamination, simply because covis are so common.

There are hundreds of thousands of flu and pneumonia victims in hospitals throughout the world at any one time.

All you need to do is select the sickest of these in a single location – say Wuhan – administer PCR tests to them and claim anyone showing viral sequences similar to a coronavirus (which will inevitably be quite a few) is suffering from a ‘new’ disease.

Since you already selected the sickest flu cases a fairly high proportion of your sample will go on to die.

You can then say this ‘new’ virus has a CFR higher than the flu and use this to infuse more concern and do more tests which will of course produce more ‘cases’, which expands the testing, which produces yet more ‘cases’ and so on and so on.

Before long you have your ‘pandemic’, and all you have done is use a simple test kit trick to convert the worst flu and pneumonia cases into something new that doesn’t actually exist.

Now just run the same scam in other countries. Making sure to keep the fear message running high so that people will feel panicky and less able to think critically.

Your only problem is going to be that – due to the fact there is no actual new deadly pathogen but just regular sick people you are mislabelling – your case numbers, and especially your deaths, are going to be way too low for a real new deadly virus pandemic.

But you can stop people pointing this out in several ways.

1. You can claim this is just the beginning and more deaths are imminent. Use this as an excuse to quarantine everyone and then claim the quarantine prevented the expected millions of dead.

2. You can tell people that ‘minimizing’ the dangers is irresponsible and bully them into not talking about numbers.

3. You can talk crap about made up numbers hoping to blind people with pseudoscience.

4. You can start testing well people (who, of course, will also likely have shreds of coronavirus DNA in them) and thus inflate your ‘case figures’ with ‘asymptomatic carriers’ (you will of course have to spin that to sound deadly even though any virologist knows the more symptom-less cases you have the less deadly is your pathogen.

Take these simple steps and you can have your own entirely manufactured pandemic up and running in weeks.

They can not “confirm” something for which there is no accurate test.”

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Na madrugada desta última segunda-feira, dia 21 de setembro, um grande número de jovens do movimento da Greve pelo Clima na Suíça, ocupou a Praça Federal em Berna, situada em frente ao Palácio Federal – daí seu nome – sede do Governo e do Parlamento da Suíça. Os jovens montaram diversas barracas e estruturas onde podiam se realizar encontros e pequenos eventos. Esta ocupação foi extremamente bem organizada e respeitosa das condições atuais em que nos encontramos – praticamente TODOS os jovens e envolvidos na ocupação usavam máscaras devido à pandemia do COVID-19. O principal objetivo desta ação era atrair a atenção para a urgência da crise climática e exigir do Governo Suíço medidas concretas contra o aquecimento global. Como escrito no documento que apresenta as exigências  do movimento ( ver em inglês em: Rise Up for Change)

“ Já fazem muitos anos que milhões de pessoas têm se mobilizado contra a ameaça de catástrofe climática. No entanto, a urgência do problema não se reflete nos procedimentos políticos da Suíça. Consideramos que nós, que estamos preocupados com um futuro para todos em que valha a pena viver, estamos sendo deixados para trás. Áreas como a agricultura e o setor financeiro são completamente ignorados na política climática da Suíça, apesar de serem largamente responsáveis pela degradação ambiental e pela crise climática. Ao mesmo tempo, os líderes da economia  ainda estão apegados ao conto de fadas do crescimento eterno. Eles não estão interessados no nosso futuro e só querem aumentar a sua riqueza e influência.

O atual sistema político e econômico falhou completamente em dar uma resposta à crise climática. Temos de nos libertar dos sistemas sociais, econômicos e políticos que exploram o homem e a natureza com o único propósito de enriquecer alguns. É tempo de redefinir a nossa sociedade para que seja possível um futuro ecológico e social.” (Tradução do Autor)

Este pequeno texto coloca o problema com a clareza e a transparência necessárias. Em relação à Suíça, uma única frase deste documento, no capítulo sobre ‘Justiça Climática’, coloca a exigência central com a mesma clareza:

“A Suíça deve reconhecer a sua responsabilidade histórica e global pela crise climática e agir de acordo.”

Nada mais justo. Como era de se esperar, a ação dos jovens ativistas pelo clima, em frente à sede do Governo da Suíça, atraiu a atenção da imprensa, dos políticos e da sociedade em geral. Várias TVs da Suíça, nas principais línguas do país – alemão, francês e italiano – enviaram equipes ao local. 

No acampamento havia um clima de alegria e de paz, muitas cores por todos os lados. Em nenhuma momento a ocupação colocou qualquer impedimento ao funcioanamento do Governo Suíço, não havia bloqueio à entrada do Palácio Federal. Tampouco houve qualquer atividade violenta ou mesmo barulho que pudesse atrapalhar o funcioamento do Parlamento que estava – e ainda está – em sessão.

Porém uma antiga lei da cidade de Berna proíbe manifestações na Praça Federal quando o Parlamento se encontra em sessão. Uma outra lei também proíbe que se acampe na praça.

Os partidos políticos de direita e muitos cidadãos suíços, incomodados pela manifestação dos jovens, passaram a exercer uma agressividade comparável – se não em números, pois a Suíça tem uma população muito menor que a do Brasil, pelo menos em virulência– ao que assitimos com o Bolsonarismo no Brasil. A maioria da imprensa foi  hostil  em relação ao movimento – como no Brasil em relação ao PT… – e vários parlamentares, sob o pretexto das leis que mencionei acima, exigiram que a admistração da cidade de Berna, responsável pela segurança do Palácio Federal e do Parlamento, expulsasse imediatamente os manifestantes. O governo da cidade procurou em primeiro lugar um diálogo com os ativistas, propondo que eles se retirassem. Mas os ativistas anunciaram sua intenção de manter a ocupação até a próxima sexta-feria, com o objetivo de lembrar ao Parlamento em sessão a necessidade de confrontar-se com a realidade das mudanças climáticas. 

Na madrugada desta quarta-feira a força policial invadiu o acampamento e expulsou os manifestantes que resistiram apenas pela não-violência, mantendo-se sentados, cantando, até serem retirados.

A questão da ilegalidade da ocupação foi o tema principal das dicussões, não a questão climática! Alguns bravos parlamentares suíços, em defesa dos ativistas, apontaram para esta contradição, como a Parlamentar do Partido Social -Democrata Jacqueline Badran de Zurique que deu um depoimento ao vivo na TV da Suíça, face a jornalistas que insistiam em perguntar sobre a questão da legalidade da ocupação, ignorando propositadamente a causa do movimento.

É preciso dizer que há muitas coisas que são absolutamente legais mas não são éticas. O acaparamento de fontes de água pela empresa Suíça Nestlé em todo o mundo para o engarrafamento, prudizindo uma enorme quantida de lixo plástico pelo qual a empresa não tem nenhuma responsabilidade,  é absolutamente legal, mas não é ético. A produção e venda de venenos pela empresa Syngenta – que contamina os solos e a água em vários países, que provoca o envenenamento e a morte de inúmeros agricultores e camponeses – é absolutamente legal. E no caso da Syngenta é até mesmo legal que a empresa continue a produzir e exportar para os países do sul tipos de pesticidas declarados ilegais pela Suíça e pela União Européia!

O confronto em Berna entre os ativistas e a lei foi um conflito entre a ética e a legalidade. Há certamente uma ética acima mesmo das leis e os direitos da  natureza e a sobrevivência do planeta  devem ter precedência sobre qualquer outra questão, mesmo de ordem legal.

Por enquanto, nesta batalha na capital da Suíça, a pequenez e a mediocridade venceram a esperança , a alegria e a racionalidade. Não haveria nenhum problema em deixar os manifestantes permancerem pacificamente na Praça Federal e usar a manifestação como uma oportunidade – como vários parlamentares suíços tentaram – de diálogo mais amplo com a juventude e sobre a urgência do problema da mudança climática. Seria uma demonstração de responsabilidade, de preocupação real com o destino do planeta e de cuidado com as futuras gerações.

Mas a histeria capitalista alimentada por parte da imprensa e pela direita suíça, vocejando em todos os meios  e exigindo respeito à LEI e à ORDEM  foi mais forte. Muitos dos parlamentares suíços que defenderam o movimento dos jovens sofreram críticas e agressões inacreditáveis nas redes socias, exatamente como o Bolsonarismo mais exaltado se comporta no Brasil. Pois na base do Bolsonarismo há a mesma histeria capitalista presente em todos os movimentos da extrema direita no mundo, o pânico e a indignação diante de qualquer questionamento sobre a prioridade do capital, a raiva incontida e visceral por quem quer  que ouse defender outras prioridades – seja o meio ambiente, a dignidade do trabalho, os direitos humanos ou o próprio planeta. Pois o capital quer e precisa estar acima de tudo, acima da própria vida. Cabe à natureza se submeter aos ditames do capital, e, junto com a maioria dos seres humanos, curvar-se à exploração capitalista e ao domíno do lucro acima de tudo. Os jovens em Berna defendiam outras prioridades e com sua alegria, inteligência e determinação, apontavam outros caminhos, por isso tinham que ser expulsos. Mas esta foi apenas uma batalha, a luta continua. De um modo ou de outro uma brecha se abriu também na sociedade suíça, o debate vai continuar.

