Global Research

After a decade-long, worldwide corporate debt binge, the bill has come due: huge swaths of the corporate world are now at risk of default, with only governments able to save them. This time, any bailouts must place corporate investment under public control.

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The new coronavirus has already infected hundreds of thousands of people, taken more than 20,000 lives and caused a level of economic, social and political disruption not seen in decades.

But for many far-right hardliners, it’s a crisis to be welcomed.

The hardest-core “accelerationists” – violent neo-Nazis who want civilisation to crumble, hope that COVID-19 will turn out to be their secret weapon.

“The situation is ripe for exploitation by the far right,” Cynthia Miller-Idriss, American University sociologist and expert on the far-right, told Al Jazeera. 

Aside from feeding into “accelerationist and apocalytic ideas”, Miller-Idriss said “the uncertainty the pandemic creates creates fertile ground for claims about the need for change or the solutions the far right purports to offer.”

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The pandemic, economic collapse and the government’s response to them are going to not only determine the 2020 election but define the future for this decade and beyond. People are seeing the failure of the US healthcare nonsystem and the economy. The government was able to provide trillions for big business and Wall Street without asking the usual, “Where will we get the money?” However, the rescue bill recently passed by Congress provides a fraction of what most people need to get through this period. Once again, a pandemic will reshape the course of history.

Last week, we wrote about the failings of the healthcare system and the need for a universal, publicly-funded system. This week, we focus on the need to change the US economic system. The economic crisis in the United States is breaking all records. The class war that has existed for decades is being magnified and sharpened. The failings of financialized, neoliberal capitalism is being brought into focus at a time when people in the United States have greater support for socializing the economy than in recent times.

This Thursday, there was a record 3.3 million applications for unemployment, an increase of three million from the previous week, but on the same day, there was a record rise in the stock market. This contradiction shows the divide between the economic insecurity of the people and investors profiting from the crisis. The 11.4 percent increase in the stock market on Thursday was the largest increase since 1933 while the record rise in unemployment was 40 percent higher than ever recorded. Projections are for 30 percent unemployment this quarter, which is five percent higher than the worst of the Great Depression.

The response to the economic crisis reveals who the government represents. While people’s economic insecurity grew, the government acted to primarily benefit the wealthiest. This realization should spur an uprising like the United States has never seen before. Perhaps the most dangerous to the ruling class is their incompetence has been exposed. As Glen Ford writes,

“The capitalist ‘crisis of legitimacy’ may have passed the point of no return, as the Corporate State proves daily that it cannot perform the basic function of protecting the lives of its citizens.”

Disaster Aid: Crumbs For The People, Trillions For The Wealthiest

Congress unanimously passed a $1.6 trillion coronavirus disaster aid bill this week. This is almost equal to the 2009 Recovery Act and the 2008 Wall Street rescue combined. Democrat’s votes were essential to passing the bill so they could have demanded whatever they wanted. This bill shows the bi-partisan priority for big business.

The bill is too little too late for people who have lost their jobs and for small businesses that have been forced to close. The law includes a one-time $1,200 payment to most people. This payment will arrive after rent and other debt payments are due for a US population with record debt. Congress does not understand the economic realities of people in the United States. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz explained what was needed saying, “The answer is we need no evictions, no foreclosures on all properties, and the government should guarantee pay.” In addition, credit card companies should also put “a stay on interest on all debt.”

When COVID-19 first began, we pointed out that the US healthcare system was not prepared to respond and showed the problems of putting profits before health. The COVID-19 rescue bill did not pay for coronavirus testing or treatment. Millions of people who lose their jobs will lose their health insurance, demonstrating why healthcare should not be tied to employment. Adding to health problems, the law did not increase the SNAP food program for the poor.

Roughly one-third of the funding goes to direct payments to people, unemployment insurance for four months, hospitals, veterans’ care, and public transit. Two-thirds go to government and corporations. Adam Levitin describes the law as “robbing taxpayers to bail out the rich.”

Congress allotted at least $454 billion to support big business in addition to $46 billion for specific industries, especially airlines. Some of these funds will also bail out the fossil fuel industry. According to the way the Federal Reserve operates, they will be allowed to spend ten times the amount Congress allocated to support big business, $4.5 trillion. Jack Rasmus writes that the Federal Reserve had already “allocated no less than $6.2 Trillion so far to bail out the banks and investors.” He summarizes the disparity: “Meanwhile Congress provides one-fourth that, and only one-third of that one fourth, for the Main St., workers, and middle-class families.”

Trump shows the disdain government has for the people and its favoritism for big business and investors as he objected to paying for 80,000 life-saving ventilators because they cost $1 billion while the government provides trillions to big business and investors. Governors and hospitals are issuing dire warnings of what is to come, but the federal government is not listening.

Economic Collapse Shows The Need For Transformational Change

The economic collapse is still unfolding. The US is already in a deep recession that is likely to be worse than the 2008 financial crisis and could develop into a greater depression if the COVID-19 economic shutdown lasts a long time.

Already, the crises, the government’s support for Wall Street and its failure to protect the 99% are creating louder demands for system change. We need to put forward a bold agenda and agitate around it to demand economic security for all. As Margaret Kimberly writes, we are entering a period of revolutionary change because we know returning to normal is “the opposite of what we need.” Or as Vijay Prashad says, “Normal was the problem.”

While the urgent health and economic crises dominate, the climate crisis also continues. The climate crisis already required replacing the fossil fuel era with a clean and sustainable energy economy and remaking multiple sectors of the economy such as construction, transportation, agriculture, and infrastructure. Now, out of these crises, a new sustainable economic democracy can be born where people control finance, inequality is minimized and workers are empowered, along with creating public programs that meet the necessities of the people and protect the planet.

The US Constitution gives the government the power to create money; Article I, Section 8 says: “The Congress shall have power … to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin.” Congress needs to take back that power so the government can create debt-free money. Currently, the Federal Reserve, which was created by Congress in 1913, is the privately-owned US central bank that produces money and sets interest rates. It puts the interests of the big banks first. The Fed can be altered, nationalized or even dismantled by Congress. Its functions could be put into the Department of the Treasury.

Monetary actions need to be transparent and designed to serve the necessities of the people and the planet. Money should be spent by the government into the economy to meet those needs while preventing inflation and deflation. In this way, the government would have the funds needed to transform to a green energy economy, rebuild infrastructure, provide education from pre-school through college without tuition, create the healthcare infrastructure we need for universal healthcare and more.  In addition, through a network of state and local public banks, people would be able to get cost-only mortgages and loans to meet their needs.

Moving money creation into the federal government would place it within the constitutional system of checks and balances where the people have a voice to ensure it works for the whole society, not only for the bankers and the privileged. This could end the parasitic private banking system and replace it with a democratic public system designed for the people’s needs as Mexico is doing.

Globalization must be reconsidered. Corporate globalization with trade agreements that favor corporate power is a root cause of this global pandemic. We need trade that puts people and the planet first and encourages local production of goods. This includes remaking agriculture to support smaller farms and urban farming using organic and regenerative techniques that increase the nutritional value of foods and sequester carbon.

What we need instead is popular globalization – developing solidarity and reciprocity between people around the world. We can learn from each other, collaborate and provide mutual aid in times of crisis as Cuba and other countries are doing now.

As businesses are bailed out by the government, they could be required to protect and empower workers. Workers’ rights have been shrinking since the 1950s as unions have become smaller and more allied with business interests. The right to collective bargaining needs to be included as a requirement for receiving government funds. For large public corporations, workers should be given a board seat, indeed the government should be given a board seat and an equity share in any corporation that is bailed out. For smaller businesses, as they reopen, it is an opportunity to restructure so worker ownership and workers sharing in the profits become the norm.

The US needs to build the economy from the bottom up. The era of trickle-down economics that has existed since the early 80s has failed most people in the United States. The government needs to create a full-employment economy with the government as the employer of last resort. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives US infrastructure a grade of D+ requiring a $2 trillion dollar investment that would create millions of jobs. The Green New Deal would create 30 million jobs over ten years according to the detailed plan put forward by the Green Party’s Howie Hawkins.

The coronavirus disaster aid includes a payment to every person in the US earning under $70,000. While the one-time $1,200 check is grossly insufficient, it demonstrates the possibility of a universal basic income. This would lift people out of poverty and protect them from the coming age of robots and artificial intelligence that will impact millions of existing jobs. The evidence is growing that a basic income works. A World Bank analysis of 19 studies found that cash transfers have been demonstrated to improve education and health outcomes and alleviate poverty

The United States economy is in a debt crisis that demands quantitative easing for the people. Personal, corporate and government debt is at a record high. While the economic collapse is being blamed on the coronavirus, the reality is that the pandemic was a trigger that led to a recession that was already coming. The US needs to correct those fundamentals — massive debt, a wealth divide, inadequate income, poverty — as part of restarting the economy. Just as the Fed has bought debts to relieve businesses of debt burden, it can do the same for the personal debts of people. We should start by ending the crisis of student debt, which is preventing two generations from participating in the economy. While we make post-high school vocational and college education tuition-free, we should not leave behind the generations suffering from high-priced education.

Rise-Up and Demand Change

To create change, people must demand it. Even before the coronavirus collapse, people were demanding an end to inequality, worker rights, climate justice, and improved Medicare for all, among other issues. In the last two years, the United States has seen record numbers of striking workers. The climate movement is blocking pipelines and infrastructure and shutting down cities. Protests against inequality and debt resistance have existed since the occupy movement.

Now, with the economic collapse, protests are increasing. It’s Going Down reports: “with millions of people now wondering how they are going to make ends meet and pay rent, let alone survive the current epidemic, a new wave of struggles is breaking out across the social terrain. Prisoners and detention center detainees are launching hunger strikes as those on the outside demand that they be released, tenants are currently pushing for a rent strike starting on April 1st, the houseless are taking over vacant homes in Los Angeles, and workers have launched a series of wildcat strikers, sick-outs, and job actions in response to being forced onto the front lines of the pandemic like lambs to the slaughter.”

Workers at the Fiat Chrysler Windsor Assembly Plant walked off the job over concerns about the spread of coronavirus. Pittsburgh garbage collectors refused to pick up trash because their health was not being protected. Chipotle employees walked off the job and publicly protested the company for allegedly penalizing workers who call in sick. Perdue employees in Georgia walked off their jobs on a production line over a wage dispute and management asked workers to put in extra hours without a pay increase during the pandemic. Some Whole Foods workers announced a collective action in the form of a “sick out,” with workers using their sick days in order to strike. In Italy, wildcat strikes erupted to demand that plants be closed for the duration of the virus. Postal workers in London took strike actions due to the risks of the virus.

The pandemic requires creativity in protest. Technology allows us to educate and organize online, as well as to protest, petition, email, and call. There have also been car marches, public transport drivers have refused to monitor tickets, collective messages have been sent from balconies and windows. People are showing they can be innovative to get our message across to decision-makers. We can also build community and strengthen bonds with mutual aid.

If the ownership class continues its call to re-open the economy despite the health risks, the potential of a general strike can become a reality. When Trump called for returning to work the hashtags #GeneralStrike and #GeneralStrike2020— calling on workers everywhere to walk off the job — began trending on Twitter. Rather than a strike against one corporation, people would strike across multiple businesses and could also include a rent and mortgage strike as well as a debt strike. The coronavirus has shown that essential workers are among the lowest-paid workers and that they make the economy function. We also understand that if people refuse to pay their debts or rent, the financial system will collapse. Understanding those realities gives a new understanding of the power of the people.

A general strike, as Rosa Luxembourg described it in 1906, is not ‘one isolated action” but a rallying call for a campaign of “class struggle lasting for years, perhaps for decades.” A general strike could take many forms, including a global day of action. Before the current crises, we saw the decade of the 2020s as a decade of potential transformational change because on multiple fronts movements were growing and demanding responses to an array of crises. Now, the triggers for the economic collapse could also be the trigger for transformational revolt.

We are all in this together. We are all connected and share a common humanity. If we act in solidarity during this time of crisis and in this decade of transformation, we can create the future we want to see for ourselves and future generations.

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Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers co-direct Popular Resistance where this article was originally published. 

All images in this article are from PR

U.S. Senator Christopher Murphy and 10 other lawmakers sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin urging them to alleviate the sanctions that the U.S. keeps against Iran and Venezuela amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We are writing to express our concern regarding the deteriorating humanitarian crises in countries under U.S. sanctions as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread. We are particularly concerned about the impact of sanctions on the Covid-19 response in Iran and Venezuela,” the Democratic senators said.

“As these countries struggle to respond to their domestic health crises, U.S. sanctions are hindering the free flow of desperately needed medical and humanitarian supplies due to the broad chilling effect of sanctions on such transactions, even when there are technical exemptions,” they added.

On Thursday, Attorney General William Barr announced that the United States designed Venezuela as a state sponsoring terrorism.

Besides being arbitrary, this accusation makes it even more difficult for the Bolivian people and their government to buy basic goods in international markets.

Trump #HandsOffVenezuela!#MaduroValentíaYDignidad#QuédateEnCasa https://t.co/qTdiioBx8K

— Alberto Torres (@Marabino2010) March 27, 2020

The meme reads, “Solidarity with President Nicolas Maduro and the Venezuelan leaders unjustly and illegally persecuted by the US. This new outrage also seeks to hide the catastrophe that Covid-19 is causing under the Trump administration.”

Democratic senators also recalled that the short term abeyance of sanctions has “ample precedent” in the U.S. foreign policy.

“For instance, when a massive earthquake struck Iran in 2003 killing 26,000 people, the Bush administration temporarily suspended sanctions to send 150,000 pounds of medical supplies and more than 200 aid workers… to help,” Sen. Murphy and his colleges highlighted.

Although the sanctions are not supposed to cover medicines, it is recalled that companies are refraining from making transactions with Venezuela and Iran for fear of being punished.

“Our sanctions regime is so broad that medical suppliers and relief organizations simply steer clear of doing business in Iran and Venezuela in fear of accidentally getting caught up in the U.S. web sanctions,” the lawmakers stressed.

UN, EU Urge Venezuela Sanctions Relief as Coronavirus Outbreak Intensifies https://t.co/9MMupl6syX End the US imperialism sanctions.

— Paul Patrick (@PaulTyredagh81) March 26, 2020

“Moreover, the administration’s decision to impose additional new sanctions amidst the coronavirus outbreak has only contributed to the sense among companies that they should avoid doing any business involving these countries, even if their work is humanitarian.”​​​​​​​

The Democratic senators called on the Trump administration to provide a license authorizing specific medical goods and equipment such as testing kits, respiratory devices, and personal protective equipment.

They also for setting new financial channels for Venezuela and Iran to pay for humanitarian goods as well as unconditional delivery of aid through a third-party country or entity.

The letter was also signed by Senators Tom Carpenter, Patrick Leahy, Tim Kaine, Benjamin Cardin, Tom Udall, Sherrod Brown, Brian Schatz, Jeffrey Merkley, and Richard Blumenthal.​​​​​​​

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Featured image: Christopher Murphy at the McCall Center for Behavioral Health, Torrington, Connecticut, U.S, March 6, 2020. | Photo: Twitter/ @rep_am

The governments of China, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela – all under sanctions from the United States – sent a joint statement to the United Nations Secretary-General, the UN’s High Commissioner on Human Rights and the Director-General of the World Health Organization calling for an end to the unilateral American economic blockade, as they are, “illegal and blatantly violate international law and the charter of the United Nations.” 

The eight countries, representing around one-quarter of humanity, say that Washington’s actions are undermining their response to the COVID–19 pandemic sweeping the planet. “The destructive impact of said measures at the national level, plus their extraterritorial implication, together with the phenomenon of over-compliance and the fear for ‘secondary sanctions,’ hinder the ability of national governments” in procuring even basic medical equipment and supplies, including coronavirus test kits and medicine. It is a “hard if not impossible deed for those countries who are currently facing the application of unilateral coercive measures,” to cope, they conclude.

The letter was shared on Twitter by Joaquin Perez, Venezuela’s Permanent Ambassador to the UN.

Today 🇨🇳,🇨🇺,🇰🇵,🇮🇷,🇳🇮,🇷🇺,🇸🇾,🇻🇪 addressed the #UNSG on the negative impact of sanctions on nat’l efforts to fight COVID19. We cannot allow a zero-sum game in the midst of a pandemic. #SanctionsAreCriminal & must end now! Political calculations cannot get in the way of saving lives! pic.twitter.com/ujnmyf7ASL

— Joaquín A. Pérez Ayestarán (@japerezve) March 26, 2020

That U.S. sanctions are “blatant violations of international law,” the letter states, is not in doubt. As the American Special Rapporteur to the UN, Alfred de Zayas, notes, only sanctions expressly verified and imposed collectively by the UN Security Council can be considered legal; any unilateral punishment is, by definition, illegal. De Zayas, a legal scholar, notes that sanctions are tantamount to a “collective punishment” against a population, an explicit violation of multiple articles of the UN Charter, the foundation of international law.

De Zayas traveled to Venezuela last year, describing the U.S. sanctions as akin to a medieval siege and accusing the Trump administration of “crimes against humanity.” The United Nations Human Rights Council formally condemned the U.S., called on all member states to break the sanctions, and even began discussing the reparations Washington should pay to Venezuela, noting that Trump’s sanctions were designed to “disproportionately affect the poor and most vulnerable.” None of this was reported in any major American media outlet at the time.

The sanctions meant that Venezuela was unable to import key medicines for conditions like cancer and diabetes, leading to scores of deaths. A 2019 report from the Washington-based Center for Economic Policy Research conservatively estimated the sanctions killed 40,000 Venezuelans between mid-2017 and 2018.

Yesterday, the Trump administration turned the screw tighter, putting out a bizarre hit on President Nicolas Maduro, offering $15 million to anybody who could bring him to them in chains. Other key figures like Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino and Head of the Constituent Assembly Diosdado Cabello also had bounties placed on their heads, supposedly because they were part of a drug trafficking ring.

The U.S. is also turning up the heat on COVID-19 plagued Iran. Senior Washington insiders like Newt Gingrich are dreaming that their sanctions will finally bring about regime change in the Islamic Republic. Sanctions led to the Iranian rial losing 80 percent of its value, with both food prices and unemployment doubling. While medicine is technically exempt from sanctions, in reality, Washington has frightened away any nation or corporation from doing business with Tehran. Even as coronavirus was raging through the country, no nation was willing to donate even basic supplies to Iran. Eventually, the World Health Organization stepped in and directly supplied it with provisions. An October report from Human Rights Watch noted that “the overbroad and burdensome nature of the US sanctions has led banks and companies around the world to pull back from humanitarian trade with Iran, leaving Iranians who have rare or complicated diseases unable to get the medicine and treatment they require.” At least 2,378 Iranians have died of COVID-19, many of them needlessly.

Despite the embargoes they are under, many countries on the sanctioned list have contributed greatly to the world’s fight against COVID-19. Despite facing a shortage of basic supplies like soap, Cuba continues to export doctors and other medical staff around the world, often to the worst affected areas. Meanwhile, China, the original epicenter of the outbreak, appears to have come to grips with the pandemic and is now exporting its battle-hardened medical staff as well as huge quantities of crucial supplies. This has been presented in the U.S. as a dastardly plot to “curry favor” and shift blame away from their supposed mishandling of the virus in the first place.

The United States has long had a fractious relationship with the UN, constantly using its veto power to sink progressive legislation that would weaken its military, cultural or economic hegemony. In 2017, the U.S. formally pulled out of the UN’s scientific and cultural organization, UNESCO, in response to the group admitting Palestine. American sanctions are not popular at all in the world; in November, for instance, the UN voted 187-3 (U.S., Israel, Brazil) to condemn Washington’s embargo on Cuba. It was the twenty-eighth consecutive year with vote totals varying little from year to year.

The sanctioned countries warn that Trump’s actions are killing not only Americans at home but people all over the world. “We cannot allow for political calculations to get in the way of saving human lives,” they conclude. However, precisely because the U.S. has so much power on the world stage, it is unlikely their protestations will get them very far.

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Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent. He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, Common Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary.

Featured image: A person in protective clothing walks through a temporary 2,000-bed field hospital for COVID-19 coronavirus patients set up by the Iranian army at the international exhibition center in northern Tehran, Iran, March 26, 2020. Ebrahim Noroozi | AP 

A petition launched on March 19, 2020

The mass killing and destruction of Iraq that began 17 years ago today, assessed by the most scientifically respected measures available, killed over 1.4 million Iraqis, saw 4.2 million additional people injured, and 4.5 million made refugees.

The 1.4 million dead (and still rising) was 5% of the Iraqi population. That compares to 2.5% of the U.S. population lost in the U.S. Civil War, or 3.5% in Japan in World War II, 1% in France and Italy in World War II, 0.3% in the United States in World War II, and 0.001% in the United States in this war on Iraq.

The U.S. military has targeted civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances. It has made use of cluster bombs, white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and a new kind of napalm in urban areas. Birth defects, cancer rates, and infant mortality are through the roof. Water supplies, sewage treatment plants, hospitals, bridges, and electricity supplies remain devastated. Healthcare, nutrition, and education are nothing like they were before the war. And we should remember that healthcare and nutrition had already deteriorated during years of economic warfare waged through the most comprehensive economic sanctions ever imposed in modern history, sanctions that were accompanied by bombs and which followed the destruction of the Gulf War.

For years, the occupying forces have broken the society of Iraq down, encouraging ethnic and sectarian division and violence, resulting in a segregated country and the repression of rights that Iraqis used to enjoy, even under Saddam Hussein’s brutal police state – which, of course, was itself supported by the U.S. government for years.

While U.S. troops have been reduced in Iraq, they have never been removed. In January, the Iraqi Parliament voted that all U.S. troops should leave. The U.S. government has refused to leave, and has instead proposed installing (“defensive”) missiles in Iraq targeting Iran. While Iran is depicted in U.S. media as an evil enemy, the U.S. military does not claim that Iran is a threat to the actual United States, only to U.S. troops near Iran and U.S. “interests.” The refusal to leave and the decision to install missiles endanger Iraq, Iran, the entire region, and a world at risk of nuclear escalation and climate collapse that cannot afford any more wars.

The terrorist attack on Baghdad 17 years ago, which was intended to “shock and awe” people into terror and submission, followed months of pro-war propaganda in U.S. corporate media and from the U.S. government.

Senate Foreign Relations Chair Joe Biden promoted the White House’s lies about weapons of mass destruction, pushed hard for war, and orchestrated hearings that excluded dissenting voices.

Many were fooled or claimed to be. Donald Trump’s last public comment on the war before it started was that he supported it.

It is now popular in U.S. politics to deny having supported the war, even to claim to have ended it. But there is virtually no discussion of the moral and practical necessity of complying with the wishes of the Iraqi government – wishes that line up with a demand that many of us have been making for exactly 17 years – to withdraw all U.S. troops and mercenaries and bases and weapons from Iraqi soil.

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Former Obama regime chief of staff/Chicago mayor/earlier and current investment banker Rahm Emanuel once notoriously said:

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. I mean, it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

Post-9/11, a permanent US state of war became official bipartisan policy — at home on human and civil rights, abroad against sovereign independent states to replace their legitimate governments with pro-Western puppet ones.

The objective then and now is all about concentrating greater wealth and power in the hands of privileged interests at the expense of peace, the rule of law, and fundamental rights and welfare of ordinary people everywhere.

Michel Chossudovsky explained that current financial crisis conditions were “carefully engineered” — COVID-19 the pretext to do things not possible or easily accomplished during normal times.

Global stock market collapses “resulted in one of the most important transfers in money wealth in modern history,” Chossudovsky explained, involving trillions of dollars that may continue mounting to amounts only to be known in the fullness of time.

Is more US war on war-ravaged Iraq part of the plot? Are Americans too distracted by COVID-19’s effect on their lives and welfare to notice or care?

According to the NYT, “(a) secret Pentagon directive (calls for) try(ing) to destroy” Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs) in Iraq that are connected to the country’s military.

“The Pentagon has ordered military commanders to plan for an escalation of American combat in Iraq, issuing a directive last week to prepare a campaign to destroy an Iranian-backed militia group that has threatened more attacks against American troops.”

So-called Operation Inherent Resolve commander General Robert P. White argued against what he said would require thousands more US forces deployed to Iraq.

Pompeo and national security advisor O’Brien urge increased US hostilities against Iran with Americans distracted by COVID-19 and the Islamic Republic going all out to contain outbreaks in the country.

Trump regime war secretary Esper and Joint Chiefs chairman General Mark Milley oppose the idea.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Robertson falsely said US forces are in Iraq “at the invitation of the Iraqi government and remains focused on partnering with Iraqi security forces for the shared goal of permanently defeating ISIS remnants. We are not going to discuss hypotheticals or internal deliberations.”

Iraqi ruling authorities and vast majority of its ordinary people want them out.

Iranian Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani, assassinated by the Pentagon in January, aided Baghdad in creating and training PMUs as a force allied with Iraq’s military to combat US-supported ISIS.

PMUs are not “Iranian-backed,” falsely implying control of them by Tehran. They’re Iraqi security forces involved in protecting their homeland, controlled by the country’s military.

According to Press TV, PMU forces are holding military drills “in preparation for possible war with the US,” thousands of fighters involved.

Last week, PMU group Kata’ib Hezbollah reported “ ‘suspicious activities by the US and its mercenaries’ in Iraq in preparation for an operation.”

If launched, will it include large-scale Pentagon aerial and ground operations?

Kata’ib Hezbollah believes the plot includes Pentagon shock and awe-type aerial operations and ground operations, similar to US aggression in 1991 and 2003.

The US came to Iraq to stay. Its bases in the country are platforms for control of the country and regional wars.

They’re used to supply ISIS and likeminded jihadists in Syria with weapons and other material support.

Last month, Iraqi lawmaker on the nation’s security and defense commission Karim Aliwi accused the Trump regime of “transferr(ing) over 1,000 terrorists from Syria to Iraq, and it wants to foment chaos and change the equations by using the ISIL card and fomenting insecurity in the Western cities of Iraq.”

According to the Arabic-language al-Maloumeh News website, US military bases in Iraq and Syria are safe havens for ISIS fighters.

Their presence (along with likeminded US-controlled jihadists) is a virtual time bomb that could explode any time in either or both countries like earlier.

Will the Trump regime take advantage of Americans focused solely on COVID-19’s effects on their lives and welfare to escalate war in Iraq, perhaps Syria, and elsewhere?

Will it transfer more of the nation’s wealth to military, industrial, security interests from ordinary Americans both right wings of the one-party state are indifferent toward?

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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.

China’s President Xi Jinping spoke on the phone with Donald Trump on Friday March 27.

President Xi offered China’s support in fighting the virus in the US.

The Chinese are astute diplomats.

At the outset, China was held responsible for “spreading infection” Worldwide.

The contentious issue: will Trump drop the Coronavirus “Made in China” tag?

Earlier in March, Trump was unequivocal: “China has to pay for this… “The world is paying a very big price for what they did”.

But it now appears that the “Made in China” virus rhetoric is on hold. And China’s foreign ministry is no longer insinuating that the “Chinese virus” was “Made in America”… brought to Wuhan during the October 2019 Military Games.

Donald Trump said he’ll stop using the term “Chinese virus”:

 “I don’t regret it, but they accused us of having done it through our soldiers, they said our soldiers did it on purpose, what kind of a thing is that?”

“Look, everyone knows it came out of China, but I decided we shouldn’t make any more of a big deal out of it. I think I made a big deal. I think people understand it. But that all began when they said our soldiers started it. Our soldiers had nothing to do with it.”

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To which Donald Trump retorted:

Diplomacy Restored? Ask the Chinese. It has to do with the “Transmission” of the Virus

Meanwhile, Beijing contends that most of the new COVID-19 cases in China are being brought into the country by foreign visitors including Americans.

Screenshot NYT, March 26, 2020

And then in Late March the Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison who’s a close ally and friend of Donald Trump  (unintentionally) drops a bombshell:

“The country which has actually been responsible for a large amount of these (coronavirus cases) has actually been the United States”

 

Scott Morrison and Donald Trump (below)

Screenshot MSN News , March 20, 2020

Concluding Remarks:

“Where Did it Come From? That is the Question!”

An armed group named the Islamic Revenge Movement (IRM), hostile towards both Turkish forces and the Syrian Army announced its existence in northern Syria. In a video message released on March 20, the IRM claimed that in 2019 its members conducted 118 attacks killing 13 Turkish officers, 187 Turkish-backed militants and 24 pro-government fighters. The IRM also vowed to continue its fight against the “tyrant state” of Turkey and the “Assad regime” in 2020. The claims of the IRM are very questionable, as the group provided no evidence with which to confirm them.

Furthermore, pro-Kurdish sources were first to release the IRM video arguing that the group consisted of former al-Qaeda members. They also released the name of the supposed group leader:  “Abu Osama al-Shami.” Syrian opposition and pro-al-Qaeda sources called the group fake. According to them, the video is just a coverup for actions by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). Both groups prefer to distance themselves from acts of direct aggression against the Syrian military and the Turkish Army in northern Syria. In the public sphere, the YPG plays a victim oppressed by the bloody Assad regime and Erdogan the Invader. In reality, it already has a special brand created to distance the group from attacks on Turkish troops and proxies in Afrin – the Afrin Liberation Forces. The Turkish-rooted PKK pretends that it has no bases and fighters in the region despite the fact that a large part of YPG commanders and members is linked with the PKK.

Iran reportedly increased its military presence in southern Damascus. According to pro-opposition sources, the Shiite-majority area of Set Zaynab was turned into a stronghold of pro-Iranian forces. Syrian government sources deny these reports.

On the evening of March 26, Israel shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) of Hezbollah, which allegedly violated “Israeli airspace”. The photo released by the Israeli military allows to identify the UAV as a modified variant of the commercially-available Skywalker X8. Armed groups across the entire Middle East modify such drones for combat purposes installing on them submunitions as well as use such UAVs for reconnaissance.

In Iraq, the United States withdrew its forces from the al-Qayyarah Air Base and handed it over to the Iraqi military. A spokesman for the US-led coalition, Col. Myles B. Caggins III, said hundreds of coalition troops will “temporarily” evacuate the base as a protective measure to prevent the spread of coronavirus. About 800 troops of the U.S.-led coalition were deployed at the airbase, which hosted approximately $1,7 million dollars worth of coalition equipment. The al-Qayyarah Air Base became the 2nd important military facility abandoned by US forces in March. The withdrawal of US troops from the previous one – al-Qaim – took place last week. These developments are being carried out under the pretext of the COVID-19 outbreak and the defeat of ISIS, but local sources link them with the increasing number of attacks on US forces across the country that the Pentagon cannot contain successfully without a large-scale military escalation.

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In the midst of the most recent attacks of the United States against Venezuela, the government of Donald Trump today designated President Nicolás Maduro as part of a supposed narco-terrorist structure and named a price for his arrest or assassination, along with other leaders of the revolutionary Venezuelan process. Without any evidence or any proof, Washington accuses Venezuela of having responsibility in narco-trafficking. The reality is that we are actually the victims of this plague, and Washington’s close ally and our neighbors, the Republic of Colombia, is one of the world’s biggest drug producers, especially of cocaine, a fact certified by the UN and US authorities themselves. 

But let us put the decision in context

1. Under the leadership of President Maduro, Venezuela has been carrying out an effective struggle against Coronavirus, managing until now to contain the virus to a great extent. It was our country that was the first in the region to decree quarantine, and thanks to the cooperation with China, Russia, and Cuba we have all of the medical capacities to respond to this pandemic. Such decisions have had the support of the majority of the Venezuelan people, including broad sections of the opposition. 

