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Explosive Gas Pipeline in the Mediterranean

By Manlio Dinucci, September 30, 2020

In the Eastern Mediterranean, where large natural gas offshore fields have been discovered, a bitter dispute is underway for the definition of exclusive economic zones, up to 200 miles from the coast, where each of the coastal countries has the rights to the field exploitation.

Vietnam: Virus Contained, Inequality Let Loose

By Asad Ismi, September 30, 2020

Vietnam won international praise for its response to COVID-19. But the country’s intensifying capitalist restructuring may leave its people sicker and more impoverished.

Video: The Covid-19 “Second Wave”. “Red Zones”, Travel Bans, Quarantines, “Red Lists”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, September 29, 2020

Red zones”, travel bans, quarantines, “red lists”. A “Second Wave” has been announced.  The fear campaign has gone into overdrive.  Drastic state measures are contemplated, including restrictions on social gatherings, marriages, funerals, the closing down of restaurants and bars, the outright paralysis of civil society.

Gates Vaccine Spreads Polio Across Africa

By F. William Engdahl, September 29, 2020

The UN has just recently admitted that new cases of infantile paralysis or polio have resulted in Africa from an oral polio vaccine developed with strong support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It mirrors what happened in the USA in the 1950s. This is worth a closer look.

The Election Has Already Been Hijacked and the Winner Decided: ‘We the People’ Lose

By John W. Whitehead, September 29, 2020

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has been tasked with helping to “secure” the elections and protect the nation against cyberattacks, is not exactly an agency known for its adherence to freedom principles.

What’s the Conflict Between Greece and Turkey All About?

By Brandon Turbeville, September 29, 2020

With Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman desires at the forefront, Turkey is expanding its national borders, with what Erdogan seems to believe will resurrect the Ottoman Empire. From Iraq to Syria and Libya, Turkey has attempted to either gain territory or forcefully make a seat at the international table through military action.

Video: Armenian-Azerbaijani War Rages in South Caucasus

By South Front, September 29, 2020

Pro-Armenian forces captured the region in the early 90s triggering an armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Further development of the hostilities and the expected offensive by pro-Azerbajian forces were stopped by a Russian intervention in May of 1994.

Trump Confirms U.S. Is Israel’s “Protector”

By Philip Giraldi, September 29, 2020

The reality is, of course, that U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has been all about Israel for a very long time, at least since the presidency of Bill Clinton, who has been sometimes dubbed the first Jewish president for his deference to Israeli interests.

Racism, Militarism and Materialism = AFRICOM

By Black Alliance for Peace, September 29, 2020

Officially launched on October 1, 2008, AFRICOM (the U.S. Africa Command) is just one part of the U.S. global command that covers the planet—and as of 2019, the United States has colonized outer space, too, with the U.S. Space Force.

Bt Cotton in India Is a GMO Template for a ‘Monumental Irreversible Catastrophe’

By Aruna Rodrigues and Colin Todhunter, September 29, 2020

Cotton is the only genetically modified (GM) crop that has been officially approved in India and has been cultivated (illegally then legally) in the country for more than 20 years.

We remember with horror the stories of Nazis burning books in the 1930s – it’s one of the first signals that you’re living in a totalitarian regime, when education is targeted. Yet it was reported that last week, that Department of Education guidance for schools in England specifically defined anti-capitalism as an ‘extreme political stance’, equating it with anti-semitism, opposition to freedom of speech and endorsing criminality.

The guidance read:

‘Schools should not under any circumstances use resources produced by organisations that take extreme political stances on matters…Examples include, but are not limited to:

A publicly stated desire to abolish or overthrow democracy, capitalism or to end free and fair elections’

It should be said that since an article was published in The Guardian on this issue, the government website appears to have been updated to remove any reference to capitalism.  But there are other concerning words in the latest version.

An example of an extreme political stance is now described as ‘promoting divisive or victim narratives that are harmful to British society’.  What constitutes as a divisive issue? Brexit? Scottish independence? It’s not clear how teachers will interpret this advice. But how could they properly discuss the subject of Brexit, for instance, without referring to materials from both sides of the EU referendum campaign?

Another point made in the updated version is ‘selecting and presenting information to make unsubstantiated claims against state institutions’. Does that mean that, for example, discussions about the future of the BBC would be outlawed? Surely this is curtailing any proper debate in the classroom?  Any attempt to ban a subject from educational establishments should immediately raise eyebrows. If schools and universities are not places for free discussion and debate, then they are surely none other than propaganda institutes of the state.

There has been considerable backlash in response to the original guidelines issued by the Department for Education which effectively ban anti-capitalist literature. British journalist and author Owen Jones, branded the guidance as ‘McCarthyism’ (referring to the anti-Communist campaign led by US senator McCarthy in the 1950s.) Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, speaking to The Guardian,  said the measures would make it ‘illegal to refer to large tracts of British history and politics including the history of British socialism, the Labour Party and trade unionism, all of which have at different times advocated the abolition of capitalism.’ But more broadly, McDonnell believes the move is indicative of the drift towards ‘extreme Conservative authoritarianism” as freedom of speech is increasingly curtailed.

Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis commented that the guidance demonstrated ‘how easy it is to lose a country, to slip surreptitiously into totalitarianism”. For this is not an isolated example of how freedom of speech is being restricted in Britain’s educational establishments. Previously there have been incidents at UK universities where scheduled speakers have been cancelled (due to complaints), course content has been changed after complaints of it being offensive, and there have even been reports of books being banned.  A 2015 paper written by Anna Traianou also concludes that ‘from the 1980s onwards, UK governments have increasingly intervened in higher education, on the basis of the assumption that universities must serve the economy, seeking to maximize and measure the ‘returns’ on public investment.’ She argues that academic freedoms, as a consequence, have been greatly reduced.

Such government intervention in our educational institutions is a direct threat to our democracy. It is shutting down proper debate and freedom of thought. The motivation from the government’s position is clear – a more ignorant population is a more compliant one. But such thinking is futile – thanks to the internet, the youth of today is able to access a much broader range of sources than previous generations were. If the government thinks it can keep people in the dark – it can think again.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

In Germany, a major blow is being delivered against the United States in the trade war between Washington and Beijing. Despite pressures, Berlin is opting for cooperation with China on 5G technology, refusing to impose any sanctions against Huawei, ignoring American demands. Considering the prominent economic role played by Germany within the European Union, it is possible that the country’s decision will become a trend for other states on the continent, as suggested by several experts around the world.

The German government is currently working on a new bill to guarantee the national security interests in the use of 5G technology. At first, this project could exclude Huawei’s participation, if it were interpreted that the Chinese company does not meet formal security requirements. But this is an increasingly distant scenario. German Chancellor Angela Merkel in no way wants to exclude the Chinese giant Huawei from building the 5G network in Germany. The major position in the German parliament appears to be similar to that of Angela Merkel, who has repeatedly stated the complete impossibility of excluding Huawei.

The main American speech to support its global crusade to impose sanctions against China is that Beijing uses Huawei’s technology for espionage purposes, working to steal data and collect information useful to the Chinese government in the countries where the company’s antennas and platforms are based. This speech did not convince Germany, which currently elaborates its national security policy and makes it increasingly clear that it does not recognize China as a possible threat due to Huawei’s actions.

In fact, Merkel is keen to see how American and European interests tend to clash more and more, and as a result, she has made important and notable decisions that challenge the American agenda for Europe. Germany’s refusal to impose a ban or limitations on Huawei’s admission to its market is also a challenge to European policy towards the US, as Berlin currently holds the presidency on the EU Council. Germany’s approach to Huawei would be dictated not only by Germany’s interests, but also by the EU’s, making it inevitable that the German attitude will be shared by other European states.

In fact, at least in the field of 5G technology, Huawei has increasingly stood out in the German market, being especially attractive in terms of price-quality proportion. Currently, half of the antennas used by the telecommunications operators Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone to build 5G networks are manufactured by Huawei and cooperation tends to increase even more. If Germany had to reject the construction of its 5G platforms due to sanctions against China, billions of euros would be lost, and Berlin would risk becoming technologically obsolete in the face of a rapidly changing market. From all points of view, it would be disadvantageous to both China and Germany, but especially worse for Germany.

In fact, Washington has so far provided no evidence of its accusations against China about using 5G for espionage purposes. Obviously, all high technology is secretly used by the great powers for military and intelligence purposes, which makes American accusations even more vague and banal. When the topic involves not just billions of euros, but also the entire technological capacity of a nation – and a continent – it takes much more than mere accusations to affect a project. As long as Washington does not present concrete evidence of its allegations, it will only lose more and more allies to the growing Chinese market.

In general, Germany has increasingly distanced itself from the US in its geopolitical alignment in the last months. In addition to the 5G issue, cooperation with Russia on the Nord Stream 2 project, the decrease in American troops in Germany and the intention to reduce the number of nuclear weapons installed in German territory are examples of this distance. In all of these cases, Merkel has demonstrated her particular strategic ability to foresee situations of shock of interests between Americans and Europeans and has prioritized national and continental interests.

However, it is important to note that Merkel has her opponents and that she does not lead Germany alone. The bill tends to pass without any sanction against Huawei, but that is not a guarantee. There are still parliamentarians who advocate maintaining a Western alliance against China. In this sense, efforts to sanction Huawei could intensify and create several internal tensions within the German government and across European society. Above all, German politicians must take their country’s interests into account when drafting a national security law, ignoring what is necessary for the security of foreign 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.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

The tensions between Greece and Turkey that became a geopolitical crisis in the East Mediterranean appears to be finally subsiding after Ankara withdrew from Greece’s maritime space the Oruç Reis Turkish research vessel and the warships escorting it. Since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan initiated the crisis at the beginning of August in search of oil and gas deposits in Greece’s maritime space, his administration, along with Turkish media that is 90% controlled by the government, continually makes the claim that Greece must “demilitarize” their East Aegean islands “as stipulated by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.” The Treaty of Lausanne set the borders of the modern Greek state, with the exception of the Italian-occupied Dodecanese islands that reunited with Greece in April 1947 after the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty between Italy and the World War II Allies. It also set the borders for the modern Turkish state.

Turkey’s withdrawal of the Oruç Reis and the warships escorting it opened up a new opportunity for Greece and Turkey to begin dialogue to resolve their differences in the East Mediterranean peacefully. However, it is likely that this plan for dialogue will end before it even begins as even discussion topics cannot be agreed upon. Athens insists that dialogue should only concentrate on the demarcation of maritime borders between Greece and Turkey, while Ankara says that any dialogue must also include discussions of Greece demilitarizing its East Aegean islands that lay directly opposite Turkey’s coastline – in many cases only a few minutes boat ride away.

The claim that Greece’s islands must be demilitarized, as continuously repeated by Turkey, is a manipulation of the Lausanne Treaty. For this reason, Athens will continually shut down any discussions of demilitarization. If we look at the case of the southeastern Aegean islands, collectively known as the Dodecanese, they are not held accountable to the Lausanne Treaty as Greece did not achieve sovereignty over the islands until more than two decades after the Treaty was signed. Instead, the Dodecanese are held accountable to the Paris Treaty, that Turkey is not a signatory of. Therefore, Turkey’s insistence on the demilitarization of the Dodecanese constitutes a “res inter alios acta.” According to Article 34 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, a treaty does not create obligations or rights for third countries, meaning that Turkey cannot demand that the Dodecanese islands be demilitarized.

In the case of Lesvos, Chios, Samos and Ikaria, the Lausanne Treaty makes no mention of these islands having to be demilitarized, but rather there can be no naval bases and no army fortifications. In addition, there can be no professional military presence besides the National Guard, a volunteer corps, which Greece has adhered to.

With regards to Limnos and Samothrace, the demilitarization of these islands, along with the demilitarization of the Turkish-controlled Dardanelle and Bosporus Straits, as well as the Sea of Marmara and the Turkish-controlled Imvros (Gokceada), Tenedos (Bozcaada) and Rabbit Islands (Tavcan), the 1923 Lausanne Treaty on the Straits stipulated that these areas of both Greece and Turkey must be demilitarized. However, this was annulled by the 1936 Montreux Treaty, which, as it categorically states, replaces in its entirety the Lausanne Treaty regarding militarization. Greece’s right to militarize Limnos and Samothrace was recognized by Turkish Ambassador in Athens at the time, Roussen Esref, with a letter sent to Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas on May 6, 1936. The Turkish government reiterated this position when the then Turkish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Rustu Aras, in his address to the Turkish National Assembly recognized Greece’s legal right to deploy troops on Limnos and Samothrace, with the following statement:

“The provisions pertaining to the islands of Limnos and Samothrace, which belong to our neighbor and friendly country Greece and were demilitarized in application of the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, were also abolished by the new Montreux Treaty, which gives us great pleasure.”

In exchange, Turkey was able to militarize its islands, the Marmara Sea and the Straits, that they were not able to do due to the Lausanne Treaty.

Although Greece has every legal right to militarize its islands to varying degrees, and have done so within the bounds of the Treaty of Lausanne for Lesvos, Chios, Samos and Ikaria, the bounds of the Montreux Treaty for Limnos and Samothrace, and within the bounds of the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty for the Dodecanes, Turkey’s insistence that the islands must be demilitarized threatens to end discussions between Athens and Ankara even before they begin.

Greece has categorically stated that there is no chance that demilitarized status of the islands will be discussed. This will inevitably create a deadlock between the two countries, thus likely ending discussions before they begin. As Erdoğan is maintaining a policy of constant crises to distract the population from the rapidly declining Turkish economy and lira, there is every chance that when the Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) conflict subsides, he will resume tensions in the East Mediterranean and blame Greece for this eventuality as it did not demilitarize its islands as he demands.

From the Greek perspective, the islands must remain militarized so long as Turkey’s Aegean Fourth Army exists. Turkey’s Aegean Army was created only one year after the 1974 Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus. The Aegean Army frequently conducts military exercises opposite the Greek islands. These exercises include training on how to storm beachfronts. With Greece not only having a legal right to militarize its islands to varying degrees, but also watching Turkish threats against the East Aegean islands, dialogue will be deadlocked as Erdoğan will not backdown from his demands that the islands be demilitarized.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

In the Eastern Mediterranean, where large natural gas offshore fields have been discovered, a bitter dispute is underway for the definition of exclusive economic zones, up to 200 miles from the coast, where each of the coastal countries has the rights to the field exploitation. The countries directly involved are Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine (whose Gaza gas fields are in the hands of Israel), Egypt and Libya. The confrontation between Greece and Turkey, both members of NATO, is particularly tense. The stakes are not just economic. The real game being played in the Eastern Mediterranean is geopolitical and geostrategic, and involves the major world powers. The EastMed pipeline, bringing much of the gas from this area to the EU, fits into this framework.

Its realization was decided among Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Greek Prime Minister Tsipras and Cypriot President Anastasiades, at the summit held in Jerusalem on March 20, 2019. Netanyahu stressed that “the pipeline will extend from Israel to Europe through Cyprus and Greece” and Israel will thus become an “energy power” (which will control the energy corridor to Europe), while Tsipras stressed that “cooperation between Israel, Greece and Cyprus has become strategic having reached their sixth summit.” This is confirmed by the military pact signed by the Tsipras government with Israel five years ago (il manifesto, 28 July 2015).

Source: Euronews

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attended the Jerusalem summit (its acts were published by the US Embassy in Cyprus), underlining that the EastMed project launched by Israel, Greece and Cyprus, “fundamental partners of the US for security,” is “incredibly timely” as “Russia, China and Iran are trying to set foot in the East and the West.”

The US strategy is declared: to reduce and finally block Russian gas exports to Europe, replacing them with gas supplied or otherwise controlled by the US. In 2014 it blocked the SouthStream pipeline through the Black Sea, which would have brought Russian gas to Italy at competitive prices, and is attempting to do the same with TurkStream which, via the Black Sea, carries Russian gas to the European part of Turkey to get it to the EU. 

At the same time, the US is trying to block the New Silk Road, the network of infrastructures designed to connect China to the Mediterranean and  Europe. In the Middle East, by the war the US blocked the energy corridor which would have transported Iranian gas through Iraq and Syria, under a 2011 agreement, to the Mediterranean and into Europe.

This strategy is joined by Italy, where (in Puglia) EastMed will arrive to  bring gas to other European countries.


Italian Economic Development Minister Patuanelli (M5S) called the EU approved gas pipeline one of the “European projects of common interest,” and Italian Economic Development Undersecretary Ms. Todde (M5S) led Italy to join the EastMed Gas Forum, headquarters of “dialogue and cooperation” on Eastern Mediterranean gas, in which Egypt and the Palestinian Authority kake part part – in addition to Israel, Greece and Cyprus. Jordan is also part of it, although has no offshore gas fields not overlooking the Mediterranean, but imports it from Israel.

On the other hand, Lebanon, Syria and Libya are excluded from the Forum, despite the fact that part of the gas in the Eastern Mediterranean belongs to them. The United States, France and the EU have announced their accession to the Forum. Turkey does not participate in it because of the dispute with Greece, which NATO however is committed to settling: “military delegations” from the two countries have already met six times at the NATO headquarters in Brussels. Meanwhile, in the eastern Mediterranean and in the neighboring Black Sea, a growing deployment of US naval forces in Europe is underway, with their headquarters in Naples Capodichino. Their “mission” is “to defend US and Allied interests, and discourage aggression.” The same “mission” for the US B-52 strategic bombers flying over the Eastern Mediterranean flanked by Greek and Italian fighters.

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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

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

Lewis Carroll‘s novel Alice in Wonderland (1865) sadly resonates so well today.

This writer in November of 2016 emphasized with Alice as she fell down that rabbit hole.

The unlikely co-conspirators in this 21st Century Amerikan novel were, as usual, the Democrats. All they had to do was nominate Donald Duck and they would have defeated Donald Trump… anyone but the wicked witch. Trump did not win that election… Hillary lost it!

She lost it because the Democrats, historically since FDR, join with the other party and side with the super rich who run this empire.

The only difference between them and the Republicans is that each side of that same dirty empire coin have their own group of super rich handlers. Yes, without a doubt the Republicans are the wolves who will eat us working stiffs alive if given the opportunity. Their ‘across the aisle’ adversaries (social friends in many instances) the Democrats, well they are the foxes. They ‘feel your pain’ and then allow the Man to stick the dagger in deeper. OK, they support abortion, gay rights and some (not many) calls for justice for the indigent, but not much more. When it comes to foreign policy and the War Economy they also ‘suck up’ to the Beast.

My concern, for this very urgent election cycle, is that many decent and rational citizens have truly fallen down that rabbit hole into Trumpland.

Just look at the latest news of Trump paying either NO federal income taxes or, in some years, paying LESS than what 95% of his working stiff supporters paid. Many will still continue to drink his phony populist Kool-Aid. In August of 2017 Trump laid his cards on the table, put his late father’s white sheets aside and emboldened the far right white supremacist movement. Not so soon after the violent confrontation (and murder of an Antifa demonstrator) he carefully announced that there were “Good folks on both sides” of the Antifa/white supremacist divide in Charlottesville, Virginia.

What this did was reject any semblance of condemnation that was urgently needed from the most powerful man in not only our nation but the entire world! Imagine the chagrin of all who saw vile Anti Semitic rhetoric and violence when viewing those white supremacists on Friday night and Saturday afternoon in August of ’17. What  should any decent human being feel when seeing and hearing this: Marchers carrying torches as they filed around repeating over and over “Jews will not replace us” and “Blood and Soil”… all right out of 1920s-1930s Germany? When the president of the United States fails to condemn such behavior the door is opened for all the loonies and real ‘Domestic Terrorists’ to come out of the woodwork.

A little more than a year later, in October of 2018, 46 year old Robert Bowers walked into the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA and blew away eleven worshippers, injuring nine others. Who is to say that he was NOT emboldened by his president’s failure to speak out after Charlottesville? As the Tom Cruise character in the fine film ‘A Few Good Men’ put it so succinctly when seeing his court case go down the tubes: “And the hits just keep on coming!” To add insult to injury (with two murders) Trump actually made reference to the 17 year old kid, Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot and killed two protestors in Kenosha Wisconsin. He said that Rittenhouse, illegally carrying a powerful rife across state lines as a vigilante, was ‘defending his life’ from protestors who were chasing after him. Alice, did you hear that one? The armed man murdering the unarmed… and ‘Up is down and black is white’!

There are so many recent instances of this president, and his lackey administration and partisans in Congress, allowing this white supremacist backlash to flourish.

It is NOT just those far right wing police officers who should have been vetted better before being hired. It is this phony so called ‘Law and Order’ BS that has infected the minds of so many of my friends and neighbors. They see the ‘Boogie Man’ in every black and brown face they do not know… Just like the Christian Germans and Poles who bought into the garbage about Jews being sub human etc. That infection, like the pandemic we now experience, was transmitted throughout the entire western world. In this new century we see the Middle Eastern refugees of the phony CIA wars, along with the brown faces fleeing from Latin American dead end economies, labeled as shall we say ‘Less than human’. Trump has the ear of the ‘White makes right’ Amerikans who still support him.

The other group who will never leave his side are  the hard line evangelicals who ONLY care about abortion and gay marriage etc and really little else. My dear late friend and  fellow Anti War activist Ed Dunphy put it to a group of bible class teachers and students while jogging on the campus on North Carolina University a few years ago. He asked to speak to them for a few minutes, and they agreed to hear him, not knowing of course what in the hell he was about to lay on them. “I too am Pro Life and against abortion, other than in life threatening emergencies to the mother. Yet, to me, the life of a fetus is as important as the life of newborn babe, or one inside the mother, when they are destroyed by the Collateral Damage of illegal and immoral bomb and missile attacks by our drones. Why won’t you all speak out about that?” They asked him to please leave….NOW!

I guess Ralph Kramden in the Honeymooners comedy show was correct: “If you want loyalty… get a dog!” Preferably a right wing one, hey Donald!

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Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, Countercurrents.org, and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 400 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid‘ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected].

Tuesday has been another day on which the testimony focused on the extreme inhumane conditions in which Julian Assange would be kept imprisoned in the USA if extradited. The prosecution’s continued tactic of extraordinary aggression towards witnesses who are patently well informed played less well, and there were distinct signs that Judge Baraitser was becoming irritated by this approach. The totality of defence witnesses and the sheer extent of mutual corroboration they provided could not simply be dismissed by the prosecution attempting to characterise all of them as uninformed on a particular detail, still less as all acting in bad faith. To portray one witness as weak may appear justified if they can be shaken, but to attack a succession of patently well-qualified witnesses, on no basis but aggression and unreasoning hostility, becomes quickly unconvincing.

The other point which became glaringly anomalous, in fact quite contrary to natural justice, was the US government’s continued reliance on affidavits from US Assistant Attorney Gordon Kromberg and Board of Prisons psychiatrist Dr Alison Leukefeld. The cross-examinations by the US government of the last four defence witnesses have all relied on precisely the same passages from Kromberg and Leukefeld, and every single one of the defence witnesses has said Leukefeld and Kromberg are wrong as to fact. Yet under US/UK extradition agreements the US government witnesses may not be called and cross-examined. When the defence witnesses are attacked so strongly in cross-examination on the points of disagreement with Kromberg and Leukefeld, it becomes glaringly wrong that Kromberg and Leukefeld may not be similarly cross-examined by the defence on the same points.

Similarly as to process, the only point of any intellectual purchase which the US government’s lawyers have hit upon is the limited direct experience of the witnesses of the H unit of the ADX Supermax prison. This casts in a stark light last week’s objection to the defence introducing further witnesses who have precisely that experience, in response to the affidavits of Kromberg and Leukefeld on these specific points, which were submitted on 20 August and 2 September respectively. The prosecution objected to these witnesses as too late, whereas both were submitted within a month of the testimony to which they were responding. The US government and Baraitser having ruled out witnesses on this very specific new point, their then proceeding to attack the existing defence witnesses on their knowledge of precisely the point on which they refused to hear new evidence, leaves a very bad taste indeed.

The first witness of the day was Maureen Baird, former warden (governor in UK terms) of three US prisons including 2014–16 the Metropolitan Correction Centre (MCC) New York, which houses a major concentration of Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) prisoners pre-trial. She had also attended national courses and training programmes on SAMs and met and discussed with fellow warders and others responsible for them elsewhere, including Florence ADX.

Led through her evidence by Edward Fitzgerald QC, Baird confirmed that she anticipated Assange would be subject to SAMs pre-trial, based on the national security argument and on all the documentation submitted by the US Attorney, and post-trial. SAMs meant being confined to a cell 23–24 hours a day with no communication at all with other prisoners. In MCC the one hour a day outside your cell was spent simply in a different but identical empty cell known as the “recreation cell”. She had put in an exercise bike; otherwise it was unequipped. Recreation was always completely alone.

Prisoners were allowed one phone call a month of 30 minutes, or 2 of 15 minutes, to named and vetted family members. These were monitored by the FBI.

Fitzgerald asked about Kromberg’s assertion that mail was “free-flowing”. Baird said that all mail was screened. This delayed mail typically by two to three months, if it got through at all.

Baird said that the SAMs regime was centrally determined and was the same in all locations. It was decided by the attorney general. Neither the prison warden nor the Board of Prisons itself had the power to moderate the SAMs regime. Fitzgerald said the US government had claimed yesterday it could be varied, and some people under SAMs could even have a cellmate. Baird replied “No, that is not my experience at all”.

Fitzgerald quoted Kromberg as stating that a prisoner could appeal to the case manager and unit manager against the conditions of SAMs. Baird replied that those people “could do nothing”. SAMs was “way above their pay grade”. Kromberg’s description was unrealistic, as was his description of judicial review. All internal procedures would have to be exhausted first, which would take many years and go nowhere. She had never seen any case of SAMs being changed. Similarly, when Fitzgerald put to her that SAMs were imposed for only one year at a time and subject to annual review, Baird replied that she had never heard of any case of their not being renewed. They appeared simply to be rolled over by the Attorney General’s office.

Baird said that in addition to herself applying SAMs at the MCC, she went on national training courses on SAMs and met and discussed experiences with those applying SAMs at other locations, including the Florence, Colorado ADX. SAMs had strong and negative consequences on prisoners’ mental and physical health. These included severe depression, anxiety disorder and weight loss. Baird said she agreed with previous witness Sickler that if convicted Assange could very well face spending the rest of his life imprisoned under SAMs at the Florence ADX. She quoted a former warden of that prison describing it as “not built for humanity”.

Fitzgerald took Baird to Kromberg’s description of a multi-phased programme for release from SAMs. Baird said she recognised none of this in practice. SAMs prisoners could not participate in any group programmes or meet other prisoners in any circumstances. What Kromberg was describing was not a programme but a very limited list of potential small extra privileges, such as one extra phone call a month. Phase 3 involved mingling with other prisoners and Baird said she had never seen it and doubted it really applied: “I don’t know how that happens”.

Fitzgerald asked Baird about Dr Leukefeld’s claim that some prisoners enjoy Florence ADX so much they did not want to leave. Baird said this was a reflection of the extreme anxiety disorders that could affect prisoners. They became scared to leave their highly ordered world.

It was interesting to see how the prosecution would claim that Baird was unqualified. It was very difficult to counter the evidence of a prison warder about the inhumanity of the prison regime. The US government hit on a quite extraordinary attack. They claimed that the prison system was generally pleasant as described by Leukefeld and Kromberg, but that the prisons in which Baird had worked had indeed been bad, but only because Baird was a bad warden.

Here are brief extracts from the US Government’s cross-examination of Baird:

Clair Dobbin Are you independent?
Maureen Baird I work for one attorney but also others.
Dobbin You appear on a legal website as a consultant – Allan Ellis of San Francisco.
Baird I do some consultancy, including with Allan but not exclusively.
Dobbin You only work for defendants?
Baird Yes.
Dobbin It says that the firm handles appeals and post-conviction placing.
Baird Yes, I tend to get involved in post-conviction or placing.
Dobbin Do you have any experience in sentencing?
Baird What kind of sentencing?
Dobbin That is what I am asking.
Baird I have testified on prison conditions pre-sentence.

