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A recent article in the Telegraph newspaper in Britain was headlined, “A war-winning missile will knock China out of Taiwan – fast”. Written by David Axe, who contributes regularly to the outlet, he detailed a war game last year that was organised by the US think-tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

It examined a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and concluded that the US Navy would be nearly entirely obliterated. However, Axe wrote, the US Air Force “could almost single-handedly destroy the Chinese invasion force.”

How? With the use of a Lockheed Martin-made Joint Air-to-Surface Strike Missile (JASSM).

“It’s a stealthy and highly accurate cruise missile that can range hundreds of miles from its launching warplane”, Axe explained. “There are long-range versions of the JASSM and a specialised anti-ship version, too – and the USAF [US Air Force] and its sister services are buying thousands of the missiles for billions of dollars.”

Missing from this analysis was the fact that Lockheed Martin is a major sponsor of the CSIS. The editors of the Telegraph either didn’t know or care about this crucial detail.

One week after this story, Axe wrote another one for the paper, titled, “The US Navy should build a robot armada to fight the battle of Taiwan.”

“The US Navy is shrinking”, the story begins. “The Chinese navy is growing. The implications, for a free and prosperous Pacific region, are enormous.”

Barely a day passes without a story in the British or Australian media that ramps up fear about the rulers in Beijing and frames a massive military build-up by America and its allies as necessary in the face of Chinese aggression.

These repetitive media reports condition the public and so allow, or force, the political class to up the ante on China.

Propaganda by Think-tank

Think-tanks, backed by arms companies, play a key role in propagandising the public in the seeming necessity of conflict with China (or at least preparing for war over Taiwan). 

Too often, mainstream journalists happily parrot the pro-war ‘research’ offered by these think-tanks.

A recent study by the Quincy Institute research institution found that 85 percent of think-tanks mentioned in the US mainstream media, when covering Russia’s war in Ukraine, were bankrolled by arms dealers such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Very few media stories mention who funds the think-tanks, leaving the public in the dark.

In both Australia and the UK think-tanks also hold an exalted position in media reporting. Often labelled as ‘Institutes’ to provide a sheen of academic credibility, they are often thinly disguised mouthpieces for US strategic policy.

For example, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), based in Canberra, now has a branch office in Washington DC. Its non-core funders include the US Defense Department, Thales Group, BAE Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Rafael, as well as Facebook and Twitter.

In the UK, Declassified found the media consistently fail to mention that Britain’s leading military think-tank, the Royal United Services Institute – which is regularly quoted by journalists – is funded by the UK military, US government and arms corporations.

Surrounding China

As Washington pivoted during the Trump presidency to isolate and bully China, governments in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance such as Britain and Australia have followed suit. The AUKUS deal between the US, UK and Australia is nothing less than a multi-billion program to surround and contain China at a time of declining American influence in the world.

The US military presence on Australian soil is the largest since World War Two. The number of US bases is rapidly growing, with new and enhanced air bases, a planned nuclear submarine base, marines training facilities, and an upgraded string of advanced communications and surveillance sites.

Military ties between the two governments are deepening at a rapid rate, with US media framing this for American audiences as “maintaining stability in the Indo-Pacific region”.

The Australian foreign minister Penny Wong has also, in the best Orwellian traditions, described this unprecedented US military build-up to confront China, as a “contribution to regional stability”.

Preparing the Public

Most of these developments are reported by the mainstream media in Australia as wholly positive, a rational response to what we are told is an increasingly belligerent China. 

As an emerging great power, history suggests China is likely to increasingly flex its military muscles and its sabre-rattling over ‘reunification’ with Taiwan is worrying. Neither is China a democracy which sufficiently promotes human rights, either internally or elsewhere around the world.

But the ‘threat’ from China is being exaggerated to suit Western geopolitical aims and to stave off Beijing’s emergence of a new superpower that challenges US global preeminence.

The lack of credible evidence of any direct military threat to Australia has been no obstacle to those preparing the Australian public for a US military build-up, and a conflict with China.

The descriptions of Beijing’s “aggression” and “expansionism”, however, fall way short of any evidence of a threat of carpet bombing of Canberra or the invasion of Australia. 