2. There have been advances in an important process of dialogue with the democratic sectors of the opposition many of which in the context of the pandemic have expressed to be in favor of working with the government and in demanding an end to the unilateral coercive measures (improperly referred to as sanctions) that affect our economy and our people. 

3. From different parts of the globe, there are more and more voices speaking out against the blockade suffered by Venezuela, among those we highlight the recent declarations of the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrel; the General Secretary of the UN, Antonio Guterres, and Michelle Bachellet, High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN. 

4. Last March 23, the transit police in Colombia seized an arsenal of war weapons, and due to our efficient work of our intelligence services, we knew that their final objective was to go to Venezuela to carry-out terrorist actions against President Maduro and other authorities. The whole network of this conspiracy, that has support from the US and from Colombia, was denounced yesterday with details by our Communications Minister, Jorge Rodriguez. 

After the miniscule opposition mobilizations called for by Mr. Juan Guaidó during 2020, from Washington they have decided to opt for violent ways to achieve their anxiously awaited “regime change” in Venezuela. 

This dangerous, irrational and criminal decision announced today by the Trump administration occurred in a context where the Bolivarian Government is being strengthened and a crisis is erupting in the US due to the pandemic that is rapidly spreading in that nation. They clearly support on violence and terrorism, as it has clearly been manifested in the declarations released today by a traitor, former Venezuelan soldier, General Cliver Alcalá Cordones, who from Colombia confessed that the weapons seized were indeed planned to be used to carry-out attacks in Venezuela. This plan had the approval of Juan Guaidó and the US government, through functionaries and mercenaries of military contractors. Among other things, Alcalá points out that the purchase of weapons was instructed by Guaidó and he has a contract that proves it. 

It is important to highlight that for the last several years, especially since August 4, 2018 when there was an attempt of magnicide in Caracas against President Maduro through the use of drones loaded with explosives, there have been frequent denouncements made of these terrorist groups operating from Colombia. The information, even of the locations where the terrorists are trained, has been sent to the competent authorities but the government of Iván Duque has yet to speak on the matter. Following this, we have proceeded to denounce the situation of complicity of the Colombian government with the terrorists before the General Secretary of the UN. 

This is a very dangerous moment, especially taking into account the upcoming presidential elections in the US, which are ripe – as we have seen historically- for actions that help guarantee the re-election of the sitting president.  

We therefore ask for your solidarity with the Venezuelan people and to remain alert in the face of this new phase of aggression.

We will win!

#SanctionsAreACrime

#MaduroBraveryandDignity

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Featured image: President Nicolás Maduro, 2016. (Cancillería del Ecuador via Flickr)

Trump likes to call himself a ‘war president’. But his claiming this term turns the definition into a bad joke.

Here’s a few brief thoughts on that theme:

Today Trump announced he was ‘invoking’ the war production act to get GM to produce ventilators at its abandoned Lordstown, OH, auto plant.

But wait. Didn’t Trump already ‘authorize’ the War Production Act a couple weeks ago? Was ‘authorization’ just a PR stunt? Appears so. And authorize who to do what? Well, that was never defined either. Nothing happened after authorization. It was just a media soundbite. It was all a sales pitch and marketing spin to the nation. Kind of like someone bankrupt saying ‘the check is in the mail’. Or ‘call me on friday when I get paid’. You can’t believe a word he says.

If Trump were a true war president, instead of the fake and caricature that he is, he’d have seized the Lordstown GM plant weeks ago, ordered the requisitioning nation wide of all required materials to produce ventilators, moved all necessary technical personnel for production to the plant, used the Army Corp of Engineers to build new housing onsite at the plant for the new workforce; requisitioned local construction equipment necessary for such; then run the plant 24-7 and deliver ventilators via the USAF C-135 fleet to cities most in need.

If he were war president, he wouldn’t have ‘invoked’ the war production act just for ventilators, but for all needed medical-hospital equipment. And told everyone involved if they didn’t deliver on time they’d be fired.

In the interim, he would have ordered FEMA to immediately purchase all medical equipment worldwide asap, regardless the price (no negotiations), to be delivered again via USAF to needed cities directly, without diversion to warehousing by the Federal government.

No. Trump isn’t even close to a war president. He couldn’t stand in Franklin Roosevelt’s shadow. Or Harry Truman’s. Or Woodrow Wilson’s even.

No, Trump is a ‘true believer’ that the market solves everything and immediately. Just wave the magic market wand and it will appear! Like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain, just pull a couple levers, make some loud noise, and it will all happen by itself. Just ask private enterprise and they’ll do it!

In 1941-42 Franklin Roosevelt activated US War Production. A special War Production Board was formed within days of December 7, 1941. It was empowered to requisition anything and everything considered necessary for the war effort. And it did. Roosevelt’s first executive order was to mass produce penicillin, which was thought impossible at the time. The US did it within a few months. Millions would be saved from infections during the war as a result. So where’s Trump’s Executive Order to produce a vaccine for the virus? He calls in a few CEOs from big Pharma and then conducts a media event. Why haven’t all the best medical research minds been mobilized, put in a room in Atlanta at the CDC or even the Pentagon, and told don’t come out until you have it?

During world war II the US didn’t wait for private enterprise to convert factories to war production. The government itself built factories and plants, then leased them over to the private sector to manage. It built entire sections of cities to house workers coming to the new facilities from around the country. You couldn’t obtain building materials to build a house during war time. Ford motor company made a total of 169 cars during the war. But was able to produce tens of thousands of trucks and tanks. So where’s our factories to produce ventilators, N95 masks, face shields, medical gowns, and all the rest of PPE needed. (I’ll tell you where, they were offshored decades ago by US capitalists seeking cheaper wages and greater profits…mostly to Asia and to China which, by the way, now has a surplus that it’s giving to Italy). But when US state governors tried to buy from offshore, the ventilators and PPE are seized by FEMA and the Federal Government. Trump’s administration not only can’t deliver, it’s become an obstacle to governors’ trying to do so. It’s like a general telling his troops to launch an attack but leave half your guns and ammunition here at headquarters company!

If Trump is a war president, he should be sacked, demoted, and sent to a base on the north shore of Alaska to count the caribou.

Trump is a Herbert Hoover wrapped in a Neville Chamberlain; an incompetent general who dribbles out ammunition to his colonels (governors) and tells them to steal from each other if they don’t have enough. He’s an armchair general whose chair has no arms! He’s all ‘talk the talk &amp’ and no ‘walk the walk’, as we used to say!

He’s a commercial real estate pitch man, a barker for a carnival sideshow government, and pathological liar who insults us by running his daily ‘dog & pony’ sales pitch he dares to call a press conference.

Give him a pension and send him away to count the Caribou. Better yet, to the US base in Antarctica to count penguins!

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

Strict measures -even extraordinary ones- are of course required to deal with the tumult flowing from an unleashed global pandemic.

But the people must be watchful and remain ever vigilant of the conduct of their leaders. There will be threats related to state restrictions on personal freedom, as well as those in the sphere of economics.

For instance, the funds released to several large corporate concerns do not strike me as being borne out of necessity. Indeed, in certain instances there is more than a whiff of suspicion that some banks and corporations are using bail out money as a means of covering the losses they have accrued in recent times; losses which several analysts believe was threatening a new recession along the lines of the one which followed the near economic collapse of 2008. On that occasion, several American investment banks and corporations which ought to have been wound up and their directors jailed, were given monies by the Federal Government.

The $2 Trillion package earmarked by President Donald Trump which includes a $32 Billion bailout of airlines and $25 Million to an arts centre for lost ticket sales may be repugnant to those taxpayers who will fund the package. It was agreed upon before any consensus was reached as to the implementation of a UBI (Universal Basic Income) package for Americans.

It is not only the oligarchs who are in effect profiting from a general situation of misfortune. The discovery that a number of US politicians had dumped their stocks shows how those in privileged positions can abuse their office because of their access to information not within the public domain.

Political leaders who were facing long-standing difficulties will doubtless seek to use the situation to their advantage. Emmanuel Macron in France now has the opportunity to control the Yellow Vest Movement, while Binyamin Netanyahu in Israel can stave off the criminal indictment hanging over his head.

People need to remember that history is replete with situations where the state and the officials of state have been given powers under emergency situations, which were not officially revoked when ‘normality’ resumed. J. Edgar Hoover, the long-term head of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is one example. Hoover expanded his jurisdiction and power during the 1930s and then the 1940s courtesy of President Franklin Roosevelt, who in the first instance wanted the FBI to spy on political extremists (communists and fascists) and later, under conditions of war, to deal with threats related to sabotage, subversion and espionage. Hoover of course went on to use these powers in the post war years to entrench his position by spying on politicians and conducting surveillance against political and social movements to which he was opposed.

The threat of the coronavirus is thus not limited to biological harm. The response to it may likely have important ramifications in regard to personal liberties, as well as the economic well-being of nations whose oligarchs through their political servants are already engaged in securing their wealth at the expense of the mass of people.

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

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.

“To expose another human being to serious illness, and to the threat of losing their life, is grotesque and quite unnecessary. This is not justice, it is a barbaric decision.”- Kristinn Hrafnsson, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, March 26, 2020

Social distancing is not a word that seems to have reached certain parts of the British legal system.  Granted, it is an odd one, best refashioned as an anti-social act for the sake of preservation.  Marooned in some state of legal obliviousness, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser (image below) had little time for the bail application made by counsel for Julian Assange.  The WikiLeaks publisher had again rubbed the judicial person the wrong way.  Her memory was not unfazed: Assange had absconded in 2012 and had blotted his copy book.  He would not be permitted to it again.

Not that the application was unsound.  The central ground was the safety of the publisher, whose health has been assailed by seven years of confinement in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, followed by his incarceration at the high security facility at Belmarsh.  Prisons, featuring high concentrations of people, have become fertile grounds for spreading COVID-19.  The March 17 report by Richard Coker, Professor of Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, cautioned on how the transmission of the virus in “congregate settings” typified by “poor sanitation, poor ventilation, and overcrowding” could lead to overwhelming “a population, particularly a population with co-morbidities or that is elderly.”  Coker was unequivocal in recommending that unnecessary detention regimes should be eased.  “This should be done before the virus has chance to enter a detention centre.”  

Representatives of the UK penal system have shown varying degrees of concern.  There have even been calls for early release or means by which prison is avoided as a form of punishment altogether.  The UK Prison Officers’ Association (POA) has urged Prime Minister Boris Johnson to intervene executively to reduce numbers.  The head of the Prison Governors Association Andrea Albutt has warned about the dangers posed by current detention arrangements.  “We’ve lots of prisoners, two people in a cell built for one”, citing Swansea as an example where 80 percent of prisoners were doubled up.  “We have that all across the country.”  Far better, she suggested, to reduce the population.  Such a measure “helps stabilise prisons”, “calm prisoners”, and reduce the staff to prisoner ratio. “If we have less prisoners doubled [up in cells], it will be easier to isolate those who’ve been confirmed as having the virus or have the symptoms so we can delay the spread.”  

Those standing by current UK prison guidelines remain defiantly confident that enough is being done.  The Ministry of Justice is convinced that “robust contingency plans” have been put in place prioritising “the safety of staff, prisoners and visitors.”  Procedures dealing with managing “the outbreak of infectious diseases and prisons” were already in place, and were being used to identify COVID-19 cases.  Sanitising facilities such as hand washing “are available to prisoners, staff and visitors and we have worked closely with suppliers to ensure the supply of soap and cleaning materials.” 

The ministry remains unclear on how the principle of social distancing, one seemingly anathema to the penal system, has been applied.  For her part, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, considers such measures in crowded, unhygienic facilities “practically impossible”.  Undeterred by such observations, the MOJ merely refers to a temporary suspension of “the usual regime”, meaning that “prisoners can no longer take part in usual recreational activities such as using the gym, going to worship or visiting the library.”  Nor can prisoners receive visits.  Such measures are bound to cause ripples of dissatisfaction.

Not much of this impressed the judicial consciousness.  Assange’s legal team were valiant in their efforts to state the obvious.  These were proceedings taking place on the third day of the country’s coronavirus lockdown.  Edward Fitzgerald QC, sporting a facemask, insisted that, “These [medical] experts consider that he is particularly at risk of developing coronavirus and, if he does, that it develops into very severe complications for him…  If he does develop critical symptoms it would be very doubtful that Belmarsh would be able to cope with his condition.”  Prisons were “epidemiological pumps”, fertile grounds for the transmission of disease, and Assange’s continued detention posed endangering circumstances “from which he cannot escape.”  

Baraitser remained unconvinced.  She was satisfied that there were no instances of COVID-19 at Belmarsh, a very cavalier assessment given that a hundred staff personnel were in self-isolation.  She was more moved by the submission from Clair Dobbin, representing the US government, that Assange posed a high risk of absconding.  Granting bail to him posed “insurmountable hurdles”.  Fitzgerald’s response, to no avail, was to focus the matter on Assange’s survival, not absconsion.   

Judge Baraitser has shown a certain meanness through these case management and extradition proceedings.  In the Wednesday hearing at the Westminster Magistrate’s Court, things had not improved.  “As matters stand today, this global pandemic does not as of itself provide grounds for Mr Assange’s release.”  These were words uttered on the same day that 19 prisoners in 10 prisons in the UK had tested positive for COVID-19.     

The ruling angered Doctors for Assange, comprising a list of some 200 physicians scattered across the globe.  “Despite our prior unequivocal statement that Mr Assange is at increased risk of serious illness and death were he to contract coronavirus and the evidence of medical experts,” their March 27 statement reads, “Baraitser dismissed the risk, citing UK guidelines for prisons in responding to the global pandemic.”  The group cited Baraister’s own solemn words deferring to the wisdom of the UK prison authorities.  “I have no reason not to trust this advice as both evidence-based and reliable and appropriate.” 

The medical practitioners took firm issue with the steadfast refusal of the judge to accept the medical side of the equation.  Not only was he at “increased risk of contracting and dying from the novel disease coronavirus (COVID-19)”, declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, he was also more vulnerable because of the torments of psychological torture and a “history of medical neglect … fragile health, and chronic lung disease.”

The pattern of rejection and denial has been a consistent feature in Baraitser’s rulings regarding Assange’s case.  When his legal team sought to liberate their client from the glass case in court for reasons of advice and consultation, the judge refused.  She even refused to accept the reasoning of the prosecutor James Lewis QC, who suggested that letting Assange sit with his legal team was an uncomplicated matter.  Her reasoning: To let Assange leave his glassed perch would be, effectively, an application for bail and mean he had escaped the court’s custody.  True to form on Wednesday, Assange, present via videolink, had his connection terminated after an hour.  This prevented him from hearing the defence summation and the concluding remarks of the judge.  The despoiling of justice, even in the face of a pandemic, remains an unwavering aspect of Assange’s fate.    

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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]

More than 15 military transport planes flew from Russia to Italy delivering disinfection units, 180 doctors, 100 personnel which include specialists in biological protection, nurses, ventilators, and masks.  The experts sent to Italy have worked on international epidemics including African Swine Fever and in developing an Ebola vaccine. Italy’s Prime Minister Guiseppe Conte had requested help from Russia, and the government commissioner for the coronavirus emergency, Domenico Arcuri, confirmed the help had arrived.  ‎‎Luigi Di Maio, Italy’s Foreign Minister, personally welcomed the first Russian plane to arrive on Sunday. Videos emerged online of the trucks on their way to northern Bergamo near Milan, the hardest hit by the virus. 

Lombardy regional councilor for health services, Giulio Gallera, announced the arrival of Russian doctors at Papa Giovanni Hospital in Bergamo. Moscow has a tradition of international solidarity that dates back to the Soviet era.

“Never had so many Russian planes and personnel landed before in a NATO country,” reported the Italian daily ‘La Repubblica’.

Italy imports gas to fuel their power plants, and Rome has previously called on the EU sanctions against Russia to be relaxed, even though the plea has not been heeded, and sanctions have been repeatedly renewed.

Italy’s Civil Protection Agency Facebook page was full of grateful comments, and some anger at the US, which was seen as not forthcoming with aid in the darkest hours of Italy’s need.

New alliances emerging

The current global political scene is changing rapidly as a result of the coronavirus.  We are seeing new super-powers emerging, such as China and Russia, and former power-houses weakening, such as the US and NATO.  The shifting sands of alliances remind us of a similar situation before WW2. Italy, and several other EU members, may find themselves forging new alliances that are headed east.  The current US domestic political chaos gave Russia and China the chance to offer an alternative to nations who may be ready to wrest-free of the former US domination. This situation leads to a new version of the old ‘Cold War’ era, in which the world was split into West and East camps of influence.

The critics

The saying “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” means that you shouldn’t criticize a gift, but that didn’t stop the Italian daily ‘La Stampa’ from reporting an unnamed high-level political source that most of the Russian supplies sent to Italy were ‘useless’.

Russia’s Ambassador to Italy Sergei Razov dismissed the report as perverse.

“Such assertions are the product of a perverse mind. A selfless desire to help friendly people in trouble is seen as insidious,” Razov told Russian media.

When asked if Russia expected Italy to return the favor by trying to get EU sanctions lifted, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the notion as absurd.

“We’re not talking about any conditions or calculations or hopes here,” he said on Monday. “Italy is really in need of much more wide-scale help and what Russia does is manageable.”

Besides the desire to help a neighbor in need, there is the fact that the majority of the 658 people with confirmed cases in Russia have recently flown back from western Europe, making the case for Russian self-protection as well as Italian friendship.

Russian administration is well-organized and able to impose strong measures in such a crisis, as compared to other countries that have been slow to institute strict measures and precautions.

The EU response

European Union countries have been slow to help their fellow members. Italy, France, and Spain have urged a massive response; however, the EU is divided on a potential rescue plan for the region’s economy, with Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Finland opposed to what they see as unreasonable expectations. Nine EU countries including France, Italy, and Spain have called for a common debt plan administered by a European institution to raise funds on the market; but, Germany and the other tight-fisted members stress that all EU countries can finance themselves.

Matteo Salvini, former deputy prime minister, speaking to the Italian Senate, said

“In Brussels, it is clear they are yet to understand the situation. If the German Government keeps talking about the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) without conditions which provides that funds are given to Italy but have to be paid back in the future, Berlin and Brussels got it wrong,” clearly furious at the German and EU stance.

The origins of the Italian crisis

Mario Di Vito is a correspondent for the Italian daily, “Il Manifesto”.  He compares the coronavirus crisis in Italy to that of a world war. In explaining how the virus moved rapidly he points to Confindustria, the association of Italian industrialists, who pressured the government to not shut down production, and the Mayor of Milan, Beppe Sala, continued to tell people to leave their houses and to live a normal life; however, once the number of dead and infected spiked it was apparent those early decisions were deadly.  The stay-at-home order from PM Conte came much too late, and the weakness of the Italian healthcare system was exposed as the sick and dying rose into the thousands.

The Italian numbers mounting

Two weeks of military-enforced stay-at-home orders have paid off with signs of the slowing down of new infections and deaths since Italy’s first positive test on February 20. Italy has by far the most virus deaths of any nation in the world, numbering 8,165. While the official count of positive cases is 80,539, experts assume the actual number may be much higher. At least 33 doctors have died and 6,414 medical personnel have tested positive in Italy.

“We know it before we go into battle, and we accept it,” Dr. Luca Lorini, head of intensive care in a hospital in Bergamo told the Associated Press.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a Syrian American award winning journalist. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Mideast Discourse

We must remind our people that over 150 million Africans live throughout the so-called Americas. We especially must raise this reality at critical moments like this when the corporate media and establishment opinion is legitimizing U.S. gangsterism that could kill thousands of people in Venezuela. (Black Working Class will Never Abandon Venezuela)

BAP’s support for the people of Venezuela and its project for establishing peace, human rights and development for its people will not be deterred by the latest attack on that nation with the flimsy and incredible indictment of Nicolas Maduro by the Trump Administration.

The use of drug and biological warfare against insurgent colonized populations has been a consistent feature of the U.S./European colonial project since 1492. As an African people in the United States, we have a long and tortured history of being on the receiving end of U.S. state’s narco-war against our people as a weapon of counterrevolutionary subversion.

The widespread expansion of heroin that occurred in Black communities during the period of the U.S. war against Vietnam was documented as having been facilitated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and became a convenient weapon as part of the multi prong counter-insurgency strategy of the state against the Black Liberation Movement of the 1960s and 70s.

In the 80s, the introduction of crack cocaine into our communities was documented by courageous journalists like Gary Webb, who established that there was a relationship between the various intelligent agencies — once again primarily the CIA — and drug dealers using Nicaragua as a transit point for drugs into the U.S. The relationship was established in order to secure revenue for arms purchases to support counterrevolutionaries in Nicaragua, who were working with the U.S. to overthrow the Sandinista government that came to power in 1979. Planes would land in the U.S. full of cocaine and leave with arms for delivery back to Central America, destined for Nicaragua.

Therefore, narco-terrorism is nothing new for our communities. After introducing dangerous drugs into our communities, the state would then wage a so-called war on drugs. The war on drugs in the U.S., as the general “war on crime,” was always intended as a weapon to wage war against the most organized elements of the Black resistance movement, just as the indictment of President Maduro is being used to undermine the revolutionary process in Venezuela.

The charge leveled at the Venezuelan leader might have some semblance of credibility for some sectors of the U.S. population, and it will be used by the corporate press to further legitimize the illegal and murderous objectives of U.S. imperialism. However, for BAP we are quite clear about the real narco and state terrorists.

The bounty placed on Maduro reminds us of the expansion of the bounty placed on the head of our dear sister and freedom fighter Assata Shakur and her addition as the first woman ever to the U.S. “most wanted terrorists list” by the Obama Administration.

We were not deterred or confused by that move and we will not be confused by this one against the people of Venezuela.

Stand in solidarity with the struggling peoples and nations of the world for peace, with people(s)-centered human rights, and a new vision of humanity beyond capitalist exploitation and imperialist domination.

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How likely are you to die from Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19)? Based on the hysteria spreading across the globe, it would seem like the chances are fairly high.

But Statnews.com would report on the actual projected death rate of those who contract Covid-19 based on US Center for Disease Control (CDC) data, noting:

…the death rate in Covid-19 patients ages 80 and over was 10.4%, compared to 5.35% in 70-somethings, 1.51% in patients 60 to 69, 0.37% in 50-somethings. Even lower rates were seen in younger people, dropping to zero in those 29 and younger.

The article also noted that the worst cases involved not only people who were much older, but involved people who were also already unhealthy and vulnerable.

Others have noted that many will likely get Covid-19, think they have an ordinary cold, get better and never even be tested, thus never making it into the statistics meaning the actual death rates are likely even lower than being reported.

In other words, Covid-19 may be slightly more dangerous than the common flu, but not by much. Those who fall into a vulnerable category should obviously be more careful, but the hysteria being spread by governments and ordinary people alike is posing a bigger threat to human wellbeing than the actual virus itself.

Hysteria Will Cause More Harm Than the Virus Itself 

The economic damage alone this hysteria is creating will negatively impact the lives of many more ordinary people than the virus ever could and for a much longer period of time than Covid-19 takes to run its course within the typical human body or across various populations.

For nations like the US who are already in terminal economic, social and political decline, replicating its crumbling economy, society and political system in other nations, even if temporarily by spreading Covid-19 hysteria, may seem like a viable option when all other options, from soft-power to overt military force, have failed to keep the planet in line and within Washington’s unipolar “international order.”

Nations that have been reluctant to take extreme measures are being pressured to do so by a spreading wave of hysteria, deliberate or not, forcing them to close borders, shut businesses and disrupt the lives of millions, the vast majority of which are in no danger at all from the virus.

A similar trend was seen during the opening years of the US-led so-called “War on Terror” which other nations were forced into backing, including nations like Russia who knew full well the US itself was the chief state sponsor of the very terrorists Washington was supposedly fighting, but were reluctant to take issue with it in the face of perceived public fear over extremism following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Considering just how badly the US exploited and abused that fear, it is hardly a surprise that people today are skeptical of handing large amounts of power over to the same sort of people in the face of another supposed threat.

Governments probably should take certain measures during such outbreaks, but ensuring the line between commonsense steps and the abuse of power is not crossed should be a primary public concern.

Regarding Covid-19, common sense should still be exercised. Avoiding large crowds, staying healthy, eating well, exercising and overall taking care of your body so that your body’s immune system can take care of you is the best measure and means of staving of Covid-19 or any other infectious disease, during a pandemic or not.

If you are part of a vulnerable demographic, obviously exercise more caution.

Create More Resilient Economies Regardless 

If extreme measures really are necessary to stop the spread of Covid-19 and other viruses like it, nations must create permanent infrastructure that ensures economic continuity before, during and after outbreaks, rather than being repeatedly caught off-guard each time a new virus appears.

Even by the most hysterical accounts, Covid-19 is not a doomsday scenario. It is not even a major human health threat. It is slightly more alarming than the ordinary flu, which itself is only a danger for those who are already in poor health and should already be exercising extra caution day-to-day.

Covid-19 requires a slightly more cautious and considered approach than managing the average flu.

Since we may never know where Covid-19 originated and how much of this hysteria is warranted, how much is simply human nature’s tendency to overreact and how much of it is a deliberate attempt to destabilize nations and economies around the globe, nations and communities must reexamine how they do business on a daily basis and think of ways to continue doing business even under the most extreme circumstances and in a way that will allow business-as-usual even amid another coronavirus outbreak or similar disruption.

Those nations which do not, set themselves up to be targets of those well-equipped to spread hysteria and stir up public panic which in turn will place pressure on targeted governments and endanger political, economic and social stability.

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Gunnar Ulson is a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from NEO

From Father of Turks to Father of Ottomans

Turkey’s president Erdogan will no doubt go down in history as the leader who overturned the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and ended the country’s experiment as a secular nation-state. Perhaps that experiment was doomed to fail from the start—Turkish leaders over the decades have never found a workable formula for including the Kurds in the larger Turkish body politic, except through policies of forcible assimilation.

Erdogan, however, was the first to decide to put an end to it and instead reorganize Turkey around principles of neo-Ottomanism and pan-Turkism, in which the economically powerful, politically viable, and culturally proximate Turkish state would no longer seek to join the European Union. Instead it would become a source of international governance, development, and security assistance to the polities which emerged from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, and even to those which were not part of the empire.

As this policy was guaranteed to provoke a negative reaction from every other power player in the region, including Turkey’s ostensible allies in NATO, Erdogan ended up pursuing a policy of “equidistance” with every politically relevant player in his neighborhood. NATO, yes, but also S-400 from Russia. Allowing Russian military flights to use Turkish airspace, yes, but also sales of Bayraktar attack drones and other military equipment to Ukraine. Turkish Stream, yes, but also the Instanbul Canal.

Ending Montreaux

The 1936 Montreaux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits is but one of many Ataturk’s legacies. Signed in 1936 in the Montreaux Palace in Switzerland, it is arguably the only arms control treaty of the interwar era still extant. At the time, it represented an effort to put an end to the centuries of conflict over the control of the Black Sea Straits by giving Turkey control while at the same time limiting other powers’ ability to project naval military power in or out of the Black Sea. In some respects the restrictions on the passage of warships are very real. For example, the Convention allows no more than nine warships with a total displacement of 15 thousand tons to pass through the Straits at any one time. In practice it means a single US AEGIS cruiser or destroyer, and while nothing prevents additional ships from passing later, the total tonnage of foreign warships belonging to powers that do not have Black Sea coastlines of their own cannot exceed 30 thousand tons (45 thousand in exceptional cases), which, again, limits the US Navy to no more than 2-3 AEGIS ships. Combined with a ban on capital ships, which includes aircraft carriers, from foreign navies, it means NATO would be hard-pressed to mount a serious aeronaval operation against any target on the Black Sea. While Montreaux was not greatly tested during World War 2, and the Warsaw Pact aerial and naval preponderance meant challenging it would be a futile exercise in the first place, it has proven its worth in the last decade, particularly after the reunification of Crimea with the Russian Federation. Had it not been in place, NATO’s demonstrations of force in the Black Sea might have been considerably more muscular, to the point of accidentally triggering an armed confrontation. While Russia has always been a supporter of the Montreaux Convention, its current relative military weakness in the Black Sea, where it faces the navies of three NATO member states and currently also that of Ukraine, means the Convention is all the more important to its security.

However, the proposed Istanbul Canal is not covered by the Montreaux Convention, as it specifically pertains to regulating military traffic through the Straits. To be sure, interested parties are bound to argue the intent of the Convention was to cover the passage of naval warships in and out of the Black Sea, and establish a certain level of collective security there. With that in mind, it should not matter whether foreign warships enter the Black Sea via the Straits or through the new Istanbul Canal. Moreover, even when the Canal is functioning any warship entering the Black Sea will have to have passed through one of the two straits—the Dardanelles, since the Istanbul Canal, if completed, will bypass only one of the two straits. The Montreaux Convention specifically refers to the “regime of the Straits”, not a regime of the Bosphorus. Nevertheless, one can be equally certain that some interested parties will make the legalistic argument that that the Montreaux Convention only regulates the passage of warships that pass through both of the straits. Ships may, after all, gain access to the Sea of Marmara that separates the two straits without restrictions placed on ships passing into the Black Sea. Turkish officials have been ambiguous on the future status of the Montreaux Convention, should Istanbul Canal enter into operation.

Gas Warfare

The second dimension of the proposed canal is economic. While the Montreaux Convention does not regulate the passage of cargo ships through the straits, the Bosphorus in particular remains a relatively narrow and convoluted passageway. When one also considers the high population density on both banks of the Bosphorus, the use of this strait by oil tankers and liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers raises particular safety concerns. Indeed, up to about 2015 the Turkish government prohibited LNG carriers from traversing the Bosphorus. While this changed during Erdogan’s rule, the ever-present danger of a serious incident means it is only a temporary solution.

Thus even if Turkey opts to apply Montreaux Convention rules on passage of warships remain unaffected, Istanbul Canal will have the potential to considerably increase tanker traffic in and out of the Black Sea. In view of Erdogan’s interest in building up relations with Ukraine, and Ukraine’s search for alternative sources of natural gas, the Canal would have the effect of increasing Turkey’s sphere of influence over the Black Sea. At the moment, there is not a single LNG terminal anywhere on the Black Sea. However, that could change once the construction of the canal moves forward. The most likely candidates are Ukraine, with a proposed site in Odessa, and Romania, with the natural location being Konstanta. US interest in promoting its own interests and expanding political control through oil and gas exports means that either or both projects would be met with enthusiastic US support.

The Mentally Sick Man of Europe

While even the most optimistic estimates do not predict the canal could be built in less than a decade, at a cost approaching $100 billion. Turkey’s own financial situation is not such that it can allow itself such a luxury without undermining other projects, and Erdogan’s ability to alienate other leaders means outside funding might be difficult to come by, particularly if outside funding means outside control over the canal. Yet the whole idea behind the canal is that it should serve the sovereign needs of Turkey. In such circumstances, who would be willing to bankroll Erdogan’s unpredictable whims? No amount of refugee crises is liable to extract that kind of a contribution from the European Union, and US funding would naturally come with US control. So it is no surprise the project’s initial construction start date of 2013 has slipped rather dramatically. Even right now, in 2020, the Turkish government is only talking about launching a tender to select firms that would be engaged in its construction.