This was a much briefer effort than usual to damage the credentials of the witness. After questions on Baird’s exact prison experience, Clair Dobbins moved on to:

Dobbin Do you know the criteria for SAMs?
Baird Yes.
Dobbin Why do you say it is likely Assange will get SAMs? Kromberg only says it is possible.
Baird Kromberg talks about it a very great deal. It is very plainly on the table.
Dobbin It is speculative. It can only be decided by the Attorney General as reasonably necessary to prevent the disclosure of national security information.
Baird They have made plain they believe Assange to hold further such information.
Dobbin You are not in any position to make any judgement.
Baird It is my opinion he would be judged to meet that criterion, based on their past decisions.
Dobbin How can you say the risk exists he would disclose national security information?
Baird He is charged with espionage. They have said he is a continuing risk.
Dobbin I am suggesting that is highly speculative and you cannot know.
Baird I am judging by what the government have said and the fact they have so much emphasised SAMs. They very definitely fail to say in all this that SAMs will not be applied.

After further discussion on Kromberg’s claims versus Baird’s experience, the US government moved on to the question of the SAMs prisoners under Baird’s care in the MCC.

Dobbin You say they were in solitary confinement. The officers on the unit did not have human contact with the prisoners?
Baird They did not speak to inmates.
Dobbin Why not?
Baird That is not what prison officers do.
Dobbin Why not? You were in charge?
Baird They just open the small viewing slot in the iron door every half hour and look through. Conversation just did not happen.
Dobbin You could encourage that?
Baird I could lead by example. But ordering conversation is not something a prison warden does. I did not have that authority. There are unions. If I instructed the prison officers to socialise with the prisoners, they would reply it is not in their job description.
Dobbin Oh, come on! You could encourage.
Baird On a normal basis, those officers do not talk to inmates.
Dobbin Did you tell your staff to? Wouldn’t the first thing you do be to tell your staff to talk?
Baird No. That’s not how it works.
Dobbin Did you raise your concerns about SAMs with those above you?
Baird No.
Dobbin Did you raise your concerns with judges? (brief discussion of a specific case ensued)
Baird No.
Dobbin Did you raise concerns about the conditions of SAM inmates with judges?
Baird No. They were a very small part of the prison population I was dealing with.
Dobbin So you didn’t encourage staff or raise any concerns?
Baird I tried to be fair and compassionate. I talked to the isolation prisoners myself. The fact that other staff did not engage is not uncommon. I do not recall making any complaints or recommendations.
Dobbin So these conditions did not cause you any concerns at the time. It is only now?
Baird It did cause me concerns.
Dobbin What did you do about your concerns at the time?
Baird I did not think I had any influence. It was way above me. SAMs are decided by the Attorney General and heads of the intelligence agencies.
Dobbin You did not even try.

This was an audacious effort to distract from Baird’s obviously qualified and first-hand evidence of how dreadful and inhuman the regime is, but ultimately a complaint that Baird did not try to modify the terrible system does not really help the government case. In over two hours of cross-examination, Dobbin again and again tried to discredit Baird’s testimony by contrasting it with the evidence of Kromberg and Leukefeld, but this was entirely counter-productive for Dobbin. It served instead to illustrate how very far Kromberg’s and Leukefeld’s assurances were from the description of what really happens from an experienced prison warden.

Baird demolished Dobbin’s insistence on Kromberg’s description of a functioning three-stage programme for removal of SAMs. When it came to Dr Leukefeld’s account of SAMs prisoners being allowed to take part in psychiatric group therapy sessions, Baird involuntarily laughed. She suggested that from where Dr Leukefeld sat “in the central office”, Leukefeld possibly genuinely believed this happened.

The afternoon witness was an attorney, Lindsay Lewis, who represents Abu Hamza, who is held at ADX Florence. The videolink to Lewis had extremely poor sound and from the public gallery I was unable to hear much of her testimony. She said that Hamza, who has both forearms amputated, had been kept in solitary confinement under SAMs in the ADX for almost ten years. His conditions were absolutely inappropriate to his condition. He had no prosthesis sufficient to handle self-care and received no nursing care at all. His bed, toilet and sink were all unadapted and unsuitable to his disability. His other medical conditions including severe diabetes, hypertension and depression were not adequately treated.

Lewis said that the conditions of Hamza’s incarceration directly breached undertakings made by the US government to the UK magistrates’ court and High Court when they made the extradition request. The US had stated his medical needs would be fully assessed, his medical treatment would be adequate, and he was unlikely to be sent to the ADX. None of these had happened.

In cross-examination, Dobbin’s major point was to deny that the assurances given to the British authorities by the US Government at the time of Hamza’s extradition amounted to undertakings. She was also at great pains to emphasise Hamza’s convicted terrorist offences, as though these justified the conditions of his incarceration. But the one thing which struck me most was Lewis’s description of the incident that was used to justify the continued imposition of SAMs on Hamza.

Hamza is allowed to communicate only with two named family members, one of whom is one of his sons. In a letter, Hamza had asked this son to tell his one-year-old grandchild that he loved him. Hamza was charged with an illegal message to a third party (the grandson). This had resulted in extension of the SAMs regime on Hamza, which still continues. In cross-examination, Dobbin was at pains to suggest this “I love you” may have been a coded terrorist message.

The day concluded with a foretaste of excitement to come, as Judge Baraitser agreed to grant witness anonymity to the two UC Global whistleblowers who are to give evidence on UC Global’s spying on Assange in the Ecuadorean Embassy. In making application, Summers gave notice that among the topics to be discussed was the instruction from UC Global’s American clients to consider poisoning or kidnapping Assange. The hidden firearm with filed-off serial numbers discovered in the home of UC Global’s chief executive David Morales, and his relationship to the Head of Security at the Las Vegas Sands complex, were also briefly mooted.

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The United States has now sent more occupying forces into Syria in clear violation of international law. The Pentagon regime officials claim the deployment of additional occupying forces allegedly came due to a series of “incidents” between US occupying forces and Russian troops legally stationed in the country. The US troops will be operating in Syria on a 90-day deployment.

The Armenian-Azerbaijani war continues raging in the South Caucasus.

As of September 29, the Azerbaijani advance in the Nagorno-Karabakh region struck the Armenian defense and Azerbaijani forces were not able to achieve any military breakthroughs. Armenian troops withdrew from several positions in the Talish area and east of Fuzuli.

The Azerbaijani military has been successfully employing combat drones and artillery to destroy positions and military equipment of Armenia, but Azerbaijani mechanized infantry was unable to develop its momentum any further.

While both sides claim that they eliminated multiple enemy fighters and made notable gains, the real situation on the ground remains more or less stable with minor gains achieved by Azerbaijani troops. Armenian sources say that 370 Azerbaijani troops were killed and over 1,000 injured. The number of killed Armenian fighters, according to Azerbaijani sources, is over 1,000. Armenian sources also note the notable role of Turkey in the developing conflict.

Armenian President Armen Sarkissian said that Turkey has been assisting Azerbaijan in its war against the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic with advisers, mercenaries and even F-16 fighter jets. He added that the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is still possible through dialogue. However, the President emphasized that the Armenian nation cannot allow a return to the past.

“105 years ago, the Ottoman Empire carried out the genocide of the Armenians. In no case can we allow this genocide to be repeated,” Sarkissian said.

Armenia threatens to use Iskander short-range ballistic missile systems obtained from Russia against Azerbaijani targets if Turkish F-16 warplanes are employed on the battlefield.

Meanwhile, Armenian Ambassador to Russia Vardan Toganyan said that members of Turkish-backed Syrian militant groups have been already participating in the conflict. He said that recently about 4,000 Turkish-backed militants were deployed to Azerbaijan. In turn, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan said that “people who have arrived from Syria and other countries of the Middle East” are fighting on the side of Armenia. Earlier, pro-Turkish sources claimed that Armenia was transporting fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Thus, the sides are not only claiming that they are gaining an upper hand in the war, but also accuse each other of using foreign mercenaries and terrorists.

On the evening of September 28, the Defense Ministry of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic confirmed that 84 of its troops were killed in the recent escalation. The Armenian side also claimed that its forces had shot down an Azerbaijani aircraft. However, this claim was denied by the Azerbaijani military. Baku continues insisting that all Armenian claims about the Azerbaijani casualties in the war are fake news.

On September 29, the Armenian side continued reporting about Azerbaijani helicopters being shot down, and declaring that they repelled Azerbaijani attacks. Nonetheless, the scale and intensity of the strikes by the Azerbaijani side did not demonstrate any decrease. On top of this, the Armenian Defense Ministry said that a Turkish Air Force F-16 fighter jet shot down an Armenian Su-25 warplane. The F-16 fighter jet allegedly took off from the Ganja Airbase in Azerbaijan and was providing air cover to combat UAVs, which were striking targets in Armenia’s Vardenis, Mec Marik and Sotk. Azerbaijan and Turkey denied Armenian claims that a Turkish F-16 shot down the Su-25.

So far, no side has achieved a strategic advantage in the ongoing conflict. However, the Azerbaijani military, which receives extensive support from Turkey, is expected to have better chances in the prolonged conflict with Armenia, if Erevan does not receive direct military support from Russia.

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Several reports indicate that Nigeria has reached critical level in its development as there are numerous problems including frequent ethnic and religious attacks, deep-seated corruption, ineffective federal system of governance despite been referred to as the Giant of Africa. Nigeria is endowed with huge natural resources. By population, it has the highest and that signifies the extent of its human capital in the country. As already known, Nigeria has three ethnic groups namely the Hausa-Fulani in the North, Yoruba in the West and the Igbos in East. Ethnic conflict pulls down the expected high development, contributes to insecurity and youth unemployment.

Celine Akigwe, former General Secretary of the Nimo Brotherhood Society (NBS) UK & Ireland and now the Founder & CEO of Afristoricals and Creator of UmojApp, has given an interview in which she talks about some aspects of the existing problems and the need to drastically change the status quo in Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN). Here are the interview excerpts.

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Q: As an enterprising Nigerian woman, who previously served on the Executive Committee as General Secretary of the Nimo Brotherhood Society (NBS) UK & Ireland, what would you say are the main problems facing Nigeria?

A: During my tenure as General Secretary of NBS UK & Ireland, I observed many behavioral patterns that were reflective of the psychology of the people of Nigeria. Over the years, I have sat on many Executive Committees, including the Igbo Cultural & Social Network (ICSN), which is the most progressive Igbo meeting in Europe. ICSN continue to produce vibrant, positive thinking young adults who will shape the future of our homeland.

After observing the various issues facing Nigerians over the years, the main problem facing Nigerians is the country called Nigeria itself. Since my childhood, from over a period of 40 years, I have always known dysfunctionality and infrastructural chaos that dominate the daily lives of the majority of Nigerians.

Nigeria exposes the rich and poor divide in every aspect of society. There has never been good roads for the masses, but as soon as you turn the corner to Ikoyi or Abuja or Banana Republic you see good roads. These areas enjoy constant electricity supply and good telecommunications networks that are alien to the rest of the population. The masses continue to suffer more and more electricity outages than what is provided, yet they are still charged for a service that is not provided.

Access to clean drinking water is another example, where the masses suffer poor quality water. When you factor in the case that the average wage is N25,000 per month, you can see how Nigerian society can only suffer from numerous problems. These are just the basic services that is everyone’s human right, yet in Nigeria, lack of constant electricity, good roads, hospitals and schools have become the norm. Nigeria has become renowned as a place of corruption, criminality, dysfunctionality and infrastructural chaos.

The security situation all over Nigeria has reached critical level. The numerous killings are tantamount to genocide and ethnic cleansing, which has been going on for decades. We have not seen any outcry from neither the Western nations nor the Eastern nations. In response to the killings, kidnappings, rapes and mutilation of innocent people, we see no reaction or response from our leaders. Nigerian leaders show absolutely no apathy to the plight of their citizens and subsequently the rest of the World duly ignore the ongoing genocide.

There are too many problems facing Nigerians today that nothing short of a total rethink, revamp and reworking of every denomination of our civilization is required to change the status quo. This broken society must be dismantled and rebuilt.

From its very inception, the concept of Nigeria was doomed. The land that is referred to or called Nigeria was created by the British to make colonizing Africans easier for them administer. In doing so, the rulers of Nigeria tend to be favored individuals of the former colonial powers who are presented to the people as a choice to vote for. Immediately after being elected, every president of Nigeria has obediently made their trip to the U.K. and then to America to seemingly meet with the leaders of those countries and receive their modus operandi for their forthcoming term in office.

I always queried why this was necessary and can only conclude that they are merely going to visit their puppet masters to ensure the colonial grip on Africa never fades. Until this day, the British use their favorites to keep Nigeria alive, as do other European nations like France. We have never seen a European elected official leave their country to visit any African leader the same they are elected.

To add insult to injury, we learn the name Nigeria was invented by Dame Flora Louise Shaw or Lady Lugard as she was later known with her then lover Lord Frederick Lugard, the British High Commissioner in Nigeria (1900–06) and Governor-General (1912–19) whom she later married. The end result was inevitable. There can be no peace in a nation that was created like that – ever!

As we have seen… most ethnic groups within the created administrative tool called Nigeria want to leave and form real nations by the people for the people. I think Africans deserve that right. It has taken over 60 years for Nigerians to reach this point of agitation and I think Nigerians have suffered enough. It is time to leave the past behind and cease the administration of the colony – not former colony – called Nigeria.

Q: Do you also think that women are particularly affected by all these challenges and problems that have engulfed the country?

A: It is overwhelmingly yes, women have been disproportionately affected by the challenges in many ways, especially during this pandemic. We have seen violence against women increase and incomes fall, not just in Nigeria, but globally. For over 100 years, patriarchy was gradually imported into West African culture, first by the Fulani Moslems during the conquests of Othman Dan Fodio, and soon after by the British.

Traditional African society existed under a matriarchal system that recognized the African woman as the first to give birth to mankind and a return to matriarchal practices will go a long way to improving the condition of women in Nigeria. Discrimination against women does not occur in matriarchy, which in no way diminishes the man’s role in society, rather, it enhances and empowers men to raise their standards and mindset.

In governance, no single leader should have the power to dictate laws that affect the wellbeing and progress of women directly or indirectly. This would require more women in senior positions in government, however, it would not be a case of appointing women into positions of power simply because they are women. It would be a case of allotting 50% of the senior cabinet positions to women who qualified for these positions. We will see different results when there is equal balance between men and women in the halls of power – and not just from the backbenches.

Q: And what do you say about the youth generally?

A: The youth are the source of all changes. However, our elders have been trained to thwart the development of our youth and prevent them from thinking or even speaking. The youth are the lifeblood of civilization, but they have been let down by the government that has failed to provide the youth of Nigeria with adequate education that would give them a competitive advantage similar to what exist in the rest of the world.

Schools have been neglected, teachers are not paid on time and history had been dropped, which has resulted in what I call illiterate graduates. It is only those who are able to afford the high school fees, stand a chance of achieving something in their lives. The rise of horrible bribes including sex for results has rendered the Nigerian education system entirely dysfunctional and a playground for sexual predators.

We have seen an increase in suicide and rape in Nigeria and we can only commend the students of ASONIS in their campaign to raise awareness and eradicate suicide and rape from Nigeria. The lack of discipline from the top has filtered down to every spectrum of Nigerian society. The youth must rise up in unity by employing group psychology, which would lead to the return of the spirit of Ubuntu from the grassroots up.

Q: What are your expectations from Nigerian women on the Diaspora? What are your suggestions and recommendations for women in other countries?

A: The role of women has been underestimated. It is the woman who raises the child, whether the child is male or female. But at times, Nigerian women are not empowered within the household to make the final decision about a child’s education or hobby. At times, the man is better equipped to make the final decision. Nigerian women in the Diaspora have an advantage in that they enjoy some protection and so may feel empowered to speak or make decisions, although this still carries some risk for Nigerian women in the Diaspora.

We have seen how excellently our women organize religious and educational institutions that were brought in by colonization. On the other hand, when it comes to nation building many African women are unable to achieve this level of self-awareness and as a result raise children who are desperate to move away from their culture or who view their own people in a negatively way. Those children will not think twice about investing in Nigeria.

The end result of all this is that we see many Nigerians in the Diaspora working hard to assimilate and invest in their host country’s property, projects and schools. You have to have an acute love and desire to invest and build in Igboland over Abuja or Lagos for example. Without that investment in itself, there can be no sustainable development and the majority of people will continue to want to leave, as we have seen down the years. Once self-pride is established, the children cultivate love for the motherland and bless it with investment. This is, perhaps, one of the most important roles Nigerian women all over the world can play.

Q: Do all these you have discussed above offer a tangible basis for Nigerians on Diaspora, for instance, in the UK & Ireland, to consider playing significant roles in the development process in Nigeria?

A: The process for sustainable development in Nigeria has to begin with the desire to change society with our own hands and own feet. Consistently lobbying European institutions such as the Commonwealth to intervene and miraculously resolve all the problems facing Nigerians will not bring around the change that is required for Nigeria. To change this anomaly, Nigerians in the Diaspora can play a significant role in fostering change by following aggressive investment strategies that would involve various community and commercial infrastructure development projects in various sectors in Nigeria.

In order to understand this, for instance, I developed UmojApp and AfriZone shop to bridge the gap between Nigerian businesses and consumers in the Diaspora. UmojApp also educates people on the significant achievements and events from an African perspective, so the negative mindset of Africans, as a whole, view themselves as agents of change.

In practical situation, Nigerians in the Diaspora understand the high risks involved in undertaking development projects in Nigeria. It would be for those who have the strong stomach and correct vision that will drive a change through investment in Nigeria.

Q: As already known, Nigeria seems divided along ethnic and religious lines. What are your arguments about, say, integration or political autonomy for the Biafra State?

A: This really takes us full circle – back to my original answer. Nigeria is an administrative convenience to ease the complications for the British. If Africans are totally honest with themselves, all of the borders that were drawn as a result of the Scramble for Africa should be erased. Over a period of 38 years of war to claim African territory, one of the results was the country called Nigeria.

We must leave the past behind and draw our own map of Africa with our own boundaries to control our own future. Integration is to continue to live in a state of denial of the past. Independence is not a myth but a reality that will happen now or in the future. If this generation are not ready for true independence, then future generations will be, but only if we teach the children to love themselves and their African brothers and sisters.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Julian Assange’s defence team spent the day going over, reemphasising and sharpening the focus on what awaited their client should he, with the blessing of Her Majesty’s Government, make his way to the United States.  Not only will he confront 17 charges under the US Espionage Act and one under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, he faces the prospect of imprisonment for the rest of his life in conditions that risk prematurely ending his life. 

Warden Baird and SAMs 

The opening expert witness was Maureen Baird, who knows a thing or two about US carceral fare, having presided over the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in New York as its warden.  She was in little doubt that Assange will be subjected to Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) over and above those conditions he will already face.  She thought the affidavit by US Assistant Attorney Gordon Kromberg gave a good clue of that intention: the government tends to only mention SAMs if they intend using them.

While the US Attorney General will be the one to make that determination, advice will be sought from relevant security agencies.  “It could be the CIA, the FBI, border control, together with the US Attorney and the Attorney General,” came Baird’s reply to defence barrister Edward Fitzgerald QC.  Were the CIA to be involved, they would be consulted “with the office of enforcement operations at the DOJ [Department of Justice].”  With the CIA’s view carrying hefty weight, Fitzgerald tantalisingly floated a proposition to be revisited later in the day: that US intelligence was behind targeting Assange while he was a political asylee of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

Baird’s description of inmates placed under SAMs was grim and similar to the testimony of Yancey Ellis delivered the day before: “solitary confinement, technically, for 24-hours a day”.  No communication with other inmates.  “The only form of human interaction they encountered was when correctional officers opened the viewing slot during their inspection rounds of the unit, when institution staff walked through the unit during their required weekly rounds, or when meals were delivered through the secure meal slot in the door.”   

Inmates were allowed 30 minutes on the phone per month (one call of 30 minutes duration, or two of 15 minutes), with all calls scheduled two weeks in advance and monitored by the FBI.  Mail, heavily screened, could take months to be delivered. (In this, Baird rejected the optimistic description by Kromberg that the mail service was “free-flowing” in such facilities.)

As with other witnesses already called, including Joel Sickler of the Justice Advocacy Group, she agreed that SAMs were singularly “devastating,” “desolate and degrading”.  Such measures could lead to “severe depression in isolation, anxiety, paranoia, weight loss detrimental to physical health and detrimental to mental health.”  She thought them brutal and archaic, a relic of cruelty.  “I am uncertain how the [US Bureau of Prisons] has been able to continue with these types of isolation units, given all the studies, reports and findings of the horrific physical and psychological effects they have on inmates.”

Challenging SAMs was also an adventurous, generally futile hope.  “Mr Kromberg suggested that when an inmate has a twice a year review he can challenge SAMs with a case manager, but as a case manager myself,” Baird explained to the court, “I saw nothing is going to happen.”  Case managers lacked “authority to make any changes to SAMs.”  As was further explained, the Bureau of Prisons “exercises no control/jurisdiction over SAMs imposed by the Attorney General.  Wardens are bound to abide by the SAMs imposed on an inmate.”  During her time as Warden at MCC New York, Baird had “never seen an inmate have his SAMs removed, only extended.”

The former warden was also certain that Assange, if convicted, would be destined for the ADX Florence supermax facility in Colorado.  If placed under SAMs, he would be kept in a segregating housing unit at the ADX.  “As someone who spent the majority of her adult life working for the BOP and as a former Designator, who decided where inmates would serve their sentences, absent a medical requirement, or a protected Witness Security Case, I am not familiar with any alternative long-term options aside from the ADX, for offenders under SAMs.”

As for the sparkling portrayal of the ADX in Colorado given by Kromberg’s affidavits, including the presence of social and therapeutic activities for inmates, Baird could only express bemusement.  “For anyone to suggest that an inmate assigned under SAMs would be able to participate in group counselling is baffling to me.  The main premise of assigning SAMs is to restrict a person’s communication and the only way to accomplish this is through isolation.”

Medical treatment was also a scrappy, unreliable affair for SAMs prisoners. You would have to be at death’s door before being transferred to a medical facility.  As for those at risk of self-harm, Baird accepted that the BOP had a robust suicide program, which was hardly a guarantee against the determined.  “When you have suicidal ideation, the reliance on inmate self-reporting is pretty strong.  When an inmate fails to report that, it is not noticed and the inmate commits suicide.”

In cross-examination, prosecutor Clair Dobbin played an unaccustomed role: the bleeding heart, concerned with prisoner welfare.  Why had Baird not done more to ease the plight of SAMs prisoners during her time as warden?  Baird replied that leading by example was her method, not that she could compel other staff to do the same.  “It was not uncommon for staff not to engage with inmates.”  While she had not taken the issue of treatment of SAMs prisoners up with a judge or the BOP, she rejected Dobbin’s assertions that she lacked concern for them.  Baird’s reasoning was that of an instrument of state violence self-justified. “It did cause me concern, but I had to convince myself it was okay.  I honestly did not believe I could do anything. It was [handled] at a higher level.”

Dobbin then suggested that SAMs inmates could alter their conditions by participating in a three phase program.  They could meet in groups of four in an area outside their cell on reaching the third level.  Baird refuted the suggestion: Phase one and two did give extra privileges to the prisoners, but they remained in isolation.  It had nothing to do with the actual removal of SAMs.  Permitting inmates to reach the third level would defeat “the whole purpose of SAMs.”

The prosecution then drew upon a statement from prosecution witness Alison Leukefeld, an employee of the US Bureau of Prisons claiming, in line with Kromberg’s affidavits, that SAMs prisoners would have chances to engage in group therapy. Baird was dismissive in reply: “I think she does not have much experience with SAMs inmates and is not out in the field.”

Lindsay Lewis, Abu Hamza and false assurances 

The calling of US attorney Lindsay Lewis was important in her link to Abu Hamza al-Masri (Mostafa Kamel Mostafa), an Egyptian radical cleric and former imam of London’s Finsbury Park mosque extradited to the United States in 2012 after an eight-year legal battle.  He was accused of a suit of offences ranging from attempting to establish a terrorist training camp in Bly, Oregon to supporting terrorists in Afghanistan and kidnapping 16 tourists in Yemen in 1998.  Hamza also faced the SAMs regime, kept in solitary confinement for eight years and imprisoned at the ADX Florence since 2015.  He has not been allowed family visits since 2012. 

As Lewis outlined in her witness statement, SAMs have limited Hamza’s “contacts not just with the outside world, but also with his family, other inmates and even his attorneys.”  With a Kafkaesque twist, such restrictions went so far as to hamper her own means of describing his true conditions to the court. 

An example of the harsh absurdities of these administrative measures was also given: Hamza was said to have breached them when he “improperly tried to convey, in a letter to one of his sons, his love to his one year old grandson”. The grandson had not been on the list of approved contacts.

Hamza’s case is gruesomely remarkable for its false assumptions.  According to Lewis, assurances were given to the United Kingdom by US authorities that future prison facilities would be tailored to his fragile medical state.  Were he to spent time at ADX Florence, it would only be for a short time.  District Judge Timothy Workman of the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, in ruling for Hamza’s extradition in 2007, noted that a lengthy, indefinite period of detention at ADX Florence would result in “inhuman degrading treatment” in violation of Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture.  He also considered ADX Florence to have conditions “offensive to my sense of propriety of dealing with prisoners”.

Nothing of the sort, claimed prosecutor Dobbin in her cross-examination of Lewis, who read a declaration by a warden that Hamza would face a medical examination and go to a medical facility if he was incapable of managing his activities of daily living (ADL).  Of unflagging faith in the virtues of those she represents and the US justice system, Dobbin claimed that, “There was no way they could have found he could have managed his activities of daily living either pre-trial or post-trial.”

Such credulity was impressive.  The UK authorities had assumed that it was “impossible” for a double amputee, one functional eye and suffering diabetes to pass a medical exam on his fitness for detention at ADX Florence.  “I am satisfied,” Judge Workman declared at the time, “that the defendant [Hamza] would not be detained in these conditions [at ADX] indefinitely, and his undoubted ill-health and physical disabilities would be considered, and at worst, he would only be accommodated in these conditions for a relatively short period of time.”  Lewis observed that Hamza, having had both forearms amputated, was a fairly obvious qualification against being sent to the ADX.  “I don’t believe the US government has followed through on him receiving a full medical examination.” 

Dobbin, ever the believer, wondered if Lewis was simply too trusting of Hamza.  “He is a double amputee,” came the reply.  “He does not have daily nursing care four times a day as he had in the UK.  He is placed in a handicapped cell that does not have proper shower and toilet facilities.”

In 2018, one of Hamza’s lawyers issued a statement asserting “that the conditions of his confinement violate the expectations of the European Convention on Human Rights and the promises that were made by the US government to the [British and European] courts as part of the extradition process.”  By comparison, the conditions at Belmarsh, a facility Assange is well acquainted with, were notably better.  Horror comes in degrees.

Anonymous witnesses, espionage and the CIA 

In anticipation of Thursday’s proceedings, the court also considered whether it should grant anonymity to two witnesses from the UC Global S.L. security firm, the Spanish company charged with providing security at Ecuador’s London embassy.  Their testimony, scheduled to be read that day, is intended to draw the political line between UC Global, their espionage activities targeting Assange in the London Ecuadorean Embassy, and the CIA.  UC Global’s director David Morales, is alleged in reports to have travelled to Las Vegas in 2017, where he secured a contract with Las Vegas Sands of the casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, a notable financier of US President Donald Trump.  It is claimed that Morales handed over audio and video recordings of meetings Assange had with his lawyers and associates while in the embassy. 