They instead range from references to alleged cyber attacks on Australian entities, the crackdown on free speech in Hong Kong, the treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the occupation of disputed islands in the South China Sea, and rhetoric on a future reunification with wayward province Taiwan.

The Lowy Institute think-tank in Australia saw no contradiction in describing the need for “a more independent Australia, keen to minimise dependency on China, and weld itself ever more closely to the US militarily”. 

The Institute is part-funded by the Australian government and has received funds from US arms contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

Foreign Interference

The political class and many in the media routinely tell the public that there’s a high risk of foreign interference principally from “enemy” states such as Russia, China and Iran. In contrast, there’s barely any discussion about the penetration of Israeli and American assets in Australia or Britain because they’re deemed as friendly nations.

However, one of Australia’s leading defence reporters, Brian Toohey, recently wrote that “foreign spies have never had any serious successes in Australia, with the possible exception of those from America.”

He went on to explain that,

“When [Home Affairs minister] Clare O’Neil warns about threats to Australia’s democracy, she is presiding over national security laws that prevent Australia from being a liberal democracy any more.

“In 2003, the Howard government passed an Act that gave ASIO [Australia’s national security agency] the power to hold people in secret custody and force them to answer questions, including requests that could lead to people being subjected to extra judicial execution overseas. No other western government has such a system.”

None of these facts have stopped the Australian media repeatedly publishing stories about alleged Chinese state infiltration and surveillance, even if the evidence for spying is minimal or non-existent.

In one case, an Australian businessman with operations in China is being held under high security, charged with “reckless foreign interference” for selling information on defence and mining issues to suspected Chinese spies. His lawyer’s defence is that all the material delivered in the consultant’s reports was publicly sourced from open-source information.

Another Australian, a former US military pilot, has been held on a US extradition request for training Chinese pilots. His defence is that unclassified training was provided 15 years ago to civilian pilots through a registered South African flying academy.

This comes after dozens of Australian former soldiers, including the special forces commander, have been revealed serving as military trainers for troops from the United Arab Emirates while the UAE has been fighting a bloody war in Yemen. This mercenary work has been done with the express permission of the Australian government.

China Spies

The UK also has its own current “China spy” story in the arrest of two men, one a parliamentary researcher, on suspicion of spying for Beijing. These sensational spy claims are helping, as the BBC so helpfully declared, to “turbo-charge” debate on the UK’s China policy.

These cases, and associated media coverage, serve to maintain and even raise the pressure on political leaders to crack down further on alleged Chinese influence.

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak is now moving from describing China as an “epoch-defining and systemic challenge” to calling it a “threat to our open and democratic way of life”.

Sensationalist reporting and minimal evidence have become a feature of the raising of the threat level perceived from China.

Indeed, a story can appear in The Guardian this month that uncritically reports the words of General Angus Campbell, the chief of the Australian Defence Force, and his warnings against “truth decay” in Western democracies due to lies told by China and Russia.

Neither Campbell nor the newspaper mentioned the litany of untruths told by the US, UK and Australia since the 11 September 2001 attacks and their impact on the public’s trust of institutions. The talk by General Campbell was sponsored by arms corporations-funded think-tank, ASPI.

Yellow Peril

This year has seen perhaps the most egregious example of Sinophobia in the Australian media since the grotesque anti-Chinese Yellow Peril articles in The Bulletin magazine in the colonial Australia of the 1880’s. Crime, immorality, cheap labour, and disease were then seen as a threat to a White Australia, laid at the foot of “The Mongolian Octopus”.

Journalism of a similar hue appeared as a three-day series called Red Alert in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age in March. The first instalment opened with the following: “Australia faces the threat of war with China within three years – and we’re not ready.”

This analysis, principally pushed by the pro-war think-tank, ASPI, and regularly alarmist journalists Peter Hartcher and Matthew Knott who wrote the stories, declared that China would try to invade Taiwan soon.

“The nature of the threat extends to the prospect of a full-scale war – and Australia would have to be involved”, it ominously intoned. “Australia faces the real prospect of a war with China within three years that could involve a direct attack on our mainland.”