Therefore at the moment Istanbul Canal is confined to the realm of pipe dreams. In order for it to be completed, it would have to become the biggest state priority in Turkish politics, and would require international financial and possibly also technological support. While there is no doubting Erdogan’s determination to transform Turkey into a power player capable of dictating its will to its geopolitical neighbors and rivals, the country he governs lacks the capacity for transforming his dreams into reality.

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I certainly don’t claim to be a financial wizard. In fact, at best, I have a rudimentary understanding of how the convoluted funny money economy works. However, you don’t need to fully comprehend the ins-and-outs of rigged monetary system to understand we’re in for big trouble and the coronavirus “pandemic” is not only accelerating the fall but will make the outcome far, far worse. 

For more detail on the financial end of this disaster, read Mike Whitney’s Why Washington’s COVID-19 Relief Package Must Be Stopped!

No chance, however. As I write this, Congress passed a pork-laden“stimulus” bill. 

If we can believe numbers put out by the CDC, as of Friday, March 27 there were 1,246 deaths in the US attributed to the virus. Compare this with the 1968 H3N2 “Hong Kong Flu.” It reportedly killed 100,000 people in the US and around a million around the world. 

At the time, the response was not to lock down the country and destroy the livelihood of millions of Americans and usher in the severe violations of the Constitution we are now witnessing.

Short of COVID-19 numbers shooting into the stratosphere in the long run, the death rate will be nowhere near those of the H3N2 pandemic. After the virus is put down by warm temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, jobless and impoverished Americans will scratch their heads in wonderment at the overreaction by government. 

Back in 1968, the US economy was doing fairly well. It was the economic powerhouse of the world. The economy began the slow process of engineered deterioration after the so-called “Nixon shock” imposed wage and price freezes in response to Federal Reserve manufactured inflation and the direct international convertibility of the dollar to gold in 1971. 

10% inflation in the 1970s was “the result of the honest mistakes of a well-meaning central bank (sic),” according to the Fed.

The former Fed boss, Ben Bernanke, said in 2002 “honest mistakes” were also responsible for the stock market crash in 1929 and the Great Depression that followed (see Jerry Mazza’s How the FED engineered the Great Depression; for historical comparison of the current economic trauma prior to COVID-19, see Doug Casey: Comparing the 1930s and Today). 

Is the current corporate propaganda media-generated hysteria over what appears thus far to be a normal influenza virus happenstance? 

I argue the pandemic was planned or conveniently exploited, if not beforehand then in its early stage as it swept China. I am convinced the virus was arranged or exploited to make an excuse for a coming and unavoidable Greater Depression, a historically unmatched depression as a direct result of the fraud, manipulation, and gambling debts of the financial class. Blame for the pinpricks deflating absurdly enlarged and distorted asset bubbles horrendously crashing the economy will be laid at President Donald Trump’s door. 

Moreover, the crash and its enforced misery—only now beginning to gain fatal momentum—will be used by the ruling elite to demand several drastic “reforms,” beginning with a call for a centralized world government. This globalist scheme, long in the planning, will be rolled out “temporarily” to confront the virus. 

From The Guardian on March 27:

Gordon Brown has urged world leaders to create a temporary form of global government to tackle the twin medical and economic crises caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The former Labour prime minister, who was at the centre of the international efforts to tackle the impact of the near-meltdown of the banks in 2008, said there was a need for a taskforce involving world leaders, health experts and the heads of the international organisations that would have executive powers to coordinate the response.

Brown’s “executive power” will become permanent after the virus has subsided. It will be the foundation for a global government after the world economy finally falls off a cliff—possibly weeks or months away—and the desperate masses begin rioting in the streets over food shortages and the inevitable institution of martial law (or something similar without the namesake in an end-run around the Constitution, which does not explicitly grant emergency powers to a president). 

Prior to Gordon Brown’s demand, bankers and establishment economists began a heightened call for “a digital alternative to paper money” to stop the spread of the virus and “helping improve financial inclusion by addressing the needs of millions of Americans that remain unbanked, according to the FDIC.” 

In January, the elite at Davos was way ahead of the curve on the effort to dispose of paper money and replace it with a digital financial and societal control mechanism. 

“Users of the U.S. dollar are ‘underserved by an analogue currency in a digital world,’ Christopher Giancarlo, former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said during an event in Davos,” CNBC reported. 

The promise of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) is that it could make cross-border movement of money easier and improve traceability to fight corruption or money laundering, according to Henri Arslanian, global crypto leader at PwC.

It would also make tracking and surveilling citizens far easier and more efficient. “There are two kinds of economic surveillance to take note of. One is surveillance by companies, the other is by the state,” writes Melissa Twigg. 

“It’s the companies that want to get data on you,” says [financial analyst Tom Nicholls]. “But they form the pool of data that then a state would be able to access.” It may sound very Black Mirror, but it’s already happening in China, where mass financial data from Alipay is helping to craft the country’s social-credit system, which will reward and punish citizens based on economic behaviour.

There appears to be no end to the manufacture of state and media-generated hysteria.

ABC News notes that a “Department of Homeland Security memo sent to law enforcement officials around the country warns that violent extremists could seek to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic by carrying out attacks against the U.S… The memo, which was circulated on Monday, comes after assurances from FBI Director Chris Wray in a video message that agents would be even more vigilant in monitoring threats to the U.S. as the virus spreads.” 

Last August the FBI “for the first time has identified fringe conspiracy theories as a domestic terrorist threat,” according to a memo circulated at the FBI’s Phoenix office. 

“The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts,” the document states. It also goes on to say the FBI believes conspiracy theory-driven extremists are likely to increase during the 2020 presidential election cycle.

For those who pay attention, there is ample evidence the FBI arranges terrorist plots and has done so at least since the agency ran its unconstitutional COINTELPRO takedown of numerous political opponents beginning in the 1950s. 

Both the FBI and DHS may begin categorizing those of us who differ with the state and its media on the origin and impact of the coronavirus as “domestic extremists” bent on destroying the nation. 

The real destroyers and psychopathic misanthropes, however, are in high places. They are cynically and criminally exploiting the coronavirus—so far no more dangerous than seasonal flu—to shove their one-world agenda down our throats as easily frightened Americans run around like Chicken Little, begging the state to take care of us before the sky falls. 

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Kurt Nimmo writes on his blog, Another Day in the Empire, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Shutterstock

This question is invited by news reports that they are preventing the use of the anti-malaria drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus patients.  According to experts, the anti-malaria drugs are effective if used early enough in the infection.  But the drugs are cheap and there is no profit in them.  

As of Tuesday, New York hospitals have federal permission to give desperately ill patients a cocktail of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin on a “compassionate care” basis.

According to the world’s leading expert, Didier Raoult (image on the right), it is too late to give the anti-malarial drugs in the latter stage of the infection, see this.   

Fauci says there is no substantive proof that the drugs are effective, but the Chinese and Didier Raoult, who is far more prominent than Fauci, say otherwise.

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

Coronavirus cases are continuing to accelerate as the world’s most affluent countries, for a change, bear the brunt of a serious infectious illness. Yet again it is the bulk of populations that will really suffer, however, as multinational corporations and establishment centres seek to consolidate their wealth and influence.

The number of official infections worldwide is set to surpass the 700,000 mark, an increase of about half a million cases in two weeks.

More than 30,000 people have so far died. The most powerful country of all, America, has comfortably the highest number of infections in the world, at over 120,000 and counting. (1)

Source: WHO

Around 18,000 fresh cases alone were detected in America on 27 March 2020, a record daily increase. Figures for 28 March in the US are once more revealing a very large quantity of new cases, with New York containing almost half of all nationwide reported diagnoses. More than 140,000 people globally have recovered from the coronavirus.

Actual statistics in America may be much higher, and there is every sign that many tens of thousands of new coronavirus detections will occur there in the weeks ahead. With a population less than a quarter that of China’s, the US is already suffering far more from this disease by comparison to their main rival in the world arena.

Image on the right is from the WHO

The coronavirus will hit America’s people hard, due to the country being dominated to an unusual degree by extreme wealth, which has increased notably during the neoliberal era. America’s healthcare system, designed for the well off, is not remotely organised to handle a highly infectious disease which is proving difficult to eradicate.

The most likely reasons behind the coronavirus developing is because of the following factors: Global industrial-scale meat production and its enormous antibiotic usage, combined with humanity’s ongoing attacks on planetary ecosystems, as closer interaction occurs between billions of people, their livestock and wild animals, all of which are potential carriers of both old and new infectious illnesses. Of this, there is an abundance of scientific research and evidence. (2)

It is a perfect storm that has been brewing, a breeding ground in which contagious maladies can spread forth. The arrival of a disease like the coronavirus has been an inevitability. It is no accident over the past generation especially, as the rate of environmental destruction grows, that so many different illnesses have sprung up around the planet.

Among the least likely causes behind the coronavirus emerging, is that of deliberate implantations into countries from people, or through biological/chemical warfare by hostile powers. Considering America’s very harmful post-1945 foreign policy record, fingers of blame were pointed early on in Washington’s direction, such as by the Chinese or Iranian governments (3). In these instances, there is simply no evidence to support their accusations.

The complaints of Beijing and Tehran are at least understandable, if one takes a brief glance at American hostility, specifically one notorious incident which could have destroyed the world. Washington has a history of implanting biological diseases and infestations inside the borders of designated enemies, such as Cuba, along with implementing invasions and terrorist campaigns. These malevolent actions performed a leading role which resulted in the Cuban Missile Crisis occurring in October 1962.

In August 1962, president John F. Kennedy formally decided to escalate Washington’s terrorist assaults against Cuba (Operation Mongoose), with these attacks thereafter occurring right up to, and even during the missile crisis itself two months later – which the Kennedy administration previously expected would culminate in a large-scale US invasion of Cuba, in October 1962.

The American author and historian, Aviva Chomsky, revealed of the Cuban Missile Crisis that,

“In fact the major players in the United States emerge as more reckless than heroic… many of the claims made by the Soviets and Cubans, previously denied by U.S. sources, turned out to be true. The Cubans did fear another U.S. Invasion, and plans for such an invasion were indeed in the works. Soviet nuclear capability was in fact far behind what the United States had developed”.

Aviva Chomsky writes further,

“The Soviet purpose of placing missiles in Cuba was to address real threats: to defend Cuba against U.S. attack and to respond to the global strategic and political nuclear advantage held by the United States… Despite U.S. promises, it refused to accept international oversight of its non-intervention pledge, and in fact U.S. plans to overthrow the Cuban government continued unabated”; and she notes that for humanity, “The brink was far closer than either the public at the time, or later historians, had realized”. President Kennedy afterwards informed his advisors that “our objective is to preserve our right to invade Cuba”, breaking all promises made which the Kennedy administration had no intention of ever keeping. (4)

In light of such examples as this, it is easy to empathise with the Chinese and Iranian governments for feeling paranoid. These two countries already endure regular intimidation by US economic and military power.

Focusing again on the coronavirus, with the disease having spread to almost every country worldwide, it has reportedly taken on two slightly different strains (“L-type” and “S-type”), as medical and biological experts have highlighted (5). It is not yet clear if one strain of the coronavirus is more severe than the other, but the current strains detected are almost identical.

Erik Volz, an epidemiologist at Imperial College London, said of the coronavirus in early March,

“I think it’s a fact that there are two strains. It’s normal for viruses to undergo evolution when they are transmitted to a new host”.

Volz’ observations are supported by Ravinder Kanda, a senior lecturer in evolutionary genomics at Oxford, who commented earlier this month that,

“There do appear to be two different strains. The L-type might be more aggressive in transmitting itself, but we have no idea yet how these underlying genetic changes will relate to disease severity”.

Maladies such as the coronavirus are particularly prone to quick mutations, even on a person-to-person basis, which scientific analysts have noted. There is nothing sinister, or unusual, about a different strain of this disease occurring in countries thousands of miles apart, like Italy and China. There is nothing odd either regarding a separate strain unfolding across nations close to China’s shores.

That Italy and America could contain the same variety of virus, does not at all mean that such a strain was implanted or spread from the US into Europe. There is again no proof to support allegations behind the critical circumstances in this virus’s development. Such reflections count as mere speculation, particularly when not supported by studies conducted by professionals in the field.

One of the central developments to date of the coronavirus, is that it has been attacking most severely some of the world’s wealthiest countries and, crucially, the planet’s biggest tourist destinations: France, America, Germany, Italy and Spain. This indicates a great deal.

France is the most visited country on earth, followed by Spain and America, with Italy and Germany close behind (6). They consist mainly of the nations worst affected by the coronavirus from its earliest stages, and this is surely no coincidence. Nor is it a coincidence that, as things stand, those countries closed off from the world have virtually escaped the disease such as: Libya (1 case), Syria (5 cases), Laos (6 cases) and Myanmar (8 cases).

It is highly likely that the coronavirus was disseminated worldwide, primarily as a consequence of air travel relating to the tourist industry. This is especially so in an era of unprecedented globalisation, as people are flown every which way by the tens of millions each month. It accounts for the remarkable rapidity of the coronavirus expansion, and the appearance of the disease in dozens of countries on a seemingly simultaneous level.

In 2019 the number of tourists worldwide reached a record 1.5 billion, almost 20% of the entire human population (7). From early 2020, the coronavirus fanned out so quickly as millions upon millions of people descended on the above tourist destinations, and upon returning from such places to their home countries.

Moreover, it is impossible to analyse each person who passes through an airport, in order to judge if they were infected with the disease at that time. Symptoms do not show up at once, and are obvious only later on. One cannot estimate with a measure of real confidence precisely how this disease evolved, how it circulated, which strain developed where, through what countries, etc. Yet it is possible to examine the most likely causes of infectious disease development, based on broad scientific research.

From the early 1950s until today, humans have increasingly encroached into the environments of animals, birds, insects, etc., all of which can conceivably carry deadly ailments, as they have in the past. Any such disease could disperse from wild creatures, who usually have strong constitutions, to vulnerable pigs or cows, which may in turn pass on the illness to people.

By analysing the spread of potentially lethal illnesses, we can examine the issue of industrial meat production, and its dependence on antibiotic usage (8). This problem is in fact so significant, that it may be outweighed on a global threat level only by nuclear weapons and the climate crisis.

Countless millions of domesticated animals are herded together in dreadful indoor conditions, and to prevent disease circulation, they are pumped full of antibiotics. The never-ending use of antibiotics has been destroying their effectiveness, and is creating mutant, drug-resistant bacteria. The arrival of dangerous bacteria may constitute a foundation for the spawning of new contagious diseases. Antibiotic abuse is making the administering of these drugs less effective also in the treatment of human illnesses.

Antibiotics induce artificial weight gain in species like chickens, which is another reason for their use (9). Antibiotics are strongly endorsed by multinational corporations, who depend on the meat industry to maintain their high profit levels, such as fast food retailers McDonald’s and KFC. Big pharma are likewise profiting massively from meat manufacturing, and rake in about $5 billion each year from producing antibiotics for farm livestock. The US animal antibiotics industry amasses profits of around $2 billion a year, while its European equivalent takes home $1.25 billion per annum. (10)

The antibiotics market as a whole is worth $45 billion. Regulations, put forth in an attempt to reduce antibiotics in meat processing, are undermined by lobbyists connected to big pharma and fast food transnationals. What we have here is a vast, interconnected operation dedicated to collecting mega wealth, and which is inflicting wide-scale harm on the planet. In an age of neoliberal globalisation, governments are compromised and proving impotent in tackling these problems.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has largely been co-opted to corporate power. Of the swine flu from a decade ago, researchers advising the WHO were paid millions of euro from the vaccine industry. A number of people, from big pharma, were present in secret advisory groups that were close to the WHO’s Director-General of the time, Margaret Chan, who retired from this role in 2017. (11)

The prestigious Danish physician Halfdan Mahler, who led the WHO for 15 years, had warned at the end of his tenure in 1988 that big pharma “is taking over the WHO”. His remarks went unheeded.

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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

1 Worldometer, Coronavirus Cases, 28 March 2020

2 Adele Peters, “Why our shrinking natural world is increasing the pace of global pandemics“, Fast Company, 13 March 2020

3 Michael Jansen, “Iran struggles to fight Covid-19 as US sanctions hurt healthcare“, Irish Times, 20 March 2020, 

4 Aviva Chomsky, A History Of The Cuban Revolution (John Wiley & Sons; 2nd edition, 31 Mar. 2015), pp. 69-70

5 Jessica Hamzelou, “Are there two strains and is one more deadly?“, New Scientist, 5 March 2020

6 Nellie Huang, “10 most visited countries in the world“, Wild Junket, 6 January 2020, 

7 Megha Paul, “UNWTO records 1.5 billion tourism arrivals in 2019“, Travel Daily Media, 21 January 2020, 

8 Robert Hackett, “Noam Chomsky: ‘In a couple of generations, organized human society may not survive‘”, National Observer, 12 February 2019

9 Jill Ettinger, “‘Low dose’ Antibiotics in Chicken Feed for Weight Gain Widespread, Investigation Finds“, Organic Authority, 22 October 2018

10 Holly Watt, “How much does big pharma make from animal antibiotics?”, The Guardian, 19 June 2018

11 Soren Ventegodt, Reviewed & Approved by Dr. Harold H. Fain, January 2015

Featured image is from Health.mil

Former Health Ministry chief Prof. Yoram Lass says governments can’t halt viruses and the lockdown will kill more people from depression than the virus.

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Former Ministry of Health director-general Prof. Yoram Lass has been regularly interviewed by the Israeli media since the coronavirus outbreak first started. But in contrast to the prophets of doom and deep concern shown by most medical professionals, he has presented a somewhat different and controversial opinion. Prof. Lass feels that it is wrong to shut down the entire country because of a virus that is ultimately less of a killer than the flu. In other words, he is saying that taking into account the cost benefits, it is preferable ‘to sacrifice’ the elderly so that daily life can go on as normal. This is an outlook that has antagonized many and has made him a ‘persona non grata’ in the TV interview studios.

Lass is at peace with himself over all this and with the voices calling him ‘deluded.” “I didn’t invite myself to the studios,” he told “Globes,” “and I’m prepared to give my opinion to everybody who is ready to listen.”

Do you think you are being excluded because you presented an unpopular position?

“I can tell you that several days ago I heard with my own ears, after I was interviewed on the radio by Nissim Mishal, the deputy director of the Ministry of Health Prof. Itamar Grotto tell Mishal that I shouldn’t be brought into studios. And last Friday, I was invited to the studio by Ayala Hasson. Some three days beforehand, they called me and ask not to go anywhere else, and then the day before they cancelled. And who did they replace me with on the program? The futurist David Passig, who told the people of Israel that in the best case scenario 40 million people would die, and in the worst case scenario 300 million people would die. That shows you how the media is only trumpeting hysteria. Because it was clear that if I was sitting next to him, I would only have told an amazed Israeli people that every year 17,000 Italians die of flu while in Israel only 126 dies of flue last year.

What does that mean?

“Italy is known for its enormous morbidity in respiratory problems, more than three times any other European country. In the US about 40,000 people die in a regular flu season and so far 40-50 people have died of the coronavirus, most of them in a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington.”

“The characteristics in every country are different. In Italy the median age of those dying of the coronavirus is 81 and the population is very old and frail and smokes more and among the dead are more men. In Korea, in contrast, more young women and non-smokers have been infected. In every country, more people die from regular flu compared with those who die from the coronavirus. All this is what I was saying when they were still listening to me. Instead of this they bring somebody like Passig, who says the opposite things, and I’m sure that what he says won’t happen.”

How can you be sure?

“Because there is a very good example that we all forget: the swine flu in 2009. That was a virus that reached the world from Mexico. But what? At that time there was no Facebook or there maybe was but it was still in its infancy. The coronavirus in contrast is a virus with public relations.”

Whoever thinks that governments end viruses is wrong

The number of deaths from the virus is not what is shocking in the eyes of Lass. “I won’t say how many people will ultimately die from coronavirus, but what I say to myself is that in a large country like China, in the entire Wuhan region, which has 70 million people, 3,000 people have died. In that entire country, the numbers are very low. If that was like the black plague in the Middle Ages in Europe, in which one third of Italians died, then 20 million people would die. Small pox, which the European brought to America, killed off all the Indians. The atmosphere today in Israel is as if there is some type of disease, which will kill off all the population. If Passig says that 300 million will die (worldwide) then 1 million will die in Israel.

But it is not only in Israel. All the countries that were apparently complacent until now, like Germany and the UK, have all now brought in a policy of lockdown.

“Even so I say that the numbers do not match the panic. That’s because in China they stopped the virus and because of natural immunity, which they’ve forgotten to talk about. What stopped the swine flu pandemic and what generally stops viruses? Whoever thinks that the government ends viruses is completely wrong. What really happens? The virus, which nobody can stop, spreads throughout the population and then the population, not those at risk, are exposed to the virus and simultaneously the body creates antibodies to shut down and prevent the disease. At the moment in Israel, the virus is being spread around by a great many people who don’t know that they have it and people are being exposed and becoming immune. The chain of infection is broken and in that way the virus comes to a halt.”

You’re talking about the British model in which the elderly are forced into isolation and the rest of the population develops natural immunity and continues their lives as normal?

“Yes, I agree completely with that approach. On the one hand, to protect the weak population, while leaving the rest of the other people to carry on.”

But then we see that even the British prime minister Boris Johnson, who led that policy, was forced to back down.

“He caved in. We are in a clear situation of psychology prevailing over science. The science rests on data. I presented to you some numbers and statistics that demonstrate that the genie is not terrible. Regular flu makes people yawn and the old person in a bed in a hospital corridor doesn’t interest anybody but we have become monstrously hysterical and in the past fascist regimes have come to power. It’s the same type of craziness. Entire peoples are undergoing some sort of mental process.”

A lot of antagonism has been stirred up towards you by your comments that the elderly population can be sacrificed.

“I didn’t use such a terrible word as ‘to sacrifice’ at all. The journalist asked me if that’s what I meant and on TV you don’t have the possibility of explaining in detail, so I simply answered yes. But that’s not what I meant although I take responsibility for it.”

So what did you mean?

“To say that in life we take risks, and I’ve got some examples: when we drive in the car we cause the deaths of about 350 people per year (in Israel). If we stopped all transportation in Israel, we would save their lives. We would save them.”

“Another example: many soldiers who are young and have their entire lives before them are killed so that the defense plans and policies can be implemented, and which are sometimes deluded. So because of the risk we should dismantle the IDF in order to save the soldiers’ lives?”

If we get back to our example, the medical price of what is happening now resembles price paid for the seasonal flu virus that we have every fall. In the State of Israel, 126 people die, in the US 40,000 people, in Italy 17,000 and that’s the price we are prepared to pay to live normal lives.”

The economic damage is harder than the health damage

“I call it the economic and social Yom Kippur. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have lost their livelihood and their support and many more will die from heart attacks and anxiety or depression as a result of this. So in life we take risks and pay the price.”

You need courage to present an opposing opinion

Why in your opinion is your position received with such antagonism?

“I receive a lot of support from people in the public, although of course not from a representative sample. There is to my regret somebody who is being saved by all this hysteria at the moment, so he is not going to extinguish it but he is ‘going along with’ the whole thing and I admit that you need courage to present an opposing position.”

Well, it’s clear who you mean

“I’m talking generally. The situation is even playing into the hands of the Hungarian prime minister because the fact that two Iranian students started the virus (in his country) supports his clams against foreigners.”

But still how do you explain that even leaders that initially didn’t take the virus seriously, like Trump, completely changed their opinion?

“I’m a man of science, feelings won’t sway me. I’m not prepared to think in contradiction to the facts but most people are prepared for psychology, if not history, to be stronger than straightforward facts.”

What will happen if you are proven wrong? Look you yourself said that you don’t know how many will ultimately die from the coronavirus.

“Every year in Italy, 17,000 die and you yawn. I will continue to say what I’m saying when 17,000 and even more die from the coronavirus. If 170,000 die then I’ll say I was wrong. But meanwhile 2,200 have died in Italy and a handful in Germany out of 80 million and the virus has been spreading around the world for two months. In Germany they were doing anything special until the hysteria forced them to.”

So there is not a single brave leader who will stand up and say: I am behaving differently?

There isn’t and there are even those who are exploiting it for their needs and that is the big concern, like the Hungarian prime minister and his remarks against Iranians. We know what is at the heart of the hysteria here and we know where it leads. It’s like before the Yom Kippur War, there is a concept and there is no room for any other opinion. Life for everybody is destroyed but because of the anxiety everybody is falling into line with one opinion. It is an ‘Orwellian’ process: one people, one flag, one anxiety. Today all the hysterical people are waving the Italian flag. They are not prepared to listen to the numbers.”

But in China the virus was stopped because of the actions that the government took?

Swine flu was stopped without the world being brought to a halt. Every virus creates antibodies. A government cannot stop a virus. What stops a virus is natural immunity. It’s impossible to stop a virus by government decree. And here is a question: the Chinese claim that they have stopped the virus by the lockdown but the lockdown is finished and the virus is moving around freely, so how are morbidity and mortality not continuing? If the theory of lockdown was correct they would be continuing to die there. Who discusses this?”

“The government says, ‘I’ve done my bit’ But it forgets that our bodies are extremely smart and creates natural immunity and so the chain of infection is broken and in this way the virus is ended, otherwise it would continue.

The policy of lockdown is trying to prevent a collapse of the health system under the burden of treating the sick as well as fatalities, have you not taken that into account?

“It’s called flattening the curve. If you look at the number of fatalities from flu in Italy, 17,000, it is clear that that is just the tip of the iceberg beneath which there are hundreds of thousands perhaps a million, who were sick but did not die. Even the patients that did not die needed treatment and the system did not collapse. So why should there be a collapse now? For 35 years I’ve been hearing that the health system in Israel is collapsing. Even during the regular flu season there is overloading in hospitals. Did anybody close down the country?”

Channel 13 declined to comment on the aforementioned claims. The Ministry of Health said, “Prof. Lass, who under his watch there was the difficult recurrence of polio (1988-1989) could cause damage with his irresponsible remarks which might harm public health in Israel.”

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Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on March 22, 2020

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2020

Almost everyone I talk to, lay people and colleagues (I am a specialist in internal medicine and have worked for two years at a department of infectious diseases) consider the Coronavirus pandemic a pandemic of panic, more than anything else.

On 8 March, I published in the BMJ about this. I wrote:

“What if the Chinese had not tested their patients for coronavirus or there had not been any test? Would we have carried on with our lives, without restrictions, not worrying about some deaths here and there among old people, which we see every winter? I think so.”

The WHO estimates that an influenza season kills about 500,000 people, or about 50 times more than those who have died so far during more than 3 months of the Coronavirus epidemic.

I also wrote:

“Is it evidence-based healthcare to close schools and universities, cancel flights and meetings, forbid travel, and to isolate people wherever they happen to fall ill? In Denmark, the government recommends cancellation of events with over 1000 participants.”

It is much worse now. All gatherings in Denmark of more than 10 people are banned, even outdoors, and you can get a fine of 1500 kr (about $250) if you violate this rule. What a dream scenario for any ruler with dictatorship tendencies; all democratic demonstrations are unlawful. Football matches are still allowed, if there are only 5 players on each team and no spectators.

I joked about my tennis, but now my four times a week of tennis is gone even though we cannot be more than 4 people on the court at a time. Next I joked about golf, as I could not imagine anyone would forbid golf. They did, even though there are loads of people walking or running in the forest around our golf course, and even though you may still walk on the fairways, if you do not look like a golfer. Our CrossFit gym also closed as per government orders.

I had only one joke left, which I fired when my wife told me that in the lunch room of the department of clinical microbiology where she works, every second chair should be left empty while the conference room is overcrowded as usual, also in the intensive care unit at our hospital! I replied she should tell her colleagues that from now on, our prime minister will only allow one person at a time in Danish double beds. Keep the distance is our mantra, and people we meet in the forest make big bends to avoid coming too close to us. It is kind of funny.

In Italy, they borrow the neighbour’s dog to get a little fresh air because it is still allowed to walk the dog.

We closed our borders with Germany and Sweden, although we have more Coronavirus than they have. It was like when I saw they sprayed an Air India plane flying out of Heathrow to avoid bringing Heathrow malaria mosquitos into India. Why not close the island of Fyn, in the middle of Denmark, which is easy, as there is a bridge on each side that can be blocked by the military? Where does this stop? Logic was one of the first victims.

I shall not discuss here why the mortality is so different in Italy and South Korea, but I do find it very prudent that they told people to stay in their homes in South Korea if they fall ill, and only if they become very sick, will a car come and bring them to a hospital that is not overcrowded. If the infectious dose is high, mortality will also be higher because there will not be sufficient time to establish an immune response. Therefore, overcrowded hospitals will have higher mortality rates. The panic does just that: leads to overcrowded hospitals.

The panic looks like an unfortunate overreaction. We don’t even know if the risk of dying if you get infected with Coronavirus is higher than if you get influenza, or so many other virus infections, and most of those who die are old and suffer from comorbidity, just like for influenza.

Our main problem is that no one will ever get in trouble for measures that are too draconian. They will only get in trouble if they do too little. So, our politicians and those working with public health do much more than they should do. No such draconian measures were applied during the 2009 influenza pandemic, and they obviously cannot be applied every winter, which is all year round, as it is always winter somewhere. We cannot close down the whole world permanently.

Should it turn out that the epidemic wanes before long, there will be a queue of people wanting to take credit for this. And we can be damned sure draconian measures will be applied again next time. But remember the joke about tigers. “Why do you blow the horn?” “To keep the tigers away.” “But there are no tigers here.” “There you see!”

The harms include suicides that go up in times of unemployment, and when people’s businesses built up carefully over many years lie in ruins, they might kill themselves. The panic is also killing life itself. John Ioannidis’ article from 17 March is the best I have seen so far: “A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data.”

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Poucas horas após o seu anúncio, mais de 800 venezuelanos actualmente a residir nos EUA registaram-se para um voo de emergência entre Miami e Caracas através do um portal oficial do governo venezuelano. Este voo, gratuito, foi proposto pelo presidente Nicolás Maduro quando este teve conhecimento de que 200 venezuelanos estavam retidos nos Estados Unidos após a decisão por parte do seu governo em acabar com os voos comerciais como medida preventiva contra o coronavírus. A promessa de um voo expandiu-se a dois ou mais voos, visto ter ficado claro que muitos venezuelanos presentes nos EUA querem regressar à Venezuela, contudo a situação ainda se encontra por resolver uma vez que os EUA proibiram todos os voos de e para aquele país.

Aqueles que só se informam junto da comunicação social de referência podem questionar-se sobre quem é que no seu juízo perfeito quereria trocar os Estados Unidos pela Venezuela. A “Time”, o “Washington post”, o “The Hill” e o “Miami Herald”, entre outros, na última semana publicaram várias peças de opinião que descreviam a Venezuela como sendo um pesadelo caótico. Estes órgãos de comunicação social pintaram o quadro de um desastre causado pelo coronavírus, de incompetência governamental e de uma nação à beira do colapso. A realidade da reacção da Venezuela ao coronavírus não tem sido de todo alvo de cobertura por parte da comunicação social.