Having already testified in a Spanish court case against Morales under protection, and fearing for their safety should their names be disclosed at the Old Bailey, Judge Vanessa Baraitser relented.  We also await how the prosecution will deal with their potentially juicy testimony.  James Lewis QC has yet to receive instructions from the DOJ on whether to mount a challenge, given the less than impervious “Chinese Wall” that supposedly exists between agencies such as the DOJ and the CIA.  That comforting fiction is designed to prevent politicisation.  It is one that this trial has already done a good deal to expose and scuttle.

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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 Massoud Nayeri

Early campaign hostile statements and divisions in Jubilee Coalition are sparking a storm of confusion and fear in Kenya’s politics. Some analysts argue that this environment should awake Kenyans, the region and international community to work hand in hand to avoid repeat of previous post-election violence. Others including myself see this situation of alliance, coalition formations and collapse of partnership as usual trend in Kenyan politics. Since 2002 when KANU (Kenya African National Union) lost presidency to NARC (National Rainbow Coalition), we have been watching such scenarios. And from 2007 post-election violence, legal mechanisms and safeguards have been put in place for a peaceful post-election management. For instance, it is under this framework that 2013 post-election crisis was very well handled. The present analysis wants to point out signs of split between President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy President William Samoei Ruto who are key players in Jubilee Coalition.

Two events have changed dynamics in Jubilee Coalition. The first one is the unexpected handshake on the steps of Harambee House on 09^th March 2018 between two rivals of 2013 and 2018 elections, President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Amolo Odinga. Second one is the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) report launched on 27^th November 2019. A Controversial interpretation surrounding the two events is pushing the race to 2022 presidential succession bid to take a new twist through two conflicting camps: “hustler and dynast nations”. The hustler camp is led by Deputy President William Samoei  Ruto via his Tanga-Tanga team and has been presenting doubts towards the handshake and reluctance to implement BBI report recommendations. Supporters of handshake and initiators of BBI, spearheaded by Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Amolo Odinga are referred as dynasty camp because of their historical backgrounds in Kenyan politics. Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta is the son of Jomo Kenyatta, the first post-independence president of Kenya, whereas Raila Amolo Odinga is the son of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, first Kenya’s Vice President in Jomo Kenyatta administration.

Coalition formations and collapse between Kenyan political leaders is something usual when targeting to win upcoming elections. In 2002 presidential elections, there was concern to get rid of KANU’s long-period of uninterrupted rule. In this process NARC was formed by key politicians including Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki. After defeating KANU and ascending into power, NARC didn’t survive long; it collapsed in 2005 over disagreement about constitutional referendum. The most contentious cause of division originated from the position of prime minister, which has been earmarked for Raila Odinga, perceived as threat by Kibaki and his close allies. Another disagreement emanated from failure to implement the 50-50 power-sharing arrangement between two factions of NARC as initially contemplated in MoU between LDP of Raila Odinga and NAK of Mwai Kibaki.

During 2007 presidential elections, and after collapse of NARC, Mwai Kibaki had to defend his seat on a newly formed party ticket, the PNU (Party of National Unity). On the other hand, Raila Odinga and his allies reached to gain ownership of ODM (Orange Democratic Movement) as their new party. Presidential elections became a two-horse race between Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga. Many people remember what happened after the ECK (Electoral Commission of Kenya) declared Mwai Kibaki winner. The announcement sparked violent demonstrations characterized by the destruction of properties and ethnically targeted killings.

Jubilee Coalition came as a surprise in 2013 general elections process. There is a saying that  in politics, there is no permanent enemy no permanent friend, all is about interests. Initially, William Ruto was key ally of ODM leader Raila Odinga whereas Uhuru Kenyatta was on the side of Mwai Kibaki. Their reconciliation took origin from ICC (International Criminal Court) 2007 postelection violence investigations and pre-trial.  After ICC released the names of six suspects, commonly known as “Ocampo Six”, thought to be most responsible for investigating of postelection violence, it was found that six key suspects were coming from conflicting camps: three among them including William Ruto were said to have ties with Raila Odinga. Other three including Uhuru Kenyatta were having ties with Mwai Kibaki.

Rapprochement between two political enemies was engineered by two factors. Firstly, divisions within ODM over ICC investigations and pre-trial resulted fall out between Raila Odinga and William Ruto. Then, the two ICC suspect co-perpetrators of 2007 violence were brought together to mobilize support from their two large communities in Kenya to challenge ICC process. The prayer meetings and mass rallies addressed by the two leaders convinced them that they could form a formidable coalition to contest the 2013 general elections. This put together newly created URP (United Republican Party) of William Samoei Ruto and TNA (The National Alliance) of Uhuru Kenyatta into Jubilee coalition which won 2013 and 2018 general elections.

The move by Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga from March 2018 to cease all hostilities, and find common ground in the interest of moving the country forward, through Handshake and BBI report implementation, has changed the status- quo within Jubilee coalition. William Ruto and his allies see handshake and BBI as political tool to lock him out of the 2022 Kenyatta succession matrix. In this regard, Jubilee Vice-Chairman and Uhuru Kenyatta close ally David Murathe states that there exists no Jubilee Party MoU to support Ruto’s 2022 presidential bid. The only deal they had is to support UhuRuto presidency for two terms which was achieved. Murathe continues in advising Ruto to retire alongside Uhuru come to 2022 because they have both served their two terms.

Considering the root motivations and ingredients of Jubilee coalition formation and the current divisions between its high ranked officials, the usual trend in Kenya party alliances and collapse will not spare messy divorce but not violent in Jubilee house.

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Justin Nyanshwa ([email protected]), is a researcher on Conflict-Resolution & Management in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.

This article was originally published on Asia Times.

Let’s cut to the chase: with or without a sanction juggernaut, China simply won’t be expelled from the global semiconductor market.

The real amount of chip supply Huawei has in stock for their smart phone business may remain an open question.

But the most important point is that in the next few years – remember Made in China 2025 remains in effect – the Chinese will be manufacturing the necessary equipment to produce 5 nm chips of equivalent or even better quality than what’s coming from Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.

Conversations with IT experts from Russia, ASEAN and Huawei reveal the basic contours of the road map ahead.

They explain that what could be described as a limitation of quantum physics is preventing a steady move from 5nm to 3nm chips. This means that the next breakthroughs may come from other semiconductor materials and techniques. So China, in this aspect, is practically at the same level of research as Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.

Additionally, there is no knowledge gap – or a communication problem – between Chinese and Taiwanese engineers. And the predominant modus operandi remains the revolving door.

China’s breakthroughs involve a crucial switch from silicon to carbon. Chinese research is totally invested in it, and is nearly ready to transpose their lab work into industrial production.

In parallel, the Chinese are updating the US-privileged photo-lithography procedure to get nanometer chips to a new, non-photo lithography procedure capable of producing smaller and cheaper chips.

As much as Chinese companies, moving forward, will be buying every possible stage of chip manufacturing business in sight, whatever the cost, this will proceed in parallel to top US semiconductor firms like Qualcomm going no holds barred to skirt sanctions and continue to supply chips to Huawei. That’s already the case with Intel and AMD.

Huawei’s game

Huawei for its part is investing deeply in a very close R&D relationship with Russia, recruiting some of their best tech talent, notoriously strong in math, physics and rigorous design work. An example is Huawei’s purchasing of Russian face recognition company Vocord in 2019.

Some of the best tech brainpower in South Korea happens to be Russian.

Huawei has also established a “5G ecosystem innovation center”

in Thailand – the first of its type in ASEAN.

In the medium term, Huawei’s strategy for their top notch smart phones – which use 7nm chips – will be to hand over the business to other Chinese players such as Xiaomi, OPPO and VIVO, collect patent fees, and wait for the inevitable Chinese chip breakthrough while keeping production of 5G equipment, for which it has sufficient chips.

Huawei’s Harmony OS is considered by these IT experts to be a more efficient system than Android. And it runs on less demanding chips.

With the expansion of 5G, most of the work on smart phones can be handled by cloud servers. By the end of 2020, at least 300 cities across China will be covered by 5G.

Huawei will be concentrating on producing desktop computers and digital displays. These desktops will come with a Chinese processor, the Kunpeng 920, and run by a Chinese Unified Operating System (UOS).

UOS is a Linux system developed by China’s Union Tech and commissioned by Beijing to – here’s the clincher – replace Microsoft Windows. These desktops will not be sold to the general public: they will be equipping China’s provincial and national administrations.

It’s no wonder a steady rumor in IT circles is that the best bet ahead would be to put money in a Chinese Chip Investment Fund – expecting to collect big time when major tech breakthroughs happen before 2025.

The East Asian tech core

Whatever the trials and tribulations of the chip war, the inescapable trend ahead is China positioned as the indispensable tech core of East Asia – encompassing ASEAN, Northeast Asia, and Eastern Siberia linked to both Koreas.

This is the hard node of the incoming Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – the biggest free trade deal in the world – which is bound to be signed by 2021.

India has opted for self-exclusion from RCEP – which in geoeconomic terms condemns it to a peripheral role as an economic power. Compare it to South Korea, which is boosting its integration with ASEAN and Northeast Asia.

East Asia’s tech core will be at the heart of a global production chain integrating the very best in science and technology conception and the very best production specialists scattered around all nodes of the global supply chain.

That’s a natural consequence, among other factors, of East Asia  introducing patent applications at a multiple of 3.46 times the US.

And that brings to the very special Samsung case. Samsung is increasing its R&D drive to in fact bypass US-branded technologies as soon as possible.

When South Korea’s President Moon turbo-charges his appeal for the official end of the Korean War that should be seen in tandem with Samsung eventually reaching a wide-ranging tech cooperation deal with Huawei.

This pincer movement graphically spells out South Korean independence from the American bear hug.

It does not escape the Beijing leadership’s attention that the emergence of South Korea as a stronger and stronger geopolitical and geoeconomic actor in East Asia must be inextricably linked to access by China to the next generation of chips.

So a crucial geopolitical and geoeconomic process to watch in the next few years is how Beijing progressively attracts Seoul to its area of influence as a sort of high-tech tributary power while banking on the future of what would be a Korea Federation.

This is something that has been discussed every year, at the highest level, at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.

Wang Huiyao of the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization notes how China and South Korea already have a free trade agreement and “will start the second phase of negotiations to establish a new mechanism for China-South Korea economic cooperation, which is developing fast.”

The next – immensely difficult – step will be to set up a China-Japan free trade mechanism. And then a closer, interconnected China-Japan-South Korea mechanism. RCEP is just the first step. It will be a long sail all the way to 2049. But everyone knows which way the wind is blowin’.

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Pepe Escobar is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Twitter

Vietnam won international praise for its response to COVID-19. But the country’s intensifying capitalist restructuring may leave its people sicker and more impoverished.

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As of the first week of August, official records showed that 10 people had died of COVID-19 in Vietnam since the outbreak of the virus earlier this year. Up to then, the Communist Party-led country of 97 million had been the pandemic’s standout containment star, holding infections to just over 550 by July 31. While Vietnam’s achievement is good news, the successful containment was a tactical necessity for a country whose export-oriented economy, and the health system it helps fund, are increasingly dependent on a healthy if underpaid workforce.

Kamal Malhotra, the United Nations Resident Co-ordinator for Vietnam, says there are 10 key factors in Vietnam’s COVID-19 success:

“early action, excellent contact tracing, strategic and free testing, shutting down flights [from bordering China, and later the EU and U.S.]…, mandatory 14-day free testing, food- and lodging-based quarantine for passengers on arrival and for those asymptomatic and even for those twice removed from infected patients, [a] whole-of government and whole-of-society co-ordinated response with clear centralized decision-making authority, transparent real-time public communication, good enforcement of measures, compliance by [the] general public [and] an overall effective and largely free primary health care system for citizens for COVID-19 related medical care.”

Malhotra tells me that, despite “a recent COVID-19 new wave based in the city of Danang, which has now led to its first batch of deaths since the end of July,” he remains confident that Vietnam, “using the strategies enumerated above, will bring this new wave under control within a relatively short period of time.”

At approximately 1,000 to one, the ratio of COVID tests to infections in Vietnam is by far the highest in the world. While, this was in part a response to concerns the country’s health care system would not be able to handle a mass influx of patients, according to Malhotra there was never any ambivalence that the health of the people was most important, and that this would also then lead to a healthier economy in both the short and long run. The cumulative cost of Vietnam’s response in early July, at about 0.2% of GDP, is remarkable, and no new debt has been incurred.

The Vietnamese government’s socialistic response to the COVID-19 virus is unfortunately exceptional.  In general, the country has succumbed to the far more virulent virus of capitalism for the past 25 years.  Michel Chossudovsky, professor emeritus of economics at Ottawa University who has done field research in Vietnam, told me that a crucial factor in Vietnam’s transition to capitalism in the 1990s was the agreement it signed in 1993 with the Paris Club of western creditor nations at U.S. insistence to repay the debt owed by the puppet South Vietnam regime that the communist forces from both South and North Vietnam defeated in 1975.  The debt of $145 million would be repaid to the U.S. which had set up the South Vietnam regime in 1955 and loaned it the money.

The U.S. invaded Vietnam in 1965 with half a million troops to support this proxy regime and prevent its fall to communist armies. In the course of its eight-year genocidal war, Washington killed three million Vietnamese (most of them civilians) and devastated the country with massive bombing and the spraying of toxic herbicides.  Inspite of this incredible destruction, the U.S. lost the war.  In 1993 then, in one of the cruelest ironies of history, the U.S. was demanding that Vietnam pay for its own destruction and the killing of its people by Washington.

“What is very important to understand” Chossudovsky emphasizes “is that Vietnam paid war reparations to the United States instead of the other way around.”  This capitulation by the Vietnamese communist government was accompanied by its rush to implement economic reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), adds Chossudovsky including “deregulation of the grain market [in a largely agricultural rice-producing country], the expansion of rice exports and privatization of the health and education sectors.”

In exchange for this gutting of socialism and for Vietnam agreeing to pay reparations, the U.S. “normalized” relations with the country in 1995, lifting the damaging trade and investment embargo it had imposed on Hanoi and clearing the way for Vietnam to borrow money internationally.  Referring to the agreement that Vietnam would pay the U.S. the $145 million, U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said in April 1997, “This is a significant step in the normalization of relations between our countries and the integration of Vietnam into the international financial community.”

This integration has been a painful one for many Vietnamese people who have suffered rising levels of inequality, exploitation, landlessness, environmental damage and official and corporate corruption under the capitalist system.  Hanoi’s economic strategy focuses on export-oriented industrialization, which consists of making Vietnam a cheap labour haven to attract foreign investment made up mainly of Singaporean, Chinese, South Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and Thai factories in 18 Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in coastal areas. Vietnam’s main exports are electrical equipment, electronics, footwear, clothes, coffee, leather and fish.

A major component of Hanoi’s export-oriented economic model are 13 bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements including the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which came into effect in December 2018 and comprises 11 countries (Canada, Japan, Chile, Australia and Mexico and others), and the European Union–Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), which took effect August 1. Vietnam became a member of the World Trade Organization in 2007 with support from the George W. Bush administration. As China-U.S. relations worsen under leadership of presidents Trump and Jinping, many Western firms with production in China are looking to move into Vietnam.

Angie Ngọc Trần, a professor of political economy at the California State University Monterey Bay who specializes in historical and contemporary labour movements in Vietnam, tells me workers “who toil in the export-oriented industries,” such as textiles, garments, shoes and electronics, have not fared well during this period of neoliberal restructuring. There is only one state-mandated labour federation in the country and Vietnam only last year ratified ILO Convention 98 on the right to organize and collective bargaining. Free speech is also curtailed in the country.

“Overall, wildcat strikes are still going on with complex reasons, increasingly with broader political and economic concerns,” says Trần. “Many strikes still occur in foreign-invested companies, which often fail to comply with terms of labour contracts, including [committing] wage thefts and shirking benefit contributions such as mandatory social insurance contributions. [The foreign companies] also fail to publicly announce wage rates and give no paid vacations.”

Trần calls Vietnam’s SEZs “Special Exploitation Zones” designed to entice foreign investment in manufacturing. Minimum wages in the country range from US$132 to US$190 per month, which Oxfam points out is far below the living wage for the region. The Vietnam General Confederation of Labour (VGCL), the official and only trade union central in the country, complained in April 2013 that wages only covered 50% of necessary spending for workers. Most urban workers “were destitute and physically wasted away,” said the VGCL. “They rent cheap, shabby rooms and cut daily expenses to a minimum [and] suffer serious malnutrition and other health risks.”

The SEZs have also increased poverty and inequality in the countryside. According to Nick Davies, a journalist for The Guardian (U.K.) who visited Vietnam in April 2015,

“Millions of farmers have been driven off their land to make way for factories or roads. In the early ‘90s, nearly all rural households (91.8%) owned land. By 2010, nearly a quarter of them (22.5%) were landless.”

A 2017 Oxfam report on Vietnam expressed alarm at how great the economic gap had become between richest and poorest. “The richest man in Vietnam earns more in a day than the poorest Vietnamese earns in 10 years and his wealth is so great that he could spend $1 million every day for six years before exhausting it,” said the report, which identified 210 superrich individuals with more than U$30 million each and a total fortune of about U$20 billion (12% of Vietnam’s GDP). Many of these nouveau riche got that way by “taking advantage of loopholes in the governance system,” wrote Hanoi-based journalist Tran Le Thuy in the Nikkei Asian Review in March 2019. Some are former bureaucrats appointed to lead privatized state services (a phenomenon Canadians will be familiar with from the Mulroney years).

In her article, Le Thuy quotes former Vietnamese president Truong Tan Sang, who wrote in the country’s People’s Daily newspaper that corruption is worse now than it has been in the Communist Party’s 70-year history.

“There is collaboration between those in power and rent-seekers to abuse state policies,” he wrote. “They arrange business deals that benefit some individuals and groups greatly, but cause immeasurable damage to the state budget and disrupt the economy.”

In addition to the maltreatment of workers, most of the SEZs are also characterized by “poor performance and mismanagement, accompanied by severe environmental degradation and land waste,” according to Nguyen Minh Quang, a geopolitics lecturer at Can Tho University in southern Vietnam. Protests have forced the government to suspend its plans to add more of these low-wage, low-regulation export processing zones. In June 2018, thousands of people demonstrated in large towns in six provinces against the government’s attempt to pass a draft law that would set up three new SEZs benefiting mainly Chinese companies. Workers also went on strike in two provinces.

The protesters were concerned about “losing national sovereignty to China,” says Trần, noting the 99-year leases proposed for companies in the draft legislation. They also raised questions about further environmental damages for which foreign companies are already notorious in Vietnam. “If this law is passed, unchecked toxic industries and ambiguous union protection will endanger generations of Vietnamese workers and their families and the environment for everyone,” warned Trần in a July 2018 article. The government has backed off its intentions to introduce the draft law in the National Assembly for the time being.

A quarter-century of capitalism has landed Vietnam in a low-income, low-technology trap from which there appears no easy way out. As Trần puts it, in a 2015 article, “Vietnam’s position in the global supply chain has exposed firms to low value-added assembly operations and workers to non-livable wages, sub-standard working conditions and a vicious cycle of underdevelopment and poverty.”

Trần gives the example of electronics, the leading export industry in Vietnam. The foreign multinationals that dominate the sector could transfer technology and skills to local Vietnamese companies if they made the latter their suppliers. But U.S. and Asian electronics companies in Vietnam “are assembly plants that use imported raw materials and do not connect to the local economy.”

This situation is partly due to the fact that unlike in China and South Korea, the Vietnamese government has not implemented a national industrial policy geared toward knowledge and technology transfer so that Vietnam could move up the industrial development ladder. Add to this the massive negative impact of COVID-19 on world trade and Vietnam’s economic model could be facing a bleak future.

Vietnam’s second biggest export industry is clothing and its largest customer the United States, whose economy contracted by a record-breaking seasonally and inflation adjusted rate of 32.9% in the April-June quarter due to the COVID lockdown. Given the situation, the U.S. is unlikely to increase and may not maintain the level of clothing imports from Vietnam, which had increased 16% from 2019 to early 2020. If President Trump wins the U.S. election in November, he may choose to see the U$55.8 billion trade deficit with Vietnam (for 2019) as a problem.

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This is an expanded version of the article published in the September/October 2020 issue of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor here.

Asad Ismi is an award-winning writer and radio documentary-maker. He covers international politics for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor (CCPA Monitor), Canada’s biggest leftist magazine (by circulation) where this article was originally published. Asad has written on the politics of 70 countries and is a regular contributer to Global Research. For his publications visit www.asadismi.info.

“Red zones”, travel bans, quarantines, “red lists”. A “Second Wave” has been announced.  The fear campaign has gone into overdrive.  Drastic state measures are contemplated, including restrictions on social gatherings, marriages, funerals, the closing down of restaurants and bars, the outright paralysis of civil society. 

From the onset of the Covid crisis in January 2020, far-reaching decisions taken by the WHO and national governments have been justified by citing “estimates” of the Covid-19 disease as well “statistics” pointing to a  Worldwide spread of a new deadly coronavirus originating in Wuhan, China. 

Scientific analysis confirms that these estimates of “confirmed cases” are flawed. The tests do not detect or identify the virus. The figures are often manipulated to justify political decisions. 

Millions of people are lining up for Covid-19 testing, which contributes to increasing the number of so-called “confirmed” Covid positive cases Worldwide. 

What’s the Big Lie? What’s the Smoking Gun?

SARS-CoV-2 is NOT A “KILLER VIRUS”. The fear campaign has no scientific basis. The standard RT-PCR test used to “detect” the insidious Virus, “cannnot identify the Virus”.

The governments which claim “to be protecting us” are using meaningless and manipulated statistics to justify the imposition of Covid-19 “Code Red”. 

VIDEO. Michel Chossudovsky, The Second Wave is Based on Fake Statistics

This weekend’s resumption of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh has led to an explosion of news narratives about the conflict. This objective of this article is to clarify a number of important issues. 

Nagorno-Karabakh is back in the news after this weekend’s resumption of hostilities. The author wrote about the latest clashes in his piece about how “Azerbaijan’s Counteroffensive Is Legal But Might Inadvertently Spiral Out Of Control”, which also cites three recent analyses from over the summer that were published after the clashes during that time. All four articles are important to read in order to obtain a deeper understanding of this complex conflict’s background and contemporary context. The present piece, however, focuses solely on debunking the top five fake news narratives that have proliferated across the Alt-Media Community about this issue. Each one begins with a paraphrased summary of the false claim in question, which is then concisely debunked. Without further ado, here are the five most popular fake news claims about this conflict:

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has made himself the global vaccine czar as his foundation spends billions on spreading new vaccines globally. While much attention has been given to the role of Gates behind the corrupt WHO in promoting radical untested coronavirus vaccines, the record of the Gates Foundation pushing an oral polio vaccine across Africa is a matter of concern.

The UN has just recently admitted that new cases of infantile paralysis or polio have resulted in Africa from an oral polio vaccine developed with strong support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It mirrors what happened in the USA in the 1950s. This is worth a closer look.

Vaccines that cause polio

The vaccine industry loves to cite development of vaccines in the 1950s as solely responsible for eradicating what was a severe paralytic illness that reached a peak in the USA after World War II and as well, in England, Germany and other European countries. Now, despite the fact that no new cases of “wild polio” virus have been detected in all Africa since 2016, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and their allies in the WHO proclaimed that Gates’ $4 billion ten-year African vaccination campaign using an oral polio vaccine had finally eliminated the dreaded polio. That was at the end of August.

One week later on September 2, WHO was forced to backtrack and admit that new polio outbreaks in Sudan were linked to an ongoing series of new polio cases in Chad and Cameroon. According to the WHO, further polio cases have been registered in more than a dozen African countries including Angola, Congo, Nigeria and Zambia. But the shocking thing is that the outbreaks are all reportedly caused by the Gates-backed oral polio vaccine.

In a revealing comment, a CDC virologist involved with WHO and the Gates Foundation in the Africa mass polio vaccination campaign, part of something called the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, admits the vaccine is creating significantly more cases of polio paralysis than the deceptively named “wild polio” disease. “We have now created more new emergences of the virus than we have stopped,” virologist Mark Pallansch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention admitted. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) is a combined effort of the WHO, UNICEF, the U.S. CDC, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Rotary International.

Bill Gates was reportedly responsible for driving the campaign to develop the liquid oral polio vaccine and massively administer it to the populations of Africa and Asia despite the near absence of any cases of “wild polio.” According to one of the partners in the Gates polio initiative, from Rotary International,

“Gates personally drove the development of a new polio vaccine that is now in the final stages of testing. When the idea was put forward, about the time of the last case of polio to happen in India, many were thinking the vaccine would play no important role in eradication, but Gates insisted.”

When someone asked him, why polio, which had all but vanished worldwide, Gates replied, “Polio is a terrible disease.”

That reply seems curious, as there are far more pervasive deadly diseases out there including malaria or chronic diarrhoea due to unsafe water, and poor sanitation across Africa that causes death by dehydration, poor absorption of nutrients or infectious complications. I would argue that both those are also “terrible.”

In 2016 chronic diarrhoea was listed by the WHO as the second leading cause of death in children below five worldwide. In Africa it was cause of almost 653,000 deaths, yet Mr. Gates and friends seem to be interested in other things.

The insistence of Gates on pushing massive vaccination of a new oral polio vaccine his foundation backed at a time polio even in poor countries of Asia and Africa is virtually non-existent, should ring alarm bells loudly. If his goal is to help more African children lead healthy lives, simple water treatment projects would save far more lives. Or is there something in the polio vaccine we are not being told of? Is there aluminum as adjuvant that is documented to be a central nervous system paralytic? Or other toxins?

The Gates Foundation spent almost $ 4 billion to develop and administer the oral polio vaccine throughout the poorest countries in the world as of 2018. This despite that WHO stated that the cases of polio in Pakistan and Afghanistan went from about 350,000 per year to 33 in 2018. There hasn’t been a case in the Americas or Western Europe since before the Gates polio project was launched years ago.

Define it away?

Here it gets into some very suspicious linguistic games on the part of WHO, Gates and company. They are trying to cover their deeds by claiming that most of the polio cases are actually something they decided to call acute flaccid paralysis (AFP). That is a debilitating condition with a clinical picture virtually identical to polio. But it keeps the “polio” numbers down. According to the US CDC, there were over 31,500 documented cases of acute flaccid paralysis from just 18 countries in 2017. This is in addition to what they call vaccine-associated polio paralysis (VAPP). Yet from the point of clinical symptoms, vaccine-derived polio, wild polio and acute flaccid paralysis are identical, as is acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), a subtype of AFP. With this proliferation of serious medical-sounding names to describe what produces the same medical symptoms, we have huge ground for manipulation.

A paper written by Neetu Vashishi and Jacob Puliyel published in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics in 2012 wrote about the Gates-CDC-WHO mass oral polio vaccine effort there: “… while India has been polio-free for a year, there has been a huge increase in non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP). In 2011, there were an extra 47,500 new cases of NPAFP. Clinically indistinguishable from polio paralysis but twice as deadly, the incidence of NPAFP was directly proportional to doses of oral polio received. Though this data was collected within the polio surveillance system, it was not investigated…”

The 1950s

Defining away cases of poliomyelitis or Infantile Paralysis as it was called during the epidemic in the USA after World War II, went back to the 1950s, and to since-suppressed deadly scandals involving the first purported polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk. Regarded today as a medical hero, the truth of Salk was anything but heroic.

The upsurge in cases of what were then labelled poliomyelitis or infantile paralysis in the United States began to literally explode around 1946. Relevant to note is that a highly dangerous cumulative toxin, a now-banned insecticide known as DDT, was being promoted by the US government as a “safe” control of mosquitoes and flies said to be the “carriers” of polio virus. What has since been all but erased from the government record is the precise match of the number of cases of children with symptoms of acute polio with the degree of acute DDT spraying, and the equally precise mirrored decline of human polio cases from the late 1940s into the 1950s, after a sharp decline in DDT use. In 1953, Connecticut physician, Morton S. Biskind argued in public that, “the most obvious explanation for the polio epidemic: central nervous system diseases… such as polio are actually the physiological and symptomatic manifestations of the ongoing government- and industry-sponsored inundation of the world’s populace with central nervous system poisons.”