The alarmist report relied on five “experts”, but failed to tell readers that four of them are directly connected to ASPI, as staff, a board member or contributor. Nowhere was the pro-war stance, foreign government funding, and weapons industry connections of ASPI mentioned.

It is perhaps surprising to see that, in the face of such reporting, reliable opinion polling shows the Australian public’s support for a US war against China is actually persistently dropping. 

The polling, largely ignored by the mainstream media, also shows the Australian public has tired of involvement in aimless deadly US wars, in places like Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

The rhetorical tone of the special report was so hysterical that it brought a blistering response from former Australian prime minister Paul Keating (who led the country between 1991 and 1996). He wrote that it was “the most egregious and provocative news presentation of any newspaper I have witnessed in over 50 years of active public life”.

The AUKUS-led policy, signed up to by the former Australian Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison, and pushed hard by the current Labor prime minister Anthony Albanese, brought The Economist to warn in August that, “If America ever goes to war with China, American officials say the Aussies would be the likeliest allies to be fighting with them.”

The reality is that both Britain and Australia are vying to be America’s ‘best friend’ and both are likely to be its close allies in any future war against Beijing.

As the US begins clearing jungles across the Pacific to support new air bases to threaten China, both Australia and, apparently, Britain, are willingly giving up their sovereignty to join Washington in a potentially perilous mission to militarily engage Beijing.

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Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist, film-maker, author of The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports The Technology Of Occupation Around The World and co-founder of Declassified Australia.

Peter Cronau is an award-winning investigative journalist, writer, and film-maker. He is co-editor of the recent book, A Secret Australia: Revealed by the WikiLeaks Exposés, and co- founder of Declassified Australia.

Featured image: China’s president Xi Jinping in London, 2015. (Photo: FCDO / Flickr)

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Tech companies are developing and deploying artificial intelligence (A.I.) systems that deceptively mimic human behavior to aggressively sell their products and services, dispense dubious medical and mental health advice, and trap people in psychologically dependent, potentially toxic relationships with machines, according to a new report from Public Citizen released today. A.I. that mimics human behavior poses a wide array of unprecedented risks that require immediate action from regulators as well as new laws and regulations, the report found.

“The tech sector is recklessly rolling out A.I. systems masquerading as people that can hijack our attention, exploit our trust, and manipulate our emotions,” said Rick Claypool, a researcher for Public Citizen and author of the report.“Already Big Businesses and bad actors can’t resist using these fake humans to manipulate consumers. Lawmakers and regulators must step up and confront this threat before it’s too late.”

Deceptive anthropomorphic design elements highlighted in the report are fooling people into falsely believing A.I. systems possess consciousness, understanding, and sentience. These features range from A.I. using first-person pronouns, such as “I” and “me,” to expressions of emotion and opinion, to human-like avatars with faces, limbs, and bodies. Even worse, A.I. can be combined with emerging and frequently undisclosed technologies – such as facial and emotional recognition software – to hypercharge its manipulative and commercial capabilities.

Companies are unleashing anthropomorphic A.I. on audiences of millions or billions of users with little or no testing, oversight, and accountability – including in places no one expects them, like the drive-thru at fast food restaurants, sometimes without any disclosure to customers.

A.I. comes with potentially dangerous built-in advantages that put users at risk. These include an exaggerated sense of its trustworthiness and authoritativeness, its ability to extend user attention and engagement, its collection of sensitive personal information that can be exploited to influence the user, and psychological entangling with users by emulating emotions.

The many studies cited in the report – including marketing, technology, psychological, and legal research – show that when A.I. possesses anthropomorphic traits, it compounds all these advantages, which businesses and bad actors are already exploiting.

These design features can be removed or minimized to discourage users from conflating A.I. systems with living, breathing people. For example, an A.I. chatbot can refer to its system in the third person (“this model”) rather than the first person (“I”). Instead, tech companies are deliberately maximizing all of these features to further their business goals and boost profits.