Mais, o que cada um desses artigos relega para segundo plano são os danos causados pelas sanções do governo Trump, as quais devastaram a economia e o sistema de saúde venezuelano muito antes da pandemia de coronavírus. Estas sanções empobreceram milhões de venezuelanos e tiveram um impacto negativo crucial em infra-estruturas vitais, como a produção de electricidade. A Venezuela está impedida de importar peças novas para as suas centrais energéticas e as consequentes falhas de energia afectam o abastecimento de água, que depende de bombas eléctricas. Estas, entre dezenas de outras implicações causadas pela guerra híbrida contra a Venezuela, causaram um declínio nos indicadores de riqueza em todo o espectro, tendo estas sanções causado mais de 100.000 mortes.

No que toca especificamente ao coronavírus, as sanções aumentam o custo dos kits de teste e dos mantimentos médicos, e proíbem o governo venezuelano de comprar equipamento médico aos EUA (e a muitos países europeus). Estes obstáculos aparentemente deviam colocar a Venezuela na via para o pior cenário possível, como no Irão (também assolado pelas sanções) ou a Itália (assolada pela austeridade e pelo neoliberalismo). Em contraste com estes dois países, a Venezuela tomou medidas decisivas logo ao início para enfrentar a pandemia.

Como consequência dessas medidas e de outros factores, actualmente a Venezuela tem o melhor cenário possível. No dia em que escrevo este texto, passaram 11 dias desde o primeiro caso confirmado de coronavírus, o país tem 86 pessoas infectadas e 0 mortes. Os seus vizinhos não se saíram tão bem: o Brasil tem 1.924 casos com 34 mortos; o Equador 981 com 18; o Chile 746 com 2; o Peru 395 com 5; o México 367 com 4; a Colômbia 306 com 3. (Com a excepção do México, todos estes governos participaram e contribuíram activamente nos esforços dos EUA para uma mudança de regime na Venezuela.) Porque é que na Venezuela está tudo a correr muito melhor que aos outros países da região?

Os cépticos dirão que o governo de Maduro está a omitir os números e os mortos, que não há testes suficientes, não há medicamentos suficientes nem talento suficiente para lidar de modo adequado com a pandemia. Mas os factos são estes:

Primeiro, a solidariedade internacional desempenhou um papel inigualável no que toca a permitir que o governo tenha conseguido fazer frente a este desafio. A China enviou kits de diagnóstico que irão permitir 320.000 testes, bem como uma equipa de especialistas e toneladas de mantimentos. Cuba enviou 130 médicos e 10.000 doses de Interferon Alfa-2B, uma droga com um registo de sucesso no apoio à recuperação de vítimas do COVID-19. E a Rússia enviou a primeira de várias remessas de kits e equipamento médico. Estes três países, normalmente caracterizados pela política externa dos EUA como sendo maléficos, ofereceram a sua solidariedade e apoio material. Os Estados Unidos oferecerem mais sanções e o FMI, reconhecidamente sob o controlo dos EUA, negou o pedido por parte da Venezuela para um financiamento de emergência de 5 mil milhões, apoio com o qual até a União Europeia concorda.

Segundo, o governo aplicou rapidamente um plano para conter a disseminação da doença. A 12 de Março, um dia antes dos primeiros casos confirmados, o presidente Maduro decretou Estado de Emergência Médica, proibindo as multidões e cancelando todos os voos oriundos da Europa e da Colômbia. A 13 de Março, Dia 1, dois venezuelanos testaram positivo; o governo cancelou as aulas, começou a exigir a utilização de máscaras de protecção no metro e nas fronteiras, fechou os cinemas, bares e discotecas, e restringiu os restaurantes a serviços de take away ou entregas. Vale a pena repetir que foi no Dia 1 mal teve um caso confirmado; muitos Estados dos EUA ainda não tomaram estes passos. No Dia 4, foi colocada em vigor uma quarentena nacional (equivalente a ordens de reclusão domiciliar) e o portal do Sistema Pátria foi reestruturado para fazer um inquérito popular a potenciais casos de COVID-19. No Dia 8, estavam infectadas 42 pessoas e cerca de 90% da população estava resguardada em quarentena. No Dia 11, mais de 12,2 milhões de pessoas tinham respondido ao inquérito, mais de 20.000 que reportaram estar doentes receberam em suas casas a visita de profissionais de saúde e 145 foram referenciadas para análises ao coronavírus. O governo estima que sem estas medidas, a Venezuela teria mais de 3.000 pessoas infectadas e um número mais alto de óbitos.

Terceiro, o povo venezuelano estava preparado para lidar com a crise. Ao longo dos últimos 7 anos, a Venezuela tem convivido com a morte de um líder extremamente popular, violentos protestos de direita, uma guerra económica que se caracteriza em escassez e hiperinflação, sanções que destruíram a economia, tentativas constantes de golpe de Estado, tentativas de insurreições militares, ataques às infra-estruturas essenciais, apagões, emigração em massa e ameaças de uma intervenção militar dos EUA. O coronavírus é um tipo diferente de desafio, mas as anteriores crises instilaram a resiliência entre o povo venezuelano e fortaleceram a solidariedade no seio das comunidades. Não há pânico nas ruas; pelo contrário, as pessoas estão calmas e a seguir os protocolos de saúde.

Quatro, organização de massas e dar prioridade às pessoas acima de tudo. As comunas e as comunidades organizadas chegaram-se à frente, produzindo máscaras, mantendo o sistema de abastecimento alimentar CLAP a funcionar (esta cesta alimentar mensal chega a 7 milhões de famílias), facilitando as visitas ao domicílio de médicos e encorajando à utilização de máscaras em público. Mais de 12.000 estudantes de medicina no seu último ou penúltimo ano de estudos voluntariaram-se para serem treinados em visitas domiciliares. Pelo seu lado, o governo de Maduro suspendeu o pagamento das rendas, proibiu os despedimentos em todo o território, deu subsídios aos trabalhadores, proibiu as empresas de telecomunicações de cortar os serviços de Internet e telefone às pessoas, chegou a acordo com as cadeias de hotéis para cederem 4.000 camas caso a crise cresça e prometeu pagar os ordenados das pequenas e médias empresas. Por entre uma crise de saúde pública – complementada por uma crise económica e sanções – a reacção da Venezuela foi tentar garantir alimentação, cuidados de saúde gratuitos, expandir os testes e aliviar a carga económica sobre a classe trabalhadora.

O governo dos EUA não respondeu ao pedido do governo de Maduro para abrir uma excepção à Conviasa Airlines, a sancionada transportadora aérea nacional, para trazer os venezuelanos retidos nos Estados Unidos para Caracas. Dado tudo o que está a acontecer nos Estados Unidos, onde os tratamentos para o COVID-19 atingem quase 35.000 dólares e o governo pondera dar prioridade à economia em vez de às vidas das pessoas, talvez os venezuelanos que estão à espera de regressar para casa compreendam que a sua probabilidade de sobrevivência ao coronavírus – tanto física como económica – é muito superior num país que dá mais valor à saúde do que aos lucros.

Leonardo Flores

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Artigo original em inglês:

Venezuela’s Coronavirus Response Might Surprise You

Tradução: Flávio Gonçalves

Imagem: Médicos venezuelanos em visita ao domicílio do COVID-19. Foto cortesia de @OrlenysOV

Leonardo Flores é especialista em política latino-americana e activista da CODEPINK.

Who were the men and women behind the U.S. biological weapons programs during World War II? We know Imperial Japan had biological weapons, specifically bombs made of infected fleas they dropped on China and there were others who committed the same atrocities throughout history. The Japanese had madmen, but so did the Americans. What kind of madmen would be engaged in such dangerous weapons of war that can kill every man, woman and child on earth? In the U.S., one of the madmen can be traced back to the late 1920′s and his name was Dr. Cornelius P. Rhoads, a Harvard medical school graduate who was a victim of pulmonary tuberculosis while working at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital as an intern.

Dr. Rhoads was a dedicated oncologist, pathologist and a hospital administrator who went on to teach and conduct research on disease processes at his alma mater. Then From 1929 until 1939, he worked at both the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and shortly after, became a staff member at Rockefeller Hospital where he followed his other interests in hematology and poliomyelitis. By 1931, hematologist William B. Castle asked Dr. Rhoads to join him at the Rockefeller Anemia Commission where he worked for several months to participate in clinical research at Presbyterian Hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico as part of the Rockefeller Foundation’s “sanitary commission” team to study pernicious iron deficiency anemia. Puerto Rico had pernicious iron deficiency anemia had an affection rate of 80% that was caused primarily by parasitic hookworms which also co-existed with another problem, the ‘tropical sprue’ which is described as “a malabsorption disease commonly found in tropical regions.”

As it is told, the story begins on November 10th, 1931, Dr. Rhoads attended a party hosted by a Puerto Rican co-worker’s house in Cidra, Puerto Rico, but after leaving the party he found his car vandalized with items in his car stolen, so he went to his office apparently angered by the situation and wrote a letter to Fred W. Stewart, whom he called Ferdie, a colleague from Boston that read:

Dear Ferdie:

The more I think about the Larry Smith appointment the more disgusted I get. Have you heard any reason advanced for it? It certainly is odd that a man out with the entire Boston group, fired by Wallach, and as far as I know, absolutely devoid of any scientific reputation should be given the place. There is something wrong somewhere with our point of view.

The situation is settled in Boston. Parker and Nye are to run the laboratory together and either Kenneth or MacMahon to be assistant; the chief to stay on. As far as I can see, the chances of my getting a job in the next ten years are absolutely nil. One is certainly not encouraged to make scientific advances, when it is a handicap rather than an aid to advancement. I can get a damn fine job here and am tempted to take it. It would be ideal except for the Porto Ricans. They are beyond doubt the dirtiest, laziest, most degenerate and thievish race of men ever inhabiting this sphere. It makes you sick to inhabit the same island with them. They are even lower than Italians. What the island needs is not public health work but a tidal wave or something to totally exterminate the population. It might then be livable. I have done my best to further the process of extermination by killing off 8 and transplanting cancer into several more. The latter has not resulted in any fatalities so far… The matter of consideration for the patients’ welfare plays no role here — in fact all physicians take delight in the abuse and torture of the unfortunate subjects.

Do let me know if you hear any more news.

Sincerely, “Dusty”

By the end of December, a former lab technician by the name of Luis Baldoni resigned and later testified that he could have been in danger by exposing Dr. Rhoads. But a month later, around January 1932, Baldoni gave Pedro Albizu Campos, the president of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party the letter written by Dr. Rhoads which angered the Nationalist leader and many Puerto Ricans.  Albizu Campos sent copies of the letter to newspapers, embassies around the world, to the League of Nations, the Pan American Union and even the Vatican. Albizu Campos responded by writing his own letter stating that Dr. Rhoads was plotting to exterminate Puerto Ricans with cancer as part of American imperialism alongside U.S. installed governors in Puerto Rico who promoted labor emigration and birth control. According to author Truman R. Clark, who published ‘Puerto Rico and the United States, 1917-1933′ in 1975 wrote:

The Nationalists saw the Rhoads letter as proof that the U.S. government had a “policy to exterminate our people,” by keeping wages in the sugar industry so low that workers would starve, selling Puerto Ricans food “unfit for human consumption and the source of serious disease,” and having its governors emphasize emigration and birth control. The United States, said the Nationalists, had all but wiped out the American Indian and the Hawaiians with tuberculosis, starvation, and vaccination shots, but they did not believe even Americans would stoop so low as to inoculate people with cancer, until Dr. Rhoads admitted his part in the fiendish plot

By 1940, rather than face justice, Dr. Rhoads was selected to be the next director of Memorial Hospital for cancer care and research. By 1941 he was studying the use and effects of radiation to treat leukemia. Ironically, by 1950, Albizu Campos was arrested as a political prisoner and was used as a guinea pig to test human radiation experiments which led to his death in 1965.

However, during World War II, Dr. Rhoads became a colonel in the U.S. Army and was chief of medicine in the Chemical Weapons Division. He later went on to establish other chemical weapons laboratories in Utah, Maryland, and Panama participating in race-based secret experiments on African-Americans, Japanese-Americans and of course Puerto Ricans along with 60,000 U.S. soldiers who ended up with life-long aftereffects.

Dr. Rhoads went on to win the ‘Legion of Merit’ for combating poison gas and advancing the use of chemical warfare. The U.S. Army Medical Service published ‘The Medical Department of the United States Army in World War II., Volume 9’ on the original start of their chemical weapons program leading to biological weapons:

In July 1943, a Medical Division was established in the Chemical Warfare Service at Edgewood Arsenal, Md., under Dr. Cornelius P. Rhoads of New York. He was commissioned as a colonel in the Medical Corps and served as chief of the division until April 1945. The division was responsible for conducting research connected with prevention and treatment of chemical warfare casualties, for carrying out toxicological studies related to hazards in the production of chemical warfare agents, and for liaison with the surgeon general. By the end of 1943, new Chemical Warfare Service medical laboratories had been established at Camp Detrick, Md.; Dugway Proving Ground, Utah; and Camp Sibert, Ala. The Medical Division coordinated the work of all these laboratories and maintained liaison not only with the Surgeon General’s Office but also with other War Department agencies and with the Canadian and British chemical warfare research offices.

In January 1944, the Chemical Warfare Service was charged additionally with responsibility for all biological warfare defense projects. This assignment originated in October 1941, when the Secretary of War requested the National Academy of Sciences to appoint a civilian committee to review the field of biological warfare. The response was the formation of the so-called WBC (War Bureau of Consultants) Committee which included representatives of the Surgeon General’s Office as liaison members

And the U.S. biological weapons program was launched with help from Dr. Rhoads who was instrumental to the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex in developing and later establishing the foundation leading to the use of biological weapons. Dr. Cornelius P. Rhoads and his legacy lives on in Puerto Rico and around the world as one of the men who helped develop and produce some of the most dangerous biological (and chemical weapons) known to man. Dr. Cornelius P. Rhoads was a brilliant doctor and researcher, but there is no doubt that he was a racist and a psychopath with dreams of exterminating the Puerto Rican population.

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

Sources

Susan E. Lederer, “’Porto Ricochet’: Joking About Germs, Cancer, and Race Extermination in the 1930s,” American Literary History 14 (2002): 725

Eric T. Rosenthal, “The Rhoads Not Given: The Tainting of the Cornelius P. Rhoads Memorial Award”, Oncology Times, 10 September 2003. Volume 25. Issue 17. pp. 19-20. Retrieved 17 December 2012.

Truman R. Clark. 1975. Puerto Rico and the United States, 1917-1933, University of Pittsburgh, pp. 151-154

“DR. RHOADS CLEARED OF PORTO RICO PLOT”, New York Times, 15 February 1932

Daniel Immerwahr; ‘How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States’, pp. 246-249; “A man of brusque manners”: Luis Baldoni, Testimony in Cornelius Rhoads Case, 1932, 1, folder 4, box 31, Reynolds papers

Stephen Hunter & John Bainbridge; ‘American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill Harry Truman’, pp. 194-195; Simon & Schuster pub., 2005;

“HEALTH: Puerto Ricans Outraged Over Secret Medical Experiments” , (IPS) Inter Press News Agency, Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero, 21 October 2002

All images in this article are from the author

So much discussion among virologists regarding the number of COVID-19 “confirmed cases” in the USA. The fact of the matter, is that the existing data base under the helm of the CDC is totally unreliable. Why? Because people across America cannot afford to pay for the corona virus test. Which means that millions of Americans who might have the COVID-19 virus are simply not accounted for. 

In Florida, the going rate for a COVID-19 test in early February (at the outset of the WHO public health emergency) in a private clinic was of the order of $3000 and it was not always covered by your insurance company.

Since then the price has gone down. The price of the COVID-19 virus test is according to reports between $100 and $250 for uninsured persons in California.

More recently, the US Congress has promised that it will cover the costs of the tests, but you could still “face high bills” for medical services.

The Harvard Business Review says we need a “cheap way” to diagnose the coronavirus. But is a “cheap test” a “reliable test”? And does it ensure the patient with immediate followup treatment.

For people who are under lockdown and who have been out of a job for the last month, and who have to pay their mortgages and buy food, what is left over for emergency medical expenses?

The Corona Virus Disease 2019 or “Covid-19” is a coronavirus similar to the virus that causes pneumonia. Covid-19 is a danger to at-risk groups including the elderly and the chronically ill. 

For the vast majority of the population, Covid-19 is no more dangerous than the common cold. This is backed up by statistics already being reported across Western publications and based on information derived from China’s outbreak where the virus first appeared.

Compared to cancer, heart disease, substance abuse, or car accidents – Covid-19 is relatively harmless. But it has been put in the spotlight by deliberately dishonest, selective reporting that focuses on generating hysteria by presenting out-of-context information to an ignorant and easily panicked public.

If there is no global concern or massive mobilization over cancer and heart disease – conditions that claim far more lives than any virus – why the sudden hysteria and “concern” .

Context is King 

According to StatNews.com in their article, “Lower death rate estimates for coronavirus, especially for non-elderly, provide glimmer of hope:”

The chance of someone with symptomatic Covid-19 dying varied by age, confirming other studies. For those aged 15 to 44, the fatality rate was 0.5%, though it might have been as low as 0.1% or as high as 1.3%. For people 45 to 64, the fatality rate was also 0.5%, with a possible low of 0.2% and a possible high of 1.1%. For those over 64, it was 2.7%, with a low and high estimate of 1.5% and 4.7%.

The chance of serious illness from coronavirus infection in younger people was so low, the scientists estimate a fatality rate of zero.

Healthline.com would report in their article, “Here’s How COVID-19 Compares to Past Outbreaks,” that the most affected groups are:

…adults over 65 with underlying health conditions; children seem to be spared and are experiencing milder symptoms (in China, children account for just 2.4 percent of cases)

If that isn’t convincing enough, simply scrutinize content you’re already reading – especially regarding Covid-19 deaths – and see how old and in what health those are in reportedly dying from Covid-19. Many paragraphs down – far from the hysteria-generating headlines – you will find that those dying are already chronically ill, advanced in age, and/or already at risk whether it was Covid-19 or the common cold.

When deaths are reported without context they easily create panic.

When the number of Covid-19 deaths are put into perspective in relation to past outbreaks – or even side-by-side with the annual common flu virus- we see just how unwarranted the current wave of hysteria is and how overreactions from governments are aimed more at saving face and assuaging public panic than preserving public health.

In Thailand where up to four deaths have been reported at the time of writing this article – the first case involved a man who already had Dengue fever – a serious, life-threatening tropical illness spread by mosquitoes.

The other 3 cases involved a 70 year old with pre-existing tuberculosis, a 79 year old with multiple pre-existing chronic illnesses, and a 45 year old suffering from obesity and chronic diabetes.

All four individuals would be considered “at-risk” and should have been isolated from those potentially carrying not only Covid-19 – but any communicable disease at all including the common cold or flu.

Do these deaths warrant paralyzing an entire nation of 70 million people? Or closing entire businesses and costing billions in commerce? The damage measures made in reaction to hysteria will cause more damage to many more people and for a much longer duration than Covid-19 ever could on its own.

Common Sense Measures 

Measures should be put into place and resources invested into educating the public on how to isolate and protect at-risk individuals – efforts should be made to help those at risk isolate themselves and provisions – including investments in critical care equipment such as ventilators – made to handle the influx of at-risk patients who end up with Covid-19 regardless.

What should not be done – is the spread of panic, hysteria, and the imposition of draconian measures simply to assuage panic and hysteria – measures that will also gut the economy, impact millions of workers, and disrupt the lives of millions more who depend on the day-to-day functioning of society and who face little or no health risk upon contracting the virus.

These measures – ironically – are in turn fueling additional panic including hording and social tensions that are only compounding the damage “Covid-19 hysteria” is already having on society.

Who is Fueling Hysteria and Why? 

There is the vastly corrupt mass media who depends on public panic and hysteria at times like this to boost clicks and sell newspapers. They also seek to advance their agenda and that of their wealthy sponsors and enhance their grip over the public’s attention. The media is determined to spread hysteria to keep people fixated on their reportage, completely indifferent to the damage they are causing.

There are also political groups – partnered with the media – attempting to leverage and amplify the appearance of Covid-19 into an unprecedented crisis despite a lack of evidence to justify doing so. Their interest is not in ensuring the safety of the public or maintaining oversight of government efforts – but instead leveraging the resulting hysteria to chip away at ruling governments they seek to destabilize and replace.

Aiding them are US and European-funded fronts posing as “human rights” advocates and “independent media” outlets. Groups like “Human Rights Watch” have attacked governments for not taking decisive enough action – then complained when decisive action was taken as being too draconian and violating “human rights.”

These are interest groups that are never satisfied with the government’s response to Covid-19 because they are interest groups completely unconcerned with Covid-19 itself and its impact on public health – and instead – concerned only with how they can generate and leverage public hysteria to advance their entirely unrelated and self-serving political agenda. Again, this is done with complete indifference to the damage being done to society by doing so.

What has resulted is governments around the globe taking measures in reaction to public panic – not to fight the actual pathogen. While draconian efforts to isolate the entire population may work in slowing the spread of Covid-19 – is it worth paralyzing entire economies, costing billions in economic damage, disrupting the lives of hundreds of millions of people who – if contracting Covid-19 – will have what is essentially a cold for a week?

The answer should be an obvious “no.”

Now and in the Future 

The answer also isn’t “doing nothing.”

Again, at-risk groups can and should be protected. State resources should be mobilized to protect and isolate them from the general population and treat them in the worst case scenario should they contract the virus anyway. Public information campaigns should be mounted to encourage basic hygiene especially for those who may come in contact with at-risk individuals – something that should be done year-round and regardless of whatever strain of the cold or flu is prevalent at the time.

And just in case a genuinely deadly pathogen appears on the horizon, nations should invest in economic infrastructure that can thrive regardless – just in case nationwide containment ever truly is necessary. This includes investing in online commerce, delivery services, decentralized manufacturing, and localized food, water, and energy security measures – all measures that would make for a more resilient society regardless of the threats that may or may not appear in the future.

Panic has proven a greater enemy than the Covid-19 pathogen. That society can be crippled by politicians, political groups, and a corrupt mass media over what is essentially a slightly more virulent form of the common cold, says a lot about how the world currently works and what needs dire attention to fix.

From those driving needless hysteria to those caving into it at the cost of economic stability and the disruption of millions of ordinary lives – it’s clear that we face a precedent being set – one that will ensure virtually any excuse in the future can be used to cripple civilization on a global scale. It seems obvious this cannot be allowed to stand, but what is less clear is what can be done to ensure it does not.

It can be hoped that governments around the globe pressured by hysteria this time around will set up measures in the future to avoid caving in again.

For the average individual – knowing that virtually everything you read in the media is likely promoting an agenda and thus being misrepresented – gives you the ability to look for context and truth yourself and applying critical thinking skills – reducing your suseptibility to panic and hysteria – and innoculating us all against the real virus infecting society – a political and social virus.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Land Destroyer Report.

Tony Cartalucci is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Establishment media never miss an opportunity to set the record straight on major issues.

Instead they consistently proliferate state-sponsored Big Lies about designed US adversaries.

The latest exercise in Trump regime mass deception is directed against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and other key Bolivarian officials.

Falsely accusing them of narco-terrorism, AG Barr and Pompeo failed to provide evidence backing Trump regime charges against them because none exists.

Without it, accusations are baseless. Instead of debunking them, the NYT said the following:

“President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela was indicted in the United States on Thursday in a decades-long narco-terrorism and international cocaine trafficking conspiracy in which, prosecutors said, he led a violent drug cartel even as he ascended to the top of government.”

The Times should have explained that Trump regime charges are phony.

It should have stressed that Bolivarian Venezuela is in the vanguard of combatting illicit drugs and narco terrorism.

It should have said that throughout most of the post-WW II period, the US has been and continues to be the world’s leading narco terrorist state.

Instead of truth-telling on major US domestic and geopolitical issues, the Times and other establishment media exclusively feature the falsified official narrative.

The neocon/CIA-connected Washington Post featured the same Big Lie.

Failing to debunk phony US state-sponsored deception, WaPo admitted that action taken by the Trump regime on Thursday aims “to force” Maduro from power.

Everything thrown at Bolivarian social democracy by US regimes since Hugo Chavez’s December 1998 election failed — including all-out Trump regime war by other means.

Do its hardliners intend trying to kidnap Maduro and other Venezuelan officials, AG Barr saying:

“We’re going to explore all options for getting custody.”

Phony charges against Maduro and other Venezuelan officials will likely harden their resolve to resist the unparalleled menace posed by the US under both wings of its war party.

Over-the-top Wall Street Journal editors headlined “Indicting the Caracas Mob (sic),” saying:

The Trump regime’s “Justice Department goes after Venezuela’s gangster government (sic).”

Calling model democrat Maduro a “dictator,” the Journal falsely accused him of “oppress(ing) Venezuelans even as the virus may spread to Latin America.”

Latin American expert Leonardo Flores debunked the Big Lie, explaining how Maduro is handling the COVID-19 crisis.

After offering free air transportation for Venezuelans in the US wishing to return home, 800 nationals “registered” to be aboard Miami – Caracas flights, Flores saying:

It’s “clear that many Venezuelans in the US wanted to go back to Venezuela, yet the situation remains unresolved due to the US ban on flights to and from the country.”

“The reality of Venezuela’s coronavirus response is not covered by the mainstream media at all.”

Unlike the Trump regime, “Venezuela took decisive steps early on to” deal with COVID-19 outbreaks.

“Venezuela is currently in its best-case scenario. (Eleven) days after the first confirmed case of coronavirus, the country has 86 infected people, with 0 deaths.”

Through Thursday, Brazil has 2,985 cases, Ecuador 1,403, Chile 1,306, Panama 674, Argentina, 589, Mexico 585, Peru 580, Colombia 491, smaller numbers in other Latin American countries that keep growing.

According to Latin American analyst Charles Call, “Latin America may be hard-hit, with deep humanitarian, economic, and political consequences.”

COVID-19 outbreaks are “spreading to every country in the region,” numbers reported perhaps the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come for nations with underfunded public health programs.

Before all-out Trump regime economic, financial, and medical terrorism on Venezuela, the country had a model universal healthcare system, now partly hamstrung under near-US blockade conditions.

According to Flores, international solidarity is helping Venezuela deal with containing COVID-19 outbreaks, along with treating infected individuals.

“China sent coronavirus diagnostic kits that will allow 320,000 Venezuelans to be tested, in addition to a team of experts and tons of supplies,” he explained.

“Cuba sent 130 doctors and 10,000 doses of interferon alfa-2b, a drug with an established record of helping COVID-19 patients recover.”

“Russia has sent the first of several shipments of medical equipment and kits.”

The Trump regime piled on more illegal sanctions along with phony narco terrorism charges against Maduro and other Venezuelan officials.

Maduro straightaway declared a a national health emergency, prohibited large gatherings, cancelled international flights, and took other steps to contain outbreaks — including a national quarantine four days after the first confirmed one.

Thousands of Venezuelan who reported feeling ill were visited at home by medical professionals, a small number referred for COVID-19 testing.

The Bolivarian Republic is no stranger to crises since the Bush/Cheney regime’s April 2002 aborted two-day coup attempt to oust Hugo Chavez.

Numerous failed US attempts to eliminate Venezuelan social democracy followed.

Flores explained that earlier crises “instilled a resiliency among the Venezuelan people and strengthened solidarity within communities.”

“There is no panic on the streets; instead, people are calm and following health protocols” to weather the current storm.

Venezuelans in need are getting home visits by doctors. Food distribution continues to millions of households.

Rent payments were suspended, a firing freeze instituted, telecoms prohibited from cutting off phone and Internet access to cash-strapped households.

“Venezuela’s response has been to guarantee food, provide free healthcare and widespread testing, and alleviate further economic pressure on the working class,” Flores explained.

At a time of rapidly spreading COVID-19 outbreaks in the US, treatment for Americans is largely based on the ability to pay.

Its high cost, including for COVID-19, forces millions of Americans to forego treatment if ill and hope for the best.

Flores stressed that Venezuelans wanting to return home from the US “are much better (protected) in a country that values health over profits.”

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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 coronavirus story has generated a number of major subplots.

First is the origin of the virus. Did it occur naturally or was it created in a Chinese, American or Israeli weapons lab? If bioengineered, did it somehow escape or was it deliberately released? As the governments that might have been involved in the process have become very tight lipped and the mainstream media is reluctant to embrace conspiracy theories, we the public may never know the answer.

Second is the nature of the virus itself. There are inevitably skeptics who choose to compare the affliction to a common head cold or normal winter flu and are able to cherry pick so-called experts to support their case. Many Americans are unwilling to submit to a lockdown or isolation and are flaunting their willingness to go out in public and mix freely while others are claiming that the whole thing is a hoax designed to create a panic that will benefit certain constituencies.

There are press reports of teenagers going to supermarkets and faking a sneeze or a cough in the produce section to show their indifference to the infection avoidance guidelines now being promoted by the media and government. Some critics have also commented regarding the deaths of hundreds of Italians daily, suggesting that in Italy’s health care system old people were deliberately being allowed to die.

The fact is that when critically ill people die in hospitals it is sometimes attributable to triage. Triage arises when there are only limited resources to treat the sick, as in the case recently in the Italian Lombard city of Bergamo where hospitals were overwhelmed. Doctors must make the decision to treat those who are ill who are likely to survive as a first priority, meaning that others will only receive limited treatment. Italy has roughly the same number of hospital beds as does the United States per capita and it has more ventilators capable of being used to treat the advanced stages of the virus. It also is receiving assistance from both China and Russia on testing supplies and additional ventilators and masks. Italy has conducted far more coronavirus tests than has the U.S. The northern Italian medical services system was up to European standards, better than what prevails in the U.S., but it has been broken by the virus. Spain is heading the same way and there are similar concerns about France.

In spite of all the ideologically driven background clutter, genuinely knowledgeable medical authorities come down overwhelmingly promoting the view that the virus is highly contagious and capable of spreading rapidly, making it a pandemic, and it can be exceptionally lethal to certain demographics, including the elderly and those with weakened immune systems. The way of combatting it also appears to be agreed upon by most genuine experts i.e. that testing must be widespread to determine who is infected and those individuals should be isolated from contact with others for at least two weeks to limit the spread of the contagion. For those whose conditions worsen, hospitalization and treatment for possible respiratory failure are warranted.

The third big issue is the apparently deliberate failure of the Trump Administration to respond proactively to limit the spread of the virus. Seeking to protect the stock market more than the American public, President Donald Trump initially downplayed the impact of the virus, even calling it a “hoax” during January and February when it first appeared on U.S. soil. It turned out that several institutes affiliated to the Center for Disease Control to deal with epidemics had been dismantled by the Administration and, in spite of the warning provided by what was occurring in Wuhan, the U.S. made no effort to increase its supply of testing kits, masks or ventilators. Meanwhile, congressmen were receiving dire warnings of what was coming from the intelligence community in private briefings, leading to a number of senators selling their stock in anticipation of a market collapse. That is something called insider trading and it is illegal. It is also a measure of the corruption of America’s ruling class.

The fourth major subplot relates to what will come out of the pandemic once it is over, if it is indeed defeated at all. Critics rightly observe that the government response both at federal and state levels might well be a major overreaction to a health crisis that could possibly be dealt with using a lighter hand. Donald Trump has now called himself a “wartime president,” a particularly odd conceit in that America’s chief executive officer dodged the Vietnam war draft.  Trump is now providing daily rambling briefings emphasizing that his administration deserves a “10 out of 10” for its yeoman’s work against coronavirus. The real story is that the president personally inhibited initial efforts to respond to the disease and he is now attempting to regain lost ground by supporting draconian measures to include cash payments to all American residents, even to people who do not need the money. The money itself will have to be borrowed or printed, putting the United States even deeper in debt.