The Salk polio vaccine was first deployed in 1955, that is two years after the dramatic decline in registered polio cases. That fact was conveniently forgotten as the narrative was promoted that the new vaccine alone was eradicating the feared polio.

Serious evidence was presented by doctors and others to the US Congress that there was a clear connection between the summer polio epidemics to summer-used heavy metal pesticides such as DDT. They were ignored. The promotion of DDT as a harmless insecticide was so pervasive that kids followed behind trucks spraying the streets and swimming pools were sprayed with DDT, believing it harmless.

Highly emotional advertising campaigns proclaimed that deadly polio was mysteriously transmitted by insects and that DDT would protect. Farmers were told to repeatedly spray their dairy cows with DDT to ward of the dangerous insects. DDT thus contaminated the milk supply. Use of DDT exploded by the end of the 1940s across the USA. As one person described it, “Concerned parents went further to protect their children. They feared the invisible virus as if it were hunting their children. They turned their homes into sterile zones by constantly spraying insecticides and washing down the walls with disinfectants.” That sounds familiar.

Salk and Rockefeller

The vaccine research of Jonas Salk as well as of his rival, Albert Sabin, was funded by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, later known as the March of Dimes. Salk convinced the US health authorities in 1954 that his polio vaccine contained only inactive virus (IPV), and was absolutely safe. He was able to convince the regulatory authorities that the “expensive and difficult procedures which had been suggested for the detection of possible residual live virus” in his vaccine should be dispensed with. Field trials of the Salk vaccine in 1954 were exposed by the Journal of the American Statistical Association: “…59 per cent of the trial was worthless because of the lack of adequate controls…” That report was ignored by the US Department of Health and the National Foundation proclaimed the Salk vaccine ready to mass distribute in spring of 1955.

Already in 1955 alarming results from the Salk vaccine had emerged. His vaccine, manufactured by Cutter Laboratories, was administered to over four hundred thousand people, mostly school children. Within days, reports of paralysis began surfacing. Within a month, the mass vaccination program against polio had to be suspended. In June of 1956, polio cases began to increase sharply in Chicago in children who had received the Salk vaccine. The National Foundation sent an urgent letter to its members urging them to, “give reassurance that the present Salk vaccine is safe and effective to patients, parents and others in your community who still needlessly doubt it…”

Salk’s vaccine had caused seventy thousand cases of muscle weakness, one hundred and sixty-four cases of severe paralysis and ten deaths. Three fourths of the victims remained permanently paralyzed. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare stepped down and the director of the NIH, resigned. The Cutter incident was quickly downplayed by the Government and vaccinations resumed after 21 days pause, using vaccines from Wyeth Labs. Those too produced cases of paralysis.

Between 1923 and 1953, before the Salk vaccine’s introduction, the polio death rate in the US had declined on its own by 47 percent; England had observed a similar pattern. Following the use of Salk’s vaccine between 1955 and 1963, cases of polio in the US increased—by 50 percent from 1957 to 1958, and by 80 percent between 1958 and 1959. This was concealed by a US Government change in defining polio, much as the WHO and CDC do today in Africa. Diseases that had previously been grouped together under the umbrella of “polio” began to be reported as separate diseases. One of these was aseptic or viral meningitis, an infectious disease that is difficult to distinguish from poliovirus, or transverse myelitis—a rare spinal cord inflammation, or the Guillain-Barré syndrome. Were all these a result of widespread toxins used in the vaccine? The Government and vaccine industry was not interested in knowing or telling.

Finally in 1963 the US Government replaced Salk’s IPV vaccine with an attenuated oral polio vaccine (OPV) developed by Albert Sabin. As a live virus vaccine, it, too, was and is capable of giving its recipients polio or polio symptoms. Salk testified before a Senate subcommittee in 1977 that the Sabin oral polio vaccine had caused most of the polio cases in the US since the early 1960s.

Rockefeller eugenics?

The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which funded both Salk and his rival Sabin in development of polio vaccines in the 1950’s, was run by two doctors from the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research– Dr. Henry Kumm who had spent 23 years with the Rockefeller Institute, and Dr. Thomas Rivers.

Henry Kumm went over to the National Foundation in 1951 at the peak of the polio epidemic. In May 1953, Kumm became Director of Polio Research at NFIP. Notably, during World War II Kumm had served as civilian consultant to the Surgeon General of the US Army in Italy, directing field studies for the use of DDT against malarial mosquitoes.

Thomas Rivers was from 1922 head of the infectious disease ward at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, becoming the institute’s director in 1937. As chairman of committees on research and vaccine advisory for the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, he oversaw the clinical trials of Jonas Salk’s vaccine by Dr Kumm’s group. It could be said that the National Foundation was a mask for a massive Rockefeller polio vaccine project.

Polio researcher David Oshisky stated,

“In truth, polio was never the raging epidemic portrayed in the media, not even at its height in the 1940s and 1950s. Ten times as many children would die in accidents in those years, and three times as many would die of cancer. Polio’s special status was due, in large part, to the efforts of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, better known as the March of Dimes, which employed the latest techniques in advertising, fund raising and motivational research to turn a horrific but relatively uncommon disease in to the most feared affliction of its time. The genius of the National Polio Foundation lay in its ability to single out polio for special attention, making it seem more ominous than other diseases.”

That National Foundation was run by Rockefeller doctors. This is very much what the Gates Foundation is doing with its turbo-charged oral polio vaccine in Africa where polio had almost vanished before the mass vaccine campaign of WHO and Gates.

Here the bond of dedication to eugenics and to dangerous vaccines seems to unite both the Rockefellers and Bill Gates, who in many ways is merely the heir and continuation of the deadly eugenics work of the Rockefellers. All this should give pause before regarding the pronouncements of Bill Gates on coronavirus and his favored vaccines as the scientific good truth.

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

Featured image is from NEO

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There has been a lot of talk about a Russian-Iranian conflict of interest in Syria and the differences of priorities, goals, and about the deployment of the Iranian forces in different Syrian provinces, in particular in the south of Syria bordering the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. In reality, there are organised disagreements which the various players have accepted without this necessarily affecting their primary objectives. However, Iran seems to have decided to take more escalatory steps in Syria that are expected to cause concern in Israel. This step follows the normalisation of the Emirates and Bahrein relations with Israel, whose open relationship and collaboration with the Gulf countries now give Israel a presence directly on Iranian borders.

During the years of the Syrian war, Israel tried everything in its power to topple President Bashar al-Assad to allow ISIS and Al-Qaeda to win. The Israeli air force bombed hundreds of objectives over the entire Syrian map to no avail. Iran’s support for Syrian stability and unity and its victory over takfiri terrorists and their backers in the region and the international community earned a privileged presence for Iran’s forces and its allies in Syria.

Speculation has abounded about Russian efforts to push Iran back 40 kilometres away from the occupied Golan Heights. However, the reality – according to well-informed sources in Syria – is different. Iranian advisors and military experts are present with their allies along the borders and in the areas of Daraa and Quneitra in particular.The sources explain that “due to the recent developments (normalisation with Gulf countries) in the Middle East, Israel is now moving on the borders of Iran and has a security and military presence there.

Consequently, Tehran is preparing to show its existence and …

Read full article here.

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Today was the worst day for the defence since the start of the trial, as their expert witnesses failed to cope with the sheer aggression of cross-examination by the US Government and found themselves backing away from maintaining propositions they knew to be true. It was uncomfortable viewing.

It was not that the prosecution had in any way changed their very systematic techniques of denigrating and browbeating; in fact the precise prosecution template was once again followed. It goes like this.

1. undermine academic credentials as not precisely relevant
2. humiliate by repeated memory test questions of precise phrasing of obscure regulations or definitions
3. denigrate relevance of practical experience
4. iterate official positions and challenge witness to say they are expressed by named officials in bad faith
5. humiliate by asking witness to repeat from memory regulations for expert testimony in UK courts
6. run though a list of qualifications and government positions relevant to the subject and make witness say one by one they have not held them
7. claim testimony is biased or worthless because it does not include government assertions at full length.

You will note that none of this has anything to do with the truth of the actual evidence, and to date almost all witnesses have easily, sometimes contemptuously, seen off this intellectually shallow method of attack. But today was another story. The irony was that, when it came to the real subject matter of the evidence, it was obvious to any reasonable person that the prosecution claims of the good conditions in the American Prison service for high profile national security prisoners are just nonsense. But it was a day when the divorce between truth and court process was still plainer than usual. Given the horrific reality this process was disguising, it was a hard day to sit through.

First to give evidence by videolink was Yancey Ellis. An attorney with a doctorate in law, Ellis has been practising for 15 years including five as a US Marine Judge Advocate. He currently practises in Alexandria, Virginia, where he is now private, having formally been a public defender. As such he is very familiar with the Alexandria Detention Centre where Assange would be held pre-trial. This includes visiting clients in the Administrative Segregation, (AdSeg or X block) where high profile and national security prisoners are held.

He testified that pre-trail detention could last many months or even years. Isolation from other prisoners is the purpose of the X block. Prisoners are in tiny cells of approximately 50 square feet, which is under 5 square metres. The bed is a shelf. On a daily basis only one to two hours are allowed outside the cell, into a small area outside at a time when nobody else is there. The second hour was generally available only in the middle of the night, so was not utilised.

Edward Fitzgerald, QC for the defence, asked Ellis whether prisoners in Administrative segregation could associate. Ellis replied “not really”. The purpose of AdSeg was to prevent it. You were never allowed out of your cell at the same time as another AdSeg prisoner. Contrary to the assertions of Gordon Kromberg, it was very difficult to talk through the thick steel doors. You would have to scream at the top of your voice to be heard at all. Ellis had tried it himself to consult with his clients. Communication was only possible if he could find a deputy to open a food flap for him. As prisoners in AdSeg were locked down, the unit was not usually staffed.

Ellis said that AdSeg was solitary confinement, on the definition of more than 22 hours a day alone with no human interaction. In practise, there was no appeal to the judicial authorities on prison conditions. “Courts will defer to the jail on how they house inmates” [which of course mirrors Baraitser’s answers to requests to ameliorate Assange’s periods in solitary confinement and other mistreatment in Belmarsh prison].

Fitzgerald pointed out that the AdSeg regime Ellis described was even without the addition of Special Administrative Measures, which bring additional restrictions. Ellis confirmed none of the clients he represented was subject to SAMs. He confirmed they did get phone access, but only to a service that allowed them to send “pre-recorded phone calls” to relatives. Fitzgerald then asked how this was affected by SAMs, but James Lewis QC objected on the grounds Ellis had said he had no direct knowledge and Baraitser upheld that.

Fitzgerald asked Lewis about provision of medical and psychiatric care. Ellis replied that the Alexandria Detention Centre does not employ a doctor. There were some social work and counselling services available in-house. Medical services were provided by a private firm. It could take several weeks to see a psychiatrist, even in a crisis. Asked about suicide risk, Ellis said prisoners could be made to wear a “special suit” [straitjacket?] and had shoelaces, belt etc. removed.

James Lewis QC then cross-examined for the US government and I think this is best conveyed as dialogue. Again this is slightly condensed and paraphrased. It is not a transcript (it would be illegal for me to take a transcript; no, I don’t know why either).

Lewis You have described US Assistant Attorney Gordon Kromberg’s testimony as “inaccurate or incomplete”. How many prisoners are there currently in Alexandria Detention Centre?
Ellis Approximately 300.
Lewis You say there are four or six cells in administrative segregation?
Ellis Yes, in the H block.
Lewis Your info comes from your visits and from prisoners?
Ellis Yes.
Lewis Have you interviewed the governor?
Ellis No.
Lewis Have you interviewed the custodial staff?
Ellis No.
Lewis Have you interviewed the psychiatrists or psychologists?
Ellis No.
Lewis You have given one side of the story. One side of the picture. Do you agree?
Ellis Do I agree there are two sides to every story?
Lewis US Marshalls annually inspect the jail. Do you disagree?
Ellis I don’t know.
Lewis Kromberg says it was inspected on August 5 2019 by US Marshalls and found fully compliant. What do you say?
Ellis Alright.
Lewis Also the Commonwealth of Virginia inspected July 23-5 2019. There have been no suicides during the current inspection period.
Ellis They have a good track record when it comes to completed suicides.
Lewis Have you read these reports? Do you know the findings of these reports? You don’t know how prisoners are assessed for different types of housing?
Ellis I have frequently asked for assessment reports in individual cases. I have never been given them.
Lewis You don’t know that Assange will be placed in Administrative Segregation?
Ellis I would bet that he will.
Lewis Kromberg has stated that AdSeg prisoners have access to prisoner programmes but you have testified otherwise. But you have never represented federal prisoners, have you?
Ellis There is no difference in treatment inside the jail between state and federal prisoners.
Lewis Were you asked by the defence to state that AdSeg is solitary confinement?
Ellis No.
Lewis There is unlimited access to your lawyers. That is not considered in your definition of solitary confinement.
Ellis Not unlimited.
Lewis AdSeg prisoners have library access?
Ellis Rarely. They may be able to go there in their time outside the cell, but only if it can be empty at that time so they do not meet anybody.
Lewis You say Assange will be housed in AdSeg on the ground floor. You cannot know that.
Ellis National security prisoners are all on the ground floor. The higher floors are for general population.
Lewis Your clients in AdSeg were a security risk. Do you know that Assange will be so deemed?
Ellis No.
Lewis How do you know Assange won’t be kept in the medical wing?
Ellis High profile prisoners are not allowed to mix with the general population.
Lewis But won’t Mr Assange benefit from a phalanx of lawyers questioning his conditions. Don’t you think his publicity and support will bring better treatment?
Ellis I don’t know that will be the effect.

Edward Fitzgerald then re-examined for the defence.

Fitzgerald Your judgements are based on your personal observations?
Ellis Yes, and the reports of my clients.
Fitzgerald And why do you say Assange will be kept on the H block?
Ellis It’s the design of the jail. Nowhere else a long term AdSeg prisoner could be held.
Fitzgerald On prisoner programmes, you say they would not be possible if it involved meeting another prisoner?
Ellis Yes, and there are no individual programmes.

For the first time in this trial, Baraitser herself now asked a question of the witness. She asked Ellis why he thought Assange would not be held in the general prison population, as he currently was at Belmarsh. Ellis said it was because he was a public figure in a high profile case. Baraitser suggested that in the UK, being a high profile figure did not mean different treatment. Ellis said he was simply recounting the actual practice of the Alexandria jail in such cases.

Baraitser’s intervention was extraordinary given she had heard irrefutable evidence from Dr Blackwood that Assange had been placed into isolation in the medical wing in Belmarsh after somebody took a brief snatch of video of him, to prevent “reputational damage” to the prison. Yes, now she was saying high profile prisoners in the UK are not removed from the general prison population. She seems to have an infallible mental filter for blocking inconvenient information.

Her less subconscious filter was next in evidence, as there was time for a quick procedural judgement before the next witness, on the question of the decision of the prison governor on Julian Assange in the razor blade in the cell case. The record of the hearing on this ran to a minimum of 19 paragraphs, the judgement itself being in paragraph 19. Baraitser had indicated she was minded only to take para 19 as evidence, although the defence said the whole document contained very useful information. I am told that paras 1 to 18 include information on the extraordinary decision to place Julian Assange in solitary confinement disguised as “healthcare”, including the fact Belmarsh chief medic Dr Daly had produced not one of the compulsory monthly medical reports in his five months on the medical wing.

In one of those accommodations I find inexplicable, the defence conceded, without forcing Baraitser to a judgement, that paragraphs 1 to 18 should be ignored and only para 19 accepted as evidence, on the understanding it did establish the existence of the razor blade and thus vindicate Prof Kopelman’s judgement, and showed the charge had merely been dismissed as not timeous.

Yancey Ellis’s cross-examination above reads very well, and he did provide good answers to the prosecution attack. But he sounded rattled and nervous, and the performance was less convincing than it reads. This was to get much worse for the defence.

The next witness was Joel Sickler. He has a Master’s degree in the administration of justice and has worked for forty years in sentencing and advocacy. He is head of an organisation called Justice in Alexandria, Virginia, an expert in prison conditions, and has visited over 50 prisons across the United States. His organisation makes representations to the court on which institutions are suitable for a prisoner. He testified that he had made dozens of visits to the Alexandria Detention Centre.

He testified that in line with policy Assange would be placed in AdSeg due to his involvement in national security issues and concerns he might pass secrets on to other prisoners. He might also be categorised as needing protection from other prisoners and from self-harm. He would have zero to very limited contact with other prisoners. Sickler characterised Kromberg’s claim that inmates could communicate with each other through the steel doors and thick plexiglass windows as “ridiculous”. If SAMs were applied on top, that involved statutory isolation.

Sickler said that his knowledge of post-incarceration conditions at ADX Florence in Colorado came largely from reading reports. He had one client in there who was not subject to SAMs but was still effectively in solitary confinement for twenty years, despite a clean conduct record. Fitzgerald asked about provision of medical and psychiatric care, and Sickler stated that across the federal system he had dozens of clients who had found a way to commit suicide. In ADX specifically, there was a possibility of being transferred to a Federal medical centre in extreme cases.

At the ADX, Assange would be kept in the SSU known as the H block. With or without SAMs, contact with other prisoners would be completely barred. Contact with the outside world would be extraordinarily limited. Any contact permitted with family would be monitored by the FBI. One 15-minute phone call was allowed per month. Post conviction, contact with lawyers was very limited.

Fitzgerald asked how you could appeal against SAMs or other prison conditions. Sickler replied that appealing even over minor administrative matters virtually never succeeds. SAMs can only be varied by the Attorney General. In the prison system generally, Sickler had filed many thousands of requests on prison conditions and perhaps a dozen had succeeded. With SAMs there was effectively no chance. Solitary confinement could be indefinite in ADX – there was no upper limit.

Fitzgerald asked about changes in the prison after the Cunningham Mitigation settlement. Sickler said changes had been nominal. Any real improvement had only affected lower security prisoners. On prison conditions in general “Official statements, public pronouncements are one thing, reality in prison is something else”. The affidavit by Dr Alison Leukefeld for the government looked great on paper but was not the practice. On the other hand, reports by organisations like the Marshall Project exactly matched with his practical experience. Official statistics, like only 3% of federal prisoners having mental health problems, “do not ring true to me”. There was a significant risk Assange would not receive adequate physical and mental healthcare.

Clair Dobbin then rose to cross-examine. Again, I will report this as dialogue.

Dobbin What do you actually do? Do you work for the defence in cases?
Sickler Yes, I help identify the appropriate institution for imprisonment and help clients navigate the prison system.
Dobbin So prisoner advocacy?
Sickler Yes.
Dobbin So you only go to prisons to visit those you represent?
Sickler Yes.
Dobbin So you are not a prison inspector?
Sickler No, I am not.
Dobbin So you are not an academic?
Sickler No, I am not.
Dobbin So you are not a psychiatrist?
Sickler No, I am not.
Dobbin So you are not a researcher?
Sickler No, I am not.
Dobbin So you are not a doctor? You don’t get to see medical records?
Sickler No, I am not. But I retain a medical consultant. I look at medical reports and I initiate conduct reports on a daily basis.
Dobbin But you don’t have across the board access? Only in respect of your clients?
Sickler That is right.
Dobbin But you are not a clinician. You do not have the authority to validate medical opinion?
Sickler No, but I employ a medical consultant.
Dobbin Is this consultant a clinical psychiatrist?
Sickler No.
Dobbin Have you represented anybody on SAMs?
Sickler No. SAM-like procedures, but not SAMs which can only be ordered by the attorney general.
Dobbin But you said clearly in your affidavit that you have SAM clients. Did you put that there because you want to give the impression you have more expertise than you do?
Sickler Of course not.
Dobbin You have never been to the AdSeg area of Alexandria Detention Centre. So what is your opinion based on?
Sickler Information given to me by numerous third parties including my clients, other lawyers and the public defender.
Dobbin But did you not think it was important to make plain in your statement this is hearsay?
Sickler I didn’t see the distinction as important.
Dobbin Did you see the rules governing expert evidence to this court?
Sickler Yes. I did not think that was against the rules.
Dobbin You have seen Kromberg’s statement. Do you accept there may be legitimate reasons for Assange to be in AdSeg?
Sickler Absolutely.
Dobbin Prisoners in protective custody receive all the same services and rights as other prisoners?
Sickler Of course.
Dobbin Do you agree that he would be able to attend programmes with other prisoners?
Sickler Not if under SAMs.
Dobbin Do you agree that those in protective custody can meet with other prisoners?
Sickler Certainly.
Dobbin Do you agree there are no restrictions on access to lawyers?
Sickler Absolutely, there is a constitutional right.
Dobbin Do you agree that SAMs can only be imposed by the Attorney General?
Sickler Yes.
Dobbin What is the procedure for that?
Sickler It involves consulting the intelligence agencies.
Dobbin It needs the certification of one of the heads of one of the security agencies that the prisoner is a threat to the United States?
Sickler Yes.
Dobbin You cannot know that Assange will get SAMs. And SAMs differ from person to person.
Sickler Yes, correct.
Dobbin In the case of convicted terrorist El-Haj, he was under SAMs but still allowed access to family members?
Sickler Yes, his immediate family.
Dobbin Provisions depend on the individual prisoner?
Sickler Yes.
Dobbin The judge who convicted [another prisoner not heard clearly] entered the MMC personally to check on prison conditions. Does that not show there is good judicial supervision?
Sickler I have seen it, on rare occasions.
Dobbin SAMS does not restrict access to lawyers.
Sickler How do you access lawyers in Florida ADX? And pre-trial there are scheduling difficulties. If he is under SAMs his lawyer will himself be subject to surveillance.
Dobbin What evidence do you have for that?
Sickler The Lynne Stewart case. Lindsay Lewis.
Dobbin Lynne Stewart was running a message for jihadists (she added much alleged detail). Her client was subject to SAMs to prevent him running a terrorist organisation.
Sickler The case, and others, had a chilling effect on the willingness of lawyers to take on SAM cases involving national security.
Dobbin The Alexandria Detention Centre is not overcrowded
Sickler No, it’s below capacity. It is a well-run jail. The staff are very professional.
Dobbin Kromberg sets out very substantial medical staffing levels.
Sickler I understand those are mostly private contractors, not prison staff. In practice prisoner needs are not meaningfully met. It takes a few days to a few weeks to get treatment.
Dobbin But they do get sufficient treatment?
Sickler There is no real psychiatric intervention. This is not top tier. Usually prisoners are just medicated.
Dobbin So they have access to medication? And someone to talk to?
Sickler Correct.
Dobbin Your evidence only refers to one suicide, at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre.
Sickler That is just one example, one of my current cases.
Dobbin But two prison officers have been charged for that.
Sickler We are always swift to blame a little man.
Dobbin It was not the protocols that were wrong, just two people did not do their job. [This is possibly the Epstein case.] The ADC has a good record on suicide.
Sickler It is a very very arduous, almost torturous system of confinement in AdSeg. Assange has depression and is on the autism spectrum. It will be unbearable for him. Even with healthy clients of mine, there has been a terrifying deterioration in these conditions.
Dobbin The evidence is they are successful in preventing suicide at the ADC.
Sickler Yes, they have a stellar record.
Dobbin In the Babar Ahmad case (2012), the European Court of Human Rights considered SAMs and ruled it was not an unacceptable regime. Has anything changed since 2012?
Sickler Not significantly.
Dobbin You initially said in your report Assange might not be sent to ADX. Now you change your mind. Sentencing is at the discretion of the judge. There is no basis for your report.
Sickler I changed my mind in the intervening period. From the second superseding indictment, the charge is now espionage and the government alleges Assange is a continuing threat to the USA.
Dobbin You were a consultant in the Reality Winner case. She only got 53 months.
Sickler She was a qualitatively different kind of defendant.
Dobbin She was an insider. They normally get harsher sentences. She is serving her sentence in a medical facility.
Sickler Not on medical grounds. It is the closest federal incarceration facility to her family.
Dobbin You say Assange would be in solitary confinement. But Kromberg states that most inmates in special housing are in double cells with a cell-mate.
Sickler That can be worse. Many are violent and mentally unwell. Assaults by cellmates are frequent.

There followed an interchange where Dobbin tried to trip up Sickler over the procedures for committing someone to ADX Florida, but he proved knowledgeable in detail.

Dobbin The procedures say that prisoners with health conditions will not be sent to the ADX unless there are serious security concerns.
Sickler Abu Hamza is there and he has no arms.
Dobbin There are just 14 people in ADX in this category. You have not been there. How do you get your information?
Sickler Reports including the Lowenstein Center and the Center for Constitutional Rights
Dobbin Prisoners at ADX do get family visits.
Sickler How often would Mr Assange get family visits? Why don’t you tell the court?
Dobbin [name not heard] a convicted terrorist who attempted to blow up a plane is in ADX and gets family visits and phone calls.
Sickler He is allowed communication with two named family members. But how often is he allowed to call or see them?
Dobbin You have said solitary confinement at the ADX can be indefinite?
Sickler That’s my impression.
Dobbin What is your source of information?
Sickler It’s from prisoners and lawyers. It’s anecdotal, I admit. But are you saying at some point the US government will decide that Assange won’t be likely to divulge classified information?
Dobbin Do you understand that there are three levels in the H block that defendants can work themselves through to get out?
Sickler No.
Dobbin Did you know that even in SAMs, prisoners can mingle together for social periods?
Sickler No, I did not.
Dobbin (Quotes ECHR judgement endorsing the stepdown programme)
Sickler You have to be within 2 years of release. If you are designated by the Attorney General for SAMs, you are not eligible for that programme. Conditions in the ADX are extraordinarily arduous.
Dobbin Kromberg sets out the stages and says that stage 3 allows contact with other prisoners

Sickler It sounds awful. Even when you reach phase 3 with the extra privileges. If they do that in practice, well that’s wonderful. It still sounds awful to me.
Dobbin There is a progression.
Sickler I should like to know how long it takes.
Dobbin Do you know the numbers who have come out of the ADX? Shouldn’t you know these facts?
Sickler The place is torturous. That is not in dispute.
Dobbin How inmates are treated will depend on how big a security risk they are.
Sickler Precisely.
Dobbin Medical care at the ADX is not affected by SAMs.
Sickler OK.
Dobbin Do you agree that as a result of the Cunningham Settlement there has been a substantial improvement?
Sickler I cannot say.
Dobbin Gordon Kromberg testifies that ADX Colorado has more mental health provision per inmate than any other federal prison.
Sickler That is needed because of the extreme circumstances people are kept in.
Dobbin Does that not indicate to you that the standard of care is good?
Sickler Is there meaningful patient/clinician interaction? I don’t know.
Dobbin The Cunningham Settlement led to over 100 people being removed from ADX.
Sickler But how many had SAMs?
Dobbin We have established that you don’t know anything about the movement out of people with SAMs.
Sickler Yes, you have established that.
Dobbin As a result of the Cunningham Mitigation two new mental institutions were established.
Sickler Yes, for schizophrenia and psychoses.
Dobbin A Department of Corrections report of 2014 shows that some inmates never want to leave ADX as they find the standard of care so good. They re-offend to get back in.
Sickler They cherry-pick whom they speak to. Most prisoners are desperate to get out.
Dobbin Every report gets an official response from the Board of Prisons and policies are constantly upgraded.
Sickler Yes, but I just don’t see results in practice. I had one client recently, a prisoner, who rather than being treated was beaten up and thrown naked in the hole. It took months before a court got him out. Another was refused his diagnosed and prescribed medicines as not in the BoP formulary.
Dobbin In the first case there was judicial review. So the system works.
Sickler After six months.