E do Brasil veio uma mensagem de solidariedade inesperada e fundamental para o movimento suíço: uma carta de apoio endereçada ao próprio Governo Suíço, enviada ao Embaixador da Suíça em Berna, assinada por lideranças de alguns dos principais movimentos sociais do Brasil como o MST e por 54 Parlamentares brasileiros. Esta carta já está em poder dos ativistas e de muitos parlamentares e personalidades suíças. (Sobre a carta ver artigo: brasildefato.com.br)

E deste modo nos unimos na luta contra o Bolsonarismo, contra o capitalismo desvairado e histérico, tanto no Brasil como na Suíça. Pelo futuro do Planeta, com generosidade, ternura , coragem e determinação.

Franklin Frederick

For China, a strategic alliance with the EU will further develop the Belt and Road Initiative across the vast expanse of Eurasia. For the EU, China can help “the Old Continent” once again become a major global political and economic center as it once was before the rise of the US in the “New World.” At the virtual summit held on September 14 between Chinese President Xi Jinping, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Council President Charles Michel and the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the necessity to “accelerate negotiations on an investment agreement between China and the EU and close the deal this year” was emphasized. However, there are many problems they face – the trade war with the US, EU tensions with Turkey, and more importantly, the differences on economic, political and diplomatic issues.

The Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin think tank described the EU as “a ship adrift without navigation tools” because of its “total inability to forecast” events and the lack of “operational instruments” to solve its problems, internally and internationally. Indeed, the European Commission has enormous difficulties in defining a common policy for current challenges, as can be seen with the huge split between Mediterranean and Northern Europe in how to deal with Turkish aggression against EU members Greece and Cyprus.

Chinese state-owned Global Times, considered the international mouthpiece of Beijing, wrote after the summit that despite

“ideological differences between China and Europe […] the two sides continue to expand their cooperation and interactions. This is the general trend of China-Europe ties. The desire of both sides to keep strengthening the trend is real. It is a wish not only at the national levels, but also from their companies.”

Xi called on the EU to adhere to peaceful coexistence, multilateralism, dialogue and openness. However, the EU insists on demanding that barriers to European investments in China be eliminated and on having greater access to the Chinese market, especially in areas reserved only for Chinese companies. The European Commissioner stressed that “it is not a question of meeting halfway, it is a question of rebalancing the asymmetry and a question of openness of our respective markets. China has to convince us that it is worth having an investment agreement.”

Andrew Small, an EU-China expert with the US-based German Marshall Fund, said

“The language and tone from the European side is continuing its shift into the new era, in which competition and rivalry are coming to the fore, and the areas of partnership look limited and difficult.”

Although China is a vital commercial partner for Germany, they are also undoubtedly competitors, which could explain why the EU, led by Berlin, vocally condemns Beijing’s alleged human rights abuses against the Uighur minority in China’s western Xinjiang province and the crackdown on Hong Kong rioters. According to renowned Brazilian journalist Pepe Escobar, the EU’s focus on events in Xinjiang and Hong Kong is to pressure China to open its markets.

Global Times pondered on how the EU would react

“if China demands Europe to solve its issues of migration, offer solutions to countries like France, Spain and the UK in dealing with separatist movements, and demands that Europe cope with the COVID-19 epidemic in certain specific ways, because reducing infections and deaths is a crucial human rights issue for China, would Europe accept it? Would Europeans feel offended?”

Signing the investment agreement before the end of the year will not be easy since the differences between the EU and China is massive. Strong US pressure against Europe in its dispute with Huawei, as well as with Germany over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with Russia, have managed to weaken European interests. For Europe, its priorities in its relations with Beijing is market access to help alleviate the acute crisis experienced by entire industries because of the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to being able to project itself as an independent power on the global stage and in its relations with China.

For China, the European market is vital due to the volume and quality of its consumption. Expanding the Belt and Road Initiative into Europe is one of the main pillars of China’s 21st century foreign policy.

Moscow will also benefit from strong relations between the EU and China since much of the Belt and Road Initiative will pass through Russian territory, serving as a connection between East Asia and Western Europe. An uninterrupted trade corridor across Eurasia will lessen European dependence on the US. This too would be in the minds of European leaders as they try and reassert their own independence in the Age of Multipolarity – but this cannot be achieved without China, meaning the major differences between Beijing and Brussels must be resolved in the swiftest manner.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

America’s Broken Syria Project

By Tony Cartalucci, September 24, 2020

The confrontation with Russia and the decision to boost America’s military presence in Syria is but a microcosm of America’s wider struggle to maintain its invasive primacy over the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Failing Palestinian Self-determination

By Michael Jansen, September 24, 2020

Founded to ensure peace and security for all peoples,  the UN enabled the Israeli conquest of Palestine, beginning with the adoption in  November 1947 of resolution 181 to partition this Arab country, allocating  55 per cent to European Jewish colonists and 45 per cent to indigenous Palestinians.

The Perversion of Science to Clear the Way for the Imposition of Compulsory Vaccines

By Prof. Anthony J. Hall, September 24, 2020

Some of those plotting to advance the vaccine agenda sought to sideline the adoption of hydroxychloroquine as the main remedy for COVID-19. They resorted to a well-organized crime that seemed to fly the banner of science while actually defying its evidence-based  requirements.

Video: Iran Says Houthis Use Its Military Knowhow in Battle Against Saudi Arabia

By South Front, September 24, 2020

Iran has supplied Ansar Allah (also known as the Houthis) with technical expertise and know-how, a spokesman for the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi said on September 22.

Chief Science Officer for Pfizer Says “Second Wave” Faked on False-Positive COVID Tests, “Pandemic Is Over”

By Ralph Lopez, September 24, 2020

In a stunning development, a former Chief Science Officer for the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer says “there is no science to suggest a second wave should happen.” The “Big Pharma” insider asserts that false positive results from inherently unreliable COVID tests are being used to manufacture a “second wave” based on “new cases.”

The Program to Mask Society is a Grotesque Governmental Manipulation of a Frightened and Confused Public.

By Prof. Bill Willers, September 23, 2020

The dramatic reversal in official U.S. policy regarding facial masking is epitomized by, first, the May, 2020 report of the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in which facial masks are acknowledged to be ineffective in blocking viral transmission, this followed two months later by CDC’s inexplicable July, 2020 recommendation that the public be masked.

Public Health Lessons Learned from Biases in Coronavirus Mortality Overestimation

By Dr. Ronald B. Brown, September 23, 2020

In testimony before US Congress on March 11, 2020, members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee were informed that estimated mortality for the novel coronavirus was 10-times higher than for seasonal influenza. Additional evidence, however, suggests the validity of this estimation could benefit from vetting for biases and miscalculations.

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About a month ago, I sent a copy of the the “No mask? We won’t ask” poster to Wolfgang and Almut Wurzbacher, owners of Pfenning’s Organic & More. Their family-run, organic grocer offers home delivery to customers in the Kitchener-Waterloo region of Southwestern Ontario. The poster was designed for small businesses to post (where legal) in their front window beside the “wear a face diaper” propaganda the government forces them to show us.

In their district (like most of Canada) one can claim an exemption from mask wearing for physical or mental health reasons — or even religious reasons. Thus, the staff at Pfenning’s Organic is able to avoid being forced to collect and diffuse bacteria in front of their nose; likewise they don’t make such unhygienic requests of their customers.

Notwithstanding, they still had to put a government issued sign telling their customers to wear a mask. “Yes, we do need the official signs or we would be in big trouble,” says Almut. “We tape them to the bottom of the entrance door. They never said where on the door to post them.” At eye-level, instead, they have placed the “No mask? We won’t ask” sign.

Soon after posting it, Almut wrote me: “You and us created a commotion on Twitter… many people called us regarding seeing [the “No mask? We won’t ask” sign] in our window [in a Tweeted photo]. Must have been a customer posting it.”

Indeed, the following Tweet was made:

Almut added: “[We have] had calls from all over Ontario and new customers are coming in because of the sign.”