Based on his wartime status, the president and his cabinet are poised to exploit Civil War and Korean War legislation to assume powers over the economy and will likely arrange bailouts of some industries that will then acquire the government as a partner.

The now declared “national emergency” will undoubtedly come to include some forms of martial law to enforce the isolation of targeted populations and it is also being reported that the Justice Department has asked Congress to allow judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during the “emergency.” As we have learned from the Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act and the Authorization to Use Military Force, allegedly temporary powers acquired by the executive branch have frequently become permanent. Unrestrained power in the hands of a Trump or Biden should frighten anyone who is still interested in voting in November.

There is some speculation that Trump might well follow the example being set by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. Israel has banned foreign visitors, is under 24 hours curfew and is effectively in lockdown. It is using cell phone intercepts provided by the intelligence services to track the comings and goings of Israeli residents. The monitoring is being justified as a mechanism to create a record of who is meeting whom and where to support isolation and lockdown efforts. A similar program is already active in the suburbs around Washington. The National Security Agency (NSA) already has the technical ability in place that would permit monitoring of the movements of much of the U.S. population. It would be an intelligence community dream and would fit quite nicely with Congress’s recent efforts to re-authorization certain Patriot Act aspects of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Fifth and finally, there is the politicization aspect of coronavirus. The virus is being “blamed” on China, a global competitor of the United States. As is often the case, Trump has gotten the ball rolling through his usual verbal toxicity, calling the virus the Chinese Virus or Wuhan Virus. Other Republicans have picked up on the theme, leading to the inevitably Democratic progressive wing complaints that such language was “racist.” The fact it, there is no evidence whatsoever that China in any deliberate way either created or unleashed the virus.

And, of course, there is Russia. It would almost seem an old joke that is no longer amusing to blame something new and menacing on Moscow and congress has so far largely refrained from doing so. But that does not mean that the Deep State establishment is holding the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin blameless. The U.S. intelligence community, through its preferred propaganda sheet the New York Times, is now reporting that Russia is taking advantage of the coronavirus crisis to spread disinformation through Europe and also in the U.S. In particular, Putin has escalated a campaign-by-innuendo to reduce confidence in the outcome of the upcoming 2020 presidential election. In any event, the Russians are too late as the Democratic and Republican parties’ behavior has already convinced many Americans that voting in November will be a waste of time.

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Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is 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 Morning Star

Not a day passes without some hyped up media story of how big-pharma is racing to the rescue of humanity with its search for a coronavirus vaccine. There are over 40 companies now searching for a vaccine. Collectively they are spending huge sums of money supported by lavish amounts of tax payer cash. Estimates of how soon a vaccine can be produced vary wildly but most estimates agree that it is unlikely to happen this year. It goes without saying that the first to market with a usable vaccine stands to make billions of dollars.

The mainstream media, scientific and political establishments are completely under the spell of big pharma. Governments reassure the public that they’re doing everything in their power to protect them with a variety of measures. These range from mass lock downs and trillion dollar bailouts for big business to limited amounts of helicopter money for the citizens of wealthier countries.

Regardless of where you live if you have to go to hospital with symptoms of the coronavirus the key question facing you is: will you be able to leave walking out front door or will you end up being wheeled out the basement back door?

The mainstream media in cahoots with governments and the medical establishment are suppressing any news regarding the use of a cheap, safe and easy to produce treatment for coronavirus patients. Maybe its because this treatment is being used in Chinese hospitals to save lives. Let’s face it there has been no let up in Cold War 2.0 during the current pandemic.

Dr. Andrew W. Saul, Editor in chief of the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, sums up the Western big pharma approach nicely when he says:

“Medical orthodoxy obsessively focuses on searching for a vaccine and/or drug for coronavirus COVID-19). While they are looking for what would be fabulously profitable approaches, we have with vitamin C an existing, plausible, clinically demonstrated method to treat what coronavirus patients die from: severe acute respiratory syndrome, or pneumonia.’’

On 17 March a group of Chinese physicians held a video conference to discuss the use of high dose intravenous vitamin C for patients with moderate to severe cases of corona virus. The keynote speaker at this meeting was Dr. Enqian Mao, chief of the emergency medicine Department of Ruiijin hospital in Shanghai.

Dr Mao is also a senior member of the expert team at the Shanghai Public health Centre, where all coronavirus patients have been treated from the Shanghai area. Dr Mao was also a co-author of the medical protocol for the treatment of coronavirus that has been adopted by the Shanghai Medical Association and the government of Shanghai. This medical protocol also advocates the use of high-dose intravenous vitamin C for the treatment of mild, moderate and severe cases of the coronavirus.

Over the last decade Dr Mao has been using high-dose intravenous vitamin C (IVC) to treat patients with a variety of acute medical conditions ranging from pancreatitis and sepsis to surgical wound healing. When the coronavirus epidemic first broke out he and several other colleagues thought that high-dose intravenous C could be a potential treatment for patients presenting with the coronavirus. Their recommendation for the use of high-dose intravenous vitamin C as a treatment was adopted by the Shanghai expert team.

Dr. Richard Cheng, an American-Chinese doctor currently based in Shanghai has given a report of this meeting. He notes that:

“Dr. Mao stated that his group treated ~50 cases of moderate to severe cases of Covid-19 infection with high dose IVC. The IVC dosing was in the range of 10,000 mg – 20,000 mg a day for 7-10 days, with 10,000 mg for moderate cases and 20,000 for more severe cases, determined by pulmonary status (mostly the oxygenation index) and coagulation status. All patients who received IVC improved and there was no mortality. Compared to the average of a 30-day hospital stay for all Covid-19 patients, those patients who received high dose IVC had a hospital stay about 3-5 days shorter than the overall patients. Dr. Mao discussed one severe case in particular who was deteriorating rapidly. He gave a bolus of 50,000 mg IVC over a period of 4 hours. The patient’s pulmonary (oxygenation index) status stabilized and improved as the critical care team watched in real time. There were no side effects reported from any of the cases treated with high dose IVC. ‘’

Dr Cheng also reported that he had a separate meeting with Dr. Sheng Wang, Professor of critical medicine of Shanghai’s 10th Hospital, Tongji University College of medicine. At this meeting Professor Weng said that there were several important lessons to be learned from Shanghai’s experience treating patients with the coronavirus. The most important lesson was:

“Early and high-dose IVC is quite helpful in helping Covid-19 patients. The data is still being finalized and the formal papers will be submitted for publication as soon as they are complete.’’

Professor Wang also stated that coronavirus patients displayed a high rate of hyper-coagulability, i.e. an abnormally increased tendency toward blood clotting, which is best treated with heparin.

He also stated that it was vitally important for front line medical professionals to, ‘wear protective clothing at the earliest opportunity for intubation and other emergency rescue measures.’ The American health authorities shouldtake notice of this considering that pictures of nurses in New York wearing black plastic refuse sacks have been appearing on social media.

Richard Chang has also noted that Professors Mao and Weng have stated that high-dose intravenous vitamin C is being used as a treatment for coronavirus patients in other hospitals around China.

Not surprisingly, reports of this cheap, safe treatment, that has been pioneered in China, have been being completely ignored by Western governments and the medical establishments that are beholden to the big pharmaapproach to the current pandemic.

Thankfully, there are doctors in the West who are not blinded by the close minded approach pursued by their governments and so called medical experts. Apparently, doctors at several hospitals in New York, which is the epicentre of the coronavirus epidemic in America, have started to use the pioneering treatments coming out of China.

Dr. Andrew G. Weber, a pulmonologist and critical-care specialist affiliated with two Northwell Health facilities on Long Island, has said that coronavirus patients admitted to intensive care immediately receive 1,500 mg of intravenous vitamin C. This dosage is then repeated 3-4 times a day.

According to Dr. Weber this treatment regime is based upon the experimental use of high-dose vitamin C in Shanghai’s hospitals. He told the New York Post:

“The patients who received vitamin C did significantly better than those who did not get vitamin C. It helps a tremendous amount, but it is not highlighted because it’s not a sexy drug.”

Apparently, high-dose intravenous vitamin C is been used in hospitals across New York. Sadly, its use appears to be patchy and is dependent upon the whims of individual doctors rather than being part of any systematic medical protocol.

As the global death toll soars higher we can only hope that more and more doctors will follow in the footsteps of their Chinese colleagues and have the courage to use a safe and cheap treatment that is totally at odds with the big pharma approach currently followed by the World Health Organisation and most governments. The current approach used by many Western Governments has been slow, clumsy and ill informed putting the interests of big business above saving the lives of ordinary people.

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The United States has become the new center of the global coronavirus pandemic, with over 86,000 cases, more than China or Italy. More than a thousand Americans have already died, but this is surely only the very beginning of this deadly collision between the U.S.’s uniquely inadequate public healthcare system and a real pandemic.

On the other hand, China and South Korea, which both have universal public health systems that cover the bulk of their people’s healthcare needs, have already turned the tide on Covid-19 through targeted quarantines, mobilization of public healthcare resources and testing programs that quickly and efficiently test everyone who may have come into contact with the virus. China sent 40,000 doctors and medical staff, including 10,000 respiratory specialists, into Hubei province in the first month or two of the epidemic. It has now gone up to 3 days in a row with no new cases and is starting to lift social restrictions. South Korea quickly tested over 300,000 people, and only 131 of its people have died.

The WHO’s Bruce Aylward visited China at the end of February, and reported,

“I think the key learning from China is speed… The faster you can find the cases, isolate the cases, and track their close contacts, the more successful you’re going to be… In China, they have set up a giant network of fever hospitals. In some areas, a team can go to you and swab you and have an answer for you in four to seven hours. But you’ve got to be set up — speed is everything.”

Researchers in Italy have experimentally confirmed that up to 3 out of 4 Covid-19 cases are asymptomatic and therefore undetectable by testing only people with symptoms. After a series of deadly missteps, the U.S., which had its first case on January 20th, the same day as South Korea, has over two months later only just begun widespread testing, when we already have the most cases and the 6th highest death toll in the world. Even now, the U.S. is mainly limiting testing to people with symptoms, not doing the targeted testing of new case contacts that was so effective in China. This ensures that otherwise healthy, asymptomatic carriers will unknowingly spread the virus and keep fueling its exponential growth.

So why is the United States so uniquely incapable of confronting this pandemic as efficiently or effectively as China, South Korea, Germany or other countries? The lack of a national, publicly-funded universal health system is a critical deficiency. But our persistent inability to set one up is itself the result of other dysfunctional aspects of American society, including the corruption of our political system by powerful commercial and class interests and the American “exceptionalism” that blinds us to what we can learn from other countries.

Also, the military occupation of the American mind has brainwashed Americans with strictly military concepts of “defense” and “security,” perverting federal spending priorities in the interest of war and militarism at the expense of all our country’s other vital needs, including the health of Americans.

Why can’t we just bomb the virus?

Of course this question is ridiculous. But this is how U.S. leaders respond to every danger we face, with massive diversions of our national resources to the military-industrial complex (MIC) that leave this otherwise wealthy country starved of resources to tackle problems our leaders can’t pretend to solve with weapons and war. Depending what is counted as “defense” spending, it accounts for up to two-thirds of federal discretionary spending. Even now, a bailout for Boeing, the 2nd largest U.S. weapons maker, is more important to Mr. Trump and many in Congress than helping American families get through this crisis.

At the end of the Cold War in 1989, senior officials told the Senate Budget Committee that the U.S. military budget could safely be cut by 50%over the next ten years. Committee chairman Jim Sasser hailed the moment as “the dawn of the primacy of domestic economics.” But by 2000, the influence of the military-industrial complex had shrunk the “peace dividend” to only a 22% reduction in military spending from 1990 (after adjusting for inflation).

Then, in 2001, the military-industrial complex seized on the crime of the new century by 19 mainly Saudi young men armed only with box-cutters to launch new wars and the most expensive U.S. military build-up since World War Two. As former Nuremberg war crimes prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz said at the time, this was not a legitimate response to the crimes of September 11th. “It is never a legitimate response to punish people who are not responsible for the wrong done,” Ferencz told NPR. “If you simply retaliate en masse by bombing Afghanistan, let us say, or the Taliban, you will kill many people who don’t approve of what has happened.”

Despite the abject, bloody failure of the so-called “Global War on Terror,” the opportunistic military-build-up it served to justify still wins every budget battle in Washington. After adjusting for inflation, the 2020 U.S. military budget is 59% higher than in 2000, and 23% higher than it was in 1990.

Over the past 20 years (in 2020 dollars), the U.S. has allocated $4.7 trillion more to the Pentagon than if it had just maintained its budget at the same level since 2000. Even between 1998 and 2010, as Carl Conetta documented in his paper, An Undisciplined Defense: Understanding the $2 Trillion Surge in US Defense Spending, actual war spending was matched dollar for dollar by unrelated additional military spending, mostly increased procurement spending to develop and buy very expensive new warships for the Navy, budget-busting warplanes like the F-35 fighterfor the Air Force, and a wish-list of new weapons and equipment for every branch of the military.

Since 2010, this unprecedented diversion of our national resources to the military-industrial complex has outstripped actual war spending even further. Obama spent more on the military than Bush, and now Trump is spending even more. In addition to $4.7 trillion in extra Pentagon spending, U.S. wars and militarism have cost $1.3 trillion more for Veterans Affairs since 2000 (also adjusted for inflation), as Americans predictably come home from America’s wars needing levels of medical care that the U.S. does not otherwise provide to its people.

All that money is gone now, just as surely as if it had been heaped up somewhere in Afghanistan and incinerated by a few of the 80,000 bombsthe U.S. has dropped on that poor country since 2001. So we do not have it to spend on public hospitals, ventilators, medical training, Covid-19 tests or any of the things we so desperately need in this distinctly non-military crisis.

Our $6 trillion have been utterly wasted – or worse. The U.S. war on terror did not defeat or end terrorism. It only fueled an endless spiral of violence and chaos across the world. The U.S. war machine has destroyed country after country: Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Yemen – but it has never rebuilt or brought peace to any of them. Meanwhile, Russia and China have built effective 21st century defenses against America’s obsolete war machine at a small fraction of its cost.

As countries around the world face the common danger of Covid-19, perhaps the most cynical response of all has been the U.S. government’s decision to impose even more brutal sanctions on Iran, one of the worst-hit countries, already deprived of life-saving medicines and other resources by existing U.S. sanctions.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called for an immediate ceasefire in every war during this crisis, and for the U.S. to lift its deadly sanctions on all our neighbors around the world. That should include Iran; North Korea; Sudan; Syria; Venezuela; Zimbabwe; and not least Cuba, which is playing a courageous and active role in fighting the pandemic, rescuing the passengers of an infected British cruise ship that was refused entry by the U.S. and other countries, and sending medical teams to Italy and other infected countries around the world.

The 21st Century Command Economy

The “command economy” was a derisive term used to criticize the centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe during the Cold War. But economist Eric Schutz used the 21st Century Command Economy as a subtitle for his 2001 book Markets and Power, in which he analyzed the effects of the dominant market power of monopolistic multinational corporations on the U.S. economy.

As Schutz explained, neoliberal (or neoclassical) economic theory ignores a critical factor in the “free” markets a generation of Americans have been taught to revere. This ignored factor is power.  As more and more aspects of American life are entrusted to the mythical “invisible hand” of the market, the most powerful players in every market are free to use their market power to concentrate wealth and even greater market power in their own (not so invisible) hands, driving smaller competitors out of business and exploiting other stakeholders: customers; employees; suppliers; governments; and local communities.

Since 1980, every sector of the U.S. economy has been gradually taken over by fewer and fewer larger and larger corporations, with a predictably debilitating effect on American life: fewer opportunities for small business; diminishing investment in public infrastructure and services; shrinking or stagnant wages; rising rents; privatization of education and healthcare; the destruction of local communities; and the systematic corruption of politics. Critical decisions that affect all our lives are now made primarily at the bidding and in the interests of big banks, big pharma, big tech, big ag, big developers, the military-industrial complex and the wealthiest 1% of Americans.

The infamous revolving door through which senior officials move between the military, lobbying firms, corporate boards, Congress and the executive branch is duplicated in every sector of the economy. Liz Fowler, who wrote the “Affordable Care Act” as a Senate and White House staffer, was a senior executive at Wellpoint Health (now Anthem), the parent company of Blue Cross-Blue Shield, which now rakes in billions in federal subsidies under the law she wrote. She then returned to the “industry” as an executive at Johnson & Johnson – just as James “Mad Dog” Mattis returned to his seat on the board at General Dynamics to reap the rewards of his “public service” as Secretary of Defense.

Whatever mix of capitalism and socialism each American may favor as a model for the U.S. economy, very few Americans would pick this corrupt 21st century command economy as the system they would choose to live under. How many American politicians would win election if they honestly told voters that this is the system they believe in and plan to promote?

We are living in a society in which everybody knows the deal is rotten, as the Leonard Cohen song goes, and yet we remain lost in a hall of mirrors, victims of a “divide and rule” strategy by which the wealthy and powerful control politics and the media along with every other sector of this 21st century command economy. Trump, Biden and Congressional leaders are just their latest figureheads, demonizing and arguing with each other as they and their paymasters laugh all the way to the bank.

There is a savage irony in the way the Democratic Party closed ranks around Biden just as Covid-19 appeared on the scene. A month ago, it seemed that 2020 might be the year Americans would finally blow away the well-funded smoke and mirrors of the for-profit U.S. health insurance industry and achieve universal publicly-funded healthcare. Instead, Democratic leaders appear to be settling for the lesser evil of another humiliating defeat and four more years of Trump over (to their minds) the greater danger of a Sanders presidency and universal healthcare.

But now this exceptionally dysfunctional society has run smack-bang into a real force of nature, a tiny virus that can kill millions of people. Other countries are rising to this exacting test of their healthcare and social systems more successfully than we are. So will we finally wake up from our American dream, open our eyes and start learning from our neighbors in other countries, including ones that have different political, economic and healthcare systems than ours? Our lives may depend on it.

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Nicolas J S Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He is a freelance journalist and a researcher for CODEPINK. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: President Trump visited the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on March 6, 2020. From the left: Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, CDC director Robert R. Redfield, and CDC associate director Stephan Monroe. Credit: White House photo by Shealah Craighead

这种趋势是由于恐惧和媒体虚假信息导致的全球封锁。目前，全球有数亿人处于封锁状态。

COV-19危机演变的下一步是什么？

1月7日，中国当局在发现达科那病毒后仅两周，就在达沃斯世界经济论坛（1月21日至24日）上宣布了一项冠状病毒疫苗计划。

新型冠状病毒疫苗计划的牵头实体是流行病防范创新联盟（CEPI），该组织由世界经济论坛（WEF）和比尔及梅琳达·盖茨基金会赞助和资助。

请注意时间顺序：在世卫组织正式发起全球公共卫生紧急事件（1月30日）前一周，达沃斯世界经济论坛（WEF）宣布了2019年nCoV疫苗的开发。确诊病例”，全球（中国以外）为150个（包括美国的6个）。

CEPI正在与大量“候选人”合作，在疫苗接种业务中寻求“垄断”角色，其目标是“全球疫苗项目”。它宣布为与Inovio和昆士兰大学（澳大利亚）的现有合作伙伴关系提供资金。此外，CEPI于1月23日确认了与Moderna，Inc.以及以Anthony Fauci博士为首的美国国家过敏和传染病研究所（NIAID）的合同，后者在整个美国开展了恐惧和恐慌运动： “比季节性流感还糟十倍”。

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你可以点击下面的链接阅读整篇文章的英文版，也可以用手机翻译

After the Lockdown: A Global Coronavirus Vaccination Program…

The destruction of the 47-story World Trade Center Building 7 in New York City late in the afternoon of September 11, 2001, was not a result of fires, according to the much-anticipated final report issued today by researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The UAF team’s findings, which were the result of a four-year computer modeling study of the tower’s collapse, contradict those of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which concluded in a 2008 report that WTC 7 was the first tall building ever to collapse primarily due to fire.

“Our study found that the fires in WTC 7 could not have caused the observed collapse,” said Professor Leroy Hulsey, the study’s principal investigator. “The only way it could have fallen in the observed manner is by the near-simultaneous failure of every column.”

The four-year study was funded by Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth), a nonprofit organization representing more than 3,000 architects and engineers who have signed the organization’s petition calling for a new investigation into the destruction of the three World Trade Center towers on 9/11.

“We are proud to have supported the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Professor Leroy Hulsey in conducting a genuinely scientific study into the reasons for this building’s collapse,” said Richard Gage, president and founder of AE911Truth. “It is now incumbent upon the building community, the media, and government officials to reckon with the implications of these findings and launch a new full-scale investigation.”

AE911Truth and its allies among the 9/11 victims’ families will now use the findings in the report as part of a formal “request for correction” that the group plans to submit to NIST in the coming days.

“The indisputable errors documented in our request for correction will give NIST no way out of correcting its deeply flawed report and reversing its conclusion that fires were the cause of the collapse,” said Gage.

The final report, entitled A Structural Reevaluation of the Collapse of World Trade Center 7 – Final Report, includes clarifications and supplemental text based on public comments submitted in response to a draft report released by UAF and AE911Truth on September 3, 2019.

The UAF team’s final report is the result of an extensive four-year computer modeling effort that was followed by a robust peer review process. The peer review included dozens of public comments as well as external review by two independent experts, Dr. Gregory Szuladzinski of Analytical Service Company, a leading expert in structural mechanics and finite element modeling, and Dr. Robert Korol, a professor emeritus of civil engineering at McMaster University and a fellow of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering.

“I am grateful to everyone who supported or participated in this study in any way,” said Professor Hulsey. “We hope that our findings will be carefully looked at by the building community and spur further investigation into how this building came down on that tragic day.”

The Hulsey report and supporting materials can be found on UAF’s Institute of Northern Engineering website at http://ine.uaf.edu/projects/wtc7 and on the AE911Truth website at https://www.ae911truth.org/wtc7.

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Featured image is from ae911truth.org

The only man to be convicted of the infamous Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi, died in 2012 and protested his innocence until his final breath. His fellow Libyan and co-defendant, Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted and is still living in Libya. The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988 killed all 259 passengers and crew on board as well as 11 people on the ground in the small Scottish town of Lockerbie.

Al-Megrahi was not alone in believing that he and his country were innocent of the crime. His family members are determined to clear his name if not prove his complete innocence. His son Ali is leading the family mission and told the BBC that his father was “innocent and had cared more about the victims than himself.”

The family has just won a huge victory with the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) decision on 11 March that an appeal can be made to the High Court of Justiciary, Scotland’s highest criminal court. The SCCRC had to decide if there are grounds for a posthumous appeal on the basis of a possible miscarriage of justice, among other possibilities. The commission found sufficient grounds to question the 2001 trial that convicted Al-Megrahi. Six grounds for review were considered before it was concluded that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred by reason of “unreasonable verdict” and “non-disclosure”.

This specifically raised serious doubts about the process by which Al-Megrahi was identified and linked to clothes found in the suitcase said to have contained the bomb. According to the SCCRC, “No reasonable trial court could have accepted that Mr. Megrahi was identified as the purchaser.”

The only witness to link Al-Megrahi to the clothes was a Maltese shop keeper named Toni Gauci, who died in 2016. He was a co-owner of a clothes shop in Malta and he testified that he sold the clothes to Al-Megrahi, who denied vehemently that he had ever been to the shop let alone bought anything from the witness. During the trial, this testimony was central to Al-Megrahi’s conviction, although the crown prosecutor, Lord Advocate Peter Frasier, later completely dismissed Gauci as “an apple short of a picnic” and “not quite the full shilling”. Why he accepted his testimony at the special court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands in the first place is still a mystery. Could it have been a conspiracy against Muammar Gaddafi and Libya, as the late Libyan leader always claimed? He is not alone in thinking so.

Law Professor Robert Black, who came up with the idea of holding Al-Megrahi’s trial in a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands — the first such occasion in history – now talks of a wider conspiracy to frame Libya. “I think the Scottish prosecution was from the start excessively influenced by the US Department of Justice, FBI and CIA,” Black told me this week when I asked about this possibility. In the late eighties, the US hated Gaddafi for his unrelenting opposition to America’s policies in the Arab world and beyond. He was accused of so many terrorist acts around the world that adding Lockerbie to the list would have been neither difficult to do nor easy to dispute; western media and politicians already projected Gaddafi as a monster capable of any and every evil.

Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi was convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, 23 April 2017 [Twitter]

It later emerged that Toni Gauci received $2 million in return for his testimony against Al-Megrahi before he disappeared from Malta altogether. Many experts think that he was coached on his story to be as convincing as possible. Under Scottish law, it is illegal to reward or coach witnesses in any legal proceedings.

According to Professor Black, the High Court of Judiciary could return its verdict before the 32nd anniversaries of the atrocity on 21 December this year. Meticulous as ever, the now retired professor thinks the court is likely to quash the original verdict and thus exonerate the late Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi posthumously. If that happens, he believes that Al-Megrahi’s family would be “entitled to claim compensation for wrongful imprisonment.” The convicted man spent eight years in prison after his conviction on 31 January 2001 before being released in 2009 on compassionate grounds as he was terminally ill with prostate cancer. However, warned Black, any such claim is likely to be resisted strongly.

At this stage we might feel entitled to ask what should happen to Libya if the verdict goes the way that Al-Megrahi’s family hope. The North African country had to endure crippling economic sanctions imposed by a series of UN Security Council resolutions starting with Resolution 731 passed on 21 March 1992. If Al-Megrahi is vindicated, might Libya also be vindicated and possibly claim compensation for the damage caused by the sanctions? Can it ask for the reimbursement of $2.7 billion paid to victims’ families? Even though the country accepted responsibility for the actions of its “officials” — Al-Megrahi and Fhimah, who was station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta at the time of the bombing — the money was paid as part of the requirements of the UN Resolutions.

Whatever the Scottish High Court of Justiciary decides later this year, many think that Al-Megrahi and Libya are already exonerated by the fact that the SCCRC has raised serious doubts about the trial and its verdict. Given the obvious US links to the case, it is interesting to note that current US Attorney General William Barr was the acting Attorney General who indicted the two Libyans in 1991. What will he have to say when the Court in Scotland returns its verdict?

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What’s going on in the fifth largest economy in the world arguably points to a major collusion scandal in which the French government is helping Big Pharma to profit from the expansion of Covid-19. Informed French citizens are absolutely furious about it.

My initial question to a serious, unimpeachable Paris source, jurist Valerie Bugault, was about the liaisons dangereuses between Macronism and Big Pharma and especially about the mysterious “disappearance” – more likely outright theft – of all the stocks of chloroquine in possession of the French government.

Respected Professor Christian Perronne talked about the theft live in one of France’s 24/7 info channels: “The central pharmacy for the hospitals announced today that they were facing a total rupture of stocks, that they were pillaged.”

With input from another, anonymous source, it’s now possible to establish a timeline that puts in much-needed perspective the recent actions of the French government.

Let’s start with Yves Levy, who was the head of INSERM – the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research – from 2014 to 2018, when he was appointed as extraordinary state councilor for the Macron administration. Only 12 people in France have reached this status.

Levy is married to Agnes Buzyn (image on the right), who until recently was minister of health under Macron. Buzyn was essentially presented with an “offer you can’t refuse” by Macron’s party to leave the ministry – in the middle of the coronavirus crisis – and run for Mayor of Paris, where she was mercilessly trounced in the first round on March 16.

Levy has a vicious running feud with Professor Didier Raoult – prolific and often-cited Marseille-based specialist in communicable diseases. Levy withheld the INSERM label from the world-renowned IHU (Hospital-University Institute) research center directed by Raoult.

In practice, in October 2019, Levy revoked the status of “foundation” of the different IHUs so he could take over their research.

Raoult was part of a clinical trial that in which hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin healed 90% of Covid-19 cases if they were tested very early. (Early massive testing is at the heart of the successful South Korean strategy.)

Raoult is opposed to the total lockdown of sane individuals and possible carriers – which he considers “medieval,” in an anachronistic sense. He’s in favor of massive testing (which, besides South Korea, was successful in Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam) and a fast treatment with hydroxychloroquine. Only contaminated individuals should be confined.

Chloroquine costs one euro for ten pills. And there’s the rub: Big Pharma – which, crucially, finances INSERM, and includes “national champion” Sanofi – would rather go for a way more profitable solution. Sanofi for the moment says it is “actively preparing” to produce chloroquine, but that may take “weeks,” and there’s no mention about pricing.

A minister fleeing a tsunami

Here’s the timeline:

On January 13, Agnes Buzyn, still France’s Health Minister, classifies chloroquine as a “poisonous substance,” from now on only available by prescription. An astonishing move, considering that it has been sold off the shelf in France for half a century.

On March 16, the Macron government orders a partial lockdown. There’s not a peep about chloroquine. Police initially are not required to wear masks; most have been stolen anyway, and there are not enough masks even for health workers. In 2011 France had nearly 1.5 billion masks: 800 million surgical masks and 600 million masks for health professionals generally.

But then, over the years, the strategic stocks were not renewed, to please the EU and to apply the Maastricht criteria, which limited membership in the Growth and Stability Pact to countries whose budget deficits did not exceed 3% of GDP. One of those in charge at the time was Jerome Salomon, now a scientific counselor to the Macron government.

On March 17, Agnes Buzyn says she has learned the spread of Covid-19 will be a major tsunami, for which the French health system has no solution. She also says it had been her understanding that the Paris mayoral election “would not take place” and that it was, ultimately, “a masquerade.”

What she does not say is that she didn’t go public at the time she was running because the whole political focus by the Macron political machine was on winning the “masquerade.” The first round of the election meant nothing, as Covid-19 was advancing. The second round was postponed indefinitely. She had to know about the impending healthcare disaster. But as a candidate of the Macron machine she did not go public in timely fashion.

In quick succession:

The Macron government refuses to apply mass testing, as practiced with success in South Korea and Germany.

Le Monde and the French state health agency characterize Raoult’s research as fake news, before issuing a retraction.

Professor Perrone reveals on the 24/7 LCI news channel that the stock of chloroquine at the French central pharmacy has been stolen.

Thanks to a tweet by Elon Musk, President Trump says chloroquine should be available to all Americans. Sufferers of lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, who already have supply problems with the only drug that offers them relief, set social media afire with their panic.

US doctors and other medical professionals take to hoarding the medicine for the use of themselves and those close to them, faking prescriptions to indicate they are for patients with lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.

Morocco buys the stock of chloroquine from Sanofi in Casablanca.

Pakistan decides to increase its production of chloroquine to be sent to China.

Switzerland discards the total lockdown of its population; goes for mass testing and fast treatment; and accuses France of practicing  “spectacle politics.”

Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice, having had himself treated with chloroquine, without any government input, directly calls Sanofi so they may deliver chloroquine to Nice hospitals.

Because of Raoult’s (image on the left) research, a large-scale chloroquine test finally starts in France, under the – predictable – direction of INSERM, which wants to “remake the experiments in other independent medical centers.” This will take at least an extra six weeks – as the Elysee Palace’s scientific council now mulls the extension of France’s total lockdown to … six weeks.

If joint use of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin proves definitely effective among the most gravely ill, quarantines may be reduced in select clusters.

The only French company that still manufactures chloroquine is under judicial intervention. That puts the chloroquine hoarding and theft into full perspective. It will take time for these stocks to be replenished, thus allowing Big Pharma the leeway to have what it wants: a costly solution.