There was more of this. The cross-examination lasted two and a half hours. Again, it seems much more convincing from Sickler written down than it did live, where he appeared shaken by the aggression. The answers he gave which sound like firm responses, sounded petulant and throwaway when he delivered them. He gave the impression that it was not worth his time to engage with the unreasonable Dobbin and, while I heartily sympathise, that was not the requirement of the moment.

Sickler very definitely gave the impression he was at times agreeing with the prosecutor just because that was the easier line of action. He often did so in a voice that suggested scepticism, sarcasm or mockery, but that was not plain in his words and will not be apparent in the transcript. In normal life, making short sarcastic responses like “Oh yes, it’s marvellous” in reply to ludicrous assertions by the prosecution about the provision of US supermax prisons, may work as a form of ridicule; in a court setting it does not work at all. In fairness to Mr Sickler, being at home rather than actually in a court session will partly account for it. But the court record will say Sickler says prisoner provision in US supermax prisons is marvellous. It doesn’t note sarcasm.

Dobbin is officious beyond the point of offensive; she comes over as properly obnoxious as a person.

The unpleasant irony in all this is that both Sickler and Ellis were mocked and scorned for their lack of personal knowledge of ADX Colorado, when prosecution and judge had combined just on Friday to bar two witnesses who the defence both wished to testify, who had expert personal experience of ADX Florence. That is yet another striking example of the fact that this process is divorced from any genuine attempt to find truth or justice.

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Featured image is from Wired

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Colombian President Iván Duque, meeting in Bogotá on Sept. 20, talked about “managing the COVID-19 response … narcotraffickers … and [President] Maduro’s illegitimate regime,” according to the State Department. A Cuban observer insists they explored “when to begin military actions and sabotage in Venezuela.” Elliott Abrams, the White House official responsible for Venezuelan affairs, dismissed the idea of U.S. military engagement as an “absurdity.”

As talks were taking place in Bogotá, joint naval and air force exercises were underway along Colombia’s Caribbean coast. Supposedly, they were preparing to fight an illicit drug trade attributed to Venezuela. That’s why the U.S. Navy has been monitoring Venezuela’s northern coast since April. Colombia itself, of course, supplies most of the illegal drugs entering the United States.

The specter looms of an “October Surprise,” that staple of U.S. presidential electioneering. It’s widely assumed that to win in Florida, candidates must show off their anti-revolutionary zeal to voters of Cuban or Venezuelan origin. Decisive action against Venezuela now might do the trick.

Colombia acts as the local U.S. enforcer as regards Venezuela. That role grew out of the U.S.’ “Plan Colombia,” which after 2000 had the United States building up Colombia’s military, harassing leftist insurgents, and establishing a base for regional military operations—all under the pretext of combating illegal drugs.

Before arriving in Bogotá, Pompeo had visited Venezuela’s other neighbors—Surinam, Brazil, and Guyana. In Boa Vista, located 141 miles from the Venezuelan border, he met with Brazil’s foreign minister and commiserated with Venezuelan refugees.

Pompeo backed Guyana’s resistance to a Venezuelan claim on the Essequibo region, where ExxonMobil is extracting oil. He authorized U.S. participation in military patrols along that disputed border. China, investing in Guyana and Surinam, has invited both to join its Belt and Road initiative.

On Aug. 18 in Bogotá, White House National Security advisor Robert O’Brien had already presented President Duque with a new version of Plan Colombia called “Colombia Grows.” By way of nurturing the alliance, it offers “rural development, infrastructure expansion, [and] new opportunities for investment.” The presence at the meeting of Admiral Craig Fuller, Chief of the U.S. Southern Command, and Mauricio Claver-Carone, head at the time of the National Security Council’s Western Hemisphere Division, suggests Venezuela was on the agenda.

Venezuela is in the spotlight now for good reason. National Assembly elections take place there on Dec. 6, and the right-wing opposition is fractured. Both the United States and Juan Guaidó, the former National Assembly president named as Venezuela’s president by the United States, want an election boycott. Other opposition groups and leaders, notably former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, will be participating.

Signs of unity are cropping up—not good news in Washington. Says a government supporter:

“on December 6, many of us will vote for the government, others will vote for the opposition, but all of us … will be voting against the criminal blockade that has caused us so much damage.”

For the U.S. government, any hint of election normalcy would be a reverse. Sympathetic world leaders, counting on a new government in Venezuela but detecting signs of durability, might adjust their thinking. Maybe the present show of hostility—the meetings, naval maneuvers, and new sanctions on diesel fuel—would keep them in line.

U.S. strategists may be fretting also because regime change hasn’t happened, despite all the financial and logistical support that’s been delivered to Venezuelan dissidents and plotters during the presidencies of both Presidents Maduro and Chávez.

The list of recent attacks is impressive: street protests in 2014 and 2017, a drone attack against Venezuela’s top leaders in August 2018, humanitarian aid pushed across the Colombia-Venezuela border in January 2019 to incite a military uprising, a cyber-attack causing a nationwide electrical blackout in March 2019, a military officers’ coup attempt in April 2019 backed by Guaidó, and in May renegade Venezuelan troops led by former U.S. Green Berets invading from Colombia.

Plotters often plan and prepare in Colombia and find refuge there afterwards.

U.S. economic sanctions and U.S. plundering of Venezuela’s economic assets abroad have led to devastating shortages of credit, food, medicines, and supplies for oil production, which has collapsed. Oil exports have accounted for more than 95% of the country’s export income. There’s no other money available to pay for imported food and medicines or for social services. Even so, Venezuela’s government survives.

In Colombia presently, societal disruption and a newly energized protest movement may be deflecting the government’s attention from regime change in Venezuela.

Unemployment is 20.2 percent; 19 million Colombians live in poverty, eight million in extreme poverty; 6.5 percent of the people are food-deprived; 2 million Colombians are illiterate; the health care system is a disaster. According to one report, 992 social leaders and 229 former FARC insurgents have been killed since late 2016, when the government’s peace agreement with the FARC was signed.

A U.S. “Security Force Assistance Brigade” arrived in early June to prepare a “full spectrum offensive against Venezuela.” But Colombia’s Senate rejected its presence, a court decision validated the Senate’s action, and then Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo welcomed the U.S. troops anyway. A U.S. military presence in Colombia is not new, but now popular opposition to more U.S. troops is growing.

Police in Bogotá killed law student Javier Ordóñez on Sept. 9. He had joined many thousands who were protesting the killings of social leaders, a flawed response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and neoliberalism. Later that day, the police killed 11 young people. Broadening their demands, demonstrators called for Pompeo’s visit and the U.S.-Colombian military exercises to be canceled.

Former President Álvaro Uribe, meanwhile, is under house arrest. This recipient of the U.S. Medal of Freedom and collaborator with drug traffickers and murderous paramilitaries is accused of complicity in three paramilitary massacres, including the El Aro massacre of 1997. Former paramilitary chieftain Salvatore Mancuso, responsible for that massacre and recently released from a U.S. prison, is resisting repatriation to Colombia, where he might have to testify against Uribe. An obliging U.S. government may let him stay. Colombian critics of Uribe and his protégé Duque are outraged.

In both countries, ramifications of the pandemic, serious economic problems, and political divisions serve, if for nothing else, to lessen the urgency of other concerns. It’s a context in which, for many Colombians, plotting against Venezuela, especially in collaboration with the United States, may no longer be a priority. In Colombia, reports one observer, Duque has “all but lost legitimacy as president.”

If indeed direct military intervention is unlikely, the option of undercover war remains. In fact, paramilitary detachments have been operating in Venezuela for many years. The U.S. government itself recently showed what war in the shadows will look like.

Venezuelan authorities are prosecuting a CIA-connected former U.S. Marine who, well-armed and with explosives, was arrested on Sept. 14 with Venezuelan accomplices near a large oil-refinery complex in Falcón State. Matthew John Heath is accused of preparing “acts of sabotage.”

Question: How committed are anti-Venezuelan hawks in the United States to direct military intervention? Maybe they doubt the capabilities of their Colombian ally. Maybe a mess of the kind visited upon Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya would be too close to home. Maybe, in the end, harassing the Maduro government, destabilization, and bluster will be enough, at least for keeping their foreign and domestic friends in line.

Masses of working people in Venezuela are mobilized for better lives and for peace. They are anti-imperialist. They are why their government survives. It would survive easier with a kindred movement in Colombia. A U.S. version would be icing on the cake.

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W.T. Whitney Jr. grew up on a dairy farm in Vermont and now lives in rural Maine. He practiced and taught pediatrics for 35 years and long ago joined the Cuba solidarity movement, working with Let Cuba Live of Maine, Pastors for Peace, and the Venceremos Brigade. He writes on Latin America and health issues for the People’s World.

Featured image: Rally in rejection of the U.S. destabilizing plan against Venezuela, 2019. | Photo: Twitter/ @codepink

Jenn Zhu 朱骤琴

2020年9月

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纵观人类历史，不论是东方还是西方，人类社会大凡过几十年就会出现一次

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The English version of this article is:

On Proper Naming: The Reflection of Ancient Asian Philosophy on Modern Society. The Quest for Peace and Livelihood

By Jenn Zhu, September 23, 2020

http://www.qixiansong.com/eArtic-LunZhengming.html

No Mediterrâneo Oriental, em cujas profundezas foram descobertas grandes jazidas offshore de gás natural, está em curso um contencioso acirrado sobre a definição de zonas económicas exclusivas, dentro das quais (até 200 milhas da costa) cada um dos países costeiros tem o direito de explorar essas reservas.

Os países directamente envolvidos são a Grécia, a Turquia, o Chipre, a Síria, o Líbano, a Palestina, Israel, (cujas jazidas, nas águas de Gaza, estão nas mãos de Israel), o Egito e a Líbia. O confronto é particularmente tenso entre a Grécia e a Turquia, ambos países membros da NATO. A aposta em jogo não é apenas económica.

A verdadeira discórdia que se joga no Mediterrâneo Oriental é geopolítica e geoestratégica e envolve as grandes potências mundiais. Neste âmbito insere-se o EastMed, o gasoduto que trará para a União Europeia grande parte do gás desta área. A sua realização foi decidida na cimeira, realizada em Jerusalém em 20 de Março de 2019, entre o Primeiro Ministro israelita Netanyahu, o Primeiro Ministro grego Tsipras e o Presidente cipriota Anastasiades.

Netanyahu salientou que “o gasoduto se estenderá de Israel à Europa através do Chipre e da Grécia” e Israel tornar-se-á assim uma “potência energética” (que controlará o corredor energético para a Europa), Tsipras sublinhou que “a cooperação entre Israel, a Grécia e o Chipre, na sexta cimeira, tornou-se estratégica».

Esta cooperação é confirmada pelo pacto militar assinado pelo governo de Tsipras com Israel há cinco anos (il manifesto, 28 de Julho de 2015). Na cimeira de Jerusalém (cujas actas, publicadas pela Embaixada dos EUA no Chipre),esteve presente Mike Pompeo, Secretário de Estado americano, sublinhando que o projecto EastMed lançado por Israel, pela Grécia e pelo Chipre, “parceiros fundamentais dos EUA para a segurança”, é “incrivelmente oportuno”, já que “a  Rússia, a China e o Irão estão a tentar colocar os pés no Oriente e no Ocidente”.

A estratégia dos EUA é declarada: reduzir e finalmente bloquear as exportações do gás russo para a Europa, substituindo-as por gás fornecido ou, de outra forma, controlado pelos EUA. Em 2014, eles bloquearam o SouthStream, que teria trazido através do Mar Negro gás russo para a Itália a preços competitivos, e estão tentando fazer o mesmo com o TurkStream que, através do Mar Negro, transporta o gás russo para a parte europeia da Turquia para fazê-lo chegar à União Europeia.

Ao mesmo tempo, os USA tentam bloquear a Nova Rota da Seda, a rede de infraestruturas concebida para ligar a China ao Mediterrâneo e à Europa. No Médio Oriente, os USA bloquearam com a guerra o corredor de energia que, segundo um acordo de 2011, teria transportado o gás iraniano através do Iraque e da Síria para o Mediterrâneo e para a Europa. A esta estratégia junta-se a Itália, onde (na Apúlia) chegará a EastMed que também levará o gás para outros países europeus.

O Ministro Patuanelli (M5S) definiu o gasoduto, aprovado pela União Europeia, como um dos “projectos europeus de interesse comum”, e a Subsecretária Todde (M5S) levou a Itália a aderir ao East Med Gas Forum, sede de “diálogo e cooperação” sobre o gás no Mediterrâneo Oriental, do qual participam – além de Israel, da Grécia e do Chipre – o Egipto e a Autoridade Palestina. Também participa a Jordânia, que não tem jazidas de gás offshore no Mediterrâneo, mas que o importa de Israel.

No entanto, estão excluídos do Fórum, o Líbano, a Síria e a Líbia, a quem pertence parte do gás do Mediterrâneo Oriental. Os Estados Unidos, a França e a União Europeia anunciaram, previamente, a sua adesão. A Turquia não participa devido ao diferendo com a Grécia, que a NATO, no entanto, se compromete a resolver: “delegações militares” dos dois países já se reuniram seis vezes na sede da NATO, em Bruxelas. Todavia, no Mediterrâneo Oriental e no vizinho Mar Negro, está em curso um destacamento crescente de forças navais dos EUA na Europa, com sede em Nápoles Capodichino.

A sua “missão” é “defender os interesses dos Estados Unidos e dos Aliados e desencorajar a agressão [‘russa’]” e a mesma “missão” para os bombardeiros estratégicos americanos B-52, que sobrevoam o Mediterrâneo Oriental acompanhados por caças gregos e italianos.

Manlio Dinucci

Artigo original em italiano :

Gasdotto esplosivo nel Mediterraneo

ilmanifesto.it

Tradutora : Maria Luísa de Vasconcellos 

Nel Mediterraneo orientale, nei cui fondali sono stati scoperti grandi giacimenti offshore di gas naturale, è in corso un aspro contenzioso per la definizione delle zone economiche esclusive, al cui interno (fino a 200 miglia dalla costa) ciascuno dei paesi rivieraschi ha i diritti di sfruttamento dei giacimenti.

I paesi direttamente coinvolti sono Grecia, Turchia, Cipro, Siria, Libano, Israele, Palestina (i cui giacimenti, nelle acque di Gaza, sono in mano a Israele), Egitto e Libia. Particolarmente teso è il confronto tra Grecia e Turchia, ambedue membri della Nato. La posta in gioco non è solo economica.

La vera partita che si gioca nel Mediterraneo orientale è geopolitica e geostrategica, e coinvolge le maggiori potenze mondiali. In tale quadro si inserisce l’EastMed, il condotto che porterà nella Ue gran parte del gas di quest’area. La sua realizzazione è stata decisa al summit, svoltosi a Gerusalemme il 20 marzo 2019, tra il premier israeliano Netanyahu, il premier greco Tsipras e il presidente cipriota Anastasiades. Netanyahu ha sottolineato che «il gasdotto si estenderà da Israele all’Europa attraverso Cipro e Grecia» e Israele diverrà così una «potenza energetica» (che controllerà il corridoio energetico verso l’Europa), Tsipras ha sottolineato che «la cooperazione tra Israele, Grecia e Cipro, giunta al sesto summit, è divenuta strategica».

Lo conferma il patto militare stipulato dal governo Tsipras con Israele cinque anni fa (il manifesto, 28 luglio 2015). Al summit di Gerusalemme (i cui atti sono pubblicati dall’Ambasciata Usa a Cipro) ha presenziato il segretario di Stato Usa Mike Pompeo, sottolineando che il progetto EastMed varato da Israele, Grecia e Cipro, «partner fondamentali degli Usa per la sicurezza», è «incredibilmente tempestivo» poiché «Russia, Cina e Iran stanno tentando di mettere piede in Oriente e in Occidente».

La strategia Usa è dichiarata: ridurre e infine bloccare le esportazioni russe di gas in Europa, sostituendole con gas fornito o comunque controllato dagli Usa. Nel 2014 essi hanno bloccato il SouthStream, che attraverso il Mar Nero avrebbe portato in Italia gas russo a prezzi competitivi, e tentano di fare lo stesso con il TurkStream che, attraverso il Mar Nero, porta il gas russo nella parte europea della Turchia per farlo arrivare nella Ue.

Allo stesso tempo gli Usa cercano di bloccare la Nuova Via della Seta, la rete di infrastrutture progettata per collegare la Cina al Mediterraneo e all’Europa. In Medio Oriente, gli Usa hanno bloccato con la guerra il corridoio energetico che, in base a un accordo del 2011, avrebbe trasportato, attraverso Iraq e Siria, gas iraniano fin sul Mediterraneo e in Europa. A questa strategia è accodata l’Italia, dove (in Puglia) arriverà l’EastMed che porterà il gas anche in altri paesi europei. Il ministro Patuanelli (M5S) ha definito il gasdotto, approvato dalla Ue, uno dei «progetti europei di interesse comune», e la sottosegretaria Todde (M5S) ha portato l’adesione dell’Italia all’East Med Gas Forum, sede di «dialogo e cooperazione» sul gas del Mediterraneo orientale, cui partecipano – oltre a Israele, Grecia e Cipro – Egitto e Autorità palestinese. Ne fa parte anche la Giordania, che non ha giacimenti offshore di gas non affacciandosi sul Mediterraneo, ma lo importa da Israele.

Sono invece esclusi dal Forum Libano, Siria e Libia, cui spetta parte del gas del Mediterraneo orientale. Hanno preannunciato la loro adesione Stati uniti, Francia e Ue. La Turchia non vi partecipa per il contenzioso con la Grecia, che la Nato però è impegnata a dirimere: «delegazioni militari» dei due paesi si sono incontrate già sei volte al quartier generale Nato a Bruxelles. Intanto, nel Mediterraneo orientale e nel limitrofo Mar Nero, è in corso un crescente dispiegamento delle Forze navali Usa in Europa, con quartier generale a Napoli Capodichino.

La loro «missione» è «difendere gli interessi Usa e Alleati, e scoraggiare l’aggressione». Stessa «missione» per i bombardieri strategici Usa B-52, che volano sul Mediterraneo orientale affiancati da caccia greci e italiani.

Manlio Dinucci

On September 27, a new regional war in South Caucasus arose from the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Pro-Armenian forces captured the region in the early 90s triggering an armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Further development of the hostilities and the expected offensive by pro-Azerbajian forces were stopped by a Russian intervention in May of 1994. As of September 2020, the Nagorno-Karabakh region and nearby areas are still under the control of Armenian forces, de-facto making it an unrecognized Armenian state – the Republic of Artsakh (more widely known as the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic).

The 2018 political crisis in Armenia the led to a seizure of power in the country by de-facto pro-Western forces led by current Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan which did not strengthen Armenian positions over the territorial dispute. The double standard policy of the Armenian government, which was de-facto conducting anti-Russian actions but keeping public rhetoric pro-Russian, also played its own role. For years, Russia has been the only guarantor of Armenian statehood and the only force capable to rescue it in the event of a full-scale Azerbaijani-Turkish attack. Nonetheless, the Armenian leadership did pretty well in undermining its strategic partnership with its neighbor.

On the other hand, the political and economic situation in Azerbaijan was more stable. Baku also was able to secure good working relations with Russia. Together with the developing strategic partnership with Turkey, a natural historical ally of the country, and the strengthening of Turkish positions in the Greater Middle East, led to an expected attempt by Azerbaijan to restore control over the contested territories.

The Azerbaijani advance started on in the morning of September 27 and as of September 28, the Azerbaijani military said that it had captured seven villages and several key heights in the Fuzuli and Jabrayil areas. The military also announced that Azerbaijan captured the Murov height of the Murovdag mountain range and established fire control of the Vardenis-Aghdar road connecting Karabakh with Armenia. The Ministry of Defense said that this will prevent the transportation of additional troops and equipment from Armenia along the route in the direction of the Kelbajar and Aghdar regions in Karabakh.

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry also claimed that over 550 Armenian soldiers were killed and dozens pieces of Armenian military equipment, including at least 15 Osa air defense systems, 22 battle tanks and 8 artillery guns, were destroyed. All statements from the Armenian side about the casualties among Azerbaijani forces were denounced as fake news.

Azerbaijan calls the ongoing advance a “counter-offensive” needed to put an end to Armenian ceasefire violations and to protect civilians. President Ilham Aliyev signed a martial law decree and vowed to “restore historical justice” and “restore the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan” Turkey immediately declared its full support to Azerbaijan saying that it is ready to assist it in any way requested, including military support.

In its own turn, the Armenian military admitted that Azerbaijan captured some positions near Talish, but denied that the Vardenis-Aghdar road was cut off. According to it, at least 200 Azerbaijani soldiers were killed, 30 armored vehicles and 20 drones were destroyed. The Armenian Defense Ministry also said that it has data about Turkish involvement in the conflict, the usage of Turkish weapons and the presence of mercenaries linked to Turkey. Earlier, reports appeared that Turkey was deploying members of its Syrian proxy groups in Azerbaijan. Arayik Harutyunyan, the President of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, openly stated that the republic is at war with both Azerbaijan and Turkey.

The Washington establishment that helped Pashinyan to seize power is also not hurrying up to assist its ‘new friends’ in Armenia. They see the Nagorno-Karabakh region as a point of possible conflict between Russia and Turkey (which is useful to promote the US agenda in the Greater Middle East). The instability in South Caucasus, close to the borders of Russia and Iran, also contributes to the geopolitical interests of the United States. Therefore, the Pashinyan government should not expect any real help from the ‘democratic superpower’.

On the other hand, the direct involvement of Russia and thus the Collective Security Treaty Organization on the side of Armenia is unlikely until there is no direct attack on its territory. Moscow would intervene into the conflict both politically and militarily, but only as far as necessary to prevent a violation of Armenia’s borders. Russia would not contribute military efforts to restore Armenian control over Nagorno Karabakh should the region be captured by Azerbaijan.

If the regional war between Azerbaijan and Armenia develops further in the current direction, Armenia could loose at least a part of its positions in the contested region. In the worst-case scenario for the Armenian leadership, Azerbaijan, with help from Turkey, will have a real chance to restore control over the most of the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region.

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Conflict sparked up again yesterday in Artsakh, or more commonly known as Nagorno-Karabakh, when Azerbaijan launched an offensive against Armenian forces. Although the Republic of Artsakh is not recognized by any state, including Armenia, and it is still internationally recognized as occupied Azerbaijani territory, it achieved a de facto independence in 1994.

As acting Commissar of Nationalities for the Soviet Union in the early 1920’s, future Soviet leader Joseph Stalin granted the Armenian-majority region of Artsakh to the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic. The Azeris, the dominant ethnic group of Azerbaijan, are cultural and linguistic kin with the Turks. It is said that the Turks and Azeris constitute “one nation in two states.” The defining difference is that Azeris are Shia Muslims unlike Turks who are mostly Sunni. The Soviets had hoped that by granting Artsakh to Azerbaijan instead of Armenia, they could court the newly founded Republic of Turkey to closely align with Moscow, or perhaps even become a Soviet Republic, by appeasing their ethnic Azeri kin.

In 1921, it was estimated that Artsakh was 94% Armenian. However, according to the 1989 census, Artsakh’s population was approximately 75% Armenian and 25% Azeri. Former Soviet Azerbaijani leader Heydar Aliyev, father of current President Ilham Aliyev, said in 2002: “I tried to change demographics there […] I tried to increase the number of Azerbaijanis in Nagorno-Karabakh and the number of Armenians decreased.” The collapse of the Soviet Union unsurprisingly led to the Artsakh War, which only ended after a ceasefire in 1994 when Armenian forces achieved a decisive victory.

Despite Azerbaijan’s defense budget ($2.267 billion) being about five times larger than Armenia’s, they have failed to capture Artsakh on numerous attempts, particularly during the 2016 April War and another major attempt in July of this year. Azerbaijan’s resumption of hostilities yesterday could be passed off as just another skirmish that will subside in a few days. However, the current conditions are far different and much more dangerous than in previous situations.

Although it is well established that the Turkish economy is struggling, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is maintaining a policy of constant crises in the vain attempt to distract the public from the Turkish lira as it continues breaking new record lows to the US dollar and Euro, even as recently as this morning. As the military provocations and rhetoric of war against Greece and Cyprus in the East Mediterranean begins to subside in Ankara, it only took a few days for a new crisis to emerge.

Reports began emerging last week that Turkey was transferring terrorists from northern Syria to Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani leadership in Baku flatly denied the allegations last week and today. However, despite the denials from Baku, it must be remembered that Ankara openly announced its transfer of Syrian fighters to Libya earlier this year and the Azerbaijani’s have undoubtedly used international terrorists from Afghanistan, Chechnya and Turkey during the first Artsakh war in the 1990’s. Photos, videos and voice recordings have emerged that show Syrian terrorists on their way to or already in Azerbaijan. Vardan Toghanya, the Armenian Ambassador to Moscow, said in a statement today that 4,000 militants from Syria already arrived in Azerbaijan, while according to the Armenian intelligence agency, 80 fighters from Syria have already been killed or wounded.

Turkey’s transfer of militants in support of Azerbaijan, which was also done in the 1990’s, is not what makes the current conflict more dangerous compared to previous battles and skirmishes. Starting from last week, Turkey and Azerbaijan have increased their campaign in claiming that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), considered a terrorist organization by both Ankara and Baku, was operating in Artsakh. Neither Ankara and Baku provided any evidence for their claims. This sets a dangerous narrative as it could be used as a way for Turkey to “legitimize” a direct intervention against Armenia and in support of Azerbaijan.

Erdoğan justified his invasion and occupation of large areas of northern Syria and northern Iraq in 2018, 2019 and this year on the pretence that they were fighting against the PKK. Although Armenia denies PKK are operating in Artsakh, this will be ignored by Ankara and Baku.

However, unlike Syria and Iraq, Armenia is a member state of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), alongside Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. A direct Turkish attack on Armenia could activate the CSTO. This would be a dangerous scenario as in turn this could activate NATO in defense of Turkey. It is highly unlikely that the situation in Artsakh will dissolve into a CSTO-NATO faceoff. But the risk still remains, especially if Erdoğan decides to directly intervene under the guise of expelling the PKK from Artsakh.

Just as Erdoğan unleashed a migrant crisis in February and March of this year against Greece, sent Syrian terrorists to Libya in May, conducted a military operation in northern Iraq against the PKK in June, and created a new crisis with Greece by sending warships into its territorial waters in August and for most of September, it appears the new crisis to dominate headlines for the next few weeks will revolve around Artsakh.

Although it is unlikely that Turkey will directly militarily intervene, a dangerous precedent has already been established by pushing the narrative, without publicly available evidence, that the PKK are operating in Artsakh alongside Armenian forces. With the Turkish economy and lira collapsing, Erdoğan in the future may very well use the narrative that the PKK are in Artsakh to ferment public furore and distract them from the declining economic situation.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

A year before the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was murdered, he declared the United States was the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet.

Some people today focus on the moral implications of this statement, disconnected from the groundings Dr. King also provided that helped to explain why the United States was addicted to war and violence. He correctly connected the drive for profit and capitalist exploitation—materialism—with the means to enforce individual and national plunder—militarism—and the racialization of the peoples of the Global South that historically has been used to dehumanize them and thereby justify the seizure of their lands, lives and independence.

On October 1, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) will highlight the latest expression of colonial hubris and white supremacist arrogance by organizing an International Day of Action on AFRICOM.

Officially launched on October 1, 2008, AFRICOM (the U.S. Africa Command) is just one part of the U.S. global command that covers the planet—and as of 2019, the United States has colonized outer space, too, with the U.S. Space Force.

However, very few ordinary people in the United States know about AFRICOM or the other command structures.