The report concludes with policy recommendations to address the dangers and risks, including:

1. Banning counterfeit humans in commercial transactions, both online and offline;
2. Restricting and regulating deceptive anthropomorphizing techniques;
3. Banning anthropomorphic A.I. from marketing to, targeting, or collecting data on kids;
4. Banning A.I. from exploiting psychological vulnerabilities and data on users;
5. Requiring prominent, robust, repeated reminders, disclaimers, and watermarks indicating that consumers are engaging with an A.I. A.I. systems deployed for persuasive purposes should be required to disclose their aims;
6. Monitoring and reporting of aggregate usage information;
7. High data security standards;
8. Rigorous testing to meet strict safety standards;
9. Special scrutiny and testing for all health-related A.I. systems – especially those intended for use by vulnerable populations, including children, older people, racial and ethnic minorities, psychologically vulnerable individuals, and LGBTQ+ individuals; and
10. Severe penalties for lawbreakers, including banning them from developing and deploying A.I. systems.

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Featured image: Sophia, First Robot Citizen at the AI for Good Global Summit 2018. (Licensed under CC BY 2.0)

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After weeks of clashes between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Arab tribesman aligned with Deir Ezzor Military Council (DEMC), the SDF has imposed a curfew following a resumption of fighting on Monday. These ethnic tensions are boiling over in eastern Syria’s Deir Ezzor province, illegally occupied by the US and its SDF partners, as the Arab majority resists Kurdish rule.

Syrian media and activists reported that the SDF imposed the indefinite measure across a handful of towns in Deir Ezzor including Ziban, located close to the border with Iraq. Arab gunmen took over several positions in Ziban on Monday, during which a number of SDF fighters were killed, according to the pan-Arab TV station Al Mayadeen.

The SDF issued a statement saying the gunmen entered Ziban while “under cover of random artillery shelling” coming from the province’s government controlled town of Mayadeen. In Deir Ezzor, Damascus controls the area west of the Euphrates River, while Washington and their SDF proxy occupy Deir Ezzor east of the river. The Kurdish-led forces have accused the Syrian government of allowing the Arab militiamen to cross the Euphrates River.

The statement also claimed the SDF assisted in the evacuation of civilians to safe areas, namely nearby villages. Kurdish forces were also said to have fled the area in Ziban as the fighting exacerbated.

Though Washington has backed some Sunni Arab groups such as the DEMC in the region, the US mostly relies on the SDF to control about a third of Syria along with most of the country’s oil and wheat resources. There are roughly 900 US troops and an undisclosed number of contractors embedded with the SDF.

As a result of the illegal occupation, the Kurds have dominated the area much to the disliking of the Arab population. The resisting tribesmen along with their supporters complain about the Kurdish authorities’ corruption, drug smuggling, misallocation of resources, as well as the Arab population’s impoverishment and political disenfranchisement.

Syrian journalist Ibrahim Muhammad has explained most people living in the province “categorically refuse to be ruled by the Kurds.” The fighting started late last month when the SDF arrested the leader of the DEMC, Abu Khawla. Since then, more than 100 people have been killed.

Robert Ford, the former US ambassador to Syria, has said this current violence should not have surprised policymakers. “Anyone who was watching the deteriorating situation in Deir Ezzor wouldn’t have been surprised by this,” Ford told Middle East Eye.

“Arab grievances against the SDF go back years. Instead of the US addressing those concerns and moving Kurds out of Deir Ezzor and bringing in local Arab leaders, it sat on its hands,” the erstwhile diplomat added.

The Islamic State took over large swathes of eastern Syria and western Iraq as a result of the Barack Obama administration’s failed regime change operation which saw the CIA arming and funding rebel groups including al Qaeda affiliates. The proxy war killed hundreds of thousands of people but ultimately failed in its attempt to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The terrorist group was all but destroyed by Damascus with help from its Russian and Iranian allies. Despite the claims of US officials that the occupation is meant to deter the re-emergence of the terrorist group, the American occupation is instead designedly depriving Syria of vital resources amid Washington’s economic war.

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Connor Freeman is the assistant editor and a writer at the Libertarian Institute, primarily covering foreign policy. He is a co-host on Conflicts of Interest. His writing has been featured in media outlets such as Antiwar.com and Counterpunch, as well as the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. He has also appeared on Liberty Weekly, Around the Empire, and Parallax Views. You can follow him on Twitter @FreemansMind96

Featured image is from TLI

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Russian high-precision attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure are already making Kiev’s domestic weapons production unviable. A local top official recently said that the Ukrainian defense industry is already fleeing abroad in order to try to escape the consequences of the fighting. With the constant Russian strikes, the industry is forced to look for new countries to continue its production of weapons to supply the neo-Nazi troops.