Can you imagine? Canadians seeking a place to buy food without being ridiculed. Canada is probably one of the most “inclusive” countries in the world. A non-binary transvestite, with blue skin and five fishing hooks piercing each lip, can walk into a store without being ridiculed in anyway. Yet if you dare enter many stores (not Pfennings!) with a friendly and smiling face you could easily be subject to public shaming because of a fashionable public health dictate that lacks any scientific evidence.

In addition to new customers, the sign also attracted the attention of the local by-law officer. “We had three complaints to the law by customers,” Almut told me. “Had the by-law officer here, standing and studying [the “No Mask? We won’t ask”] sign for a while. She did come in but could not fault us for anything.”

Whatever freedoms the laws of your land let you exercise, exercise them to the max. Let’s look to the courageous example of Pfenning’s Organic & More. They didn’t let snitching customers intimidate them into bowing down to tyrannical dictates (masquerading as protection) from their local government. Almut and Wolfgang stood their ground, have retained their liberty to operate their store with humanity and kindness; while attracting new, like-minded customers who can come (without a mask) to their store, or order online and have Wolfgang (without a mask) deliver to their door.

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John C. A. Manley has spent over a decade ghostwriting for medical doctors, as well as naturopaths, chiropractors and Ayurvedic physicians. He publishes the COVID-19(84) Red Pill Daily Briefs – an email-based newsletter dedicated to preventing the governments of the world from using an exaggerated pandemic as an excuse to violate our freedom, health, privacy, livelihood and humanity. He is also writing a novel, Brave New Normal: A Dystopian Love Story. Visit his website at: MuchAdoAboutCorona.ca. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: (From left to right) Owners Wolfgang and Almut Wurzbacher with staff Andrea and Kate of Pfenning’s Organic & More holding the “No mask? We won’t ask” sign they display in their shop window.

A recent altercation between Russian forces and US occupiers in northeastern Syria helped highlight the increasingly tenuous position Washington holds not only in Syria but across the entire Middle East.

After complaining that American troops were “injured” in the incident and condemning Russia for “unsafe and unprofessional actions,” the United States announced that it was deploying more troops and military equipment to bolster its illegal occupation of Syrian territory.

The US also claimed its continued presence in Syria officially seeks to confront and eliminate the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS), but official accounts maintained by the US government and the US Department of Defense on an almost daily basis provide a wide and every-shifting number of excuses.

On September 20th “Inherent Resolve’s” Twitter account would announce:

Bradley Fighting Vehicles provide the rapid flexibility needed to protect critical petroleum resources.

The region the US occupies is also where the majority of Syria’s petroleum is extracted and America’s “protection” of these resources is part of a wider strategy – not to fight ISIS – but to deny the Syrian state which has eliminated ISIS from all territory it controls – both energy and revenue from its own natural resources.

In essence, the US is in Syria weakening the Syrian government who has led the fight against ISIS and provoking confrontations with Russia who has been key in aiding Damascus against ISIS, Al Nusra, and other affiliates of Al Qaeda.

The US had been in Syria a full year before Russia’s invitation by Damascus to aid in security operations against ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates in 2015. The Russian military promptly began bombing supply lines feeding ISIS and other terrorist groups from across the Syrian border in Turkey. ISIS’ fighting capacity rapidly collapsed and remains isolated in pockets made inaccessible by America’s continued occupation of Syrian territory.

A Microcosm of America’s Wider MENA Failure

The confrontation with Russia and the decision to boost America’s military presence in Syria is but a microcosm of America’s wider struggle to maintain its invasive primacy over the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Despite beginning the 21st century with an overwhelming military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq and expanding its involvement in the region in 2011 through the US-engineered “Arab Spring” – US power and influence has visibly waned. Its attempts to control virtually every aspect of Iraq’s internal politics has faltered in the face of Iraqis seeking alternative ties with neighboring Iran.

While Washington successfully toppled the government of Libya in 2011, it has failed to do likewise in Syria. Not only has it failed to oust the Syrian government, it has transformed the nation into a vector for alternative emerging global powers to contest and roll back US influence in the region. This most notably includes Russia but also Iran and China.

If at the turn of the century hundreds of thousands of US troops could not transform the region favorably for Washington, its provocative but small actions in eastern Syrian will unlikely make any difference now.

Against this backdrop is also Washington’s ongoing confrontation with Iran. It’s creation then predictable withdrawal from its “Iran Nuclear Deal” has exposed the US as a malign global player acting in bad faith. Its attempts to pressure and isolate Iran have increasingly transformed into a wider campaign to pressure and coerce a growing number of nations around the globle interested in trade and normal relations with Tehran.

The US has fewer and fewer cards to play in the region and more specifically in Syria. If Syria and its allies can find ways around crippling economic sanctions the US is using to ravage the Syrian public and undermine Damascus’ ability to ensure ISIS’ defeat endures – the US will be left with empty hands, overextended, and exposed in Syria’s eastern deserts.

The more confrontational Washington gets with Syria, Russia, and China the easier it will be for each of these nations to justify actions taken to preserve and protect their collective interests – as well as win over a larger percent of the global community to support them in these efforts. Stability is a central key to prosperity. America’s foreign policy has fully revealed itself to be a global engine of instability that is costing even its own supposed allies socioeconomic opportunities and stability.

US foreign policy is unsustainable. Those still aiding it including Turkey are preparing for direct confrontations Syria and its allies will actively avoid – and if successful – will simply surround, cut off, and let whither the presence of these uninvited foreign forces occupying Syrian territory. While it is too late for America’s “Syria project” to ever succeed in its original goal of regime change, it is not still too late for it to divest from its spiteful campaign to sink the region, its people, and their allies into a quagmire that will only further leave Washington and its allies isolated and impotent upon the global stage.

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Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from NEO

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The UN is marking its 75th birthday with a virtual opening of the 75th session of the General Assembly. While UN agencies have carried out successful  humanitarian assistance  and research programmes, peacekeeping missions and efforts to protect the rights of peoples subjected to repression and abuse, the UN’s political organs, the General Assembly and Security  Council, have failed to keep the peace and deal with flagrant injustice. Palestine continues to be its most infamous catastrophe as the UN  has colluded in the dispossession of that  country’s indigenous population.  

Among the 49 original signatories of the UN Charter, which came into  effect in October 1945, were Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia  and Syria. Today the UN has 193 full members. Palestine, a non-member observer state, languishes while waiting to be admitted as the 194th full member.

Palestine is not recognised as a state by the US, Israel, Britain, Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, Spain, Greece, Canada  and the usual supporters of Western positions.  Both Russia and China recognised the state of Palestine in 1988 following the declaration of Palestinian independence during a meeting of the Palestinian-parliament-in-exile in Algiers.  Of the 193 UN members, 138 have recognised Palestine as compared with 162 which have recognised Israel, although it occupies the whole of Palestine illegally.

Founded to ensure peace and security for all peoples,  the UN enabled the Israeli conquest of Palestine, beginning with the adoption in  November 1947 of resolution 181 to partition this Arab country, allocating  55 per cent to European Jewish colonists and 45 per cent to indigenous  Palestinians.  The partition resolution was adopted by the General Assembly only after the US exerted pressure on countries which had intended to vote against or abstain.  It is interesting to note that the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc countries voted in favour while Britain, which promoted Zionist colonisation of Palestine, abstained. Naturally, Arab UN members  and the US voted against along with India, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Greece and Cuba.

A “recommendation” rather than a mandatory measure, the partition  resolution provided dubious legitimacy for the Zionist take-over of  55 per cent of Palestine but not the seizure of 78 per cent of the country and the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians in the months  that followed 181’s adoption. This can only be seen as a monumental failure of the international body founded to maintain global peace and security and preserve human rights. There was a feeble effort to make partial amends to the Palestinians in December  1948 with the adoption of resolution 194 which, in paragraph 11, called for the repatriation of Palestinian refugees and compensation for their losses.

This resolution has fallen by the wayside.  Although Israeli UN membership  was conditioned on its implementation of resolutions 181 and 194, this requirement was ignored by Israel and its mainly Western supporters.

In late 1949 the General Assembly created an independent humanitarian organisation, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to provide shelter, food, medical care, education and welfare for homeless Palestinians.  The intention was that they would ultimately be absorbed by countries where they had taken refuge or elsewhere outside Palestine.  This did not happen because Palestinians remained, and insist on remaining, Palestinians and demand the right of self determination in Palestine and the “right of return” laid down in resolution 194 and under international law.

In June 1967, when Israel conquered East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, the remaining 22 per cent of Palestine, another 250,000 Palestinians fled their homeland.  Today five million Palestinians live under Israeli occupation, 1.6 million Palestinians are second or third class citizens of Israel, 5.6 million Palestinian refugees in this region depend on UNRWA, and millions more are scattered across the world.