This lack of knowledge about what the U.S. state is up to outside its borders extends even to Congress. When four U.S. military personnel were killed in Niger last year, members of Congress were shocked to learn the extent of U.S. military involvement in Africa. Even in this election season, almost no attention has been given to U.S. foreign policies and global activities. The lack of conversation stems primarily from this fact: No real, fundamental differences exist between the two major political parties because both are firmly committed to the U.S. imperial project.

This is why BAP focused on AFRICOM as part of our work as a member organization of the Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases, which BAP helped co-found.

BAP’s Africa Team explains in the call for support for the International Day of Action on AFRICOM: “The U.S. Out of Africa!: Shut Down AFRICOM campaign is demanding the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Africa and the demilitarization of the African continent. The campaign is an integral element of the Black Alliance for Peace’s general opposition to U.S. global militarization, with its offensive command structures, approximately 800 to 1,000 overseas bases, and the United States’ status as the number one arms merchant on the planet. The International Day of Action on AFRICOM (October 1, 2020) aims to raise the public’s awareness about the U.S. military’s existence in Africa, and how the presence of U.S. forces exacerbates violence and instability throughout the continent.”

BAP launched on April 4, 2017, the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s famous speech, in which he broke his silence so he could come out in opposition to the Vietnam War. With our launch, we pledged to fearlessly take up the fight to end the scourge of racism, materialism and militarism against what remains to be the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet.

Organizations are invited to endorse the International Day of Action on AFRICOM.

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Featured image is from BAP

“Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.” ― Herbert Marcuse

Republicans and Democrats alike fear that the other party will attempt to hijack this election.

President Trump is convinced that mail-in ballots are a scam except in Florida, where it’s safe to vote by mail because of its “great Republican governor.”

The FBI is worried about foreign hackers continuing to target and exploit vulnerabilities in the nation’s electoral system, sowing distrust about the parties, the process and the outcome.

I, on the other hand, am not overly worried: after all, the voting booths have already been hijacked by a political elite comprised of Republicans and Democrats who are determined to retain power at all costs.

The outcome is a foregone conclusion: the Deep State will win and “we the people” will lose.

The damage has already been done.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has been tasked with helping to “secure” the elections and protect the nation against cyberattacks, is not exactly an agency known for its adherence to freedom principles.

After all, this is the agency largely responsible for turning the American republic into a police state. Since its creation, the DHS has ushered in the domestic use of surveillance drones, expanded the reach of fusion centers, stockpiled an alarming amount of ammunition (including hollow point bullets), urged Americans to become snitches through a “see something, say something” campaign, overseen the fumbling antics of TSA agents everywhere, militarized the nation’s police, spied on activists and veterans, distributed license plate readers and cell phone trackers to law enforcement agencies, contracted to build detention camps, carried out military drills and lockdowns in American cities, conducted virtual strip searches of airline passengers, established Constitution-free border zones, funded city-wide surveillance cameras, and undermined the Fourth Amendment at every turn.

So, no, I’m not losing a night’s sleep over the thought that this election might by any more rigged than it already is.

And I’m not holding my breath in the hopes that the winner of this year’s popularity contest will save us from government surveillance, weaponized drones, militarized police, endless wars, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture schemes, overcriminalization, profit-driven private prisons, graft and corruption, or any of the other evils that masquerade as official government business these days.

You see, after years of trying to wake Americans up to the reality that there is no political savior who will save us from the police state, I’ve come to realize that Americans want to engage in the reassurance ritual of voting.

They want to believe the fantasy that politics matter.

They want to be persuaded that there’s a difference between the Republicans and Democrats (there’s not).

Some will swear that Donald Trump has been an improvement on Barack Obama (he is not).

Others are convinced that Joe Biden’s values are different from Donald Trump’s (with both of them, money talks).

Most of all, voters want to buy into the fantasy that when they elect a president, they’re getting someone who truly represents the citizenry rather than the Deep State (in fact, in the oligarchy that is the American police state, an elite group of wealthy donors is calling the shots in cooperation with a political elite).

The sad truth is that it doesn’t matter who wins the White House, because they all work for the same boss: Corporate America. Understanding this, many corporations hedge their bets on who will win the White House by splitting their donations between Democratic and Republican candidates.

Politics is a game, a joke, a hustle, a con, a distraction, a spectacle, a sport, and for many devout Americans, a religion. It is a political illusion aimed at persuading the citizenry that we are free, that our vote counts, and that we actually have some control over the government when in fact, we are prisoners of a Corporate Elite.

In other words, it’s a sophisticated ruse aimed at keeping us divided and fighting over two parties whose priorities, more often than not, are exactly the same so that we don’t join forces and do what the Declaration of Independence suggests, which is to throw the whole lot out and start over.

It’s no secret that both parties support endless war, engage in out-of-control spending, ignore the citizenry’s basic rights, have no respect for the rule of law, are bought and paid for by Big Business, care most about their own power, and have a long record of expanding government and shrinking liberty. Most of all, both parties enjoy an intimate, incestuous history with each other and with the moneyed elite that rule this country.

Despite the jabs the candidates volley at each other for the benefit of the cameras, they’re a relatively chummy bunch away from the spotlight. Moreover, despite Congress’ so-called political gridlock, our elected officials seem to have no trouble finding common ground when it’s time to collectively kowtow to the megacorporations, lobbyists, defense contractors and other special interest groups to whom they have pledged their true allegiance.

So don’t be fooled by the smear campaigns and name-calling or drawn into their divide-and-conquer politics of hate. They’re just useful tactics that have been proven to engage voters and increase voter turnout while keeping the citizenry at each other’s throats.

It’s all a grand illusion.

It used to be that the cogs, wheels and gear shifts in the government machinery worked to keep the republic running smoothly. However, without our fully realizing it, the mechanism has changed. Its purpose is no longer to keep our republic running smoothly. To the contrary, this particular contraption’s purpose is to keep the Deep State in power. Its various parts are already a corrupt part of the whole.

Just consider how insidious, incestuous and beholden to the corporate elite the various “parts” of the mechanism have become.

Congress. Perhaps the most notorious offenders and most obvious culprits in the creation of the corporate-state, Congress has proven itself to be both inept and avaricious, oblivious champions of an authoritarian system that is systematically dismantling their constituents’ fundamental rights. Long before they’re elected, Congressmen are trained to dance to the tune of their wealthy benefactors, so much so that they spend two-thirds of their time in office raising money. As Reuters reports, “For many lawmakers, the daily routine in Washington involves fundraising as much as legislating. The culture of nonstop political campaigning shapes the rhythms of daily life in Congress, as well as the landscape around the Capitol. It also means that lawmakers often spend more time listening to the concerns of the wealthy than anyone else.”

The President. What Americans want in a president and what they need are two very different things. The making of a popular president is an exercise in branding, marketing and creating alternate realities for the consumer—a.k.a., the citizenry—that allows them to buy into a fantasy about life in America that is utterly divorced from our increasingly grim reality. Take President Trump, for instance, who got elected by promising to drain the swamp in Washington DC. Instead of putting an end to the corruption, however, Trump has paved the way for lobbyists, corporations, the military industrial complex, and the rest of the Deep State (also referred to as “The 7th Floor Group”) to feast on the carcass of the dying American republic. The lesson: to be a successful president, it doesn’t matter whether you keep your campaign promises, sell the American people to the highest bidder, or march in lockstep with the Corporate State as long as you keep telling people what they most want to hear.

The Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court—once the last refuge of justice, the one governmental body really capable of rolling back the slowly emerging tyranny enveloping America—has instead become the champion of the American police state, absolving government and corporate officials of their crimes while relentlessly punishing the average American for exercising his or her rights. Like the rest of the government, the Court has routinely prioritized profit, security, and convenience over the basic rights of the citizenry. Indeed, law professor Erwin Chemerinsky makes a compelling case that the Supreme Court, whose “justices have overwhelmingly come from positions of privilege,” almost unerringly throughout its history sides with the wealthy, the privileged, and the powerful.

The Media. Of course, this triumvirate of total control would be completely ineffective without a propaganda machine provided by the world’s largest corporations. Besides shoveling drivel down our throats at every possible moment, the so-called news agencies which are supposed to act as bulwarks against government propaganda have instead become the mouthpieces of the state. The pundits which pollute our airwaves are at best court jesters and at worst propagandists for the false reality created by the American government. When you have internet and media giants such as Google, NBC Universal, News Corporation, Turner Broadcasting, Thomson Reuters, Comcast, Time Warner, Viacom, Public Radio International and The Washington Post Company donating to political candidates, you no longer have an independent media—what we used to refer to as the “fourth estate”—that can be trusted to hold the government accountable.

The American People. “We the people” now belong to a permanent underclass in America. It doesn’t matter what you call us—chattel, slaves, worker bees, it’s all the same—what matters is that we are expected to march in lockstep with and submit to the will of the state in all matters, public and private. Unfortunately, through our complicity in matters large and small, we have allowed an out-of-control corporate-state apparatus to take over every element of American society.

We’re playing against a stacked deck.

The game is rigged, and “we the people” keep getting dealt the same losing hand. The people dealing the cards—the politicians, the corporations, the judges, the prosecutors, the police, the bureaucrats, the military, the media, etc.—have only one prevailing concern, and that is to maintain their power and control over the citizenry, while milking us of our money and possessions.

It really doesn’t matter what you call them—Republicans, Democrats, the 1%, the elite, the controllers, the masterminds, the shadow government, the police state, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex—so long as you understand that while they are dealing the cards, the deck will always be stacked in their favor.

As I make clear in my book, Battlefield America: The War on the American People, our failure to remain informed about what is taking place in our government, to know and exercise our rights, to vocally protest, to demand accountability on the part of our government representatives, and at a minimum to care about the plight of our fellow Americans has been our downfall.

Now we find ourselves once again caught up in the spectacle of another presidential election, and once again the majority of Americans are acting as if this election will make a difference and bring about change. As if the new boss will be different from the old boss.

When in doubt, just remember what the astute commentator George Carlin had to say about the matter:

The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork…. It’s a big club and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club. …The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice…. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on…. It’s called the American Dream, ’cause you have to be asleep to believe it.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Last week, the Trump regime accused China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) — its largest chip maker — of being an “unacceptable (national security) risk.”

Claiming technology shipped to the company could be used for military purposes is code language for targeting designating foreign firms, notably high-tech ones, to give US enterprises a competitive advantage.

In the case of China, it’s also all about wanting its economic, industrial, and technological growth undermined.

When charges against its firms are made, no evidence supports them because none exists.

Escalating US war on China by other means risks turning things hot by accident or design.

The South China Sea is one of the world’s leading hot spots, along with the Taiwan Strait, Middle East, and Russian border areas.

If global war erupts, it’ll likely be in one of these locations.

US rage for unchallenged dominance makes the unthinkable possible. In the nuclear age, it risks doomsday.

Like ZTE, Huawei, TikTok, and WeChat, SMIC denied fabricated Trump regime accusations, made to undermine the firm’s development and growth.

Trump’s trade war is largely a technology war. Besides stiff tariffs on targeted Chinese imports, it aims to cut its tech companies off from the US supply chain.

On Friday, Trump’s Commerce Department notified US firms that henceforth an export license is required to ship technology to SMIC, the same restriction imposed on Huawei and other targeted Chinese firms, more of the same likely to follow.

SMIC issued a statement saying:

The company “reiterates that it manufactures semiconductors and provides services solely for civilian and commercial end users and end-uses,” adding:

“The company has no relationship with the Chinese military and does not manufacture for any military end users or end-uses.”

Earlier this month, the Pentagon said it’s working with other US agencies to decide whether to blacklist SMIC by adding it to the Commerce Department’s Entity List along with Huawei, its affiliates, and other Chinese enterprises.

Targeted ones are involved in  producing aviation related products, semiconductors, engineering, as well as other high-tech products and components.

Falsely claiming these enterprises act “contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States” is cover for wanting corporate America to have a competitive edge over Chinese firms.

Blacklisted ones are prohibited from purchasing US technology without Commerce Department permission.

The exclusionary list includes “businesses, research institutions, government and private organizations, individuals, and other types of legal persons — that are subject to specific license requirements for the export, reexport and/or transfer (in-country) of specified items.”

Scores of high-tech Chinese firms are included on the list, more likely to be added.

Weeks earlier in response to US actions, China tightened export controls on nearly two dozen cutting-edge technologies — the first such changes since 2008.

According to its Ministry of Commerce and Science, along with its Technology Ministry, revised controls apply to nuclear equipment and materials, seaborne satellite launching pads, equipment used in building manmade islands, artificial intelligence interface, drone technology, ultra-high voltage transmission and clean coal power generation, quantum encryption and early warning technology, metal 3D printing, as well as advanced drilling tools and software used in oil and gas extraction.

Given Trump regime policy of cutting off Chinese tech firms from the US supply chain — what Dems are likely to continue if control the White House next year — it’s essential for Beijing and its tech enterprises to develop and become independent from US suppliers.

China has the will and financial resources to achieve its objectives, a new long march that will take time to accomplish.

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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 majority of people tend to think of the concept of history as if it is something relegated only to the past. As if they are not living through what will become history in the future. Doing so allows them to maintain a thought process that convinces them that world wars and European wars, in general, are over. 

After all, Europe learned its lesson in the Big One – and the Big One after that.  Of course, with any such incident, there’s history, and there’s what actually happened.

If things between Greece and Turkey don’t cool down, a European/Mediterranean war will ensue.

Such a war would not be merely European but Euro-Asian and, at its furthest reach, global.

With Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman desires at the forefront, Turkey is expanding its national borders, with what Erdogan seems to believe will resurrect the Ottoman Empire. From Iraq to Syria and Libya, Turkey has attempted to either gain territory or forcefully make a seat at the international table through military action. Now, however, Turkey is threatening Greece as well and, as a result, Europe.

For many years the security framework in the Middle East has been described as a bilateral arrangement whereby Washington gained access to sufficient Saudi Arabian oil to keep the energy market stable while the United States provided an armed physical presence through its bases in the region and its ability to project power if anyone should seek to threaten the Saudi Kingdom. The agreement was reportedly worked out in a February 1945 meeting between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, just as World War 2 was drawing to a close. That role as protector of Saudi Arabia and guarantor of stable energy markets in the region later served as part of the justification for the U.S. ouster of the Iraqi Army from Kuwait in 1991.

After 9/11, the rationale became somewhat less focused. The United States invaded Afghanistan, did not capture or kill Osama bin Laden due to its own incompetence, and, rather than setting up a puppet regime and leaving, settled down to a nineteen-years long and still running counter-insurgency plus training mission. Fake intelligence produced by the neocons in the White House and Defense Department subsequently implicated Iraq in 9/11 and led to the political and military disaster known as the Iraq War.

During the 75 years since the end of the Second World War the Middle East has experienced dramatic change, to include the withdrawal of the imperial European powers from the region and the creation of the State of Israel. And the growth and diversification of energy resources mean that it is no longer as necessary to secure the petroleum that moves in tankers through the Persian Gulf. Lest there be any confusion over why the United States continues to be involved in Syria, Iraq, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, President Donald Trump remarkably provided some clarity relating to the issue when on September 8^th he declared that the U.S. isn’t any longer in the Middle East to secure oil supplies, but rather because we “want to protect Israel.”

The comment was made by Trump during a rally in Winston-Salem, N.C. as part of a boast about his having reduced energy costs for consumers. He said

“I like being energy independent, don’t you? I’m sure that most of you noticed when you go to fill up your tank in your car, oftentimes it’s below two dollars. You say how the hell did this happen?… While I’m president, America will remain the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world. We will remain energy independent. It should be for many many years to come. The fact is, we don’t have to be in the Middle East, other than we want to protect Israel. We’ve been very good to Israel. Other than that, we don’t have to be in the Middle East.”

The reality is, of course, that U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has been all about Israel for a very long time, at least since the presidency of Bill Clinton, who has been sometimes dubbed the first Jewish president for his deference to Israeli interests. The Iraq War is a prime example of how neoconservatives and Israel Firsters inside the United States government conspired to go to war to protect the Jewish State. In key positions at the Pentagon were Zionists Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. Feith’s Office of Special Plans developed the “alternative intelligence” linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda and also to a mythical nuclear program that was used to justify war. Feith was so close to Israel that he partnered in a law firm that had an office in Jerusalem. The fake intelligence was then stove-piped to the White House by fellow neocon “Scooter” Libby who worked in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

After the fact, former Secretary of State Colin Powell also had something to say about the origins of the war, commenting that the United States had gone into Iraq because Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld bought into the neoconservative case made for doing so by “the JINSA crowd,” by which he meant the Israel Lobby organization the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

And if any more confirmation about the origins of the Iraq War were needed, one might turn to Philip Zelikow, who was involved in the planning process while working on the staff of Condoleezza Rice. He said

“The unstated threat. And here I criticize the [Bush] administration a little, because the argument that they make over and over again is that this is about a threat to the United States. And then everybody says: ‘Show me an imminent threat from Iraq to America. Show me, why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us?’ So I’ll tell you what I think the real threat is, and actually has been since 1990. It’s the threat against Israel. And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it’s not a popular sell.”

So here is the point that resonates: even in 2002-3, when the Israel Lobby was not as powerful as it is now, the fact that the U.S. was going to war on a lie and was actually acting on behalf of the Jewish State was never presented in any way to the public, even though America’s children would be dying in the conflict and American taxpayers would be footing the bill. The media, if it knew about the false intelligence, was reliably pro-Israel and helped enable the deception.

And that same deception continued to this day until Trump spilled the beans earlier this month. And now, with the special security arrangement that the U.S. has entered into with Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the ability to exit from a troublesome region that does not actually threaten American interests has become very limited. As guarantor of the agreement, Washington now has an obligation to intervene on the behalf of the parties involved. Think about that, a no-win arrangement that will almost certainly lead to war with Iran, possibly to include countries like Russia and China that will be selling it military equipment contrary to U.S. “sanctions.”

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

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

Featured image is from TUR

It’s not just China that’s victimized by Trump’s MAGA strategy but Russia as well despite Trump’s opponents continuing to claim that he’s under the influence of Moscow.

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Chinese Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou and her lawyers have returned to a Canadian court to press for her release, arguing that the United States, by omitting key facts, blatantly misled Canada about her alleged crimes to secure her arrest.

The defence started the five-day hearing on Monday by saying that the crux of the US charges against Meng – that she hid Huawei’s relationship with former subsidiary Skycom in Iran from HSBC bank – is false and lacks context.

Meng’s lawyer, Scott Fenton, accused the United States of having “breached its duty to be forthright and candid.”

“The misstatements [and] omissions in the record of the case,” he told the Supreme Court of British Columbia, “go to the very heart of the fraud case.”

As such, he said, the extradition proceedings should be halted.

The Chinese telecom giant’s chief financial officer was arrested on a US warrant in December 2018 during a stopover in Vancouver.

She is charged with bank fraud linked to violations of US sanctions against Iran, and has been fighting extradition ever since.

Diplomatic rift

The case, meanwhile, has added to severe strain in Sino-US ties and created an unprecedented rift between Canada and China.

Nine days after Meng’s arrest, China detained former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor in what is widely viewed as retaliation over Meng.

Espionage charges were filed against the pair in June, soon after Meng’s first legal setback, when her bid to have the case thrown out – arguing that the US accusations were not crimes in Canada – was defeated.

The past nearly two years of sporadic court appearances have so far seen Meng’s attorneys trade barbs with Canadian government lawyers over access to classified documents and purported violations of her rights.

The Skycom connection

Despite the Covid-19 outbreak’s disruptions of trials in Canada, Meng’s case has proceeded by teleconference – though at a slow pace.

She appeared in person on Monday for the first time in months, wearing a face mask, in accordance with public health rules.

US indictments allege that Meng and the world’s largest telecoms equipment manufacturer conducted business in Iran in violation of US sanctions through Skycom.

The US Justice Department says the Hong Kong-registered firm was a poorly disguised Huawei front company.

They note that Skycom employees had Huawei email addresses and badges, and that Skycom’s leadership were Huawei employees – including Meng, who has admitted to serving previously on its board.

Huawei also at one point owned a stake in Skycom but sold its shares to another company that the United States says also was controlled by Huawei.

The US alleges Meng fraudulently concealed all this from HSBC, putting the bank at risk of unknowingly violating Iran sanctions.

It pointed to a presentation Meng made in 2013 to an HSBC executive after the British banking group, worried over potential Iran exposure, requested an explanation.

But Meng insists she was up-front with HSBC and its executive at the Hong Kong tea house meeting.

“The vast majority of what [Meng] stated to HSBC is not included in the [case] summary,” Fenton said, adding that “key statements” she made to HSBC that could prove to be exculpatory were omitted.

The 48-year-old daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, he said, “put HSBC on full notice that both Huawei and Skycom were doing business in Iran.”

“She told them everything they needed to know to measure sanctions risk,” he added, including how processing any related transactions through the US banking system could put HSBC in jeopardy.

Huawei has rejected as “unfounded” these and additional charges filed in February, accusing the company of stealing technologies from US firms.

Outside the Vancouver courthouse, Huawei spokesman Alykhan Velshi said Meng would be vindicated, while accusing the Trump administration of having “fed a steady stream of fake news about Meng Wanzhou to Canadian authorities and abused the Canadian legal system.”

US officials claim Huawei poses a security risk because of its links to China’s government, while Beijing has accused Washington of seeking to crush Huawei.

Meng remains under house arrest in Vancouver while the extradition case, which is due to wrap up in March or April 2021, is heard.

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Featured image is from Asia Times

Cotton is the only genetically modified (GM) crop that has been officially approved in India and has been cultivated (illegally then legally) in the country for more than 20 years. Although GM mustard has been approved for commercial cultivation by India’s apex regulatory body for GM crops (the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee, GEAC), a public interest litigation led by Aruna Rodrigues is before the Supreme Court challenging that decision and commercialisation of the crop is on hold.

The push to drive GM food crops into India has been happening for many years. Back in February 2010, the government placed an indefinite moratorium on the release of Bt brinjal after numerous independent scientific experts from India and abroad had pointed out safety concerns.

Minister Jairam Ramesh therefore rejected the commercialisation of Bt brinjal. He imposed a moratorium on its release till such time independent scientific studies establish the safety of the product from the point of view of its long-term impact on human health and the environment, including the rich genetic wealth existing in brinjal in India.

The moratorium has not been lifted and the conditions Ramesh set out have still not been met. Regulatory processes have been shown to lack competency, possess endemic conflicts of interest and demonstrate a lack of expertise in GMO risk assessment protocols, including food safety assessment and the assessment of environmental impacts.

Not to be deterred by any of this, the GEAC is now facilitating final-stage trials of a new Bt brinjal (event 142). It also seems dismissive of the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) Final Report in 2013 which was scathing about the prevailing regulatory system for GM crops. As a result, the TEC recommended a 10-year moratorium on the commercial release of all GM crops.

Immediately after the 2010 moratorium was announced, the GEAC carried on regardless and went straight ahead and sanctioned fresh trials for the new Bt brinjal. It appears that developers-cum-lobbyists were actually sitting on regulatory bodies as event 142 was proceeding, granting biosafety clearance and claiming all tests are complete, despite data being kept out of the public domain.

I recently contacted Aruna Rodrigues to discuss the current situation.

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Colin Todhunter: The government has asserted that hybrid insecticidal Bt cotton in India has been an outstanding success and argues that it is a template for the introduction of GM food crops.

Aruna Rodrigues: The metric used to pronounce the grand success of hybrid Bt cotton is adoption/total production data as opposed to the real measure of performance, which is yield expressed as kg lint/ha and for the farmer, total net income/ha. The error is so basic that it is embarrassing that supposedly leading public sector scientists can err in such manner. But this is deliberate because the official agenda to promote GMOs is being openly espoused without any factual data or science to back a decision of such profound importance and irreversible ramifications.

They want to use hybrid Bt cotton as the model to introduce other Bt crops, principally food crops. And indeed, thousands of field trials of Bt crops have never been stopped, not even when the central government overturned the commercial approval of Bt brinjal a decade ago and imposed an indefinite moratorium.

CT: Renowned international experts have argued that we now have definitive evidence of the failure of Bt cotton in India, not least in terms of stagnant yields, pesticide use that is back to pre-Bt era levels, increasing pest resistance and rising input costs.

AR: The scientific evaluation of Bt cotton is the work of eminent scientists: Prof Dr Andrew Gutierrez, with Dr Hans Herren (World Food Prize Laureate), Dr Peter Kenmore (former head of FAO Plant Protection) and Dr Keshav Kranthi (former Director of the Central Institute of Cotton Research, India’s apex cotton institute). Together, they have nailed the data and analyses of hybrid Bt cotton to provide conclusive proof of its definitive failure. (See ‘International scientists highlight failure of GM Bt cotton in India’ on GMWatch.org and ‘International Webinar on Bt Cotton in India: Myths & Realities’ on YouTube)

The use of hybrids has played an important role in the failure of hybrid Bt cotton, the development of the yield plateau in India, high production costs and low productivity. The data show that suicides increase with economic distress, (Gutierrez et al; ‘Bioeconomics of hybrid Bt cotton and suicides’ in the process of being published by Environmental Sciences Europe) – low yield, rising costs and low net income. The low yield is related to inappropriate hybrid Bt varieties and low planting densities and falling net revenues due to stagnant yield, unstable cotton prices and escalating costs of production.

Also entering this equation are insecticide-induced pests and insecticide resistance, increasing resistance in pink bollworms to Bt toxins and the vagaries of weather on hybrids. American bollworm resistance is also increasing.  By 2013, pre-Bt era of 2002 levels of insecticide use were surpassed. It should be noted that reducing insecticide use was the raison d’etre for the Bt technology; it has no trait for yield.

Most hybrid cottons are long season of 180-200 day duration that increases the opportunities for pest resurgence and outbreaks. Additionally, hybrids require stable water and more fertiliser.

In 13 years, the cost of cultivation increased 302%. In 15 years, there was a 450% increase in labour costs. Costs of hybrid seed, insecticide and fertiliser increased more than 250 to 300%. And net profit was Rs. 5971/ha in 2003 (pre-Bt) but plummeted to net losses of Rs. 6286 in 2015 (Kranthi).

CT: How does the performance of Bt cotton in India compare with elsewhere?

AR: Hybrid Bt cotton was designed to increase yield and quality, but India’s global rank is 36 in terms of yield out of the 75 cotton growing countries. This ranking leaves India behind at least 21 major producing countries, including many in Africa, which do not employ GM cotton and cultivate only open pollinated varieties. The top eight producers use high density plantings of appropriate varieties that are approximately six-fold higher than commonly used in India. Herein lies the solution for India in the potential of high-density short-season cotton.

CT: The use of long-season hybrids in India seems unique. You and others have argued that the only reason to combine GM technology with hybrids was to serve as a value capture mechanism: for the seed companies to extract profit at the expense of farmers because in India international property rights on seeds cannot be enforced like they are in the West through signed contracts. But there have been other implications. Can you say something about these hybrids?

AR: The use of hybrid cotton is unique to India, being sold as a value-capture mechanism to enable seed companies to safeguard their profit and side-step intellectual property rights concerns. The hybrid technology disallows seed saving by millions of small farmers who cannot be controlled by threats of lawsuits. There is no other reason why hybrid technology was used; but it added significantly to the failure of Bt cotton.

Non-hybrid cotton varieties in other cotton growing countries are grown at densities of more than 100,000 plants per hectare, which is at least five times higher than India’s national average density of 18,500 plants per hectare.

Scientific trials conducted with non-Bt varieties in all the cotton growing states of India and in more than 6,894 demonstrations in farmer fields by government agencies during 2012 to 2016 unequivocally show that high density planting results in higher yields compared to the most popular high priced Bt cotton hybrids.

Furthermore, long staple desi cotton varieties also give consistently high yields above the national average of Bt cotton hybrids. The high price of hybrid Bt seed engenders low planting densities in India that contributes greatly to low yields.