It appears the perpetrators of the chloroquine theft were very well informed.

Bagged nurses

This chain of events, astonishing for a highly developed G-7 nation proud of its health service, is part of a long, painful process embedded in neoliberal dogma. EU-driven austerity mixed with the profit motive resulted in a very lax attitude towards the health system.

As Bugault told me,

“test kits – very few in number – were always available but mostly for a small group connected to the French government [former officials of the Ministry of Finance, CEOs of large corporations, oligarchs, media and entertainment moguls].  Same for chloroquine, which this government did everything to make inaccessible for the population.

They did not make life easy for Professor Raoult – he received death threats and was intimidated by ‘journalists.’

And they did not protect vital stocks. Still under the Hollande government, there was a conscious liquidation of the stock of masks – which had existed in large quantities in all hospitals. Not to mention that the suppression of hospital beds and hospital means accelerated under Sarkozy.”

This ties in with anguished reports by French citizens of nurses now having to use trash bags due to the lack of proper medical gear.

At the same time, in another astonishing development, the French state refuses to requisition private hospitals and clinics – which are practically empty at this stage – even as the president of their own association, Lamine Garbi, has pleaded for such a public service initiative:

“I solemnly demand that we are requisitioned to help public hospitals. Our facilities are prepared. The wave that surprised the east of France must teach us a lesson.”

Bugault reconfirms the health situation in France “is very serious and will become even worse due to these political decisions – absence of masks, political refusal to massively test people, refusal of free access to chloroquine – in a context of supreme distress at the hospitals. This will last and destitution will be the norm.”

Professor vs president

In an explosive development on Tuesday, Raoult said he’s not participating in Macron’s scientific council anymore, even though he’s not quitting it altogether. Raoult once again insists on massive testing on a national scale to detect suspected cases, and then isolate and treat patients who tested positive. In a nutshell: the South Korean model.

That’s exactly what is expected from the IHU in Marseille, where hundreds of residents continue to queue up for testing. And that ties in with the conclusions by a top Chinese expert on Covid-19, Zhang Nanshan, who says that treatment with chloroquine phospate had a “positive impact,” with patients testing negative after around four days.

The key point has been stressed by Raoult: Use chloroquine in very special circumstances, for people tested very early, when the disease is not advanced yet, and only in these cases. He’s not advocating chloroquine for everyone. It’s exactly what the Chinese did, along with their use of Interferon.

For years, Raoult has been pleading for a drastic revision of health economic models, so the treatments, cure and therapies created mostly during the 20^th century, are considered a patrimony in the service of all humanity.“That’s not the case”, he says, “because we abandon medicine that is not profitable, even if it’s effective. That’s why almost no antibiotics are manufactured in the West.”

On Tuesday, the French Health Ministry officially prohibited the utilization of treatment based on chloroquine recommended by Raoult.  In fact the treatment is only allowed for terminal Covid-19 patients, with no other possibility of healing. This cannot but expose the Macron government to more accusations of at least inefficiency – added to the absence of masks, tests, contact tracing and ventilators.

On Wednesday, commenting on the new government guidelines, Raoult said,

“When damage to the lungs is too important, and patients arrive for reanimation, they practically do not harbor viruses in their bodies any more. It’s too late to treat them with chloroquine. Are these the only cases – the very serious cases – that will be treated with chloroquine under the new directive by [French Health Minister] Veran?” If so, he added ironically, “then they will be able to say with scientific certainty that chloroquine does not work.”

Raoult was unavailable for comment on Western news media articles citing Chinese test results that would suggest he is wrong about the efficacy of chloroquine in dealing with mild cases of Covid-19.

Staffers pointed instead to his comments in the IHU bulletin. There Raoult says it’s “insulting” to ask if we can trust the Chinese on the use of chloroquine. “If this was an American disease, and the president of the United States said, ‘We need to treat patients with that,’ nobody would discuss it.”

In China, he adds, there were “enough elements so the Chinese government and all Chinese experts who know coronaviruses took an official position that ‘we must treat with chloroquine.’ Between the moment when we have the first results and an accepted international publication, there is no credible alternative among people who are the most knowledgeable in the world. They took this measure in the interest of public health.”

Crucially: if he had coronavirus, Raoult says he would take chloroquine. Since Raoult is rated by his peers as the number one world expert  in communicable diseases, way above Dr. Anthony Fauci in the US, I would say the new reports represent Big Pharma talking.

Raoult has been mercilessly savaged and demonized by French corporate media that are controlled by a few oligarchs closely linked to Macronism. Not by accident the demonization has reached gilets jaunes (yellow vest) levels, especially because of the extremely popular hashtag  #IlsSavaient (“They knew”), with which the yellow vests stress that French elites have “managed” the Covid-19 crisis by protecting themselves while leaving the population defenseless against the virus.

That ties in with the controversial analysis by crack philosopher Giorgio Agamben in a column published a month ago, where he was already arguing that Covid-19 clearly shows that the state of exception – similar to a state of emergency but with differences important to philosophers – has become fully normalized in the West.

Agamben was speaking not as a doctor or a virologist but as a master thinker, following in the steps of Foucault, Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt. Noting how a latent state of fear has metastasized into a state of collective panic, for which Covid-19 “offers once again the ideal pretext,” he described how, “in a perverse vicious circle, the limitation of freedom imposed by governments is accepted in the name of a desire for security that was induced by the same governments that now intervene to satisfy it.”

There was no state of collective panic in South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam – to mention four Asian examples outside of China. A dogged combination of mass testing and contact tracing was applied with immense professionalism. It worked. In the Chinese case, with the help of chloroquine. And in all Asian cases, without a murky profit motive to the benefit of Big Pharma.

There hasn’t yet appeared the smoking gun that proves the Macron system not only is incompetent to deal with Covid-19 but also is dragging the process so Big Pharma can come up with a miracle vaccine, fast. But the pattern to discourage chloroquine is more than laid out above – in parallel to the demonization of Raoult.

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This article was originally published on Asia Times.

Pepe Escobar is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: A mask-wearing French citizen in Paris. Photo: Facebook

Excerpts from Fidel’s 2003 speech in Buenos Aires:

“Our country does not drop bombs on other peoples… our country does not possess nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, or biological weapons. Our country’s tens of thousands of scientists and doctors have been educated in the idea of saving lives.”

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Since I am an optimist, I think this world can be saved, in spite of the mistakes made, in spite of the immense, hegemonic powers that have been created, because I believe ideas prevail over force.…

Our country does not drop bombs on other peoples, nor does it send thousands of planes to bomb cities; our country does not possess nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, or biological weapons. Our country’s tens of thousands of scientists and doctors have been educated in the idea of saving lives. It would absolutely contradict this concept to put a scientist or a doctor to work to produce substances, bacteria or viruses to kill other human beings.

Allegations that Cuba is doing research on biological weapons have even been made. In our country, research is conducted to cure diseases as severe as meningococcal meningitis and hepatitis, to produce vaccines with genetic engineering techniques, or, something of great importance, to discover vaccines or therapeutic formulas through molecular immunology; some of which can prevent and others cure. We are moving forward along this path. This is the pride of our doctors and our research centers.

Tens of thousands of Cuban doctors have provided internationalist services in the most remote and inhospitable places. I once said that we could not and would never carry out preventive or surprise attacks against any dark corner of the world; but rather that our country could send needed doctors to the darkest corners of the world.

Doctors, not bombs. Doctors, not smart weapons.

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Venezuela Dismisses US Justice Department ‘Narco-terrorism’ Accusations

By Lucas Koerner and Ricardo Vaz, March 27, 2020

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro rejected US drug trafficking accusations against his person and senior members of his government.

In a televised address Thursday evening, Maduro blasted the State Department’s “racist cowboy methods” of offering money for information leading to his and other Venezuelan leaders’ arrest. The president likewise touted Venezuela’s role in fighting the drug trade and in the Colombian peace process.

Real Virus, Fake Shock

By Mark Taliano, March 27, 2020

One of the “solutions” to the WHO-fabricated shock has been to “helicopter” (2) money into a broken financial system.

But root causes are being ignored. The predatory doctrine of neoliberalism should be identified as the failure that it is. The evisceration of the public sphere, deregulation, and hyper privatisations schemes, hallmarks of neoliberalism, are among the root causes.

COVID-19 Puts Capitalism on a Ventilator. No More Bank and Corporate Bailouts!

By Prof. Anthony A. Gabb, March 27, 2020

The aftershock of previous pandemics was catastrophic. The fourteenth century Black Plague and the 1918 Flu pandemics inflicted colossal hardships and caused many deaths. The Black Plague shook the foundations of feudal social relations. It killed 25 to 30 million people, resulting in peasant uprisings, shortages that caused wages to rise, and large parcels of land to go fallow. Scientists believe the 1918 Flu could have come to Spain from the United States and spread to other parts of the world killing 20 to 50 million people, more than the 17 million who died in WW1. Even though it was common knowledge that the flu was already in Philadelphia, the authorities went ahead anyway with a parade to raise funds for the war causing many unnecessary deaths—at the time the economics of the war took priority over stopping the spread of the flu. Similarly, today there are competing views about whether fixing the economy should take precedence over addressing the ravages of COVID-19.

The Senate’s Coronavirus Relief Package Must be Stopped!

By Mike Whitney, March 27, 2020

The Senate’s $2 Trillion Coronavirus Relief Package is not fiscal stimulus and it’s not a lifeline for the tens of millions of working people who have suddenly lost their jobs. It’s a fundamental restructuring of the US economy designed to strengthen the grip of the corrupt corporate-banking oligarchy while creating a permanent underclass that will be forced to work for slave wages. This isn’t stimulus, it’s shock therapy.

Recognizing and Resisting the “Hasbara Pandemic”

By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich, March 27, 2020

On the opposite side is the news story about a former FBI agent Robert Levinson. Levinson disappeared in 2007 and the United States had accused Iran of holding him hostage. Iran has no information about him. Yesterday, out of nowhere, various hasbara outlets cited Levinson’s family releasing a statement citing that they recently received information from US officials that led them to conclude that “our wonderful husband and father died while in Iranian custody.”

Iran denied having held him in custody and the news of his death was news to them. Why was this unbelievable? After all, I have no way of knowing who is lying, the US or Iran. Though one certainly may question the timing of this report.

Covid-19: Lithuania on the Brink of a Catastrophe

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, March 27, 2020

COVID-19 expands in Lithuania. Having registered its first official case in February, the country currently has almost 300 infected people and four confirmed deaths. Taking into account that the official numbers tend to differ from the real ones due to the delay in investigating suspicions, it is likely that there are already many more infected, perhaps even thousands. In parallel, state measures to contain the announced catastrophe are few and weak and the government is more concerned in dealing with an alleged “Russian threat” than with the country’s imminent crisis.

Lancet Chief Skewers Johnson Government for Its Disastrous Covid-19 Failure

By True Publica, March 27, 2020

Horton looks at the moment when the government realised their ‘herd immunity’ strategy had imploded. “Many journalists, led by the BBC, reported that the science had changed and so the government had responded accordingly. But this interpretation of events is wrong. The science has been the same since January. What changed is that government advisers, at last, understood what had really taken place in China. The UK’s best scientists have known since that first report from China that Covid-19 was a lethal illness. Yet they did too little, too late.”

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro rejected US drug trafficking accusations against his person and senior members of his government.

In a televised address Thursday evening, Maduro blasted the State Department’s “racist cowboy methods” of offering money for information leading to his and other Venezuelan leaders’ arrest. The president likewise touted Venezuela’s role in fighting the drug trade and in the Colombian peace process.

“Our spirits are high,” he said. “We’ve had record numbers of drug busts in the past 15 years, ever since we got rid of the [US] Drug Enforcement agency.”

Earlier in the day, a communique from the Foreign Ministry likewise refuted the accusations as “miserable, vulgar and baseless.”

“At a time when humanity is facing a pandemic, Donald Trump attacks the Venezuelan people once more with miserable, vulgar and baseless accusations,” the statement reads.

In a press conference Thursday morning, US Attorney General William Barr unsealed an indictment against Maduro, accusing the Venezuelan leader of conspiring with Colombia’s FARC rebels to “to flood the United States with cocaine” as far back as 1999 when he was first elected to congress.

Fourteen current and former officials were also charged in parallel indictments, including National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, Supreme Court President Maikel Moreno, Industry Minister Tareck El Aissami, former intelligence chief Hugo Carvajal, and retired major general Cliver Alcala.

FARC leaders Ivan Marquez and Jesus Santrich were similarly indicted. The two head a dissident faction that took up arms again last year, blaming the Colombian government for the collapse of the 2016 peace accords.

“For more than 20 years, Maduro and a number of high-ranking colleagues allegedly conspired with the FARC, causing tons of cocaine to enter and devastate American communities,” Barr claimed.

Washington has long accused Caracas of drug smuggling, previously sanctioning other Venezuelan senior officials, including then Vice President El Aissami in 2017, on the same grounds.

However, US officials have so far declined to provide concrete evidence implicating top Venezuelan leaders, while data from the Drug Enforcement Agency shows that only a fraction of drug routes pass through Venezuelan territory, with the majority of cocaine entering the US via Central America and Mexico.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a US $15 million reward for “information related to” Maduro and $10 million for that pertaining to Cabello, Carvajal, Alcala, and El Aissami. Carvajal has reportedly been missing for several months, with Spanish authorities having approved his extradition to the United States.

Cliver Alcala made headlines on Wednesday after an arms shipment was seized by authorities in Colombia. The Venezuelan government claimed the weapons were part of a coup attempt by the retired general.

Alcala has since confirmed the plot, claiming that the weapons belonged “to the Venezuelan people” and had been acquired as part of a signed agreement between himself, self-proclaimed “Interim President” Juan Guaido, longtime anti-government strategist J. J. Rendon and “US advisors.”

In a radio interview and later in Twitter videos, Alcala explained that the goal was to form a “liberation force” to “surgically take out targets in Venezuela.” He went on to blame members of the opposition for leaking the plan, claiming that opposition leaders Guaido and Leopoldo Lopez were “very much aware” of the operation.

“He [Guaido] can’t deny it because I have the contract waiting for the moment that justice [officials] comes to my house, to present the indictments,” he told W Radio.

Reacting to the Justice Department indictment, Alcala denied the charges, stating he had previously met with US officials on no less than “seven occasions.” He said he would await authorities’ inquiries at his residence in Barranquilla, Colombia.

For his part, Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced Thursday afternoon that his office was launching an investigation against Alcala, Guaido and “other conspirators” following the former’s public statements. Saab lashed out against Washington and Bogota on Twitter, slamming their efforts to “promote assassinations and terrorist attacks.”

The Attorney General’s Office has launched several investigations against Juan Guaido ever since his self-proclamation in January 2019. Guaido had his parliamentary immunity revoked by the Supreme Court, but has yet to be taken into custody.

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Ricardo Vaz reporting from Mérida and Lucas Koerner from Santiago de Chile.

Featured image: U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman announcing charges against Maduro and other high ranking officials. (US Attorney’s Office)

The notorious “moderate rebels” have blown up a bridge on the M4 highway in southern Idlib as part of their effort to sabotage the creation of a security zone in the area. The Kafr bridge is located near the town of Jisr al-Shughr, near positions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the Turkistan Islamic Party, both of which are linked to al-Qaeda. Surprisingly, pro-opposition sources publicly admit that the bridge was destroyed to hinder Russian-Turkish plans to conduct joint patrols along the M4. After previous acts of sabotage against the deal, supporters of the Idlib “moderates” opted to blame “Russian barbarians”, “sectarian Iranian militias” or the “puppet Assad regime”. But such claims did not hold water because the rough actions of the Idlib militants were too obvious.

Over the past two weeks, Turkish troops have conducted at least 8 patrols on their own along the M4 highway and participated in 2 joint patrols with Russian Military Police west of Saraqib. However, the presence of the Turkish Army in the area of the supposed security zone did not stop supporters of Idlib armed groups from building barriers with large mounds of earth, blowing up bridges, destroying improvised Turkish road checkpoints and even staging IED attacks on Turkish military columns. The constant threat of terrorist attacks will clearly remain a sad reality of modern Idlib for as long as al-Qaeda-linked groups exist there.

On March 25, a Turkish soldier, Umit Udul, shot himself dead near the town of Ras al-Ayn in northeastern Syria. Kurdish sources claim that he did it as an act of protest against the actions of the Turkish Army in Syria. However, these claims remain unconfirmed. The security situation in the Turkish-controlled part of Syria’s northeast has been deteriorating for months. So, the incident may have been a result of local tensions.

Two Turkish soldiers were killed by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, in the area of the Turkish anti-PKK operation “Claw”. The Turkish Defense Ministry confirmed the casualties saying that 8 PKK members were “neutralized” in response to the attack.

Rocket strikes continue hitting US-linked facilities across Iraq. Early on March 26, several rockets were launched at the area of the US embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone. A day earlier, on March 25, unidentified forces shelled Camp Taji, the biggest military base hosting US troops in the country. Regular rocket attacks already forced the US military to evacuate several smaller bases, including the key fortified facility near the Syrian border – al-Qaim. This was done under the pretext of “successes” against ISIS and COVID-19-related issues.

Meanwhile, the US-led coalition itself is collapsing. On March 25, Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf, a spokesman for the Commander in Chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces, announced that French troops had withdrawn from Iraqi territory.

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COVID-19 expands in Lithuania. Having registered its first official case in February, the country currently has almost 300 infected people and four confirmed deaths. Taking into account that the official numbers tend to differ from the real ones due to the delay in investigating suspicions, it is likely that there are already many more infected, perhaps even thousands. In parallel, state measures to contain the announced catastrophe are few and weak and the government is more concerned in dealing with an alleged “Russian threat” than with the country’s imminent crisis.

Incompetent to deal with the virus’s arrival in Lithuania, the pro-Western government decided to choose simple targets to blame for the coming disaster: Russia and the Lithuanian diaspora. Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis in recent pronouncements went to the extreme of saying about diaspora Lithuanians returning to the country:

“You have probably seen scenes on social media, who and what types are returning to Lithuania (…) I’m sorry, but they cannot be called people. (…) These are the individuals that, after getting off planes and ferries, are posing danger to us.”

Supposedly, there was a collective breach of social isolation rules by Lithuanian emigrants, however, instead of making decisions that enforce quarantine rules, Skvernelis prefers to harass his own people.

Lithuania then began to spread the lie reported by the European Union that Russia would be spreading fake news about the development of the pandemic in western European countries. In a March 16 report, the European External Action Service published:

“The overarching aim of Kremlin disinformation is to aggravate the public health crisis in Western countries […] in line with the Kremlin’s broader strategy of attempting to subvert European societies”.

According to the EU, Moscow would be interested in increasing panic in the bloc’s countries and would be spreading lies on social networks for this purpose.

In response, the incompetent Lithuanian government decided to hide the lack of policies against the virus by tightening up measures against Russia. The government announced that as a quarantine measure it would close the access route to Kaliningrad, which is a Russian territory in the Baltic. In addition to being a measure of extremely dubious effectiveness, it is above all disrespectful, anti-diplomatic and outrageous maneuver against Russia, since Moscow has sovereignty over Kaliningrad. Although the traffic in the region has not been completely closed, the Lithuanian government has already restricted it significantly, reducing the number of trains and limiting the number of passengers to a maximum of 100 people.

However, with great attention being paid to Russia and the diaspora, a very important point in the Lithuanian viral crisis is being ignored. So far, 20 NATO soldiers stationed in Lithuania have tested positive for the disease. The number is truly alarming and can indicate the beginning of a major outbreak of infection. Official government data did not report the nationality of the infected, but it is already known that two of them come from the Netherlands. Apparently, in addition to bringing international instability and insecurity to Lithuanians, NATO is also carrying a deadly pandemic, but it is minimally curious how the government remains inert about such numbers and simultaneously prefers to implement policies against Russia and the diaspora.

Indeed, if the Lithuanian government maintains its current stance, it will have to deal alone with what could be the biggest crisis in its country’s history. The rate of growth of the infection is still inaccurate, partly due to the lack of transparency in the Ministry of Health, which is clearly omitting data to “prevent collective panic”. Due to the fact that a large part of the Lithuanian population is educated in the Russian language, it does not remain totally hostage to the lies spread by the media agencies in the country and in the European Union, and can consume content produced in Russian, which usually shows another view about the pandemic. It is for this reason that the Lithuanian government and the EU accuse Moscow of spreading “fake news”.

What we know so far is that in less than a week the numbers jumped from 60 to 300 officially confirmed cases. In addition, two members of Seimas are infected and Parliament is unable to maintain activities, with meetings being conducted remotely. In the morning of last Wednesday, 46 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed. Apparently, it is increasingly difficult to hide the truth about the catastrophic scenario that is approaching the country.

Above all, Lithuania is dealing with its own choices. The situation of the coronavirus in Russia, compared to the Western scenario, is very clear: it is Western Europe that is succumbing to the coronavirus. Therefore, it is much more logical to think that the infection vector for Lithuania is also the West, and not Russia, which shows the weakness of anti-Russian policies and restriction of access to Kaliningrad as ways to contain the pandemic. And the alarming number of infected NATO soldiers makes one to presume that the virus has entered the country through this way.

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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 coronavirus is real, but the shock is a fabrication.

The WHO proclaimed a “pandemic” prematurely, without sufficient evidence, no doubt influenced by “vested interests”.

How do we know this?

The UK government recently proclaimed that

“more is known about COVID-19, the public health bodies in the UK have reviewed the most up to date information about COVID-19 against the UK HCID criteria. They have determined that several features have now changed; in particular, more information is available about mortality rates (low overall), and there is now greater clinical awareness and a specific and sensitive laboratory test, the availability of which continues to increase.” (1)

The information from “Public Health England” is, apparently, being suppressed.

One of the “solutions” to the WHO-fabricated shock has been to “helicopter” (2) money into a broken financial system.

But root causes are being ignored. The predatory doctrine of neoliberalism should be identified as the failure that it is. The evisceration of the public sphere, deregulation, and hyper privatisations schemes, hallmarks of neoliberalism, are among the root causes.

As happened after the shock of 9/11, emergency legislation will be passed which will exacerbate the cancer of the current political economy which serves the ruling, billionaire class to the detriment of us all.

We need to push back and use this shock to demand a more socially-oriented, democratic political economy that rejects both militarism and neoliberalism. Ironically, but not surprisingly, the countries best able to respond to the current shock, notably China and Cuba, are both being sanctioned and undermined by the Western oligarch class.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. Visit the author’s website at https://www.marktaliano.net where this article was originally published.

Notes

(1) GOV.UK, “High consequence infectious diseases (HCID).” Updated 21 March, 2020.
(https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid?fbclid=IwAR3IevitiWljJXNzFy3aQJr4TisgkVKLCMtewtMb8RFdjCQJEHjf6YjL8QA#status-of-covid-19 ) Accessed 25 March, 2020.

(2) Alastair Crooke, ” ‘Helicopter Money’: This Is the Game-Changer Geo-Politically.” 23 March, 2020.
( https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/03/23/helicopter-money-this-is-the-game-changer-geo-politically/?fbclid=IwAR1vbUuVFckx47c3Pq8BpkO6m0BIB2oSnM9G2tvORk41uz-clW7yayqNjrg) Accessed 25 March, 2020.

Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.

Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro after weeks of downplaying the potential seriousness of the coronavirus is beginning to lose popularity for his irrationality, especially since describing the coronavirus as a “fantasy” and a “minor flu.” While all South American countries, with the exception of fellow neoliberal Chile, have taken drastic measures to fight against coronavirus, Bolsonaro has been inactive, allowing the infection rate in Brazil to more than quadruple in only a week to over 2,200 people. This has caused angst for many in the middle classes that were crucial to his election as the country’s presidency in 2018. For days now, many in the middle class have led protests from their home balconies by banging on saucepans loudly. Some in Brazil are even speculating whether he is allowing coronavirus to get out of control as a reason to cancel the municipality elections scheduled for October this year – this at a time when his popularity continues to tumble.

Bolsonaro fell out with the Governor of São Paulo, João Doria, whom he called a “lunatic” and accused of “creating terror” for implementing quarantine in the most populous state and financially important state of Brazil. São Paulo is the most infected state and highest death count. The conservative governor of Rio, second most populous state in Brazil, Wilson Witzel, said “The lack of dialogue and sanity is unacceptable. I never thought that I would experience this in a democracy.” Effectively the most important states of Brazil are defying the Federal government feeling that Bolsonaro is doing next to nothing to deal with the pandemic.

According to public opinion institutes, Bolsonaro’s popularity is crumbling. In a Datafolha survey, 35% of Brazilians believe Bolsonaro is handling the pandemic in a good manner while 33% thought it was poor. Although it may seem insignificant, this would overlook the immense popularity that Bolsonaro once had, and in his stronghold of São Paulo, it is especially telling how much his popularity is falling. In an IBOPE survey, 48% of people in São Paulo found his handling of the pandemic as bad and lousy, and 25% of people believed it was optimal and good. These figures will only continue to get worse for Bolsonaro as the Center for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases of the London School of Tropical Medicine, estimates that the underreporting of those infected in Brazil is enormous and that there would be at least nine times more than the 2,200 detected so far.

One of Bolsonaro’s ideas to deal with the economic fallback of the pandemic was to suspend work contracts and therefore workers’ wages for four months. He had to back down in the face of massive opposition from all social strata, which was especially expected since 21% of Brazilians live in poverty. Bolsonaro is of course protecting ultra-capitalist interests in Brazil, as he openly said he would before his election, where he was dubbed “Tropical Trump.”

This moniker continues to be proven true as Bolsonaro follows every step of U.S. President Donald Trump, who yesterday expressed his ambition to end American lockdowns by Easter. Bolsonaro following shortly after Trump announced that Brazil’s lockdown measures are exaggerated and his country will be back open for business. However, this will prove to be a catastrophic move as Brazil’s fragile healthcare system will inevitably be overwhelmed and the country will not be able to conduct business ‘as usual.’

At a time when the U.S. has shown self-interest during this pandemic by abandoning its closest NATO allies, Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo created a diplomatic crisis between Brazil and China by saying on Twitter that “China is to blame [for the coronavirus] and freedom would be the solution.” The Chinese Embassy hit back, saying: “His words are extremely irresponsible and sound familiar. They are still an imitation of your dear friends. Upon returning from Miami, he unfortunately contracted a mental virus, which is infecting friendships among our peoples.” Brazil’s Foreign Minister then ludicrously demanded that China apologize for the insult. Bolsonaro had to call Chinese President Xi Jinping yesterday to affirm Brazil’s “friendship” with China and reverse the damage made by his son and Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo.

Many Europeans appreciate Russian, Chinese and Cuban assistance to fight against coronavirus as Washington has abandoned its European NATO allies, isolated itself and refused to help the hardest hit countries such as Spain and Italy. And unsurprisingly, the U.S. has shown a complete disinterest to assist Brazil. Bolsonaro has already had to humiliate itself by getting Brazilian Secretary of Health João Gabbardo to request Cuba to send back doctors who were expelled by him so they can help prevent the country’s health system from collapsing. Although Bolsonaro does everything he can to serve Trump’s agenda against China, Cuba and other states, it is these very states that Brazil must cooperate with so that it can navigate through this pandemic. Bolsonaro must now have a serious relook at his foreign policy in light of this fact.

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Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies.

U.N. chief Antonio Guterres warned that a global recession, “perhaps of record dimensions”, was a near certainty…“We are in an unprecedented situation and the normal rules no longer apply.”

The aftershock of previous pandemics was catastrophic. The fourteenth century Black Plague and the 1918 Flu pandemics inflicted colossal hardships and caused many deaths. The Black Plague shook the foundations of feudal social relations. It killed 25 to 30 million people, resulting in peasant uprisings, shortages that caused wages to rise, and large parcels of land to go fallow. Scientists believe the 1918 Flu could have come to Spain from the United States and spread to other parts of the world killing 20 to 50 million people, more than the 17 million who died in WW1. Even though it was common knowledge that the flu was already in Philadelphia, the authorities went ahead anyway with a parade to raise funds for the war causing many unnecessary deaths—at the time the economics of the war took priority over stopping the spread of the flu. Similarly, today there are competing views about whether fixing the economy should take precedence over addressing the ravages of COVID-19.

COVID-19 originated through natural processes. On 31 December 2019, Chinese authorities alerted the World Health Organization (WHO) of an outbreak. It has since become a pandemic. As it navigates its way across the planet, COVID-19 is expected to leave no less of a calamitous trail of suffering, death, and economic devastation. Globally, so far over 435,000 have been afflicted by the virus and over 19, 000 have died. The economic repercussions could result in “perhaps record dimensions” . The stock market has dropped over 30 percent, and whole industries such as airlines, tourism, and travel have been negatively impacted.

Globally and in the United States COVID-19 spotlights capitalism’s dim response to cope with it. Many countries are using revolting health care systems. Not surprisingly, the U.S. healthcare system, which is inadequate under normal circumstances, is woefully insufficient and unpracticed. It is based on crisis management principles therefore it is devoid of advanced planning; this is evidenced by shortages of basic supplies like masks, testing kits, and ventilators. The delayed response, which is tantamount to a crime, is being coordinated by a President who is doltish, in denial, and who initially claimed the virus was a hoax and a Vice President who is an anti-science creationist. To be clear, the Democrats are equally responsible for this chaos.

Should the virus be contained within a reasonable short time, the economy will struggle with an easier recovery process. The longer it takes to suppress the virus, the effectiveness of the delayed response could be eclipsed by unnecessary misery, deaths and an existential economic meltdown. There are already calls once again for another bailout of corporate America and the banks. Again, it will fall on the backs of working people to save the system from itself.

Who we are, our individuality, is not separate from what and how we as a species produce things, as we interact with nature. COVID-19, like climate change, is a natural outgrowth of the profiteering activities of Anthropocentric Industrial Capitalism (AIC), which is an existential threat to humanity. If we continue to pillage the earth for profits, we will, in part, trespass deeper into the habitats of other species increasing the frequency of closer contact with them, creating the possibility for other novel coronaviruses. This should come as no surprise, since in the recent past the earth’s ecosystem has responded to abuse with AIDS, Avian flu, SARS, MERS, and Zika. It is time to start asking hard questions like: Is capitalism capable of addressing the problems it produces? How many times should a system that time and again fails to deliver be bailed out? And what’s the next coronavirus?

In the absence of an advanced plan, the only response is containment, mitigation, and testing for the virus. To be clear, this is not a discussion about containment, mitigation, and testing per se which is a true and tested approach. Until a vaccine is found, there will be testing for the virus and those who have the virus will be targeted and contained. To mitigate the spread of the virus people are being told to stay at home, regularly wash their hands, stop shaking hands, and engage in “ social-distancing ”. Meanwhile, developing a vaccine could take another year.

It is true that qualitative external shocks like COVID-19, tsunamis or wars can throw the economy out of kilter. But more importantly it is also true that crises are part of the internal logic of capitalism. Just before COVID-19 hit, as recent as December 2019, the economy was already showing signs of weakness. Its very existence depends on the generation of profits, while at the same time it produces misery, inequality, unemployment, inflation, alienation, stress, recessions, and systemic crises. A commodity like a health care service is virulent with these contradictions and tension. Many who work in the healthcare system are underinsured, or have no health care benefits. COVID-19 is the trigger that exposes systemic weaknesses and exacerbates this current crisis.