In November 1967, the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 242 affirming the principle of the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and calling on Israel to withdraw from territory it occupied during the June war. This resolution became the basis for Egyptian, Jordanian  and Palestinian peace deals with Israel under the land-for-peace formula and, the expectation that Palestinians would establish their state in East Jerusalem,  the West Bank and Gaza in accordance with the “two state solution”.

However, no pressure was ever exerted on Israel, as occupying power, to withdraw its forces and end its colonisation of Palestinian territory.  The UN, which has the authority to impose sanctions on countries which reject its directives, has done nothing but generate piles of paper by passing resolutions which Israel and its supporters have ignored.

Over seven decades, the international community abided by a consensus that UNRWA should be preserved as a means of ensuring a modicum of stability in countries hosting Palestinian refugees. Israel’s main financier and most powerful backer, the US, paid about one third of the UNRWA budget of $1.2 billion. Donald Trump not only violated the consensus by cutting funding for the agency but also halting aid to all Palestinian institutions.

He recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, severed contacts with the Palestinian Authority, and put forward a so-called “peace plan” which would give Israel another 30 per cent of the West Bank and provide for limited Palestinian governance in disconnected enclaves in the West Bank which would remain under Israeli control. The UN has done nothing to reaffirm the consensus, leaving the Palestinians poor and adrift.

The UN’s failure to deal decisively with Israel’s conquest of Palestine has emboldened other aggressors.  It served as a model for Turkey’s invasion, occupation and colonisation of northern Cyprus between 1974 and today.

All too clearly, the UN, the servant of powerful Western countries led by the US, operates on the basis of horrendous double standards. For example, the UN has imposed punitive sanctions on Iran for embarking on nuclear research without producing weaponry while Israel, which has scores of nuclear weapons, is not sanctioned for its flagrant expropriation and dispossession of the Palestinian people. This is a far greater offense against humanity than enriching uranium for power plants and medical isotopes under the watchful eyes of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency.

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The quest to claim the prestige of science is one of the major themes accompanying the rush of the rich and powerful to seize more wealth and political clout during the so-called “great reset” presently underway. Much controversy has surrounded the use of hydroxychloroquine as a cheap and readily available remedy for COVID-19. 

Hydroxychloroquine is a well-known medicine used to treat many ailments. When properly administered along with zinc, hydroxychloroquine represents a threat to the agendas being pushed forward by Bill Gates and Big Pharma. Many powerful interests have a significant stake in imposing a compulsory vaccine on humanity as the universalized remedy for the much-exaggerated incursions of COVID-19. 

Some of those plotting to advance the vaccine agenda sought to sideline the adoption of hydroxychloroquine as the main remedy for COVID-19. They resorted to a well-organized crime that seemed to fly the banner of science while actually defying its evidence-based  requirements.

This fraud involved the presentation of concocted evidence calculated to support a false conclusion about the alleged health dangers attending the use of hydroxychloroquine. The various elements of the fraud were put together by an organization known as Surgisphere. The operatives of this criminal outfit managed to get their dishonest study published in the prestigious peer-reviewed journals, Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. 

The discovery of the fraud put into disrepute the peer-review process of two pillars of published scholarship. Attentive expert readers managed to see through the fabrication of data that was presented as if it was based on findings derived from scientific assessment of about 100,000 patients and over 600 hospitals. Before the fraudulent nature of Surgisphere’s study was exposed, however, its publication resulted in the sidelining of hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 remedy in many jurisdictions including Alberta.

The Surgisphere/hydroxycloroquine fraud was quickly recognized as one of the most monumental deceptions of scientific research ever conducted. This episode serves as one of the best examples that those pushing an agenda of compulsory vaccines as the best means of combating COVID-19 are the foes rather than the friends of the scientific method. 

Many aspects of this crisis are more manufactured than real. The Bill Gates funded and dominated World Health Organization engaged in politics rather than in the scientific conduct of public health when it declared in March that COVID-19 formed the basis of a global pandemic.  

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Iran has supplied Ansar Allah (also known as the Houthis) with technical expertise and know-how, a spokesman for the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi said on September 22. However, the general claimed that Yemeni forces “have learned how to produce missiles, drones and weapons in Yemen on their own” and Iran has no military presence in the region. Shekarchi described what Iran is doing across the region as “spiritual and advisory presence”.

“Countries of the resistance front have armies and forces themselves. We provide them with advisory help. In order to share our experience with the people of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, our skilled forces go there and assist them, but this is the people and armies of these countries who stand against the enemies in practice,” the general stated.

Apparently, it was Iranian “spiritual” power which helped the Houthis to regularly pound targets inside Saudi Arabia, including the Kingdom’s capital and key oil infrastructure objects, with missiles and drones, despite the years of Saudi-led air bombing campaigns against Houthi forces and the land and maritime blockade of the areas controlled by them.

Iran also denies reports of weapon and equipment supplies to the Houthis. This means missile components must have appeared in the Houthis’ hands and their missile and combat drone arsenal been expanded thanks to some unrevealed technological breakthrough behind the scenes.

Thus, the military cooperation deal officially signed between the Houthi government and Iran in 2019 was just a formality to highlight the sides’ unity on the frontline in the battle against ‘Zionist plots’ in the region, which became especially obvious in 2020 when the Houthi leadership, alongside with Iran, appeared to be among the most vocal critics of the UAE-Israel and Bahrain-Israel normalization deals. According to them, these developments are a part of the wider Zionist campaign against Middle Eastern nations.

Meanwhile in Syria, sources loyal to the Turkish-backed terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) claim that its members had killed a Russian special forces operator on the contact line near Kafra Nabl in southern Idlib.

According to militants and their supporters, they repelled an attack of pro-government forces there inflicting multiple casualties on the Syrian Army and its allies. Photos showing the equipment of the alleged Russian special forces operator were also released by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham media wing.

Pro-government sources did not report any notable clashes in the area last night or active operations involving Russian units there. According to them, the incident involving the Russian special forces operator may have happened several weeks (or even months) ago. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and their Turkish sponsors probably opted to use the obtained photos as propaganda to create a media victory in September to compensate for the losses and destruction caused by the Russian bombing campaign against the terrorist infrastructure in Idlib.

Details of the incident and the fate of the alleged Russian special forces operator involved in it remain unclear. In general, the Russian Defense Ministry reports all casualties among Russian service members deployed. Further, the militants did not show the body of the supposedly killed fighter. Therefore, if the incident really did take place, the Russian soldier most likely received injures and was then evacuated.

Meanwhile, the Russian Aerospace Forces continued bombing terrorist infrastructure in the Idlib region. Therefore, al-Qaeda and its Turkish sponsors are forced to console themselves with media victories.

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September 22, 2020

Mr. Secretary General,

Mr. President,

A global pandemic has changed everyday life drastically. From one day to the next, millions of people get infected and thousands die even when their life expectancy was longer thanks to development. Hospital systems with high-level services have collapsed and the health structures of poor countries are affected by their chronic lack of capacity. Drastic quarantines are turning the most populated cities into deserted areas. Social life is non-existent except in the digital networks. Theaters, discos, galleries and even schools are closed or being readjusted.

Our borders have been closed, our economies are shrinking and our reserves are dwindling. Life is experiencing a radical redesigning of age-old ways and uncertainty is replacing certainty. Even close friends cannot recognize each other due to the masks that protect us from the contagion. Everything is changing.

Like finding a solution to the pandemic, it is already urgent to democratize this indispensable Organization so that it effectively meets the needs and aspirations of all peoples.

The sought-after right of humanity to live in peace and security, with justice and freedom, the basis for unity among nations, is constantly under threat.

Over 1.9 trillion dollars are being squandered today in a senseless arms race promoted by the aggressive and war-mongering policies of imperialism, whose leader is the present government of the US, which accounts for 38 percent of the global military expenditure.

We are referring to a markedly aggressive and morally corrupt regime that despises and attacks multilateralism, uses financial blackmailing in its relations with UN system agencies and that, in a show of unprecedented overbearance, has withdrawn from the World Health Organization, UNESCO and the Human Rights Council.

Paradoxically, the country where the UN headquarters is located is also staying away from fundamental international treaties such as the Paris Agreement on climate change; it rejects the nuclear agreement with Iran reached by consensus; it promotes trade wars; it ends its commitment with international disarmament control instruments; it militarizes cyberspace; it expands coercion and unilateral sanctions against those who do not bend to its designs and sponsors the forcible overthrow of sovereign governments through non-conventional war methods.