The information was confirmed by Aleksey Danilov, head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council. During an interview to Western media, Danilov stated that long-range attacks carried out by Russian troops forced Ukrainian authorities to transfer some strategic facilities outside the country’s territory. Among the main facilities are those focused on the production of missiles and other essential weapons.

“Unfortunately, Russia hit the place where these missiles were assembled (…) Now we have moved a certain part of the production outside our country”, he told journalists.

As expected, Danilov refused to give further details about the case, explaining that defense industry relocation “is a closed program, and no one will tell you what status it is in.” However, it is most likely that Ukrainian military factories are being built in nearby NATO countries, which enables the transport of equipment and the transit of Ukrainian professionals.

Danilov’s statements come in a context of constant high-precision Russian attacks against Ukrainian strategic facilities. In response to terrorist incursions against Crimea and other demilitarized regions, Russian armed forces launched a wave of high-precision attacks to destroy facilities used to produce and store weapons, ammunition and fuel. Moscow recently confirmed that, between September 17 and 23 alone, its forces conducted twelve successful high-precision strikes, using drones and missiles to hit several locations used by enemies to deploy military equipment. Apparently, the intensity of Russian operations is so high that it has become impossible for Kiev to continue producing missiles safely on its territory.

It is also necessary to emphasize how this statement by Danilov denotes a “desperation” on the part of Ukrainian officers to alleviate the effects of Russian military actions. Previously, Ukraine’s defense minister, Rustem Umerov, had said that “anything that can be produced locally must be produced locally,” rejecting the possibility of transferring the factories. So, in practice, the Ukrainians were forced to change their plans and take emergency measures to avoid a complete catastrophe in their defense industry.

In the interview, Danilov also shared some data about Ukrainian military industrial projects and showed what appeared to be an image of a long-range missile. Previously, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky stated that Kiev had managed to use a 700km missile. At the time Danilov commented on the case stating: “Sevastopol is waiting, Kamchatka is waiting, Kronstadt is waiting.”

Clearly, Zelensky’s aide suggested the possibility of Kiev launching attacks against Russia’s demilitarized territory. However, he “clarified” that Ukrainian forces do not plan to carry out raids against civilian areas, but stated that it is “necessary” to attack Russian military facilities, even if they are deep within the Federation’s territory.

“It is our job to hit with our own weapons the military facilities of the Russian Federation,” he said.

In fact, this “logic” used by Danilov is not only wrong but also dangerous for Ukraine and its partner countries. If military facilities are always excluded from protection against attacks, regardless of the territory where they are located, then nothing prevents Moscow from attacking, for example, the Ukrainian weapons factories that Danilov admits to be abroad. This is something the Russians tend to avoid as Moscow’s stance so far has been to prevent escalations of violence, but as Ukraine increases its provocations, the Russians will naturally intensify their responses.

At no time did Ukraine keep its word to avoid in-depth attacks on Russian civilian targets. Most of the Ukrainian incursions are merely terrorist and target regions without any military relevance, such as residential apartments and civilian buildings. Moscow has been effective in neutralizing these attacks using artillery and electronic warfare, which have reduced the effects of the raids and made it possible to avoid escalatory responses. However, this makes it clear how Danilov’s words about “attacking only military facilities” do not correspond to reality.

Obviously, the side most affected by any escalation would be Ukraine itself, which is already militarily weakened and has few resources to continue producing weapons and fighting. The Russians maintain control of the military situation in the conflict and can accelerate or slow down their steps towards victory at any time. Kiev, on the other hand, needs to gain time to try to reorganize itself to at least continue fighting and prolong the hostilities – since it is not allowed to surrender by Western powers. So, the most rational thing is to stop terrorist practices and avoid moves that will make Russian patience run out.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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Hungary’s patience with Ukraine is running out. Once again, Budapest claims that Kiev will face serious consequences if it does not immediately change its discriminatory and racist policies against the ethnic Hungarian people on Ukrainian territory. In fact, ethnic Hungarian citizens in Ukraine have been going through a process of cultural genocide similar to what Russians suffered in Donbass, which is why tensions between Hungary and Ukraine tend to grow more and more.