Similar measures were taken in response to previous pandemics. Those who had the plague were contained and walled off from entering other villages. Alarmingly, almost seven centuries later, in the age of high-tech communications, the same tools are being used to match those who get the virus with a limited number of available hospital beds. While the authorities can quickly find trillions of dollars to bailout corporations and banks, you are told that a planned robust universal health care system that anticipates pandemics is too expensive.

Then there is the containment and mitigation of the virus while allowing the economy to unravel, hopefully for a short period. The longer the unravelling the deeper will be the economic carnage and the longer will be the recovery. If you and everyone else stop dining out, your neighborhood restaurant will have no customers and will go bankrupt. After which wholesalers that supply your local restaurants will follow. This will cause unemployment to rise. If the ripple effect mutates the whole economy could be put on a ventilator. Global debt is about $188T, of which corporate debt is about $16T. Because their reserve cash is generally enough to keep them afloat for 12 days, small businesses will be the first to go under–small businesses are the canary in the coal mine.

The modern-day Robber Barons of industry and Wall Street, along with the government are frantically designing a ventilator to distribute taxpayer’s money to all organs of the economy–domestic and foreign banks and corporations and consumers. The corporate media is firing on all cylinders hoping to convince you to support the efforts of the “job creators”. While the Congress is preparing a stream of trillion dollar bailout programs, last Friday the Federal Reserve Bank handed the banks a massive $1T handout at zero interest rate.

But the optics of bailing out only corporations and banks might raise eyebrows this time. As a result, they are also saying that working people must receive help. While this is true, the hidden motive is that they know that workers do not have any money to spend in order to reset the system. Over forty percent of the US population has less than $400 in savings. Seventy percent of every dollar spent in the US is spent by consumers.

Any bailout in the form and magnitude of the 2008 crisis bailout handed to banks and Wall Street, could trigger widespread anger in this country. This justifiable anger could find a productive outlet in the form of a transition plan with firm conditions in the interest of the many hard-working wealth creators and the planet, rather than 2,000 multibillionaires, Wall Street and corporations. With this is mind there should be no more bank and corporate bailouts. When workers are required to buy health insurance, corporations in the airlines, hospitality, or any other industry should be required to do the same before they make risky investment decisions. They should no longer expect working people to bail them out. This is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the rest of us.

Working people should advocate for an alternative transition plan whose main goal is to restructure key industries such as healthcare, education, food, housing, and transportation. This plan would be under the control of working people and a restructured government. In order for businesses to qualify for phase one of this plan, they must have a history of: being friendly to unions; paying a livable wage with full benefits packages including childcare; and complying with environmental requirements. In addition, businesses must agree to regular monitoring of how the loan money is being used; must not have previously received any bailout money; and must commit to a timeline to transition to worker control of these enterprises. These conditions would be subjected to periodic review by a worker’s committee. The plan would be funded by a rollback of the $1.5T recent tax cut to the rich and a special bailout progressive tax on billionaires. Businesses that are a part of other than key industries, would be encouraged to seek financial assistance through the banks.

During the second phase of the transition plan, a Department For Environmental Research and Climate Change will be established and funded by a retroactive tax on corporations who profited from the destruction of the environment; a worker’s political party will be established; there will be free access to healthcare, education, vacant land/property/housing including utilities, food, and public transportation; a progressive tax on all income and wealth over $1 million; all student debt will be cancelled; religious establishments will be taxed; inheritance laws, unproductive industries like advertisement, and rent will be abolished; banking and media will be nationalized/centralized; political prisoners and those who have been criminalized because they are poor will be freed; the military, which includes the police and the judiciary will be downsized; and a jobs bill for all working age adults will be enacted.

Time and again billionaires, bankers and corporate executives have received unconditional bailouts. While they will benefit, working people are always those who are asked to finance these bailouts. If you are unemployed or in an insecure job with little or no benefits, have unpayable student debt or cannot afford to pay for an education, trapped in unsustainable housing conditions, another unconditional balout will not improve your quality of life. The level of inequality in the US is at dizzying heights and getting worse. The richest three people in the US have more wealth than the bottom 50 percent. Without fundamental changes, more bailouts will be necessary because economic crises are intrinsic to capitalism. This crisis precipitated by COVID-19 represents a great opportunity for transforming a chaotic system that has proven it is unable to deliver. The transition plan outlined in this essay might be a good place to start that transformation.

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Anthony A. Gabb, Ph.D. is a retired Professor of economics. He has taught economics for 40 years, 32 of which was at St. John’s University, New York. His most recent work includes “Can the Fascist Germ Rise to Epidemic Levels in the USA Today?” and “Financial Oligarchy Feudal Aristocracy”. He has published and delivered dozens of papers, a book chapter, and a book review, interviewed by The New York Times, Corriere della Sera, and has appeared on Channel 1 New York.

The Senate’s $2 Trillion Coronavirus Relief Package is not fiscal stimulus and it’s not a lifeline for the tens of millions of working people who have suddenly lost their jobs. It’s a fundamental restructuring of the US economy designed to strengthen the grip of the corrupt corporate-banking oligarchy while creating a permanent underclass that will be forced to work for slave wages. This isn’t stimulus, it’s shock therapy.

Who can survive on $1,200 for one, two or three months time? And what happens to the millions of people who paid no taxes last year? Are they supposed to scrape by on nothing? Congress knows that most households live paycheck to paycheck. With no savings how will they pay the rent, the electric bill, the phone and the cable? Congress is quibbling over an extra $600 per month unemployment for those who are lucky enough to get it, when most people are just trying to figure out how they’re going to survive, how they’re going to pay the mortgage, when they’ll be able to go back to work, and whether their job will still be there when this nightmare is finally over?

Did you know that “if you don’t already have direct-deposit information on file with the IRS from previous tax returns, you won’t get the emergency funds for up to 4 months”? That means millions of people will have zero income for 4 months! What will become of them? Where will they go? Who will provide them with shelter and food? Shouldn’t congress be asking these questions?

And what happens to the 50% of the American people who had less than $400 saved before the crisis hit? What happens to them when they fall between the cracks and lose their apartments, lose their jobs, and lose their ability to maintain their tenuous standard of living? These people will never regain their financial footing. Never. It’s a death sentence. We’re going to see an explosion of homelessness, drug addiction, depression, alcoholism, suicide and crime unlike anything this country has ever seen before. Are the imbeciles in congress so blind that they can’t see that they’re condemning a large part of the population to permanent, inescapable, grinding poverty and desperation? Can’t they see that?

Do you understand why this bill is being rushed through congress?

It has alot to do with the falling stock market but more precisely with the hundreds of corporations that have been hawking bonds to gullible investors who thought they were buying the debt of responsible, well-managed companies that used the money to improve their product-line, train workers, or build new factories. But instead, greedy CEOs have been using the money to buy shares in their own companies to boost executive compensation and reward shareholders. It’s a multi-trillion dollar scam that blew up in their faces causing a complete freeze-over in the corporate bond market. That’s what’s really going on, there’s a massive credit crunch that has a stranglehold on the bond market and there are only two ways to fix the problem:

1. Let the failing corporations default and pick up the pieces after the dust settles or…
2. Launch a major $4.5 trillion bailout for busted corporations that drove their companies off a cliff.

Those are the two choices. Naturally Treasury Secretary Mnuchin chose the latter which suggests that the real motive for giving working people the $1,200 checks was simply to divert attention from the massive trillion dollar bailout to teetering corporations. That’s the real objective of the so-called fiscal stimulus bill. It’s another giant welfare check for the plutocrats.

The centerpiece of the new legislation is a provision for $425 billion giveaway to big business. The New York Times explains what is going on in a recent article. Here’s an excerpt:

“Republican senators have suggested creating a fund of $425 billion at the Treasury Department that the Fed could use to back emergency lending facilities — which would enable such programs to grow far beyond that scale.

Because the Fed cannot take on substantial credit risk itself, the Treasury Department backs its emergency lending, using money from a fund that contains just $95 billion. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Sunday suggested that the new money in the Republican bill could be leveraged by the Fed to back some $4 trillion in financing.

“We do have limited amounts of money we’re using before Congress passes this bill, so we’re not waiting on Congress,” Mr. Mnuchin said in an interview on CNBC on Monday. “As Congress gives us the authority, we’ll be increasing the facilities substantially.” (“The Fed Goes All In With Unlimited Bond-Buying Plan”, New York Times)

What does it mean?

It means that Mnuchin is transforming the US Treasury into a hedge fund. That’s what it means. It means that the Treasury is going to use the $450 billion that is obliquely allocated in the emergency bill, to create a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV)–which is a sleazy, off-balance sheet operation that is used to conceal underhanded bookkeeping, that will leverage up by 10x (which means that the Fed will use the $450 billion to borrow tens times more than the original amount or $4.5 trillion) that will be stealthily used to bail out underwater corporations, financial institutions and, yes, banks. (Note–The fairy-tale about “well capitalized banks” is pure bunkum. These guys have serious exposure through “sponsored repo” which is lending to hedge funds via the repo market.) The Fed has already created one SPV for the Commercial Paper market under the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) which is supposed to be used to mitigate volatility in global currency markets, not for bailing out failing corporations. It’s a complete misuse of funds. Unfortunately, targeted suspension of the Sunshine Act will prevent the public from figuring out who is getting money in what amount and for what purpose. This whole scam has been carefully worked out right down to legal provisions preventing transparency.

By the way, Mnuchin’s personal bio is worth reviewing. According to Senator Ron Wyden:

“Mr. Mnuchin’s career began in trading the financial products that brought on the housing crash and the Great Recession. After nearly two decades at Goldman Sachs, he left in 2002 and joined a hedge fund….

“In early 2009, Mr. Mnuchin led a group of investors that purchased a bank called IndyMac, renaming it OneWest. OneWest was truly unique. While Mr. Mnuchin was CEO, the bank proved it could put more vulnerable people on the street faster than just about anybody else around.

“While he was CEO, a OneWest vice president admitted in a court proceeding to ‘robo-signing’ upward of 750 foreclosure documents a week…between 2009 and 2014, a period during which the bank foreclosed on more than 35,000 homes. ‘Widow foreclosures’ on reverse mortgages – OneWest did more of those than anybody else. The bank defends its record on loan modifications, but it was found guilty of an illegal practice known as ‘dual tracking.’ One bank department tells homeowners to stop making payments so they can pursue modification, while another department presses on and hurtles them into foreclosure anyway.” (“Stimulus Bill: The Fed and Treasury’s Slush Fund Is Actually $4 Trillion”, Wall Street on Parade)

Does that sound like someone who can be trusted in the distribution of $4.5 trillion in government funds?

The media is not even trying to hide the sordid details of what’s going on behind the scenes. Take a look at this excerpt from an article at Bloomberg:

“The Federal Reserve could now have as much as $4.5 trillion to keep credit flowing and make direct loans to U.S. businesses through the massive coronavirus stimulus bill being considered by U.S. lawmakers. The bipartisan agreement, which still needs to be passed by the Senate and House and signed into law by President Donald Trump, will include $454 billion in funds for the Treasury to backstop emergency actions by the Fed to support the U.S. economy, Senator Patrick Toomey said on Wednesday.

The central bank will work with the U.S. Treasury to use that money as a backstop against credit risk as it supports markets for corporate and short-term state and local debt, while also loaning directly to large and medium-sized businesses….

“It is a very, very big thing; it is unprecedented,” the Pennsylvania Republican told reporters Wednesday on a conference call, adding it was an opportunity to lever up “the unlimited balance sheet of the Fed.”

Toomey’s comments suggest Fed facilities could be expanded with the new funds, in effect doubling the Fed’s current $4.7 trillion balance sheet if necessary. On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the bill would provide up to $4 trillion in liquidity through broad-based lending programs operated by the Fed.” (“Fed’s Anti-Virus Lending Firepower Could Reach $4.5 Trillion”, Bloomberg)

Toomey is an idiot! Can’t he see what’s going on? Why does he say: “This is a very, very big thing.”… “an opportunity to lever up “the unlimited balance sheet of the Fed”??? Doesn’t he know that the US Treasury has now accepted full liability and credit risk for the Fed’s emergency bailout operations. Does he like the idea that the American people will now be on the hook for the CEOs who blew up their own companies to fatten their own bank accounts?? That’s what this means. Readers should parse these articles very carefully, word by word, phrase by phrase. The ugly truth is spelled out in black and white. Here’s the key phrase in the Times article:

“Because the Fed cannot take on substantial credit risk itself, the Treasury Department backs its emergency lending.”

And here’s the key phrase in the Bloomberg article: “The central bank will work with the U.S. Treasury to use that money as a backstop against credit risk as it supports markets for corporate and short-term state and local debt, while also loaning directly to large and medium-sized businesses.”

There it is: Credit risk, credit risk, credit risk. Who assumes the credit risk for this $4.5 trillion dollar giveaway??

The American taxpayer. Look: The Fed has always had the ability to print as much money as it chooses. (Remember: “Unlimited QE”??) So why did the Fed need to link-up with the Treasury for this operation?

Because the Fed is unwilling to accept the credit risk. Who will ultimately be accountable for all the bad bets and worthless bonds that are being downgraded as we speak? Who is going to mop up the trillions in red ink created by crooked, scheming, cutthroat corporations (and their financial counter-party accomplices) who plundered their companies for the sole objective of enriching themselves and their shareholders?

Who?

The US Treasury backed by the American taxpayer.

This is really the endgame. Wall Street has subsumed the US Treasury and turned it into a massively leveraged hedge fund that is controlled by an unscrupulous charlatan who made his bones evicting families from their homes during the worse economic slump since the Great Depression.

We’re truly fu**ed.

NOTE– As this was being written, stocks were shooting higher for a third consecutive day due, in large part, to the easing of credit spreads in the corporate bond market. According to Matt Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak, “They’ve been able to come into the credit markets and stabilize that area; we see credit spreads starting to tighten up a little bit…..The fact that they’re starting to stabilize gives people the kind of confidence they need to be able to dip their toes back into the market at a time when we absolutely need it.”

In other words, the bailout appears to be working for the investor class. Yipee.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Featured image is from Shutterstock

Steady media reports on the rising number of the novel Coronavirus infections and its human toll have contributed to a global psychology of fear where entire populations are succumbing their free will to those in positions of authority, elected and otherwise.   But while we try to keep ourselves safe during this pandemic, a deadlier and more destructive virus creeping in the shadows for years is also reaching its peak. The virus is called hasbara or better understood as propaganda.

Lest you think it is not contagious or deadly, think Iraq.  The Iraq war alone cost the American taxpayers trillions of Dollars but the Iraqi population bore the brunt of the pain and suffering from America’s sanctioned terror attack and invasion with over one million souls lost and counting.  Just like COVID-19 which may be dismissed as a cold, the hasbara virus may be taken for the truth – and therein lies the threat.  As we surrender our will to the officials so that we can survive this pandemic, the spinners have upped their hasbara in order to coax us into embracing their terrorism, their wars, and their genocide.

Abandon your will, if you must, but not your common sense. As someone who has studied propaganda for fifteen years, I have never seen it so prevalent and so dangerous at a time when we are distracted by a viral disease.  Having allowed the hasbara virus to spread and go undetected for such a long time, we’ve lost all ability to recognize it. The spinners know this and are taking full advantage of it. Let me give you two examples from the last 24 hours alone.

First one is a heartwarming ‘news item’ – even benign.

How can the picture of this cute dog not touch you heart? More so when you read on that his owner is in quarantine in Mexico with the coronavirus.  His chips cravings prompt him to tie a note to the dog, send him to the store with a $20 bill and instructions to the shopkeeper to give the dog a bag of “Cheetos”.  Now didn’t that give you the warm fuzzies?  The story is shared over and over and the ‘news reporter’ gets a kudos from his boss for writing this sweet story which would no doubt increase circulation.  I loved it.

But then I had to ask myself why a man in Mexico would tie a 20 Dollar bill to his dog and not Pesos.  That is a lot of Mexican Pesos, and no change was returned.  I mean where would the poor dog keep the change, a lot of change, in Mexican Pesos.

I shared the story with many friends, some of whom included university professors.  None noted the oddness of the Dollar bill.    Even when I asked if they noted something strange about the story, they did not point to it until I told them.  The story was heartwarming and the incident was something they all wanted to accept – a feel good story. Nothing else was noted. We want to believe a story that appeals to our sense of reality, our values, no matter how unrealistic.

On the opposite side is the news story about a former FBI agent Robert Levinson. Levinson disappeared in 2007 and the United States had accused Iran of holding him hostage. Iran has no information about him. Yesterday, out of nowhere, various hasbara outlets cited Levinson’s family releasing a statement citing that they recently received information from US officials that led them to conclude that “our wonderful husband and father died while in Iranian custody.”

Iran denied having held him in custody and the news of his death was news to them. Why was this unbelievable? After all, I have no way of knowing who is lying, the US or Iran. Though one certainly may question the timing of this report.

But it was not just the timing that was odd. It was the orange prison uniform. Orange prison uniform is easy to process for Americans, and the West.  Images of prisoners wearing orange jumpsuit in Guantanamo is embedded in our minds. More disturbing still are the images of prisoners captured by ISIS and wearing orange jump suits as they are being executed. I always wondered where did ISIS get all the orange jump suits their prisoner wore. But that is beside the point. In Iran, prisoners do not wear orange. The uniforms are different shades of blue depending on their status. Ordinary prisoners wear the striped while political prisoners the plain blue uniforms.

Photos courtesy of Iran-based journalist

Aside from the wrong color uniform, I was struck by Levinson’s appearance as portrayed in Western media.  It was hard to process the tanned face which contrasted so sharply with his pale hands. It didn’t make sense. It is not clear to me as to why America would choose this moment to stage this death. I can only imagine that it is to present an image of a ruthless Iran in order to justify its terrorism by way of sanctions at a time when Iran, like the rest of the world, is fighting this pandemic. But even the lies will not hide the shameless stain of America’s cruel madness. Hence, we must resist and fight the propaganda.

For decades, we have been victims of propaganda to the point that we are no longer aware of it.  In spite of it, we have not managed to build an immunity to the lies.  Quite the opposite — we have become more vulnerable as our resistance erodes with every shot of hasbara.  But we are not broken – not yet.  It can only affect us if left undetected.  Like COVID-19, the hasbara virus goes undetected until it’s tested for and discovered.  We must therefore learn to test for, detect, and reject it.  We can do this by refusing to abandon our critical thinking. Pleasant or not, we cannot allow our underlying bias guide us and use commonsense. Don’t let the hasbara virus infect you — it is deadlier than you can imagine.

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Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an independent researcher and writer with a focus on US foreign policy. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research. 

All images in this article are from the author unless otherwise stated

The largest country in the world is faring surprisingly well when it comes to surviving World War C, which is greatly attributable to Russia’s proactive measures in taking COVID-19 as serious as possible, including through border closures and the forthcoming imposition of what can be described as “lockdown-lite”.

Make an unnecessary journey and you could face a fine of £60: that’s the message the UK government is sending as it tightens up its restrictions in light of the current coronavirus pandemic. On Monday night, Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed the nation, and in truly unprecedented manner for this liberal politician, informed people that their rights and freedoms would have to be temporarily curtailed; he instructed the British public to stay at home unless absolutely necessary. The Prime Minister has become the latest victim of Covid-19, along with Prince Charles: this virus does not discriminate.

Boris Johnson has been trying to get his message across for weeks now – that self-isolation is the key to tackling the pandemic. Yet not everyone has been paying attention. Just a few hours after his announcement on Monday for people to remain indoors, people could be seen socialising outside and the London underground was still jam-packed, even though there is now a limited number of places people can gather in. Despite the warnings, some people have chosen to ignore the advice on social distancing, leading to the PM’s decision to give the police powers to fine and even arrest those who disobey the rules.

UK residents may only leave their homes for essential reasons: to buy groceries, once a day for exercise (or walk the dog), to fulfil a duty of care, to travel to essential work or for medical reasons. The police are already taking their enforcement powers very seriously, using drones and roadblocks to catch out anyone flouting the law. This has already caused some controversy however as a couple walking their dog in the Peak District were exposed by a police drone. Police claimed that the couple had driven 30 miles away to walk their dog in a way that was ‘not essential’. However when the UK cabinet office was approached about this the response was that it is not in fact forbidden to drive somewhere to take a walk.  It’s not clear why the police thought that this couple, walking in a remote part of the country far from anyone else, could possibly be worth highlighting as an example. This case emphasizes the extent to which this law is open to interpretation and that problems could arise as a result.

The measures that Boris Johnson has taken however are undoubtedly necessary, and if nothing else have perhaps not been implemented early enough.  The number of deaths in Britain to Covid-19 is now 578 with over 11,600 cases and the country is on a steeper trajectory than either Italy or Spain – the two worst affected European countries – have been on to date. Italy’s scientific advisor, Walter Ricciardi, who called his nation’s lockdown has even said that the UK government should have shut down the country earlier – 10 days earlier in fact – to halt the spread of the virus.  He has suggested that as a result, the UK may go on to have a higher infection rate than that of Italy and that it will have to endure lockdown conditions for a longer period.

Scenes of struggling hospitals in Italy and exhausted medical staff have shocked the world. The death toll in the country is now over 8000 with morgues bursting at the seams and stadiums transformed into makeshift hospitals. Spain is not far behind with over 4000 deaths and the largest number of deaths in one day amongst nations: 718 in total. Things have got so out of hand that an ice rink in Madrid has had to be used as a temporary morgue. The President of the Madrid region has said she expects around 80% of the population to contract coronavirus.

Across the world people are getting used to a new reality. In the age of globalization, our freedom of movement has been the key to the current crisis. Now we must learn to live without it for the time being. At least, most of us have the ability to stay connected through the internet. Without that convenience, the current lockdown would be much bleaker.

One thing is for sure, this period in our history will have a profound effect on all of us. When it is over, we will all be changed in some way. It will have both negative and positive effects: for some of us, we will have lost loved ones; for others, we will learn to appreciate the things we take for granted: meeting with friends and family; exercise, entertainment, holidays. Things we deemed an essential part of life now don’t seem so essential after all…

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Featured image is from TruePublica

Perspectives on the Pandemic:

Dealing with Coronavirus, a fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data.

Dr John P.A. Ioannidis is a professor of medicine and professor of epidemiology and population health, as well as professor by courtesy of biomedical data science at Stanford University School of Medicine, professor by courtesy of statistics at Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences, and co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS) at Stanford University.

Watch the interview below.

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Hospitals all over the western world are bracing for a tsunami of intensely ill patients suffering from breathing difficulties due to the Coronavirus.

In Britain, car companies are scrambling to produce ventilators. Plans are being laid for the army to build hospitals in conference centres. In Ontario, Canada, wards are being cleared, plans are being laid, models of infection are being scrutinised. If 70 percent of the population does not cut its social engagement by 70 percent, locking down will not work. Nerves are jangling.

Breaking point

So what do you think it is like in Gaza? This is not a question heard often these days, when Palestinians have been dropped off the international agenda, either as refugees or as people.

What do you think the prospect is for a besieged enclave that has 56 ventilators and 40 intensive care beds for a population of two million?

By comparison, according to figures from the OECD, Germany has 29.2 ICU beds per 100,000; Belgium 22; Italy 12.5; France 11.6, and the UK six and a half. Gaza has two.

Everywhere, medics are asking themselves whether they will be brought to their knees by Covid-19. They don’t ask themselves that question in Gaza. The health system there already is on its knees – by design. It passes for normality. It does not make the news. The international community scrambles with sticking plaster relief.

This has been the reality for the past 13 years. No conflict in that time was complete without a warning that the health system in Gaza was on the point of collapse.

In June 2018, at the start of a year when Israeli soldiers killed 195 Palestinians and injured nearly 29,000 people on the Great March of Return, UN experts said that healthcare in Gaza was “at breaking point”.

Acts of cruelty

During the war in 2014, hospitals such as Al-Aqsa in Deir al-Balah or al-Wafa in Shujaiyyeh were the target itself of Israeli shelling. Ambulances too were deliberately fired on by Israel. But this is what happens day in day out, acts of cruelty which never make the headlines that define who lives and who dies in Gaza.

Think about what happened to Muna Awad at the Erez Crossing in May last year. Muna had to hand over her gravely ill five-year old daughter Aisha to a woman she had never seen to get medical treatment in East Jerusalem. Aisha had been diagnosed with brain cancer, which could not be treated in the specialist hospital in Gaza.

Neither Muna nor her husband Wissam was allowed to travel with their daughter. Even Aisha’s grandmother, who was 75 (Israel refuses entrance to women under the age of 45 and men under 55), was refused entry.

Erez was the last time her mother saw Aisha conscious. The little girl had several operations in East Jerusalem but returned in a coma and never came out of it. She died in Gaza. Her case is not unique.

Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, in Gaza, documented 25,658 Palestinians who applied for permits to seek medical treatment outside the enclave in 2018. Of that number, Israeli authorities delayed processing or rejected outright 9,832 applications – some 38 percent of cases.

If you want to know what collective punishment feels like in Gaza, try getting sick.

Aerial photographs of a quarantine hospital that is being constructed in western Rafah, #Gaza to prevent the spread of #coronavirus in the besieged heavy-populated enclave. pic.twitter.com/5m7Z3FotLs

— Palestine Live (@pallive_en) March 24, 2020

To retrieve the body of one of its soldiers, Hadar Golden, who was killed in combat in 2014, Israel reduced the number of entry permits from Gaza. The campaign was led by Golden’s family. There was an op-ed article in the Washington Post. And the government acted on it.

Figures supplied to Haaretz by Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories showed that in the first half of 2018, Israelrefused permission to 769 Palestinians seeking to leave Gaza for Israel because they were “first-degree relatives of a Hamas activist.”

So who holds the key to a medical collapse in Gaza? Israel.

Medical collapse

This is why the Ministry of Health in Gaza called on the international community to compel Israel to remove the blockade amid an acute shortage in ventilators, ICU beds, medicine and protective equipment.

And this is why the international community should now listen. Majdi Duhair, director of preventive medicine at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, told MEE that the biggest difficulty they faced was their ability to scale up ICU beds.

Given the shortage that exists, they only have 26 free ICU beds to deal with the spread of Covid-19.

“This is the biggest dilemma we face, all that is available is 65 beds of intensive care between children and adults, and this number is sufficient for normal and routine cases, and we need this number. There are six beds in the field hospital, and there are 18-20 beds in all places to deal with the spread of corona,” Duhair said.

He added:

“We are doing crew training, but this number is not sufficient. No new staff has been hired, the problem is there are volunteers, but the employment potential is limited, and existing employees receive 40-50 percent of their salaries.”

Gaza has suffered enough. No-one can just sit on the sidelines and watch this happen. Israel has to be told to lift the siege or suffer the consequences of sanctions and isolation itself.

This is an obscenity – one of many in the Middle East – that no western government can afford to maintain.

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David Hearst is the editor in chief of Middle East Eye. He left The Guardian as its chief foreign leader writer. In a career spanning 29 years, he covered the Brighton bomb, the miner’s strike, the loyalist backlash in the wake of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in Northern Ireland, the first conflicts in the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in Slovenia and Croatia, the end of the Soviet Union, Chechnya, and the bushfire wars that accompanied it. He charted Boris Yeltsin’s moral and physical decline and the conditions which created the rise of Putin. After Ireland, he was appointed Europe correspondent for Guardian Europe, then joined the Moscow bureau in 1992, before becoming bureau chief in 1994. He left Russia in 1997 to join the foreign desk, became European editor and then associate foreign editor. He joined The Guardian from The Scotsman, where he worked as education correspondent.

Featured image is from Desertpeace

Make no mistake. Legislation that should be called the GOP/Dem-Don’t-Care/CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act is a corporate bailout bill with crumbs for ordinary Americans.

It’s a bandaid approach to a public health emergency/economic crisis, the latter mostly harming the vast majority of ordinary Americans.

Well-managed companies will survive. Mismanaged ones like Boeing, the airlines, and others should be allowed to go bankrupt — their operations considered essential nationalized and run by the government, free from market considerations, focusing solely on the public interest.

Republicans and Dems failed to prioritize what’s most important in the current environment.

All the money in the world thrown at corporate America won’t help a bit if spreading/highly infectious COVID-19 outbreaks aren’t contained.

Public and personal health alone should be prioritized. The economy can wait. Without healthy employees and customers, businesses can’t operate.

If infections keep spreading and most people remain fearful of resuming normal activities, stores and restaurants will stay empty if reopened.

The same goes for airports, train stations, bus terminals, and other public spaces, including sports venues, if most people remain hunkered down to stay safe.

The July Tokyo Olympics was cancelled. So is the remainder of the current NBA and NHL seasons, most likely, that have yet to be formally announced. Suspending games was likely prelude to cancelling remaining ones.

MLB and NFL games may be affected the same way. As things now stand, few people want to be around others in public, except for family members because of the risk of spreading infections.

Fixing the economy requires safeguarding public health, welfare and safety.

That’s not how Congress and the Trump regime are addressing the COVID-19 crisis.

It’s growing more serious daily. On Thursday, the US surpassed China with the most infections — rising to 86,000, up around 17,000 in the last 24 hours.

The US death toll exceeds 1,000, around 300 in New York state, the hardest hit of the 50 states.

The duration and severity of the public health and economic crisis are unknown.

It’s unlikely to disappear quickly. There are already over half a million confirmed cases globally.

Compared to 38 million US flu cases this season, that runs from October to May, 390,000 hospitalizations, and 23,000 deaths, numbers of COVID-19 cases are minor by comparison except as follows:

The disease is a highly contagious new flu/influenza strain, no one with immunity, and severe cases can cause painful death by suffocation — the elderly and others with weak immune systems most vulnerable, why it’s better to be safe than sorry.

On Wednesday, the US Senate voted unanimously for the CARES Act business giveaway — Bernie Sanders supporting what his rhetoric opposed.

In a message to constituents he said the following disingenuously:

“(B)e assured that I am doing everything in my power in the US Senate to correct the completely unacceptable federal response to this crisis (sic).”

“(W)e must prioritize the health and economic wellbeing of Vermont’s working families—particularly our most vulnerable community members—instead of handing over another welfare check or no-strings-attached bailout to corporate CEOs and bankers on Wall Street (sic).”

“Working people must have the income, healthy food, safe shelter and child care, workplace leave, and cost-free medical testing and treatment that they need right now (sic).”

Let the record show he lied. He could have held up passage of the corporate giveaway but supported it instead — the latest example of his rhetoric going one way, his vote on the Senate floor another.

The measure includes delaying payment of individual payroll taxes until 2021 or 2022. The same holds for eligible businesses as follows:

They can delay paying payroll taxes through December 2020, pay 50% of them in 2021, another 50% in 2022.

Dems, including self-styled progressive Bernie Sanders, agreed to suspend payment of worker and business payroll taxes that’s all about weakening Social Security and Medicare trust funds — part of a longterm plan to erode and eliminate them.

In fairness, he has lots of company in both houses with nary a true blue profile in courage in Washington on all issues mattering most.

A handful of House representatives partly uphold this standard — none in either house fully across the board since Cynthia McKinney served for a six terms until 2007.

Then, earlier, and now she defined and continues to define what progressive politics is all about.

No one in Congress approaches her stature — why corporate giveaways like the CARES Act easily become the law the land.

The same or similar outcome to the Senate’s unanimous adoption is certain when House members vote Friday — Trump to sign into law what no responsible leader would tolerate.

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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.