Along such line of action, which ignores the old principles of peaceful co-existence and respect of the right of others´ to self-determination as the guarantee for peace, the Donald Trump administration it also manipulating, with subversive aims, cooperation in the sphere of democracy and human rights, while in its own territory there is an abundance of practically uncontrolled expressions of hatred, racism, police brutality and irregularities in the election system and as to the voting rights of citizens

It is urgent to reform the UN. This powerful organization, which emerged after the loss of millions of lives in two world wars and as a result of a world understanding of the importance of dialogue, negotiation, cooperation and international law, must not postpone any further its updating and democratization. Today´s world needs the UN just as the one where it came into being did.

Something that is very special and profound has failed, as evidenced by the daily and permanent violation of the UN Charter principles, and by the ever-increasing use or threat of use of force in international relations.

There is no way to sustain any longer, as if it were natural and unshakable, an unequal, unjust and anti-democratic International order where selfishness prevails over solidarity and the mean interests of a powerful minority over the legitimate aspirations of millions of people.

Notwithstanding the dissatisfactions and the demands for change that, together with other states and millions of citizens in the world, we are presenting to the UN, the Cuban Revolution shall always uphold the existence of the Organization, to which we owe the little but indispensable multilateralism that is surviving imperial overbearance.

More than once, at this very forum, Cuba has reiterated its willingness to cooperate with the democratization of the UN and the upholding of international cooperation, that can be saved only by it. As stated by the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba and Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, and I quote: “The international community shall always count on Cuba´s honest voice in the face of injustice, inequality, underdevelopment, discrimination and manipulation, and for the establishment of a more just and equitable international order which really centers on human beings, their dignity and wellbeing.” End of quote.

Mr. President,

Coming back to the seriousness of the present situation, which many blame only on the COVID-19 pandemic, I think it is essential to say that its impact is by far overflowing the health sphere.

Due to its nefarious sequels, impressive death toll and damages to the world economy and the deterioration of social development levels, the spreading of the pandemic in the last few months brings anguish and despair to leaders and citizens in practically all nations.

But the multidimensional crisis it has unleashed clearly shows the great mistake of the dehumanized policies fully imposed by the market dictatorship.

Today, we are witnessing with sadness the disaster the world has been led to by the irrational and unsustainable production and consumption system of capitalism, decades of an unjust international order and the implementation of ruthless and rampant neoliberalism, which has widened inequalities and sacrificed the right of peoples to development.

Unlike excluding neoliberalism, which puts aside and discards millions of human beings and condemns them to survive on the leftovers from the banquet of the richest one percent, the COVID-19 virus does not discriminate between them, but its devastating economic and social effects shall be lethal among the most vulnerable and those with lower incomes, whether they live in the underdeveloped world or in the pockets of poverty of big industrial cities.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projections, the 690 million people who were going hungry in 2019 might be joined by a further 130 million as a result of the economic recession caused by the pandemic. Studies by the International Labor Organization (ILO) say that over 305 million jobs have been lost and that more than 1.6 billion workers are having their livelihoods at stake.

We cannot face COVID-19, hunger, unemployment and the growing economic and social inequalities between individuals and countries as unrelated phenomena. There is an urgency to implement integrated policies that prioritize human beings and not economic profits or political advantages.

It would a crime to postpone decisions that are for yesterday and for today. It is imperative to promote solidarity and international cooperation to lessen the impact.

Only the UN, with its world membership, has the required authority and reach to resume the just struggle to write off the uncollectable foreign debt which, aggravated by the social and economic effects of the pandemic, is threatening the survival of the peoples of the South.

Mr. President,

The SARS-CoV-2 outbreak and the early signs that it would bring a pandemic did not catch Cuba off guard.

With the decade-long experience of facing terrible epidemics, some of which were provoked deliberately as part of the permanent war against our political project, we immediately implemented a series of measures based on our main capabilities and strengths, namely, a well-structured socialist state that cares for the health of its citizens, a highly-skilled human capital and a society with much people´s involvement in its decision-making and problem solving processes.

The implementation of those measures, combined with the knowledge accrued for over 60 years of great efforts to create and expand a high-quality and universal health system, plus scientific research and development, has made it possible not only to preserve the right to health of all citizens, without exception, but also to be in a better position to face the pandemic.

We have been able to do it in spite of the harsh restrictions of the long economic, commercial and financial blockade being imposed by the US government, which has been brutally tightened in the last two years, even at these pandemic times, something that shows it is the essential component of the hostile US Cuba policy.

The aggressiveness of the blockade has reached a qualitatively higher level that further asserts its role as the real and determining impediment to the managing of the economy and the development of our country. The US government has intensified in particular its harassment of Cuban financial transactions and, beginning in 2019, it has been adopting measures that violate international law to deprive the Cuban people of the possibility to buy fuels they need for their everyday activities and for their development.

So as to damage and demonize the Cuban Revolution and others it defines as adversaries, the US has been publishing spurious lists having no legitimacy by which it abrogates itself the right to impose unilateral coercive measures and unfounded qualifications on the world.

Every week, that government issues statements against Cuba or imposes new restrictions. Paradoxically, however, it has refused to term as terrorist the attack that was carried out against the Cuban embassy in Washington on April 30, 2020, when an individual armed with an assault rifle fired over 30 rounds against the diplomatic mission and later admitted to his intent to kill.

We denounce the double standards of the US government in the fight against terror and demand a public condemnation of that brutal attack.

We demand a cease of the hostility and slanderous campaign against the altruistic work by Cuba´s international medical cooperation that, with much prestige and verifiable results, has contributed to saving hundreds of lives and lowering the impact of the disease in many countries. Prominent international figures and highly prestigious social organizations have acknowledged the humanistic work done by the “Henry Reeve” International Medical Brigade for Disaster Situations and Serious Epidemics and called for the Nobel Peace Prize to be given to them.

While the US government is ignoring the call to combine efforts to fight the pandemic and it withdraws from the WHO, Cuba, in response to requests made to it, and guided by the profound solidarity and humanistic vocation of its people, is expanding its cooperation by sending over 3 700 cooperation workers distributed in 46 medical brigades to 39 countries and territories hit by COVID-19.

In this sense, we condemn the gangster blackmailing by the US to pressure the Pan-American Health Organization so as to make that regional agency a tool for its morbid aggression against our country. As usual, the force of truth shall do away with lies, and facts and protagonists shall go down in history as they should. Cuba´s example shall prevail.

Our dedicated health workers, the pride of a nation brought up in José Marti’s idea that My Country Is Humanity, shall be awarded the prize their noble hearts deserve, or not; but it has been years since they won the recognition of the peoples blessed by their health work.

The US government is not hiding its intention to enforce new and harsher aggressive measures against Cuba in the next few months. We state once again before the international community that our people, who take pride in their history and are committed to the ideals and achievements of the Revolution, shall resist and overcome.

Mr. President,

The attempts at imposing neocolonial domination on Our America by publicly declaring the present value of the Monroe Doctrine contravene the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.

We wish to restate publicly in this virtual forum that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela shall always have the solidarity of Cuba in the face of attempts at destabilizing and subverting constitutional order and the civic-military unity and at destroying the work started by Commander Hugo Chávez Frías and continued by President Nicolás Maduro Moros to benefit the Venezuelan people.

We also reject US actions aimed at destabilizing the Republic of Nicaragua and ratify our invariable solidarity with its people and government led by Commander Daniel Ortega.

We state our solidarity with the Caribbean nations, which are demanding just reparations for the horrors of slavery and the slave trade, in a world where racial discrimination and the repression against Afro-descendant communities have been on the rise.

We reaffirm our historical commitment with the self-determination and independence of the sisterly people of Puerto Rico.

We support the legitimate claim by Argentina to its sovereignty over the Malvinas, the South Sandwich and South Georgia islands.

We reiterate our commitment with peace in Colombia and the conviction that dialogue between the parties is the road to achieving stable and lasting peace in that country.

We support the search for a peaceful and negotiated solution to the situation imposed on Syria, with no foreign interference and in full respect of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

We demand a just solution to the conflict in the Middle East, which must include the real exercise by the Palestinian people of the inalienable right to build their own State within the borders prior to 1967 and with East Jerusalem as its capital. We reject Israel´s attempts to annex more territories in the West Bank.

We state our solidarity with the Islamic Republic of Iran in the face of US aggressive escalation.

We reaffirm our invariable solidarity with the Sahrawi people.

We strongly condemn the unilateral and unjust sanctions against the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea.

We restate our rejection of the intention to expand NATO´s presence to the Russian borders and the imposition of unilateral and unjust sanctions against Russia.

We reject foreign interference into the internal affairs of the Republic of Belarus and reiterate our solidarity with the legitimate president of that country, Aleksandr Lukashenko, and the sisterly people of Belarus.