High-density short-season planting of non-GM straight line varieties of desi cotton and American cotton species that interrupt the lifecycle of the pink bollworm is required. This simple insight has important implications and provides the basis for a proven solution against pests.

CT: Bt is a toxin encoding gene. And yet the proposal is to incorporate it in brinjal, a vegetable that is eaten across all sections of Indian society. Can you say a little about Bt toxicity and the implications for brinjal?

AR: The question of the toxicity of Bt proteins is circumvented by the regulators accepting a discredited version of cry toxicity based on a Monsanto myth that Bt toxins are only toxic to alkaline gut systems of insects, not the acidic stomachs of mammals. There is plenty of proof that Bt proteins are indeed toxic to both humans and animals (Schubert letter of Nov 2009 to Minister Jairam Ramesh, when he called for a scientific review of Bt brinjal). Failed Bt cotton is indeed the model for hybrid Bt brinjal and for monumental catastrophe.

CT: Bt brinjal has been sanctioned for final-stage field trials. If, in 2010, Hybrid Bt brinjal was deemed unsuitable for India, given that these trials are going ahead, what if anything has changed?

AR: Nothing has changed. The Bt gene is still a Bt gene and it is a toxin. It is worth reading an excerpt from the letter Prof David Schubert wrote to Jairam Ramesh in 2009:

“It is virtually certain that within the vast Indian population a large number of people eating Bt brinjal are going to be or will become allergic to this foreign protein; this number cannot be predicted and some of the immune responses will likely be severe, causing anaphylaxis and possibly fatalities. Since there will be no way of tracking these adverse reactions within the population, and since once Bt brinjal is commercially grown, its genetic presence within a major calorie source for the Indian population is irreversible, a simple decision has to be made. Is the negligible benefit of Bt brinjal worth the clear risk?  My conclusion is that it is not worth the risk and that it would be a profound disservice to India if Bt brinjal were allowed to enter her food supply.”

We now have the immeasurable advantage of the definitive assessment of the failure of hybrid Bt cotton across all relevant measures. We must use this knowledge to the benefit of our nation and Indian agriculture. Bt Brinjal Event 142 is also planned in hybrids that will increase seed costs and prevent seed saving.

One thing is crystal clear and it is worth repeating for warning and emphasis: hybrid Bt cotton is a negative model for hybrid Bt brinjal; for a monumental irreversible catastrophe.

Virtually no safety testing/risk assessment protocols were carried out for Bt brinjal more than 10 years ago. It stands as the only test case where the raw data was subsequently assessed by several eminent international scientists. They found a virtual vacuum. None of this engenders confidence in the regulators as responsible or trustworthy.

Furthermore, GMO contamination in what is a centre of diversity is of paramount importance. Our regulators have an uncanny ability to focus on two crops (mustard and brinjal) of great genetic diversity. There are about 9,000 accessions of mustard in our gene banks and India is a centre of origin/diversity of brinjal with the richest germplasm in the world.

I only have questions of our regulators because the things they do are fundamentally in error. And the list is endless. They also want to open up Indian agriculture to the second front of GM technology, herbicide tolerant crops, when chemicals (e.g., glyphosate) are documented to pose serious environmental and health risks.

The only option is to stop all environmental release of GMOs, because we are at serious risk from our own regulators. This is not just petitioners’ stance in the Supreme Court. Four official reports support the petitioners and two of them belong to the Parliamentary process in India of Parliamentary Standing Committees (PSCs), which are appointed across party lines. Both PSCs were unanimous that Indian regulation is seriously awry, both for a lack of expertise and an endemic conflict of interest. Both PSCs recommended a moratorium on GMOs.

CT: Given the vast genetic diversity of mustard and brinjal in India, developed over millennia, it is clear that ‘need’ has not been established for these (or any other) GM crops. Why is the government pushing so hard for GMOs?

We don’t have independent regulation in India, not just in the sense of the regulators themselves, but also attendant ministries and institutions are rife with conflicts of interest. They promote GMOs. The glaring example is the regulatory body called the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation of the Department of Biotechnology, in the Ministry of Science and Technology (DBT). In this case, the DBT funds GM mustard development and also promotes it. The GEAC has historically had a serious conflict of interest with the line between the regulators and the regulated difficult to distinguish and partly explains why the government is pushing GMOs so hard.

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Throughout the sham process formally known as the Julian Assange extradition trial, prosecutors representing the United States have been adamant: the carceral conditions awaiting him in freedom’s land will be pleasant, accommodating and appropriate.  Confronting 17 charges under the US Espionage Act and one under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Assange and his defence team have been resolutely sceptical.    

Today, the prosecution reiterated its position on the US federal prison system as one of rosy comfort and decent facilities.  As has happened at several points in the extradition trial, the views of Gordon Kromberg, assistant US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, were given another airing.  Stale as ever, Kromberg told the court that, “Inmates in administrative segregation are able to speak to one another through the doors and windows of their cells.”  How civil.  “Typically,” he also noted, “there are several inmates in administrative segregation.”  He does not tire of this canard, and makes the point one more time with robotic certitude.  “Even in administrative segregation, Assange would be able to communicate with other inmates through the doors and windows of his cell.”

Ellis on solitary confinement 

The defence witness Yancey Ellis, as with others more acquainted with the bestial prison conditions of the imperium, suggested something quite different.  Ellis is a former judge advocate in the US Marines.  First would come the experience of being held in the Alexandria Detention Center (ADC), where Assange will be given his pre-trial blooding on US soil.  Most likely, he will find himself, Ellis claimed, in X block, kept in a narrow cell each day for 22 to 23 hours, containing “a sleeping area, a small sink and a toilet”, guarded by thick doors.  Meals would be taken in the cell.  The precious one or two hours granted to the inmate would often only be granted at “very odd hours.”  The time would be spent in the “common area of the ADSEG unit, which is maybe about twice the square footage.”  Only one inmate in the unit would be permitted out of the cell at any one time.  “There is limited interaction with other ADSEG inmates because their doors and food-tray slots are closed.” 

Such an individual is purposely segregated from others, alienated and prevented from accessing therapeutic or other programs available at the facility.  “There is no outside recreational or exercise area at the Alexandria jail and I do not recall there being any windows in the ADSEG unit,” Ellis notes in his written submissions.

As with other defence testimonies, Kromberg’s came in for special attention.  There were “several assertions made by Mr Kromberg” that were “incorrect or incomplete”.  When asked by Edward Fitzgerald QC for the defence whether Assange would be given the means to “associate with other prisoners”, Ellis was far from convinced. “The short answer is: not really.”  Administrative segregation implied just that.  Kromberg’s assertion in his affidavit that there was no solitary confinement at ADC was dispatched. “1X ADSEG unit is essentially the same as solitary confinement.”

Ellis had himself experimented with conversing through such barriers, and was discouraged by the effort.  In his court statement, he suggests that it might be “technically true” to suggest that words might be exchanged.  But in practice, it was “impossible.  In 1X ADSEG the cell doors are made of thick steel and the ‘windows’ are transparent, thick plexiglass material with no slots or holes.”  It would be, Ellis explained, “almost impossible to speak through the door if the food tray slot is not open.  It would not be possible for anyone to say that if he is familiar with the X Bloc.”

Communicating with his clients through such doors proved “very difficult, even when standing several inches away. I find it implausible that inmates could really communicate in this way, unless they constantly screamed at loud volumes.  I would routinely have to ask for a deputy sheriff to open the cell’s food tray slot in order to be able to speak with a client.”

In addition to the physical features of the facility will be Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), further limiting Assange’s communication and hindering his means of mounting an adequate legal defence.  While Ellis conceded to having had no experience of them, he understood them to entail further impositions on visits and communication with friends and family. 

On matters of mental health, Ellis was distinctly discouraging.  Provision at the facility was rudimentary.  “The extent of mental health care is that a social worker or counselor comes around to check on you every once in a while to ensure basic functioning.”  There were no permanent doctors in residence at ADC.  Part-time psychiatrists were employed instead, meaning irregular visits and consultations.  Those at risk of self-harm found themselves in suits designed to prevent suicide, immobilizing “the arms away from the body, removing shoe strings and sheets, etc.”

In cross-examination, James Lewis QC for the prosecution attempted to shore up the shoddy assertions in Kromberg’s affidavit.  Ellis, he suggested, was doing a bit of crystal ball gazing: how could he really know if Assange would be held in X Bloc?  Ellis had, after all, not interviewed the warden, a psychologist or prison staff about the conditions.  This was a desperate ploy; Ellis had been asked to testify on the conditions he had seen, not the totality of a policy that remained opaque.  “I have requested those records [determining how inmates will be housed] before and can never get them.”  Triumphantly, Lewis suggested that “Kromberg’s statement of how [Assange] would be assessed for housing at the ADC” was not something that could be disputed.  As to whether Assange would actually find himself in administrative detention, Ellis was cautious but convinced.  “I can’t predict the future, but I would bet he would be put in administrative detention.”

The prosecutor also attempted to lay a trap in discrediting the testimony.  Had Ellis been massaged by the defence to use the words “solitary confinement” in his statement to the court?  No, came the reply.  The time detainees in administrative segregation are permitted outside the cramped confines of their cell was “generally equivalent to solitary confinement.”  Mockingly, Lewis scrapped about definitions: an inmate could not be said to be enduring conditions of solitary confinement meeting his lawyers three hours each day.  (Not much verisimilitude on the part of the prosecution, given that the application of SAMS would make such meetings a difficult, if not an impossibility.)

Lewis then focused on Assange’s standing in Ellis’ eyes.  Did he feel that the publisher’s case had garnered publicity and large public support?  “I would agree with the publicity,” came the reply.  Public support was another matter he could not speak to.  The fact that previous prominent figures such as Paul Manafort and Maria Butina had been housed at the ADC and placed in “administrative segregation” suggested that Assange would not be treated any differently. 

This line of questioning stirred Judge Vanessa Baraitser, who went on to probe Ellis on how the US Bureau of Prisons would handle Assange’s case.  In the United Kingdom, “Assange has been in custody in this jurisdiction for 18 months,” housed in the general wing. “Other than his being a public figure, any reason you think he’ll be held in administrative detention?”  The “primary reason”, suggested Ellis, would be his notoriety, though mental health might be a factor officials would consider.  But as the mental health unit was located in the general population, a decision might still be made to place him in “administrative segregation”.  “The mere fact you are high-profile dictates conditions?” inquired Baraitser.  Generally, came the reply, the ADC preferred segregating “these types of defendants” to “maintain a secure and safe environment” though he could not say why. “I am just speaking from experience.”

Sickler on health care 

Veteran prison advocate and founder of the Justice Advocacy Group in Virginia, Joel Sickler, followed for the defence.  Much of his testimony seemed reiterative and supplementary to that of Ellis, though it also moved into discussion about the ADX Florence supermax facility, a nightmare Assange may face after softening at the ADC.  He suggested that Assange would have “no meaningful reaction” at the ADC, kept in his parking-space sized cell.  It was “ridiculous” to assert, as Kromberg had done, that credible communication between inmates in administrative segregation in the facility could take place.  “You’re twiddling your thumbs.  You’ll have access to reading material, but your whole world is the four corners of that room.”  There was also “significant sensory deprivation comparable to isolation in a cell.  There is little natural light as well as access to fresh air.”  

While Assange’s attorneys would be permitted “to meet with him at any time during professional visiting hours” finding yourself “in the ADSEG unit at the ADC could compromise Mr Assange’s ability to focus on and assist his attorneys in his defence – for reasons related to how debilitating the experience may be for a prisoner.”

There was also a real risk of SAMSs being applied by the Attorney-General in the event of conviction. Challenging them would pose almost insuperable challenges. “It’s a well-known fact here that even the most minor administrative appeals by inmates are denied.”  Sickler claimed to have filed over a thousand appeals, “winning a dozen at most.”

Sickler’s testimony also covered the issue of health care at the ADC.  “Mr Assange should expect to receive only the most limited medical service at the ADC.  Any suggestion to this Court that he will be fully evaluated and assessed for medical or mental health conditions is misleading.”

Holding the flame for the prosecution was Clair Dobbin, who attempted to create a world of textual reality rather than grounded fact.  Policies of the US Bureau of Prisons were discussed; staffing and health care provisions were canvassed, including ADX facilities where inmates might be able to labour and improve their conditions.  This would present a good case to the authorities to have their SAMs removed.  Sickler suggested that what the BOP was claiming was different from practice.

While the prosecution smelled blood in suggesting that Sickler was actually unexperienced on the actual operations of X Bloc and the application of SAMs, Sickler rallied on the issue of how medical care would be supplied in such prison facilities.  Dobbin made the assumption that he had no access to prison medical records.  Not so, came the correcting reply.  Dobbin then moved on to limiting the value of such knowledge gained: it was specific to Sickler’s clients; not of the same order as an academic or research account on medical care in the prison system.  As for whether SAMs would be applied or not, this was up to the US Attorney General, who would determine the case on the basis of whether the prisoner had classified information threatening to “national security”.

Dobbin then engaged in what could only be described as a tidying up effort for one of the most notorious facilities in the US.  ADX Florence was hardly atrocious, she insisted.  Prisoners, she noted from a report, had claimed to form close personal relations with the staff.  “If it’s such a great place,” Sickler retorted, “why are so many prisoners trying to get out?”  Finding the report “incredulous,” he also suggested that institutionalisation brings with it fears of change.  Under re-examination, he noted that a client of his at ADX was “begging to get out.”

On Sickler’s own example of the darker side of the US penal system – an individual who suffered a mental breakdown at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, “severely beaten by correctional officers” and “thrown in the hole naked” – Dobbin was bizarrely disingenuous.  Initial calls by Sickler that the individual suffered psychiatric illness might have been callously ignored; and it took a federal court to grant the individual bail and eventually receive a writ for treatment at the Bellevue psychiatric center, but “judicial oversight” had prevailed.

The prosecutor also referred to the case of Cunningham v BOP to illustrate that things, even if they had been dire, must have improved.  The case involved ADX inmates, described as “five seriously mentally ill men”, along with six other ADX prisoners (“interested parties”) with “serious mental illnesses” suing the Bureau of Prisons in 2012 for violating BOP policy and the Eighth Amendment. 

The class action argued that the authorities had failed to adequately diagnose and treat prisoners at ADX with grave mental illness.  This eventually led to an approved settlement covering, amongst other things, a range of improved measures for screening and diagnosis for mental illness and the provision of mental health care and suicide prevention.  Dobbin was being selective. As Sickler noted in his statement, “that same Court would find that the health care in ADX failed to meet basic standards of care for inmates.” 

Dobbin, continuing her train of dissimulation, submitted another, deeply flawed example.  ADX Florence had permitted a convicted terrorist known as the “Underwear Bomber”, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, time to see family members during his time at the facility.  This belied an inconvenient reality: Abdulmutallab sued the Justice Department in October 2017 claiming that prison officials had held him in “long-term solitary confinement”, restricted his communication with relatives and force-fed him during hunger protests and fasting sessions.  Abdulmutallab had also been the subject of SAMs, and incarcerated in the infamous H-Unit of ADX.  Not exactly a paragon of US prison treatment, and not one of the prosecution’s better examples.

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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 21st Century Wire

GR Editor’s Note

This article does not mention explicitly that the grassroots of the Democratic Party has been misled and betrayed by high ranking members of their Party. We publish this article because it presents an important viewpoint which must also be the object of debate within the Democratic Party.

This article is not an apology for the Republican Party or the POTUS.  As an independent media based in Canada, we are bringing this article to the attention of our readers.

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“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” Joseph Conrad

Here’s your political puzzler for the day: Which of these two things poses a greater threat to the country:

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1. An incompetent and boastful president who has no previous government experience and who is rash and impulsive in his dealings with the media, foreign leaders and his critics?
2. Or a political party that collaborates with senior-level officials in the Intel agencies, the FBI, the DOJ, the media, and former members of the White House to spy on the new administration with the intention of gathering damaging information that can be used to overthrow the elected government?

The answer is “2”, the greater threat to the country is a political party that engages in subversive activity aimed at toppling the government and seizing power. In fact, that’s the greatest danger that any country can face, an enemy from within. Foreign adversaries can be countered by diplomatic engagement and shoring up the nation’s military defenses, but traitors–who conduct their activities below the radar using a secret network of contacts and connections to inflict maximum damage on the government– are nearly unstoppable.

What the Russiagate investigation shows, is that high-ranking members of the Democrat party participated in the type of activities that are described above, they were part of an illicit coup d’etat aimed at removing Donald Trump from office and rolling back the results of the 2016 elections. It is a vast understatement to say that the operation was merely an attack on Donald Trump when, in fact, it was an attack on the system itself, a full-blown assault on the right of ordinary people to choose their own leaders. That’s what Russiagate is really all about; it was an attempt to torpedo democracy by invoking the flimsy and unverifiable claim that Trump was an agent of the Kremlin.

None of this, of course, has been discussed in a public forum because those platforms are all privately-owned media that are linked to the people who executed the junta. But for those who followed events closely, and who know what actually happened, there has never been a more serious crime in American history. What we discovered was that the permanent bureaucracy, the media and the Democrat party are riddled with strategically-placed quislings and collaborators that are willing to sabotage their own government if they are so directed. The question that immediately comes to mind is this: Who concocted this plot, who authorized the electronic eavesdropping, the confidential informants, the widespread spying, the improperly obtained warrants, the fake news, and the endless leaks to the media? Who?

What we witnessed was not just an attempted coup, it was a window into the inner-workings of a secret government operating independently from within the state. And the sedition was not confined to a few posts at the senior levels of the FBI, CIA, NSA, or DOJ. No. The corruption has saturated the entire structure, seeping down to the lower levels where career bureaucrats eagerly perform tasks that are designed to damage or incriminate elected officials. How did it ever get this bad?

And who is calling the shots? We still don’t know.

Let me pose a theory: The operation might have been concocted by former CIA-Director John Brennan, but Brennan surely is not the prime instigator, nor is Clapper, Comey or even Obama. The real person or persons who initiated the coup will likely never be known. These are the Big Money guys who operate in the shadows and who have a stranglehold on the Intelligence agencies. These are the gilded Mandarins who have their tentacles wrapped firmly around the entire state-power apparatus and who dictate policy from their leather-bound chairs at their high-end men’s clubs. These are the people who decided that Donald Trump “had to go” whatever the cost. They pulled out all the stops, engaged their assets across the bureaucracy, and launched a desperate 3 and half year-long regime change operation that blew up in their faces leaving behind a trail carnage from Washington, DC to Sydney, Australia. In contrast, Trump somehow slipped the noose and escaped largely unscathed. He was pummeled mercilessly in the media, disparaged by his political rivals, and raked over the coals by the chattering classes, but — at the end of the day– it was Trump who was left standing.. Trump– who took on the entire political establishment, the Intel agencies, the FBI, the mainstream media, and the Democratic party– had beaten them all at their own game. Go figure??

Keep in mind, the Democrats have known that the Mueller probe was a fraud from as early as 2017 when the President of Crowdstrike, Shawn Henry, (who provided cyber security for the DNC) admitted to Congress that there was no forensic evidence that the DNC emails had been hacked by Russia or anyone else.

Think about that for a minute: The entire Mueller investigation was based on the assumption that Russia hacked into the DNC servers and stole the emails. We now know that never happened. The cyber-security team that conducted the investigation of the DNC computers admitted in sworn testimony before Congress that there was no evidence of “exfiltration” or pilfering of any kind. Repeat: There was no proof of hacking, no proof of Russian involvement, and no proof of foul play. The entire foundation upon which the Russia investigation was built, turned out to be false. More importantly, Democrat members of the Intelligence Committee knew it was false from the get-go, but opted to let the charade continue anyway. Why?

Because the truth didn’t matter, what mattered was getting rid of Trump by any means necessary. That’s why they used “opposition research” (Note– “Oppo” research is the hyperbolic nonsense political parties use to smear a political opponent.) to illegally obtain warrants to spy on members of the Trump team. It’s because the Democrat leadership will do anything to regain power.

By the way, we also have evidence that the warrants that were used to spy on Trump were obtained illegally. The FISA court was deliberately misled so the FBI could carry out its vendetta on Trump. Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith “did willfully and knowingly make and use a false writing and document, knowing the same to contain a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement and entry in a matter before the jurisdiction of the executive branch and judicial branch of the Government of the United States.” Bottom line: Clinesmith deliberately altered emails so that FISA applications could be renewed and the spying on the Trump campaign could continue.

So, let’s summarize:

1. The Democrats knew there was no proof the emails were stolen; thus, they knew the Russia probe was a hoax.
2. The Democrats knew that their fraudulent “opposition research” was being used to illegally obtain warrants to spy on the Trump camp. This makes them accessory to a crime.
3. Finally, the Democrats continue to spread (virtually) the same Russia-Trump collusion allegations today that they did before the Mueller investigation released its report. The lies and disinformation have persisted as if the “nation’s most expensive and exhaustive investigation” had never taken place. What does this tell us about the Democrats?

On a superficial level, it tells us that they can’t be trusted because they don’t tell the truth. But on a deeper level, it expresses the party’s Ruling Doctrine, which is to control the public by means of deceit, disinformation, propaganda and lies. Only the powerful and well-connected are entitled to know the truth, everyone else must be subjected to fabrications that are crafted in a way that best coincides with the overall objectives of ruling elites. That’s why the Democrats stick with the shopworn mantra that Trump is in bed with Russia. It doesn’t matter that the theory has been thoroughly discredited and disproved. It doesn’t even matter that the theory was never the slightest bit believable to begin with. What matters is that party leaders are preventing ordinary people from knowing the truth, which is an essential part of their governing doctrine. It’s surprising that this doesn’t piss-off more Democrats, after all, it’s the ultimate expression of contempt and condescension. When someone lies to your face relentlessly, repeatedly and shamelessly, they are expressing their loathing for you. Can’t they see that?

But maybe you think this is overstating the case? Maybe you think the Dems are just trying to “cover their backside” on a matter that is purely political?

Okay, but answer this: Were the Democrats involved in a plot to overthrow the President of the United States?

Yes, they were.

Is that treason?

Yes, it is.

Then, are we really prepared to say that treason is “purely political”?

No, especially since Russiagate was not a one-off, but just the first shocking example of how the Democrats operate. If we examine the Dems approach to the Covid-19 crisis, we see that their policy is actually more destructive than the 4-year Russia fiasco.

For example, which party has imposed the most brutal, economy-eviscerating lockdowns and the most punitive mask mandates, while steadily ratcheting up the fearmongering at every opportunity? Which states suffered the most catastrophic economic damage due in large part to the edicts issued by their Democrat governors? Which party is using a public health emergency to advance the global “Reset” agenda announced at the World Economic Forum (WEF)? Which party is using the Covid-19 fraud to crash the economy, eliminate 40 million jobs, roll-back basic civil liberties and turn the United States into a NWO slave-state ruled by Wall Street bankers, Silicon Valley technocrats and Davos elites? Which party?

And which party has aligned itself with Black Lives Matter, the faux-social justice organization that is funded by foreign oligarchs that are working tirelessly to crush the emerging populist movement that supports “America First” ideals? Which party applauded while American cities burned and small businesses across the country were looted and razed by masses of hooligans engaged in an orgy of destruction? Which party’s mayors and governors rejected federal assistance to put down the riots and reestablish order so ordinary people could get back to work to provide for themselves and their families? And which party now is threatening widespread social unrest and anarchy if the upcoming presidential election does not produce the result that they or their globalist puppet-masters seek?

The Democrat party has undergone a sea-change in the last four years. There’s no trace of the party that was once headed by progressive-thinking idealists like John F Kennedy. What’s left now is a shell of its former self; a cynical, self-aggrandizing, cutthroat organization that has betrayed its base, the American people, and the country. Indeed, for all its many failings, it is the ‘betrayal’ that is the most infuriating.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Both right wings of the US one-party state consider China public enemy No. One for its growing prominence on the world stage.

Notably from Obama’s 2013 Asia pivot that’s all about asserting Washington’s Indo/Pacific military footprint to Trump’s war on China by other means, US policy aims to undermine Beijing’s political, economic, industrial, and technological growth.

Prominent Chinese enterprises are in the eye of the made-in-the-USA storm, notably tech giant Huawei.

It’s the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer and leader in the race to roll out next-generation 5G technology, its market potential worth trillions of dollars.

In August, Trump banned China’s video-sharing TikTok as well as mobile text and voice messaging communication firm WeChat from operating in the US under their present ownership — on the phony pretext of national security concerns.

The dubious claim is used time and again to justify hostile US actions against targeted nations — notably China, Russia and Iran.

In banning both Chinese enterprises, Trump claimed dubious authority under the US National Emergencies Act and International Emergency Economic Powers Act at a time when no emergency exists relating to China, its private enterprises, or any other nations.

He falsely claimed that data TikTok and WeChat have access to from US users “potentially allow(s) China to track the locations of federal employees and contractors (sic), build dossiers of personal information for blackmail (sic), and conduct corporate espionage (sic).”

No evidence was cited to corroborate the above accusations because none exists.

Claiming “risks are real” to national security from these firms and other Chinese enterprises are baseless.

Actions taken against Chinese firms aim to weaken the country and give corporate America a competitive advantage over its key enterprises.

Late Sunday evening, a US federal judge ruled against letting Trump’s Commerce Department ban new TikTok downloads from Apple and Alphabet Google app stores from taking effect.

Following an emergency Sunday hearing, District Judge Carl Nichols granted TikTok’s request for a temporary restraining order against Trump’s ordered ban.

In response, a company statement said the following:

“We’re pleased that the court agreed with our legal arguments and issued an injunction preventing the implementation of the TikTok app ban.”

“We will continue defending our rights for the benefit of our community and employees.”

According to a Commerce Department statement, the Trump regime “will comply with the injunction and has taken immediate steps to do so, but intends to vigorously defend the executive order and the secretary’s implementation efforts from legal challenge.”

Commenting on the ruling, China’s Xinhua said “Washington’s heavy-handed cracking down on TikTok has laid bare the recklessness and hypocrisy of America’s blatant modern-day piracy against outperforming foreign enterprises,” adding:

Even the CIA “concluded that there is no evidence showing China has intercepted TikTok’s data, or used the app to intrude on users’ mobile phones.”

Bipartisan US hardliners long ago discarded the rule of law in pursuit of their hegemonic aims — no holds barred.

In unscrupulously targeting its prominent enterprises, China considers US actions “state-sponsored piracy,” a policy it believes will lead Washington “to a dead end.”

Last week, ACLU National Security Project director Hina Shamsi said the following:

“It is very hard to separate out these particular actions against TikTok and WeChat from the fact that they are taking place in the context of Trump’s trade war with China, as well as (his) history of anti-Chinese rhetoric and xenophobia.”

Claiming US actions against these and other Chinese firms are over national security concerns are at “the very least overstated,” she added.

Trump regime actions were backed by no corroborating evidence. Without it, claims are baseless.

On September 19, a San Francisco district judge ruled in favor of WeChat users who argued that no government evidence suggests that the platform poses a national security threat.

Regardless of how Sino/US differences over TikTok and WeChat are resolved, technology analyst Liu Dingding believes hostile Trump regime actions set a dangerous precedent that may affect other nations, adding:

If US actions against these enterprises hold, “it would mean that world-class companies that have core competitiveness would be like ‘lambs’ that can be wantonly slaughtered by the US government when they enter the US market.”

According to China Information Security Research Institute vice president Zuo Xiadong:

“The Trump (regime) is so crazy that it considers any Chinese firm that collects user data in normal business operations as a (national security) threat.”

By this “logic, China should have banned a number of US high-tech companies as China heavily purchased from the US for its information industry development over the past years.”

Zuo stressed that Beijing won’t “bend over” to hostile US actions

TikTok’s preliminary deal with Oracle and Walmart is in limbo.

Beijing may block it to prevent its source code technology from falling into US hands even TikTok’s video-sharing is banned in the US by Trump.

US access to its source code could adversely affect other Chinese enterprises.