An editorial piece in The Lancet – the world’s most prestigious, and best known general medical journal warned two months ago of the oncoming conflict between an ill-prepared, under-funded national health service and an indiscriminate invisible killer in the form of the 2019 coronavirus. More recently The Lancet warned again of the problems that health workers would be facing and yet the government took no notice – until it was too late:

“As the pandemic accelerates, access to personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers is a key concern. Medical staff are prioritised in many countries, but PPE shortages have been described in the most affected facilities. Some medical staff are waiting for equipment while already seeing patients who may be infected or are supplied with equipment that might not meet requirements. Alongside concerns for their personal safety, health-care workers are anxious about passing the infection to their families. Health-care workers who care for elderly parents or young children will be drastically affected by school closures, social distancing policies, and disruption in the availability of food and other essentials.

Health-care systems globally could be operating at more than maximum capacity for many months. But health-care workers, unlike ventilators or wards, cannot be urgently manufactured or run at 100% occupancy for long periods. It is vital that governments see workers not simply as pawns to be deployed, but as human individuals. In the global response, the safety of health-care workers must be ensured. Adequate provision of PPE is just the first step; other practical measures must be considered, including cancelling non-essential events to prioritise resources; provision of food, rest, and family support; and psychological support. Presently, health-care workers are every country’s most valuable resource.”

The Lancet takes aim at governments around the world, including the British government, that these front-line healthcare workers are being deployed in a way that will inevitably cause them to be infected and die needlessly.

Richard Horton – editor-in-chief of The Lancet – is clearly angry at the British response and wrote a scathing and highly critical article in The Guardian last week. He asked – “After all the warnings why did it take the UK government eight weeks to recognise the seriousness of what we now call Covid-19?”

The Lancet published the first report submitted by Chinese scientists in mid-February. Horton goes on – “Under immense pressure, as the epidemic exploded around them (the Chinese Scientists), they took time to write up their findings in a foreign language and seek publication in a medical journal thousands of miles away. Their rapid and rigorous work was an urgent warning to the world. We owe those scientists enormous thanks.”

And as Horton says – “But medical and scientific advisers to the UK government ignored their warnings. For unknown reasons they waited. And watched.” Horton is clearly still stunned by Britain’s response. He bemoans the controlled epidemic strategy of the ‘herd immunity’ as promoted by the two government experts who are regularly wheeled out to explain what is supposed to be going on. Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, suggestedthat the target was to infect 60% of the UK’s population.

There is a reason why this strategy was the preferred one. The government had been warned of the pandemic four years earlier. It was such a foregone conclusion that the NHS went through a three-day exercise to model the outcome of a flu-like pandemic. The Chief Medical Officer at the time warned that the health service would not cope under such circumstances, specifically focusing on the lack of equipment, intensive care beds and most especially – “the real threat of totally inadequate ventilation.” Three previous tests and reports said the same and an updated report in 2018 meant that the Conservative government, in their quest for austerity and deliberately under-funding the NHS, knew all along that a pandemic was certain – and did the opposite of what was required to defend the country against such a threat.

Horton looks at the moment when the government realised their ‘herd immunity’ strategy had imploded. “Many journalists, led by the BBC, reported that the science had changed and so the government had responded accordingly. But this interpretation of events is wrong. The science has been the same since January. What changed is that government advisers, at last, understood what had really taken place in China. The UK’s best scientists have known since that first report from China that Covid-19 was a lethal illness. Yet they did too little, too late.”

Even as the catastrophe in Italy unfolded, the British government sat on its hands confident that what they were seeing live in southern Europe would somehow not happen in Britain. And as Horton says – “We had the opportunity and the time to learn from the experience of other countries. For reasons that are not entirely clear, the UK missed those signals. We missed those opportunities. There will be deaths that were preventable. The system failed. I don’t know why. But, when we have suppressed this epidemic when life returns to some semblance of normality, difficult questions will have to be asked and answered.”

In the meantime, our frontline health workers are inadequately protected, the country unprepared and people will needlessly die. This episode is a lesson that needs to be learned because next time, the virus could be more infectious and more deadly and as Horton says – “we can’t afford to fail again. We may not have a second chance.“

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In American politics, it is not often that one sees an assassination carried out in public, but that is exactly what the Democratic Party establishment did to peace candidate Tulsi Gabbard. She was sidelined right from the beginning of her campaign and the fact that she was a woman of color and a veteran earned her no points with the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and, more to the point, with the Clintons, who continue to have a disproportionate say in what goes on in the party.The chameleonlike Clintons have long been known for their ability to punish anyone who stands in the way of their ambition and Hillary’s dislike for Gabbard dates back to the 2016 election when Gabbard, then vice-chair of the DNC, endorsed Bernie Sanders.

Gabbard is admittedly a somewhat controversial figure, but many individuals involved in the antiwar movement who have taken time to speak with her have come away impressed by her sincerity and willingness to talk up an issue that all the other candidates, save Bernie Sanders, have ignored. She is a serious non-interventionist and a critic of her party’s embrace of the national security state that has emerged since 9/11. In the several debates where she was allowed to participate and actually given some time to speak, she has been a harsh critic of the endless “regime change wars.”

Tulsi has stayed in the race in spite of the fact that the Democratic Party establishment, most particularly to include the Clintons, have been out to destroy her since she first appeared. Gabbard, generally definable as a conventional moderate Democrat, believes that the United States should end nearly all its wars overseas, which are a symptom of a fractured foreign and national security policy. She also advocates auditing the Federal Reserve and is a supporter of Julian Assange as well as whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. Tulsi has stuck by her guns and had stayed in the race to promote those and other anti-establishment views.

Unfortunately for the many Americans who had hoped to see Tulsi somehow surfacing either as a candidate or as a major voice in shaping the party platform, her candidacy has finally ended. Her announcement came after she was blocked from participating in the candidates’ debate on March 15th by an abrupt and unexpected change in the guidelines for being included. The new qualifying criteria require a candidate to have earned at least 20 percent of the delegates awarded thus far, which meant that only Biden and Sanders could participate.

On March 18th, Gabbard announced her decision to wrap up her campaign and throw her support to Joe Biden as follows:

“I know that he [Biden] has a good heart and he’s motivated by his love for our country and the American people… So today I’m suspending my presidential campaign, and offering my full support to Vice President Joe Biden in his quest to bring our country together.”

The endorsement of Biden came as somewhat of a surprise as Bernie Sanders is closer to her philosophically, but sources close to Tulsi suggest that she did so in the belief that Biden was more likely to unite the party and also better suited to defeating Donald Trump. In any event, speculation that she will have some influence over where the Democratic Party is heading seems to be misplaced as she is not running again for Congress and seems content to return to what passes as a normal life in Hawaii. She retains her commission as a major in the Hawaii National Guard.

If one sought to make a case for who was most active in the undoing of Tulsi Gabbard, the finger would point directly at Hillary Clinton. When Tulsi endorsed Sanders in 2016 she did so knowing that “Clinton had a stranglehold over the Democratic party and that crossing Clinton (who considered herself the ‘inevitable nominee’) could mean the end of her own political career.” Clinton was reportedly made “extremely angry — to put it mildly” by the endorsement and had her aides send Tulsi a wave of threatening emails. 

Hillary Clinton’s first major attack against candidate Gabbard in 2019 was featured in a podcast hosted by former President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, David Plouffe that was recorded last fall. The comments on Gabbard came during a discussion of the upcoming election. Clinton speculated that President Donald Trump and the GOP would likely be “grooming” a potential spoiler candidate for a third-party bid to take away votes from the Democrats. She said “I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who’s currently in the Democratic primary and they’re grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She’s the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far and that’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up because she’s also a Russian asset.”

Clinton did not name Gabbard but one of her spokespersons later confirmed the “Russian asset” comment referred to her. The reference to the completely respectable Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, was based on the oft-repeated claim by Clinton and others that Stein was being supported by Russian agents and that she took votes away from the Democratic candidate. Clinton has also suggested that Moscow is “grooming” Gabbard to run third party and steal votes from the Democrats.

Gabbard courageously responded to the Clinton attack with: “Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know — it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.”

Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a …

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 18, 2019

Shortly before dropping out of the race, while Tulsi was the only remaining woman contender for the nomination, Hillary Clinton opted to get in the proverbial last shot in an interview with Fareed Zakaria, saying “We no longer have a woman in the presidential race. There are a lot of reasons for that. We started off with I think six, and now have none.” 

That Tulsi Gabbard, a genuine peace candidate, was deliberately marginalized in the Democratic Party nomination process in spite of having considerable grassroots support does not speak well either for the party or for the system of government by the corruption that prevails in the United States. Tulsi has sued Hillary Clinton for $50 million for defamation due to her being labeled a Russian asset. In the suit, she describes Hillary as “a cutthroat politician by any account” and claims that the former Secretary of State has been working to destroy Gabbard’s presidential campaign as payback for 2016. May Tulsi prevail. And one has to hope that we all have heard the last of the Clintons.

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This article was originally published on American Herald Tribune.

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

Featured image: U.S. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard speaking with attendees at the 2019 California Democratic Party State Convention at the George R. Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California. Credit: Gage Skidmore/ Flickr) 

Government watchdog Public Citizen celebrated Wednesday afternoon as pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences backed off a monopoly claim for its drug that may treat the coronavirus which has sickened more than 487,000 people worldwide. Gilead, Public Citizen said, must now commit to ensuring the drug is accessible to all who need it.

Public Citizen applauded the news as a “big win” for those who spoke out against Gilead Sciences, whose former lobbyist, Joe Grogan, now serves on President Donald Trump‘s so-called “coronavirus task force.”

BIG WIN: Gilead just backed down.

The company caved under enormous public pressure and withdrew its appalling request for rare disease status on remdesivir.https://t.co/JmGGGouP3u

— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) March 25, 2020

“It was outrageous that Gilead ever sought an ‘orphan drug’ designation for remdesivir, which aims to treat a patient population that easily may number in the tens of millions in the U.S. alone,” Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program, said in a statement. “Thankfully, under pressure, the company has backed down. There’s no doubt that the prospect of an enormous public backlash is what made the difference.”

Gilead’s claim to “orphan” drug status for remdesivir, one of several drugs being tested to treat the coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, drew outrage this week from Public Citizen, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and dozens of other public interest advocates. 

Trump’s Food and Drug Administration granted the orphan status—which would allow a seven-year monopoly on the drug and could keep it out of reach of many Americans by preventing other companies from developing generic versions—even though Gilead developed remdesivir with at least $79 million in government funds. Orphan status is generally reserved for companies that may not recoup their research costs and for drugs which treat conditions affecting fewer than 200,000 people.

“Gilead must have been feeling the heat,” James Love, director of public interest non-profit Knowledge Ecology International, told NPR after Gilead reliquished its claim. “I think it’s embarrassing to take something that’s potentially the most widespread disease in the history of the pharmaceutical industry and claim it’s a rare disease.”

Soon after Public Citizen was joined by 50 other groups in demanding Gilead end its “unconscionable abuse of a program designed to incentivize research and development of treatments for rare diseases,” the company announced on Wednesday it would proceed without orphan drug status.

Public Citizen said that Gilead Sciences must go further than simply withdrawing its claim of orphan drug status, and actively work to ensure that remdesivir is widely produced and available for all who need it.

“Gilead must do more than make vague promises of reasonable pricing,” Maybarduk said. “It should commit right now to license the right and needed know-how to manufacture remdesivir to all qualified producers, in exchange for a modest royalty.”

“If the drug proves viable as a COVID-19 treatment,” he added, “the U.S. and the world will need the product available at a low price that reflects both the public health need and the potentially enormous market—with production at an unprecedented scale.”

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: The Gilead Sciences logo is seen on the company website. (Photo: Ivan Radic/Flickr/cc)

Italians furious at the lack of help and solidarity from the European Union began removing flags of the Union throughout the country and replaced them with Chinese and Russian ones. As this is happening in a long-time member of the European Union, the small Balkan country Montenegro went in the opposite direction and began praising the bloc. Refusing to assist Italy, the credibility of the European Union was dealt a huge blow, and Brussels decided to set aside a significant amount of assistance for Montenegro to mitigate the effects of the spread of coronaviruses. There is no doubt that the promised European Union assistance for Montenegro is certainly welcomed and valuable in the aftermath of delaying all assistance to the European Union’s worst hit countries, Italy and Spain. But this is merely a reaction to the increased popularity of China and Russia in these countries who have all provided assistance in a timely and unbureaucratic manner.

As part of a face saving exercise when many European Union members are questioning the necessity of such a bloc, Brussels has prioritized Western Balkan countries to legitimize itself again by fast tracking the memberships of not only Albania and North Macedonia, but also Montenegro. The European Union Ambassador to Montenegro, Aivo Orav, announced on Twitter that Brussels is allocating €3 million in emergency assistance to the Montenegrin health sector and €50 million for the health sector, the economy and business. This assistance to Montenegro, an aspiring European Union member, is an attempt to salvage the shaky reputation of the European Union. Attempting to regain credibility is understandable, but the big question is to what extent this move by the European Union can change the overall impression that the current crisis has shown a complete collapse of European solidarity.

EU solidarity with 🇲🇪 against #COVID19: we are providing €3million for immediate help to the health sector+designing a €50million long-term response together with @VladaCG to support mostly the health sector, the economy and businesses #CoronaInfoCG #EUzaCG pic.twitter.com/f2y8kXPnxQ

— Aivo Orav 🇪🇺 (@EUAmbME) March 25, 2020

Montenegrin Prime Minister Duško Marković described the European Union assistance to Montenegro as “European values ​​and solidarity in action.” Montenegro will continue to work diligently with the European Commission and the delegation to jointly address the effects of the crisis, Marković said.

Montenegrin President Milo Đukanović then said on Twitter:

“A great decision for our neighbours North Macedonia and Albania. Today – support to Montenegro in fighting COVID-19! EU keeps standing with Western Balkans in the hard times!”

Yesterday – a great decision for our neighbours #NorthMacedonia🇲🇰 and #Albania🇦🇱
Today – support to #Montenegro🇲🇪 in fighting #COVIDー19!#EU🇪🇺 keeps standing with #WesternBalkans in the hard times!

— Milo Đukanović (@predsjednik_cg) March 25, 2020

The official Twitter account of the Montenegrin Government went to Twitter to say:

“The EU, in the difficult moments of fighting against coronavirus, stands by Montenegro and provides urgent help for procurement of equipment and protective supplies worth €3 mil through the UN system while working on defining the model for an additional €50 million to help overcome the socio-economic effects of the crisis. We have also agreed to accelerate a € 18million collaborative programme to help small businesses, the most vulnerable categories of society and the unemployed.”

The #EU, in the difficult moments of fighting against coronavirus, stands by #Montenegro and provides urgent help for procurement of equipment and protective supplies worth €3 mil through the UN system… (1/2) #CoronaInfoCG https://t.co/fpczy5n062

— Govt. of Montenegro (@MeGovernment) March 25, 2020

The pro-Western Đukanović helped steer Montenegro into full NATO membership in 2017 and is on track to make his country soon join the European Union. The European Union gives the illusion that it is an alliance of liberal democracy, efficient and free of corruption. However Đukanović is alleged to have strong links to the mafia, as well as involved in smuggling, organized crime and unnecessary privatizations like the Prva Banka, which went to his family.

It is precisely the Western liberal aspect of European Union membership which supposedly united Europe that has been cited as crucial in media close to Montenegrin authorities. Today however, we see that there is nothing of such in the European Union as it quickly turned realist with the coronavirus pandemic. The member states of this organization have been left to fend for themselves in the most difficult and critical situations. From these different treatments of allies, by the EU and NATO on the one hand, and China and Russia on the other, a different composition of the global order will emerge at the end of the coronavirus pandemic.

Although Serbia has blasted so-called European Union solidarity, it remains a lonely voice of the non-member countries of the Balkans. North Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro on Serbia’s southern flank are serving the Western agenda and acting as willing agents to inhibit Russian influence in a region that is overwhelmingly Slavic and Christian Orthodox. Despite the clear corruption of Đukanović, who should be the antipathy of so-called European values, Montenegro was not only fast-tracked into NATO, but is now being accelerated to the European Union in a face-saving regime. It is therefore unsurprising that anti-Serbian sentiment is being pushed by the ruling class in Podgorica to demonstrate to the West that Montenegro will be a partner to pressurize Serbia. Therefore, the accession of Montenegro, Albania and North Macedonia to the European Union and NATO is being used by the West as a mechanism to contain Serbia and halt Russian influence into the Balkans, and also to save their own legitimacy.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Mainland China is closing down the hospitals in Wuhan, releasing patients who are already cured. Doctors are celebrating, and with them, the ordinary people; in China and all over the world.

It is not the end of the medical emergency, yet, but it is the beginning of the end; a victory of reason, of determination and discipline; a victory of the system that is serving its citizens.

People are returning home. Families are being reunited. Cities are slowly beginning to open up, again. With the victory comes spring; real and metaphorical.

Now, the biggest threat to China is that which comes from outside, from abroad.

But instead of shooting fireworks into night skies, China is sending wide-body airplanes. They are taking off, towards places such as Italy, bringing medical supplies and medical staff. China knows how to share and how to help those who are in need. It is part of its culture, as it is part of its political system.

For several weeks now, the Hong Kong rioters have been relatively quiet. Frankly, they have been humiliated.

Lately, they and their handlers have been re-grouping, changing tactics, thinking how to harm the People’s Republic of China, without making fools of themselves again.

Months ago, they tried to break China into pieces, using politics. And they failed. Then, they attempted to use the COVID-19, and nothing good came of it, either; the PRC flexed its muscles, used some of its best brains, and managed to perform the impossible: to save the nation with minimal casualties, in as short a period of time as possible.

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But what now, really is the worst news for the Hong Kong rioters and their decreasing base of supporters? Clearly, the fact that the Chinese and also Cuban socialism have presented themselves as much kinder, much more humane systems than those which are governing the Western countries.

The rioters are paid to hate and smear socialism. It is their job, their business to promote “Western values”.

China is now helping others, and so is Cuba, a country which is itself under a malicious U.S. embargo. Cuba has some of the best doctors on earth, always ready to send their “medical brigades” to all corners of the world, wherever people are facing medical emergencies and calamities. It is said that Cuba may already be extremely close to having a vaccine for the COVID-19.

In the meantime, the favorite man of the Hong Kong rioters, the U.S. President Donald Trump, is trying to turn medicine into a weapon, or as they say, to “weaponize the coronavirus”. He doesn’t seem to have much shame doing it.

Various publications, including the Mirror, recently printed stories of analogous headlines:

“Coronavirus: Donald Trump offers German lab cash to ‘make vaccine exclusive to the US.’”

“Donald Trump’s White House offered a German science lab cash to develop a coronavirus vaccine exclusively for the United States, it has been claimed.”

Is this the system that the rioters want for Hong Kong, for China and the entire world?

But this time the world is watching. This time, the world is not willing to forgive.

Italian people have been singing China’s national anthem, from the balconies of Rome, as a thank youfor China’s help with the coronavirus outbreak.

Then, on 16 March, 2020, RT reported that the Serbian President doesn’t believe in European solidarity, anymore, asking China for help, instead:

“As President Aleksandar Vucic declared a national emergency on Sunday, he had some scalding remarks for the EU.”

“The crisis has proven that European solidarity, only exists “on paper,” Vucic said, citing the ban on the export of medical equipment and supplies imposed by EU members to non-EU countries in response to the outbreak.

“Only China can help us in this situation,” the Serbian leader added, saying he recently wrote a letter to China’s Xi Jinping “asking him for help and calling him a brother.””

One heavy-lift Russian plane after another is taking off, heading for Italy, medical staff and equipment on board.

Now, what do the rioters feel? Are some of them at least finally realizing that they are finding themselves on the wrong side of history?

It is not Communism and socialism that are outdated and belonging to a depressing pile of historic scrap. It is gloomy imperialist nihilism and fundamentalist capitalism that have, a long time ago lost all luster and appeal.

It took an epic ideological battle over Hong Kong, as well as the global battle against a new form of the coronavirus, to demonstrate where the future of humanity really lies.

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This article was originally published on China Daily, Hong Kong.

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Five of his latest books are “China Belt and Road Initiative”,“China and Ecological Civilization”with John B. Cobb, Jr., “Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism”, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and Latin America, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website, his Twitter and his Patreon. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

In February, Friends of the Association of Peasant Workers (ATC) and the Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ) organized an agroecology and Sandinismo solidarity delegation to Nicaragua. Led by Friends of the ATC’s Coordinator and co-International Relations Secretariat, Erika Takeo, the delegation witnessed the current conditions in Nicaragua nearly two years after an attempted coup and the on-going work of the ATC in cooperative communities and unions around the country. Delegates included folks from Nicaragua, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Ecuador, Canada and the United States.

Other than the economy still recuperating from the attempted coup of 2018, the Nicaraguan people continue their struggle to remain independent and out of the grips of the neoliberal orbit of US imperialism. Despite the crippling effects of US sanctions, the Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega has made significant social advances since it came to power in 2007, including expanding electricity to 97% of the population. The government is building new water and sewer systems, as well as funding tuition-free public schools through university. All Nicaraguans have access to the country’s universal health care system, regardless of income or employment, although the rural areas experience fewer services than the more urban areas.

It was apparent everywhere we traveled that the Ortega government is spending money on improving infrastructure and roads so that the country can easily and safely transport people and goods. And the country feels safe to be traveling around, with Nicaragua’s crime rate being the lowest in all of the Central American countries.

Gender equality is evident by some of their current laws. Fifty percent of government representatives must be women. For example, if there’s a male governor then there must be a female vice-governor. This progressive law makes Nicaragua unique in the Americas. Also, there is a Domestic Violence law that is actually enforced and, in some areas of the country, there is a police force made up of only women who respond to these cases, supporting women and children in homes and communities.

The Sandinista revolution remains strong, with the majority of Nicaraguans supporting the current Ortega government. Every Saturday, supporters march through the streets in Managua and other cities around Nicaragua. Graffiti and stencils of FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front) and other artwork adorn walls, and statues of Sandino stand proudly in central parks reminding everyone of the revolution and the struggle it takes for it to continue.

Our delegation focused on the agricultural cooperatives and unions working in the country, such as the ATC and La Vía Campesina (LVC). Agriculture makes up a large part of Nicaragua’s economy for internal markets, exports and subsistence farming relied on by campesino families. An enduring part of the revolution is land reform, which has been supported by the Ortega government by continuing to grant smaller growers land title regardless of gender.

The delegation visited several unions and cooperatives, which, in the spirit of the Sandinista Revolution, reject the corporate food regime that demands peasants produce cheap exports for commodity markets paying them very little, while selling them expensive seeds, fertilizers and toxic pesticides. The cooperatives and unions save and share their own, creole, non-GMO seeds and many maintain seed reservoirs. Nicaragua prohibits the import of GMO (genetically modified organism) seeds. Farmer-to-farmer education through the ATC and the LVC supports the horizontal sharing and experimentation of sustainable agricultural practices, rejecting the top-down education of more “developed” agribusiness-dominated nations.

Santa Julia, a women’s cooperative growing coffee for market, as well as for their own sustenance, has embraced the agroecological method. This includes the social, economic and environmental well-being of meeting their needs individually as well as communally. With an anti-capitalist, anti-neoliberal and anti-patriarchal methodology, they are improving their community by becoming food sovereign, composting, saving and sharing seeds, and finding ways to protect their crops from the effects of climate change. With the help of the ATC, the community was able to purchase equipment for processing coffee and, since March of this year, they now have running water from their well.

Other cooperatives, such as La Unión coffee cooperative in Jinotega municipality, and the community of Marlin Alvarado in Santa Teresa, Carazo, use agroecological methods of meeting their community’s needs. La Unión de Cooperativas Agropecuarias del Nueva Segovia (UCANS), a growers cooperative union in Somoto, has been organizing groups of cooperatives since 1998 to strengthen the social and economic well-being of growers. Their program includes: planning and coaching; exchange with other growers; technical assistance; seed banks; home gardens; crop management; and health nutritionists to the communities.

The radical practices of agroecology and food sovereignty are a figurative middle finger to US agricultural corporations. Nicaragua is about 90% food sovereign, meaning that they produce and consume 90% of the country’s food needs. This intentional and popular part of the revolution is one of the major reasons why Nicaragua can hold these powerful agricultural corporations at bay.

As I write this, the US House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill without debate to impose more sanctions on Nicaragua. Why is the US government so obsessed with destroying Nicaragua? Like the examples of Cuba and Venezuela, Nicaragua is in the crosshairs of imperialism for standing up and saying no to the neoliberal model of dependence. The assaults and attacks from the US continue, but the Sandinista Revolution will endure. We can help them by contacting our Representatives and educating them about the realities of Nicaragua and their struggle to protect their country and their right to participatory democracy.

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Carissa Brands was a delegate in the recent Friends of the ATC delegation; she is an agroecological worker and a board member of the Task Force on the Americas.

The West Bank situation is becoming increasingly complicated amid the coronavirus pandemic and territorial disputes between Palestinians and Israelis. At first, the Palestinian Authority and Israel showed signs of cooperation in combating the pandemic. A few weeks ago, joint measures were announced between both sides to contain the epidemic of the new coronavirus in the region. The measures include distribution of cleaning and personal hygiene materials, in addition to virus testing kits and medical equipment.

On the part of Tel Aviv, the total closure of the West Bank was promoted, allowing, however, access for Palestinian workers involved in the construction and agriculture sectors to the Jewish state, which is why the proposal was well accepted by Ramallah. On the part of the Palestinians, the West Bank has also been blocked, but only partially and for two weeks, since last Sunday (March 22), in addition to the implementation of a series of control and quarantine measures.

However, efforts to contain the pandemic have not prevented Israeli incursions into the region, which have increased recently. Ibrahim Melhim, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, acknowledged Israeli efforts to contain the coronavirus in the country and in Palestine, but criticized the unstoppable incursions against the Palestinians.

“We have very strong round-the-clock coordination with the Israeli side to prevent the coronavirus from spreading (…) At the same time, Israel continues to operate in the Palestinian Territories as if there is no coronavirus crisis (…) They [Israeli forces] continue their raids across the West Bank, arresting people and confiscating lands, and that harms the existing coordination between the PA and Israel putting an additional burden on the Palestinian Authority,” said the spokesman.

Apparently, Israel pretends to collaborate with Palestine to stop the pandemic, when, in fact, it freely promotes its military maneuvers in the region, which go unnoticed by the mainstream media, strongly focused on covering the viral tragedy. In addition, Tel Aviv’s own collaboration to control COVID-19 in the region seems extremely limited. The blocking measures made it impossible, for example, for doctors from the “Physicians for Human Rights” (an Israeli NGO that serves Palestinians free of charge) to move alongside the West Bank, clearly hampering medical care in the region.

Mention should also be made of the fact that Israel, not Palestine, is the major focus of infections by the new coronavirus in the region. Israel has already more than 1.000 officially reported cases of the disease, in addition to one death, and several suspicions. In contrast, Palestine has around 60 infected people. It is clear from these data that the most stringent containment measures should come exclusively from Ramallah, since the Israeli military presence in the region itself poses a serious risk to Palestinian public health.

According to a survey by the Truman Institute for Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 63% of Israelis say Israel must help Palestinians during the coronavirus crisis. Vered Vinitsky-Serousse, president of the Institute, said that

“the majority of Israelis believe that, when necessary, the government should devise preventive measures to help Palestinians during the Covid-19 epidemic.”

The big problem, however, is how these joint maneuvers are conducted. Perhaps the first step to be taken in establishing joint measures is the definitive and immediate end to military incursions in the region, which constantly bring insecurity and terror to the Palestinian people.

The situation of tensions in the region must still be read in the context of the so-called “Deal of the Century”, the “peace” proposal for the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians announced by American President Donald Trump. The “agreement” was celebrated unilaterally by the Washigton-Tel Aviv axis, with no participation of Palestinians, which is why it was rejected by the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League. The document foresaw the annexation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, leaving around 70% of the region under Palestinian rule – a figure much lower than that proposed by all previous attempts to resolve the conflict. Everything indicates that Israel will not stop its attempts to occupy that territory as much as possible.

It is in this context that the “joint” actions between Israelis and Palestinians must be analyzed with skepticism and suspicion. Are these pandemic containment measures really good, even when behind them the Israeli army expands its occupation in the region with increasingly aggressive incursions? Also, to what extent does Palestine benefit from the help of these joint actions when Israel has an absurdly greater number of infected people? Would Israel be able to help the Palestinians? Or would that aid be a mask for such military incursions? All of these are valid questions.

It is also worth remembering that a few weeks ago, at the end of February, Israel announced the construction of more than 2.000 new settlements in Palestinian territories – and on the same occasion, Netanyahu authorized the construction of other 7.000 units in the East Jerusalem region. These data mean that Israel’s aggressiveness against the Palestinians was increasing recently. Did this aggression really disappear from Tel Aviv’s plans in the face of a “commotion” with public health in Palestine (which is much better than the situation in Israel)? Perhaps, the mainstream media and Human Rights observers should divide their attention between the coronavirus and the conflict in Palestine, before more serious clashes erupt.

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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

It was NATO’s first out-of-area operation, against its own Treaty and without a UN mandate. On March 24, 1999.

Independent Kosovo was established – against UN SC resolution 1244. Thanks to the Clinton administration and Madeleine Albright. CNN’s Amanpour endorsed it generously on TV with her State Department husband, James Rubin, a chief operator in the non-negotiations at Rambouillet. And TIME of course knew the truth too.

Serbia suffered tremendously from the 78 days of indiscriminate, hard bombing. I know because I was there.

Finally, Serbia and its president Milosevic was threatened with total destruction of Belgrade. And gave in.

Western hubris after the Cold War was won? Of course!

Russia was on its knees. International law and the UN Charter sidelined. Militarism embraced. Full spectrum dominance. The winner takes it all! Right – but with the risk of losing it all later. It’s called hubris.

Boomerangs do exist.

Oh, what ignorance. Hardly 5 foreign ministry people in Europe knew a thing about the complexities of Yugoslavia.

And today, 21 years later?

Kosovo – the 2nd Albanian state in Europe – still doesn’t function. Hardliners in that war are still leaders, protected by the Americans who back then called Kosovo “ours” – I know because I interviewed them in Prishtina.

Serbia – moving ahead with no more illusions about a decent treatment by the EU or the US. It’s now Europe’s main friend of China (whose embassy NATO bombed by so-called accident). Huge Chinese air bridge of aid to Serbia these very corona days.

China – well you know what has happened there the last 20 years. And how it is the main builder of a new world order.

NATO – outdated and sharing little but inner conflicts because it should have been closed down when the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact dissolved.

The EU – unable to handle Yugoslavia, 2015 refugees, Iran/JCPOA or helping its Spanish and Italian brothers and sisters with the corona.. China is able.

The US – moving towards (more) authoritarianism and inner dissolution, rioting and revolver violence: Wait and see how the corona virus’ political dynamics will play out there…

For all the West – A world order loser in deep inner structural crisis.

Yugoslavia was a game changer – TFF said it then and warned about all the Western actions in the most comprehensive ever peace and conflict study of Yugoslavia – a good 2000 A4 pages equivalent.

No, not written years after but while it happened. Predictions more precise than any government’s.

And with lots of alternatives and peace plans lined up too. Because there were alternatives to the destruction of that country and to the bombing for Kosovo. But everything done was – peace-prevention:

Sadly, the West is destroying itself because of militarist hubris. There is no one it can blame for its manifest destiny downwards – except, of course, the Serbs, Russians, Chinese and Iranians and …

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