We condemn the interference into the internal affairs of the People´s Republic of China and oppose any attempt to harm its territorial integrity and its sovereignty.

Mr. President,

Today´s disturbing circumstances have led to the fact that, for the first time in the 75-year-long history of the United Nations, we have had to meet in a non- presential format.

Cuba´s scientific community, another source of pride for the nation that, since the triumph of the Revolution of the just, announced to the world its intention to be a country of men and women of science, is working non-stop on one of the first vaccines that are going through clinical trials in the world.

Its creators and other researchers and experts, in coordination with the health system, are writing protocols on healthcare for infected persons, recovered patients and the risk population that have allowed us to keep epidemic statistics of around 80% of infected persons saved and a mortality rate below the average in the Americas and the world.

“Doctors and not bombs.” That was announced one day by the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution and chief sponsor of scientific development in Cuba: Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz. That´s our motto. Saving lives and sharing what we are and have, no matter any sacrifice it takes; that is what we are offering to the world from the United Nations, to which we only request to be attuned with the gravity of the present time.

We are Cuba.

Let us strive together to promote peace, solidarity and development.

Thank you very much.

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Featured image: Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (Photo: Estudios Revolución)

This article was originally published on The Lancet in 2015.

“A lot of what is published is incorrect.” I’m not allowed to say who made this remark because we were asked to observe Chatham House rules. We were also asked not to take photographs of slides. Those who worked for government agencies pleaded that their comments especially remain unquoted, since the forthcoming UK election meant they were living in “purdah”—a chilling state where severe restrictions on freedom of speech are placed on anyone on the government’s payroll. Why the paranoid concern for secrecy and non-attribution? Because this symposium—on the reproducibility and reliability of biomedical research, held at the Wellcome Trust in London last week—touched on one of the most sensitive issues in science today: the idea that something has gone fundamentally wrong with one of our greatest human creations.

Can bad scientific practices be fixed?

To read complete article on The Lancet, click here

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Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo are issuing calls for damages rendered during European imperialist occupation joining efforts already underway across the continent and the Diaspora

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During late August, the Central African state of Burundi appealed to the Belgian and German governments to pay reparations for the crimes committed during their colonial occupation of this country during the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Burundi joins the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which had already spoken to the issue making similar claims on Belgium, the imperialist power which laid waste to the country from 1876 through the 1960s.

Prior to the recent efforts by Burundi and the DRC, people in the Republic of Namibia and the United Republic of Tanzania filed claims against the German government for their role in the genocide carried out during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. In Namibia, formerly known as Southwest Africa, the Nama and Herero nations suffered immensely as a result of the mass extermination of their people.

In Tanzania, there were atrocities committed by the German colonial authorities which prompted the rebellion against injustice known as the Maji Maji Revolt of 1905-1907. A similar war of liberation was waged also in Namibia, although in both cases the imperialists were able, through the ruthless use of weaponry, overcome at that time, the resistance of African people.

These demands for reparations are not isolated. There are other countries within the African Diaspora which have also made the same demands.

The International Struggle for Reparations

Of course in the United States, various organizations going back decades have made the call for the payment of reparations for nearly 250 years of African enslavement. Some of these organizations include the Nation of Islam, Republic of New Africa, National Black Economic Development Conference, National Coalition for Black Reparations in America (NCOBRA), among others. Additional demands for reparations are being made for mass killings and displacement as occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921, when an estimated 300 African Americans were killed by white mobs including law-enforcement agents.

Even in the Caribbean island-nation of Haiti, after the 12 year rebellion and revolutionary war for independence (1791-1803), the former colonial and slave-owning power of France in 1825 demanded the payment of indemnity for their supposed economic losses during the liberation of the country. Concurrently, successive U.S. administrations in the wake of the Haitian Revolution refused to recognize the African-Caribbean nation diplomatically until 1862, more than a year after the beginning of the Civil War.

Deposed Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide raised the demand for reparations from France based upon the post-colonial history of the country. Aristide was overthrown by a coalition of imperialist states including the U.S., France and Canada in 2004.

On a broader level, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), composed of various governments within the region, has established a Commission to pursue reparations from the imperialist states. The Caribbean Reparations Commission explains its mission on their website saying:

“The CARICOM Reparations Commission is a regional body created to Establish the moral, ethical and legal case for the payment of Reparations by the Governments of all the former colonial powers and the relevant institutions of those countries, to the nations and people of the Caribbean Community for the Crimes against Humanity of Native Genocide, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and a racialized system of chattel Slavery.”

The U.S. had a vested interest in not recognizing Haiti because of its own role in the Atlantic Slave Trade.  It was the profits accrued from the involuntary servitude of African people which fueled the rise of industrial capitalism. The fact that the U.S. fought a protracted Civil War which killed nearly a million people in order to end legal enslavement is a clear illustration of the significance of the system to the growth and development of the country. (See this)

With specific reference to Burundi, a report on the actual political situation involving the government says:

“The country’s senate has put together a panel of experts to assess the damage done during colonialism and advise on the cost of damages, according to Radio France International. Burundi plans to send these recommendations to the German and Belgium governments. The country also intends to demand the European countries return stolen historical artifacts and archive material. From 1890, Germany colonized Burundi, which became part of German East Africa.” (See this)

Image on the right: Belgian King Leopold II slaughtered millions of Africans in Congo

As this issue relates to the neighboring DRC, the Belgian colonialists engaged in genocidal policies inside the country for decades. Millions of Congolese were forced to work for the Belgian monarchy and later the colonial government in Brussels. It has been estimated that 8-10 million Congolese people died during the initial colonial engagement from 1876-1908, when after this period, King Leopold II relinquished direct control of the vast and mineral wealthy country to the regime in Brussels.

The African Exponent news service wrote of the continuing colonial and neo-colonial control by imperialism in the DRC that:

“King Leopold later handed Congo to Belgium, and the country perpetuated the evil rule initiated by Leopold, till Congo obtained its independence in 1960. And even after independence, the West connived together to assassinate Patrice Lumumba who had been democratically elected as the first prime minister of the country. In his place the West ensured its proxy, Mobutu Sese Seko got in, and his rule was extremely disastrous to the country as it was characterized by ruthlessness and looting that sounded like fiction.”

A report issued by the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent surmised that Belgium should pay reparations to the DRC for the human rights violations committed by the colonial authorities. The Working Group goes as far as to suggest that the problems which have arisen since the independence of the country in June 1960 are a direct result of the legacy of colonialism.

Image below: Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba

Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961), who was the first leader of the independent former Belgian Congo, was overthrown by an alliance of U.S., Belgian and other imperialist powers. These interests deliberately targeted Lumumba and his Congolese National Movement (MNC) for destabilization and liquidation. Although much information has been uncovered about the coup and brutal assassination of Lumumba (1960-1961) and his comrades, no person or entity has ever been held accountable in a court of law.

This report from the Working Group on the historical role of colonialism as well as the racist policies of contemporary Belgian society, emphatically notes:

“[W]ith a view to closing the dark chapter in history and as a means of reconciliation and healing….to issue an apology for the atrocities committed during colonization. The root causes of present-day human rights violations lie in the lack of recognition of the true scope of the violence and injustice of colonization.  We are concerned about the human rights situation of people of African descent in Belgium who experience racism and racial discrimination. There is clear evidence that racial discrimination is endemic in institutions in Belgium.” (See this)

Responses by Imperialism to Demands for Reparations and the Way Forward

All of the colonial, neo-colonial and imperialist states charged with human rights violations, genocide and other crimes against the people have either rejected the claims made against them or have provided inadequate responses. The U.S. has never even apologized for the centuries of enslavement and national oppression of African people.

Germany was reported to have made a miniscule offer to Namibia for its colonial atrocities. The Namibian government of President Hage Geingob, the leader of the South-West African People’s Organization (SWAPO), the liberation movement which led the struggle for independence against the settler-colonial apartheid regime, has dismissed the German gestures as insulting.

A report published in an independent newspaper said of the talks between Germany and Namibia did not result in any real offer by Berlin to provide reparations for colonial crimes against humanity. The article emphasizes that:

“A German special envoy in the ongoing genocide negotiations has rejected claims that his country had offered to pay Namibia about €10 million, or N$180 million, as reparations. In June this year, President Hage Geingob said in his state of the nation address that Namibia rejected a €10 million offer by Germany as reparations for the genocide perpetrated by German settlers between 1904 and 1908. This offer was ‘an insult’, according to Geingob. Geingob in June also announced that the genocide talks were at an advance stage and that Germany was ready to apologize to the affected communities. However, Germany is now rejecting Geingob’s claims saying no offer was made for reparations.” (See this)

These developments in Africa, the Caribbean and among African Americans in the U.S. illustrate the convergence of these struggles to hold the racist systems of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism responsible for their crimes historically and in recent decades. African Americans are still consistently targeted by law-enforcement and vigilantes for brutality and assassination.