Beijing most likely will protect its firms and technologies from what it considers US “piracy.”

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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Japan After Abe Shinzo: Suga Has Inherited Abe’s “Beautiful Japan”. What Will Happen to It?

By Prof. Joseph H. Chung, September 28, 2020

The most important legacy of Abe Shinzo is his dream of making Japan a “Beautiful Country”, which the majority of Japanese people seem to refuse. The beautiful country is what his grandfather Nobusuke Kishitried to construct and he succeeded.  Abe’s beautiful country is founded on racism and the authoritarian governance inherited from the pre-1945 era.

High Treason in UK Suffocates Democratic Governance

By Julian Rose, September 28, 2020

My home country, the United Kingdom, once known for its promotion of libertarian causes, has been taken-over and its citizens utterly betrayed.

Why Germany’s Corona Extra-Parliamentary Inquiry Committee Is Necessary? Dr. Heiko Schöning

By Dr. Heiko Schöning, Dr. Bodo Schiffmann, and Dr. Martin Haditsch, September 28, 2020

We ask ourselves: Why are people no longer allowed to visit their parents in retirement homes? Is there such a great risk of infection? Do we really have a killer virus here? Do we have rabies or do we have the plague? We have serious doubts that this is the case!

The Guardian’s Deceit-riddled New Statement Betrays Both Julian Assange and Journalism

By Jonathan Cook, September 28, 2020

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. 

Is a New Wave of Covid-Fascism Invading Europe?

By Peter Koenig, September 28, 2020

In a brief 3-minute speech, he spoke Truth to Power, about the covid-lie and what it did to humanity and to the global economy. He spoke to a journalist, when he was suddenly arrested by police, handcuffed, pushed into a police car and driven to Wandsworth Custody Center, were he was detained for 22 hours, simply for telling the truth about covid-19.

The State’s Response to this ‘Virus’ Is Nothing More than a Weapon of Mass Submission

By Gary D. Barnett, September 28, 2020

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.

The Weaponization of Human Rights

By Carla Stea, September 27, 2020

Perhaps, because India is now following the orders of her former slaveholder, Western imperialism, the horrifying number of suicides of their destitute farmers, the degradation of the women (innumerable gang rapes and murders of impoverished girls) receive little attention in the corridors of power at the United Nations, subsumed under general toothless resolutions upholding the rights of women.

President Gamal Nasser (1918-1970), the Egyptian leader who as a young army colonel led the Free Officers Movement that overthrew King Farouk, was not only a force for Pan-Arabism, he was also a believer in African unity in which sphere he accepted that the leader should be his friend, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian leader and exponent-in-chief of the Pan-African ideology.

Along with Nkrumah and Ben Bella, the Algerian leader, Nasser was a member of the “Casablanca Bloc” of African nations who wanted a federated African continent, in contrast to the “Monrovia Bloc” who believed in gradual integration. At the conference in which the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was established Nasser called for a total boycott against racial discrimination by “all ways and means.” In addressing the issue of past exploitation, Nasser said “we are prepared to forgive the past, but we are not ready to forget.” He called on the conference to establish an organisation “to guide a free and united African will.”

He got on well with Emperor Haile Selassie with whom he worked closely toward the establishment of the OAU. He acted with kindness and benevolence towards the families of Black African leaders who were placed in difficulties. He ensured that the state took care of Nkrumah’s Coptic Christian Egyptian wife, Fathia and her children after the overthrow of Nkrumah in 1966, and earlier on, he gave refuge to the children of Patrice Lumumba who were smuggled out of Congo in an operation by Egyptian Special Forces. Lumumba’s widow later joined her children and lived in exile in Egypt until she decided to return to Congo.

His friendships with Black African leaders were a positive episode in the relationship between the Black African and Arab worlds; a relationship fraught by the legacy of the centuries-long trans-Saharan slave trade. Nasser was a Centrepoint of Afro-Arab solidarity during the era of anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism.

Less than 48 hours after his overthrow, Nasser wrote the following in a letter to Nkrumah:

“With feelings of great bitterness and shock, we, in the United Arab Republic, have heard of the sad events to which the people of Ghana were exposed … I agree with you that the forces of colonialism are always trying to undermine the independence of African states, and to draw them again into spheres of influence to continue exploiting their resources and shape their fates. What has happened in Ghana is actually part of this imperialist plan. To face colonialism in the African continent requires of us all continuous efforts and a sustained struggle to liberate it from old colonialism and neo-colonialism. The setback that has occurred in Ghana must act as a driving force for all of us to continue the struggle for the consolidation of the independence of African peoples and their liberation from imperialist forces.”

Both men had a similar “weltanschauung”. They espoused the philosophy of national emancipation and the ideology of socialism; in Nasser’s case “Arab Socialism”, and in Nkrumah’s “Scientific Socialism”.

In 1966, Nasser visited the island of Zanzibar which two years earlier had experienced a bloody revolution in which the Black African population had overthrown their Arab overlords, including the sultan who fled into exile. His visit could be interpreted as a gesture of reconciliation on behalf of the Arab world which for a period of time he appeared to be the leader.

He was much admired in his day by many African leaders and their people for his stance against colonialism and imperialism. This was reflected in the tributes paid to him after his death at the age of 52. Among them was the young Sam Nujoma, leader of SWAPO (South West African People’s Organisation), who was grateful for the support offered by Nasser to his movement. And when expressing on behalf of the Nigerian nation the sense of “grievous loss” felt by Nasser’s death, Major General Yakubu Gowon correctly estimated that Nasser would “be difficult to replace in our lifetime.”

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Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England. He writes on his blog site where this article was originally published.

On August 28, Abe Shinzo resigned from his eight year rule of Japan as prime minister to be succeeded by his former Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga, who became the prime minister of Japan on September 16. The world is asking what will happen to Japan under Suga who has inherited the complex and challenging legacies of Abe.

The most important legacy of Abe Shinzo is his dream of making Japan a “Beautiful Country”, which the majority of Japanese people seem to refuse. The beautiful country is what his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi tried to construct and he succeeded.  Abe’s beautiful country is founded on racism and the authoritarian governance inherited from the pre-1945 era.

The foundation of such Abe’s beautiful Japan is Shintoism enforced by Bushido. Shintoism makes the emperor a divine God. On the other hand, Bushido requires the people to make the ultimate sacrifice for the emperor. The combination of the two systems of thought has produced double effects. On the one hand, it invites racism. Being the people of living God, emperor, Japanese race is superior to all other races. On the other hand, it makes the Japanese government a messenger of the God emperor’s will. This justifies the authoritarian government; the people must obey the government.

The racism of Japan was cruelly exposed during Japan’s invasion of Korea, Manchuria and China. Abe’s grandfather Nobusuke Kishi can be singled out as the most racist person. While he was Deputy Minister of Industrial Development of the puppet nation, Manchukuo, in the 1930s, he conscripted millions of Chinese, forced them to work as slave for the industrial development of Manchukuo. Kishi’s labour policy was attributable to his conviction of Japan’s racial superiority and his contempt of other races, especially, the Chinese and the Koreans.

In the eyes of Kishi, Chinese were sub-human deserving sub-human treatment. According to Wikipedia: Nobusuke Kishi, called the Chinese as “lawless bandits”, “incapable of governing themselves” “robot slaves”, “mechanical instruments” and he compared Chinese with the dirty Yangtze river or something worse.

Hideki Tōjō (right) and Nobusuke Kishi, October, 1943 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Kishi used the same labour policy during WWII while he was Minster of Munitions under Tojo Hideki. He recruited 670,000 Koreans and 41,000 Chinese to work as slaves in Japan living under worse than subhuman living conditions. No wonder why Kishi was notoriously known as “Devil of Showa (Showa- no-yokai).

Racial discrimination is still flourishing in Japan, especially under Abe’s rule. The conviction of the superiority of the Japanese race leads inevitably to racial discrimination. The tradition of racism of Kishi is inherited by Abe. A great number of foreigners in Japan have had experience of racial discrimination. According to a survey, racial discrimination is practiced in many areas of activities. For instance in 2008, 38% of foreigners were refused to stay at inns; 70% of foreigners were refused by landlords of rental dwellings. And, many restaurants refuse the foreigners, the “Gaijing”.

Those races who are the targets of the most harsh racial discrimination are Asians, especially Koreans and Chinese. There may be many reasons for singling out Koreans as targets of Japanese prejudice. In reality, it should be the other way round. Koreans should dislike Japanese. After all, Japan was planning to make Koreans its slaves. Nevertheless, Japanese in Korea are welcome and well treated. Then, why do the Japanese hate so much the Koreans? The possible reason is that Koreans who are, in the eyes of Japanese, an inferior race have become Japan’s rival in economic performance, military strength and diplomatic achievements. This is a reality which Japanese cannot accept, especially Abe and his friends.

Racial discrimination against Koreans is the most destructive and persistent. There are about one million Koreans many of whom came to Japan as slave labourers conscripted by Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, during WWII. In Japan, many of Koreans are Special Permanent Residents, but being Korean descendents, they used to be refused from old age pension, medical insurance and social benefits. They were not allowed to have jobs in many fields including civil service. They may be naturalized. But, one of the naturalization conditions is the adoption of a Japanese name and the giving up of the Korean name.

The cruel form of racial discrimination against Koreans is the never ending hatred. In 1923, during the great Kanto Earthquake, 6,000 Koreans were murdered on the street because of wrong rumour to the effect that Korans had poisoned the water supply. In 2015, a ultra-right-wing violent group known as Zaitokukai, which is organized specifically to end welfare and privileges given to Korean in Japan. It is a Korean-hate group. It terrorized Korean elementary school children shouting at them: “Go back to Korea, you are Korean spies” This gang organizes anti-Korean demonstrations shouting ” Kill Koreans!”. The Supreme Court of Japan recognized their crime and they were fined

This gang organization has 10,000 members. The leader is not a rich man and he is not in a position to finance the organization’s hate activities. It is possible that this ultra-right political organization or some big corporations finance its hate activities. Korea has similar organization, “Il-bae” which is pro-Japan and anti-progressive government; it is suspected to be financed by large corporations. It is noteworthy to point out that, In the 1930s, in Manchuria, Abe’s grandfather, Kishi, used the Japanese crime syndicate, Yakuza, to terrorize the Chinese slave labourers.

The Japanese conviction of racial superiority has produced another unfortunate outcome. It has led Japan to embrace the vision of the Tanaka Memorial in which the world conquest by Japan of superior race was inevitable; the world conquest would go by step, the conquest of Korea first, followed by the invasion of Manchuria, then the war with China, then the conquest of South-East and South Asia and, finally, the victory over the United States. The vision of the Tanaka Memorial was surely shared by Kishi who was the right-hand man of Tozo Hideki who planned the war against the U. S.

It is possible that Abe wanted to restore the world where the superior Japanese people rule the world, at least East Asia. For this, he would want to have an authoritarian government like Hitler’s Germany. Abe did not admit he was Nazi sympathiser, but there are many events and signs that show such possibility. At schools, the Imperial Prescript of 1890 is taught. This documents includes Emperor Meiji’s education policy based on the national religion, Shintoism and Bushido requiring the people to obey the government so that peace and harmony prevails in the society and to believe in the glory and salvation of the Japanese people by sacrificing oneself for the emperor.

Shintoism has come back in 21st century Japan. More than 300 lawmakers are members of the Shinto Association. Then, there is the Japan Conference (Nippon Gaigi) which is the brain of the ultra-conservative force in Japan; it openly expresses the need for restoring the pre-1945 imperial and militaristic Japan. About 80% of members of Abe’s ministers were members of the Nippon Gaigi.; most of these ministers remain in the cabinet of Suga.

There is another event which shows Abe’s thirst for the pre-1945 Japan. It is the scandal of Moritomo Gakuen; it is one of the ugliest corruption cases of the Abe government. In this scandal, Abe and his wife were involved; it was about the sale of public land which was worth about US$ 6 million for as little as US$ 1 million; the land was for the construction of the school. To cover up the scandal, the Ministry of Finance had hard time by destroying or modifying the related documents. One of the high ranking civil servants of the Ministry even killed himself in order not to reveal the truth.

The most meaningful aspect of the event was the fact that the mission of the school was to educate future leaders of the imperial and militaristic Japanese empire. There is another aspect of Abe’s beautiful Japan; it is the need for authoritarian government. One of the virtues of Japanese people is harmony and peace, which can be assured through absolute obedience to authoritarian government.

This notion of peace and harmony is not the results of spontaneous and autonomous efforts of the people; it is the results obtained by obeying the public authorities. This behaviour is shared by Koreans of old generation who lived under the Japanese rule or the pro-Japan conservative government of General Park Chung-hee who was a Japanese army officer. In other words, the peace and harmony asked in Abe’s world is the absence of objections to any government policies, even if they are not fair and just. This is the reason why the Japanese people do not down to the street to protest.

For Abe and his party, LDP, the model of such authoritarian government is the Hitler model. Kishi was a fervent admirer of Nazism. Abe Shinzo is a Nazi sympathiser. Some of his ministers were or are members of the Japan Nazi Party. Hitler’s Mein Kamp is taught at schools. Hitler’s Election Strategy is popular among the members of the Nippon Gaigi.

Former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Abe’s government, Taro Aso said this:

“German Weimer Constitution has changed into Nazi constitution before anyone knew. It was changed before anyone else noticed. Why don’t we learn from this period?”

Japan’s strong belief in its racial superiority is the most important reason for perennial friction between Japan on the one hand, and, on the other, China and Korea. What irritates China and Korea is Abe’s refusal of Japan’s wrongdoings and atrocities committed during the first part of the 20th century against China and Korea.

At the center of friction between Japan and Korea is the sex slavery and labour slavery. The savage atrocities against Korean workers and the Korean young teenage girls can be explained only by Japanese racism. There were no Japanese comfort women; there were no Japanese slave workers. Japan could commit such disgusting crimes, because the Japanese military considered Korean teenage girls as part of military equipments and because the Korean labourers were regarded as disposable instrument of the production of goods. That is why Korea asks Japan to admit the crimes in the name of the Japanese government and pay for the crimes.

Abe seems not to accept that the people of the divine emperor, that is, the Yamato race, do commit such crimes. He knows well that the Nanking Rape, the labour slavery of Korean workers and the sex slavery of the Korean comfort women are historical facts. But, Abe seems eager to hide these crimes so that the young generation continue believing in the superiority of the emperor’s people. In fact these crimes are not reported in the school history text books. It seems important for Abe to convince the young generation that the Japanese people – a superior race- cannot commit such crimes.

But, it is just impossible to hide these crimes. The better way of handling these crimes is to admit these historical facts, ask for the pardon from the victims and liberate the poor young generation of Japan from the guilty conscience.

Abe’s racism can negatively affect Japan’s global leadership. Abe has been trying to play global leadership through various means. Japan is known for its heavy investments in lobbying activities with politicians in Washington, London and Paris. Japan has been funding foreign countries’ major think tanks, research centers, universities and media to create favourable image of Japan.

In fact, it is not easy to find papers which criticize Japan. This is harmful for Japan’s healthy evolution as global leader. To be a useful leader, Japan should be respected and trusted and even liked. Being feared is not a good quality of the global leaders. Many countries in Asia fear Japan with armed with war constitution which Abe tried so hard to produce. The fact that Abe does not admit crimes committed against China and Korea is interpreted as the justification of such crimes and his possible ambition to dominate again these countries.

Korea has been the major object of Tokyo’s lobbying. A great number of conservative academics, politicians and researchers have been receiving Japanese money for decades in order to make Koreans feel inferior to Japanese and justify Japan’s colonial oppression. The most known pro-Japan and anti-Korean progressive force is the “New-Right” movement which has produced a school text book in which Japan’s colonialism was good for Korea.

There are other means Japan employs to play global leadership. Japan tries to play leadership through the Comprehensive and Progressive TPP (CPTPP), or TPP minus the U.S. Originally, Obama promoted TPP with 12 member countries not so much for trade promotion as for the purpose of containing China. For this, the U.S. had to pay price in the form of privileged imports of member countries’ goods. Now, Japan has given itself the mission of leading CPTPP.

There is another channel of Japan’s global leadership. Japan has taken the initiative for the Quad which is the alliance of Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. This alliance is aimed at the containment of China through security cooperation and investments in the Indo-Pacific economic corridor designed to compete with China’s BRI (One Belt-One Road Initiative).

One wonders the reason behind Japan’s attempt to play the role of global leadership. The real reason behind all these diplomatic and political manoeuvres could be the revival of Asia dominated by the superior Yamamoto race (the emperor’s race). It is quite possible that Abe is hoping to restore the Greater Eat Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere cherished by his grandfather Kishi and managed by the divine people. This may not be done military conquest; it may be attempted through political and financial means. But, Abe and his friends should give up such dreams. Asia is no longer the Asia of Kishi era.

It is obvious that, in Abe’s mind, Japan needs a new constitution which allows Japan to invade other countries. Japan’s SDF is more than sufficient to defend Japan from foreign invasion. Hence the planned amendment of the peace constitution is to invade other countries. This is what worries Asian countries, especially Korea and China.

The success of Japan’s global leadership depends on several factors.  However, two factors stand out. First, Japan should have economic capability to help other countries. But the mediocre success of Abenomics, the destructive impact of the ill managed COVID-19 crisis and the unsolved structural problems of the Japanese economy indicate that Japan cannot go far in its leadership. Second, Japan is having difficulties in assuring cooperation with China and Korea. Without such cooperation, it is not easy to lead East Asia. To have such cooperation, Japan must admit its wrongdoings committed against China and Korea. Japan should accept, as fact, the 1937-Nanking Rape of torturing, murdering and raping hundreds of thousands of children, men and women of Nanking. Japan should accept the horrendous crimes against teenage Korean girls and workers.

If Japan wants to become a “normal” country and play global leadership, it should give up the illusion of being superior people; it should not look at Chinese and Koreans as inferior races.

Image on the right: Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga giving his first press conference as Prime Minister on 16 September 2020. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

If the Japanese are superior race, they should behave accordingly; they should be generous; they should be inclusive; they should understand other races; they should hold hands with other races and cooperate for a better world for all.

Prime Minister Suga has inherited Abe’s beautiful racist Japan. Is he going to carry out such legacy of Abe? It is true that Suga is not a part of Japanese political aristocracy like Abe and many other LDP members; his father was a strawberry merchant. Therefore, in some quarters, one thinks that he may go for more liberal Japan and more suitable Japan for the 21st century.

However, if he does so, he is likely to be invited out by the vested interested group such as the Japan Conference. In other words, as long as the LDP keeps power, the pursuit of Abe’s dream will continue and Japan will be more isolated in Asia and further ruined. Japan needs a new breed of people who know how to say “NO!” to counterproductive dream of restoring Japan of pre-1945 era.

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Dr. Joseph H. Chung is Professor of economics and co-director of the East Asia Observatory (OAE) of the Study Center on Integration and Globalization (CEIM), Quebec University in Montreal (UQAM). He is Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image is from Oriental Review

The opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York each September is generally notable for its two weeks of speeches by heads of state, foreign ministers and other government officials addressing their own fellow citizens through the medium of a world forum. This year was no exception except for the fact that the coronavirus pandemic meant that most speakers were not live, instead delivering their messages by means of pre-recorded videos.

Most of the speeches were bland, boasting of achievements back at home, and utterly predictable. Many also praised the United Nations as a gathering place where all nations could learn to get along. There were, however, some exceptions, with certain spokesmen using the bully pulpit to deliberately target regimes and foreign leaders for criticism, or even to deliver thinly veiled threats.

U.S. president Donald Trump spoke on Tuesday via a pre-recorded video. His speech was remarkable in that it pulled no punches regarding several nations that Washington appears to have on its “enemies list.” China was particularly pummeled by Trump in what the New York Times described as a “strongly worded” speech. It included describing the coronavirus as Chinese to support the not altogether convincingly demonstrated White House argument that the virus was created and weaponized by the Wuhan lab before being clandestinely released to infect an unsuspecting world.

After praising the great job his administration had done against the virus, certainly a questionable assertion, claiming that “We have waged a fierce battle against the invisible enemy — the China virus,” Trump went on to lay all the blame for its spread on Beijing, saying “As we pursue this bright future, we must hold accountable the nation which unleashed this plague onto the world: China.

“In the earliest days of the virus, China locked down travel domestically while allowing flights to leave China and infect the world. China condemned my travel ban on their country, even as they cancelled domestic flights and locked citizens in their homes.

“The Chinese government and the World Health Organization — which is virtually controlled by China — falsely declared that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission. Later, they falsely said people without symptoms would not spread the disease.

“The United Nations must hold China accountable for their actions.”

It was virtually a declaration of war that included a liberal helping of the usual Trumpean misrepresentation of facts. China was mentioned a total of twelve times in a fifteen-minute speech and none of the references were friendly. President Xi Jinping of China spoke after Trump and described the coronavirus as a “crisis shared by everyone.” He did not apologize and instead claimed his nation of 1.4 billion people had acted responsibly to combat the Covid-19 disease caused by the virus. He concluded that “Any attempt of politicizing the issue or stigmatization must be rejected.”

Trump then went on to touch bases on the remainder of his enemies list, saying

“We also know that American prosperity is the bedrock of freedom and security all over the world. In three short years, we built the greatest economy in history, and we are quickly doing it again. Our military has increased substantially in size. We spent $2.5 trillion over the last four years on our military. We have the most powerful military anywhere in the world, and it’s not even close.

“We stood up to decades of China’s trade abuses. We revitalized the NATO Alliance, where other countries are now paying a much more fair share. We forged historic partnerships with Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador to stop human smuggling. We are standing with the people of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela in their righteous struggle for freedom.

“We withdrew from the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal and imposed crippling sanctions on the world’s leading state sponsor of terror. We obliterated the ISIS caliphate 100 percent; killed its founder and leader, al-Baghdadi; and eliminated the world’s top terrorist, Qasem Soleimani.”

Trump, again characteristically mixing fact with fiction, did not mention that the U.S. economy, the claimed “bedrock of freedom and security all over the world,” is suffering both from the consequences of the coronavirus as well as from an unsustainable level of government debt. He did mention that he had recklessly thrown more money at a bloated military establishment and left hanging the possibility that it would be used to bring “freedom” to the oppressed citizens of countries like Cuba and Venezuela.

And, of course, Iran has a special place in Trump’s reckoning. It is the “leading state sponsor of terror” and had a top official who was the “world’s top terrorist,” both of which assertions are palpably false as is the claim that the “Nuclear Deal” was “terrible.” It was, on the contrary, supportive of America’s national security interests as well as a real step forward to avoid a possible deadly regional confrontation in the Middle East.

Trump did not mention Israeli war crimes, nor those of the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be speaking before the General Assembly next Tuesday and it can be safely predicted that he will warn about Iran’s threat to the world due to its alleged secret program for a nuclear weapon. Ironically, Israel has a secret program that has produced an estimated 200 nuclear weapons and has never allowed its scientific facilities to be inspected. Iran, unlike Israel, is a signatory to the U.N. Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and does permit inspections. Inspectors agree that it has no nuclear weapons program.

A far more threatening “like a mad dog too dangerous to bother” Israel once entertained setting up a so-called Samson Option in which it would use nuclear weapons as a first response to any powerful conventional enemy that might attack it or even to prevent a rival like Iran from obtaining its own nuclear arsenal. Variations on the Option have included destroying most of the capitals in Europe and the Middle East if the Jewish state were about to be overwhelmed by an enemy.

Perhaps not too surprisingly, the speech by Saudi Arabia’s King Salman on the following day echoed some of the points made by Donald Trump. The 84 year old King, reading from a prepared speech, delivered what has been described as “a scathing attack on Iran” that urged the international community to develop a “comprehensive solution” to Tehran’s alleged “sponsorship of terrorism”.

Salman told his audience that

“The Kingdom’s hands were extended to Iran in peace with a positive and open attitude over the past decades, but to no avail. Our experience with the Iranian regime has taught us that partial solutions and appeasement did not stop its threats to international peace and security” which have included “expansionist activities” and the support of “terror networks” throughout the region that are spreading “chaos, extremism and sectarianism”.

Saudi Arabia’s effort to blame regional instability on Iran alone is hardly convincing. The Kingdom’s own regional policies and human rights record have been widely criticized, to include secret trials and extensive use of capital punishment, the genocidal war in Yemen that the U.N. itself has described as the “world’s worst humanitarian disaster,” the 2017 kidnapping of then-Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri and the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

So, it was all business as usual at the United Nations. China loomed large on the enemies list of the United States while the U.S. and the Saudis together threatened the Iranians. There is a parable about “he who casts the first stone…” with the implication that many who are prepared to denounce others have their own sins to conceal. That is certainly true relating to the speeches by U.S. President Donald Trump and Saudi King Salman.

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

Featured image: President Trump Addresses the 75th Session of the United Nations General Assembly

Over the past months, attacks on convoys of the US-led coalition moving military equipment and supplies have become an ordinary development in Iraq. Local Iranian-backed resistance groups demanding a US military withdrawal from the country have conducted over two dozen attacks so far. The most recent ones took place on September 22 and 23.

The September 22 attack erupted in the district of al-Dujayl, around 60 km to the north of Baghdad. According to Iraq’s Security Media Cell, the convoy was targeted with an improvised explosive device. No casualties were reported. On the afternoon of September 23, a second supply convoy of the U.S.-led coalition was targeted in the district of Awja, more than 160 km north of Baghdad.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq (also known as Ashab al-Kahf) claimed responsibility for the September 23 incident saying that several military vehicles belonging to British forces were damaged. Meanwhile, another group, the Breaker of Titans Company (Saryat Qasim al-Jabbarin), said that it had attacked coalition convoys near the town of Hillah in Babylon province and in the district of Abu Ghraib west of Baghdad. In an official statement, the group claimed that it will continue attacks until U.S. forces are expelled from Iraq.

While regular attacks on supply convoys of the Coalition cause apparent media jitters, they have not caused any notable damage to the coalition forces themselves. Logistical and supply convoys are often operated by private military contractors and local forces affiliated with or just hired by the coalition.

The US military still has a strong presence at its fortified positions and remaining bases in central and northern Iraq. This year the Pentagon even reinforced the security of its forces by deploying Patriot surface-to-air missile and C-RAM (counter rocket, artillery, and mortar) systems. The C-RAM is now regularly employed to protect the US embassy area in Baghdad’s Green Zone from rocket strikes.

The US military has been also conducting active reconnaissance and electronic warfare operations to detect and suppress infrastructure of Iranian-backed forces working against its interests in the region. On September 24, a U.S. EC-130H Compass Call “electronic attack” aircraft was spotted over the southern and eastern regions of Iraq. The aircraft took off on September 24 from the Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE’s capital, Abu Dhabi. After crossing the Persian Gulf, the aircraft entered Iraq’s airspace and flew between the southern province of Basrah and the eastern city of Kut in a line parallel to the Iraqi-Iranian border.

The Compass Call is a heavily modified version of the C-130 Hercules developed to disrupt enemy command and control communications, perform offensive counter-information operations and carry out other kinds of electronic attacks. The U.S. Air Force’s EC-130Hs carry out missions over the Persian Gulf on a regular basis. Nevertheless, previously they rarely flew over Iraq.

Pro-Iranian sources claim that the increased US military and intelligence activity near Iranian borders are an indication of the US-Israeli preparations for aggressive actions in Iran. Despite this, in the current conditions, an open Iranian-US conflict in the Persian Gulf region in the near future remains an unlikely scenario. At the same time, the proxy conflict between Iranian-led forces and the US-Israeli-led bloc have been escalating.

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This painting by Italian artist Walter Molino was published in the Italian newspaper La Domenica del Corriere in 1962.

He imagined the Singoletta as the solution to traffic congestion.

But more than just being the future of mass transportation, doesn’t this painting depict what life looks like in the succeeding years as a measure against the novel coronavirus?

…

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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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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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