The existence of these complimentary demands provides even broader openings for international solidarity and organization. Only when there is a worldwide movement aimed at reversing the legacy of imperialism, will there be the possibility of creating a new international system based on genuine equality, self-determination and social justice.

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

Featured image: Tanzania Maji Maji warriors as political prisoners of German colonialism; all images in this article are from the author

On issues related to the JCPOA nuclear deal and expiring UN arms embargo on Iran next month, the Trump regime is isolated on the world stage.

Commenting on its unlawful imposition of what it called “snapback” sanctions on Iran, its  Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh explained the following:

Nothing in the JCPOA or Security Council Res. 2231 affirming the landmark agreement refers to snapback or a trigger mechanism.

This terminology is a made-in-the USA “forgery…What is stated in the resolution and in the JCPOA is the ‘dispute resolution mechanism.’ ”

Trump regime “maximum pressure” and related actions have no legal standing.

Khatibzadeh stressed that Trump’s America first motto became “America only,” a self-defeatist policy over time.

Last weekend, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif said once the UN arms embargo is lifted in October, “we will be able to satisfy our needs with the help of countries with which we have strategic relations, for example, Russia and China,” adding:

“We can provide for ourselves. We can even export weapons.”

“(W)hen necessary, we can buy from these countries. I doubt that secondary US sanctions will be an obstacle for them.”

On Tuesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said the following:

“New opportunities will emerge in our cooperation with Iran after the special regime imposed by UN Security Council Resolution 2231 expires on October 18,” adding:

Russian relations with Iran will have “nothing to do with the unlawful and illegal actions of the US (regime), which is trying to intimidate the entire world.”

The previous day, Ryabkov said “(w)e are not afraid of US sanctions. We are used to them. It will not affect our policy in any way,” adding:

“Our cooperation with Iran is multifaceted. Defense cooperation will progress depending on the two countries’ needs and mutual willingness.”

“That said, another (US) executive order will not change our approach.”

Separately, Russian upper house Federation Council Foreign Affairs Committee First Deputy head Vladimir Dzhabarov said Moscow will continue cooperation with Iran.

“So let the (Trump regime) impose sanctions, one less, one more…(O)ur military-technical cooperation with Iran will be continued…”

Dzhabarov stressed that Security Council imposed sanctions are legally binding on all nations, not “sanctions of one state” on others.

“(T)he US thinks (it’s a) higher (power) than the UN Security Council,” a policy with no legal validity under the UN Charter and other international law.

Days earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the following:

“There is no such thing as an arms embargo against Iran.”

“The Security Council, when it was adopting the comprehensive Resolution 2231, which endorsed (the JCPOA) settled the nuclear issue for Iran, and this was adopted by consensus under the Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter,” adding:

“The Security Council in that resolution said that the supply of arms to Iran and from Iran would be subject to consideration by the Security Council and that on the 18th of October, 2020 this regime of sales to Iran would stop.”

“There is no embargo, and there would be no limitations whatsoever after the expiration of this timeframe established by the Security Council.”

In July, Lavrov called for “universal condemnation” of the US for its unlawful actions against Iran, including its attempt to undermine the landmark JCPOA nuclear deal.

Last month, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Beijing firmly opposes unlawful “long arm jurisdiction” imposed by the US on other countries.

Analyst Yang Xiyu said China won’t be intimidated by threatened US sanctions.

In January, the South China Morning Post said a Sino/Iran “relationship (is) built on trade, weapons and oil.”

China’s envoy to Iran Chang Hua said Beijing is committed to the bilateral partnership.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, China exported $269 million of weapons to Iran from 2008 to 2018 — some indirectly through third parties to help the country’s defense capabilities while the UN arms embargo was in place under SC Res. 2231 (2015).

In 2016, both countries agreed on cooperating militarily to combat terrorism, including by joint Persian Gulf naval exercises.

On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif arrived in Moscow for talks with Sergey Lavrov and other Russian officials.

According to Press TV, he’ll “discuss regional issues and matters of mutual interest, including Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal.”

On arrival, Zarif said issues relating to the JCPOA top the agenda for talks — most likely including sales of Russian weapons to Iran once the UN arms embargo expires next month.

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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 en.kremlin.ru

When Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers, the US Government burgled the office of his psychiatrist to look for medical evidence to discredit him. Julian Assange has been obliged to submit himself, while in a mentally and physically weakened state and in conditions of the harshest incarceration, to examination by psychiatrists appointed by the US government. He has found the experience intrusive and traumatising. It is a burglary of the mind.

Julian is profoundly worried that his medical history will be used to discredit him and all that he has worked for, to paint the achievements of Wikileaks in promoting open government and citizen knowledge as the fantasy of a deranged mind. I have no doubt this will be tried, but fortunately there has been a real change in public understanding and acknowledgement of mental illness. I do not think Julian’s periodic and infrequent episodes of very serious depression will be successfully portrayed in a bad light, despite the incredibly crass and insensitive attitude displayed today in court by the US Government, who have apparently been bypassed by the change in attitudes of the last few decades.

I discuss this before coming to Tuesday’s evidence because for once my account will be less detailed than others, because I have decided to censor much of what was said. I do this on the grounds that, when it comes to his medical history, Julian’s right to privacy ought not to be abolished by these proceedings. I have discussed this in some detail with Stella Morris. I have of course weighed this against my duty as a journalist to you the reader, and have decided the right to medical privacy is greater, irrespective of what others are publishing. I have therefore given as full an account as I can while omitting all mention of behaviours, of symptoms, and of more personal detail.

I also believe I would take that view irrespective of the identity of the defendant. I am not just being partial to a friend. In all my reporting of these proceedings, of course my friendship with Julian has been something of which I am mindful. But I have invented nothing, nor have I omitted anything maliciously.

I will state firmly and resolutely that my account has been truthful. I do not claim it has been impartial. Because in a case of extreme injustice, truth is not impartial.

The following account tries to give you a fair impression of today’s courtroom events, while omitting the substance and detail of much of the discussion. The single witness all day was the eminent psychiatrist Prof Michael Kopelman (image on the right), who will be familiar to readers of Murder in Samarkand. Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Kings College London and formerly head of psychiatry at Guy’s and St Thomas’s, Prof Kopelman was appointed by the defence (he is not one of the psychiatrists of whom Julian complains, who will give evidence later) and had visited Julian Assange 19 times in Belmarsh Prison. His detailed report concluded that

“I reiterate again that I am as certain as a psychiatrist ever can be that, in the event of imminent extradition, Mr. Assange would indeed find a way to commit suicide,”

Kopelman’s evidence was that his report was based not just on his many consultations with Assange, but on detailed research of his medical records back to childhood, including direct contact with other doctors who had treated Assange including in Australia, and multiple interviews with family and long-term friends. His diagnosis of severe depression was backed by a medical history of such episodes and a startling family history of suicide, possibly indicating genetic disposition.

Prof Kopelman was firm in stating that he did not find Assange to be delusional. Assange’s concerns with being spied upon and plotted against were perfectly rational in the circumstances.

Kopelman had no doubt that Julian was liable to commit suicide if extradited.

“It is the disorder which brings the suicide risk. Extradition is the trigger.”

James Lewis QC cross-examined Professor Kopelman for four hours. As ever, he started by disparaging the witness’s qualifications; Prof Kopelman was a cognitive psychiatrist not a forensic psychiatrist and had not worked in prisons. Prof Kopelman pointed out that he had been practising forensic psychiatry and testifying in numerous courts for over thirty years. When Lewis persisted again and again in querying his credentials, Kopelman had enough and decided to burst out of the bubble of court etiquette:

“I have been doing this for over thirty years and on five or six occasions London solicitors have phoned me up and said that James Lewis QC is acting in an extradition case and is extremely keen to get your services for a report. So I think it is a bit rich for you to stand there now questioning my qualifications.”

This caused really loud laughter in court, which remarkably the judge made no attempt to silence.

The other trick which the prosecution played yet again was to give Prof Kopelman two huge bundles which had, they said, been sent to him that morning and which he said he had never seen – unsurprisingly as he started testifying at 10am. These included substantial items which Prof Kopelman had never seen before but on which he was to be questioned. The first of these was an academic article on malingering which Kopelman was in effect scorned by Lewis for not having read. He said he had read a great many articles on the subject but not this particular one.

Lewis then read several sentences from the article and invited Kopelman to agree with them. These included “clinical skills alone are not sufficient to diagnose malingering” and one to the effect that the clinical team are best placed to detect malingering. Prof Kopelman refused to sign up to either of these propositions without qualification, and several times over the four hours was obliged to refute claims by Lewis that he had done so.

This is another technique continually deployed by the prosecution, seizing upon a single article and trying to give it the status of holy writ, when JStor would doubtless bring out hundreds of contending articles. On the basis of this one article, Lewis was continually to assert and/or insinuate that it was only the prison medical staff who were in a position to judge Assange’s condition. Edward Fitzgerald QC for the defence was later to assert that the article, when it referred to “the clinical team”, was talking of psychiatric hospitals and not prisons. Kopelman declined to comment on the grounds he had not read the article.

Lewis now did another of his standard tricks; attempting to impugn Kopelman’s expertise by insisting he state, without looking it up, what the eight possible diagnostic symptoms of a certain WHO classification of severe depression were. Kopelman simply refused to do this. He said he made a clinical diagnosis of the patient’s condition and only then did he calibrate it against the WHO guidelines for court purposes; and pointed out that he was on some of the WHO committees that wrote these definitions. They were, he said, very political and some of their decisions were strange.

We then entered a very lengthy and detailed process of Lewis going through hundreds of pages of Assange’s prison medical notes and pointing out phrases omitted from Kopelman’s sixteen page synopsis which tended to the view Assange’s mental health was good, while the Professor countered repeatedly that he had included that opinion in shortened form, or that he had also omitted other material that said the opposite. Lewis claimed the synopsis was partial and biased and Kopelman said it was not.

Lewis also pointed out that some of Assange’s medical history from Australia lacked the original medical notes. Kopelman said that this was from the destruction policy of the state of Victoria. Lewis was only prepared to accept history backed by the original medical notes; Kopelman explained these notes themselves referred to earlier episodes, he had consulted Professor Mullen who had treated Julian, and while Lewis may wish to discount accounts of family and friends, to a medical professional that was standard Maudsley method for approaching mental illness history; there was furthermore an account in a book published in 1997.

After lunch Lewis asked Prof Kopelman why his first report had quoted Stella Morris but not mentioned that she was Julian’s partner. Why was he concealing this knowledge from the court? Kopelman replied that Stella and Julian had been very anxious for privacy in the circumstances because of stress on her and the children. Lewis said that Kopelman’s first duty was to the court and this overrode their right to privacy. Kopelman said he had made his decision. His second report mentioned it once it had become public. Lewis asked why he had not explicitly stated they had two children. Kopelman said he thought it best to leave the children out of it.

Lewis asked whether he was hiding this information because having a partner was a safeguard against suicide. Kopelman said that some studies showed suicide was more common in married people. Besides, what we were considering here was stress of separation from partner and children.

Lewis then addressed the reference in Prof Kopelman’s report to the work of Prof Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. Without specifying Professor Melzer’s background or position or even making any mention of the United Nations at all, Lewis read out seven paragraphs of Prof Melzer’s letter to Jeremy Hunt, then UK foreign secretary. These paragraphs addressed the circumstances of Assange’s incarceration in the Embassy and of his continual persecution, including the decision of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Lewis even managed to leave the words “United Nations” out of the name of the working group.

As he read each paragraph, Lewis characterised it as “nonsense”, “rubbish” or “absurd”, and invited Prof Kopelman to comment. Each time Prof Kopelman gave the same reply, that he had only used the work of the psychologist who had accompanied Prof Melzer and had no comment to make on the political parts, which had not appeared in his report. Baraitser – who is always so keen to rule out defence evidence as irrelevant and to save time – allowed this reading of irrelevant paragraphs to go on and on and on. The only purpose was to enter Prof Melzer’s work into the record with an unchallenged dismissive characterisation, and it was simply irrelevant to the witness in the stand. This was Baraitser’s double standard at play yet again.

Lewis then put to Prof Kopelman brief extracts of court transcript showing Julian interacting with the court, as evidence that he had no severe cognitive difficulty. Kopelman replied that a few brief exchanges really told nothing of significance, while his calling out from the dock when not allowed to might be seen as symptomatic of Asperger’s, on which other psychiatrists would testify.

Lewis again berated Kopelman for not having paid sufficient attention to malingering. Kopelman replied that not only had he used his experience and clinical judgement, but two normative tests had been applied, one of them the TOMM test. Lewis suggested those tests were not for malingering and only the Minnesota test was the standard. At this point Kopelman appeared properly annoyed. He said the Minnesota test was very little used outside the USA. The TOMM test was indeed for malingering. That was why it was called the Test of Memory Malingering. Again there was some laughter in court.

Lewis then suggested that Assange may only get a light sentence in the USA of as little as six years, and might not be held in solitary confinement. Would that change Kopelman’s prognosis? Kopelman said it would if realistic, but he had done too many extradition cases, and seen too many undertakings broken, to put much store by this. Besides, he understood no undertakings had been given.

Lewis queried Kopelman’s expertise on prison conditions in the USA and said Kopelman was biased because he had not taken into account the evidence of Kromberg and of another US witness on the subject who is to come. Kopelman replied that he had not been sent their evidence until substantially after he completed his reports. But he had read it now, and he had seen a great deal of other evidence that contradicted it, both in this case and others. Lewis suggested it was not for him to usurp the judgement of the court on this issue, and he should amend his opinion to reflect the effect of the US prison system on Assange if it were as Kromberg described it. Kopelman declined to do so, saying he doubted Kromberg’s expertise and preferred to rely on among others the Department of Justice’s own report of 2017, the Centre for Constitutional Rights report of 2017 and the Marshall report of 2018.

Lewis pressed Kopelman again, and asked that if prison conditions and healthcare in the USA were good, and if the sentence were short, would that cause an alteration to his clinical opinion. Kopelman replied that if those factors were true, then his opinion would change, but he doubted they were true.

Suddenly, Baraitser repeated out loud the part quote that if prison conditions in the US were good and the sentence were short, then Kopelman’s clinical opinion would change, and ostentatiously typed it onto her laptop, as though it were very significant indeed.

This was very ominous. As she inhabits a peculiar world where it is not proven that anybody was ever tortured in Guantanamo Bay, I understand that in Baraitser’s internal universe prison conditions in the Colorado ADX are perfectly humane and medical care is jolly good. I could note Baraitser seeing her way suddenly clear to how to cope with Professor Kopelman in her judgement. I could not help but consider Julian was the last person in this court who needed a psychiatrist.

Lewis now asked, in his best rhetorical and sarcastic style, whether mental illness had prevented Julian Assange from obtaining and publishing hundreds of thousands of classified documents that were the property of the United States? He asked how, if he suffered from severe depression, Julian Assange had been able to lead Wikileaks, to write books, make speeches and host a TV programme?

I confess that at this stage I became very angry indeed. Lewis’s failure to acknowledge the episodic nature of severe depressive illness, even after the Professor had explained it numerous times, was intellectually pathetic. It is also crass, insensitive and an old-fashioned view to suggest that having a severe depressive illness could stop you from writing a book or leading an organisation. It was plain stigmatising of those with mental health conditions. I confess I took this personally. As long-term readers know, I have struggled with depressive illness my entire life and have never hidden the fact that I have in the past been hospitalised for it, and on suicide watch. Yet I topped the civil service exams, became Britain’s youngest Ambassador, chaired a number of companies, have been Rector of a university, have written several books, and give speeches at the drop of a hat. Lewis’s characterisation of depressives as permanently incapable is not just crassly insensitive, it is a form of hate speech and should not be acceptable in court.

(I am a supporter of free speech, and if Lewis wants to make a fool of himself by exhibiting ignorance of mental illness in public I have no problem. But in court, no.)

Furthermore, Lewis was not representing his own views but speaking on the direct instructions of the government of the United States of America. Throughout a full four hours, Lewis on behalf of the government of the USA not only evinced no understanding whatsoever of mental illness, he never once, not for one second, showed one single sign that mental illness is a subject taken seriously or for which there is the tiniest element of human sympathy and concern. Not just for Julian, but for any sufferer. Mental illness is malingering or if real disqualifies you from any role in society; no other view was expressed. He made plain on behalf of the US Government, for example, that Julian’s past history of mental illness in Australia will not be taken into account because the medical records have been destroyed.

The only possible conclusion from yesterday’s testimony is that the performance of the representative of the United States Government was, in and of itself, full and sufficient evidence that there is no possibility that Julian Assange will receive fair consideration and treatment of his mental health issues within the United States system. The US government has just demonstrated that to us, in open court, to perfection.

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