The “ultimatum” to Ukraine was made by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban during a speech at the parliament on August 25th. According to the official, there will be no support for Ukraine on any international issue until Kiev reverses racist policies affecting ethnic Hungarian citizens living in the country. Orban emphasized that it is necessary that all Hungarian rights be restored and fully guaranteed, and that the Ukrainian government must stop “tormenting” people of other ethnicities living in Ukraine.

“We will not support Ukraine on any issue in international life until it restores the laws that guaranteed the rights of Transcarpathian Hungarians, (…) for years [the Ukrainians] have been tormenting [the ethnic Hungarians]”, Orban said.

Although the Western mainstream media does not report the case, the situation of Hungarians in Ukraine is truly disastrous from a humanitarian point of view. Since 2017, cultural genocide policies have been implemented in regions with a Hungarian majority, such as Transcarpathia, in western Ukraine. The Ukrainian language has been mandatorily taught in schools, with the instructions in the native Hungarian language banned. In total, more than a hundred Hungarian schools have been closed in Ukraine since 2017. In official documents there is also the mandatory use of Ukrainian, severely harming the local people.

These measures have long been criticized by international human rights organizations. The European Council itself condemned the Ukrainian attitude. But since the beginning of the Russian special military operation, Kiev seems to have received a kind of “carte blanche” to commit any type of crime without disapproval from the collective West. And, as expected, the neo-Nazi regime took advantage of this situation to further tighten its policies of ethnic persecution.

The Kiev regime implemented a policy of forced recruitment focused on regions with non-Ukrainian majority. The Hungarians of Transcarpathia were the biggest victims of this process, being forcibly sent to the front lines, even without appropriate training and equipment. This was particularly intense during the brutal fighting that took place in the region of Artyomovsk (called “Bakhmut” by the Ukrainians).

Many ethnic Hungarians died during the so-called “Bakhmut meat grinder“, as Ukrainian military officers were sending citizens forcibly captured in Transcarpathia to the front. The objective was to save as many Ukrainian soldiers as possible, since they are considered racially “superior” by the neo-Nazi regime, keeping them in the rear, and eliminate citizens of other ethnicities during the intense fighting against the Russian armed forces. Thus, Ukrainian genocide policies were elevated from the cultural level to the level of physical elimination, violating an important redline in the relations between Kiev and Budapest.

Hungary is undoubtedly the NATO and EU country that has the most objections to supporting Ukraine. Budapest refuses to send weapons to the Kiev regime and also does not allow its territory to be used as a route for weapons to arrive in Ukraine. In addition to concerns about the safety of their people abroad, Hungary condemns the policies of religious persecution implemented by Ukrainians against the Orthodox Church. Since the protection of Christianity is an important soft power asset of the Orban government, supporting Zelensky seems unacceptable.

However, Hungary could be decisive regarding the future of Ukraine as Kiev obviously depends on the Hungarian vote to reach a consensus of approval on the Ukrainian candidacy for the EU and NATO. In this sense, even if there is a real willingness on the part of most members of these international organizations to welcome Ukraine, the Hungarian position will remain firm in vetoing the accession process as long as the government does not radically change its racist policies.

It is very difficult for Ukraine to obey the Hungarian ultimatum. The country has been governed since 2014 by a neo-Nazi junta that has racism as its state ideology. Russians are the biggest victims of this ideology, but not the only ones, as there is also strong persecution against the 156,000 Hungarians who live in the country. There is therefore no possibility for Kiev to change its policies unless it changes its own state ideology, which will only be possible with the dissolution of the Maidan junta.

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Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

Featured image is from williamengdahl.com

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First published on January 20, 2022. Minor revisions on January, 22,  2022

 

Introduction

Most analysts and historians fail to understand that starting in the early 1980s, China had become a full fledged capitalist country. There are powerful US business interests including Big Pharma, major hi-tech companies, banking institutions which are firmly entrenched inside China. 

The United States has faithful “allies” within China’s business establishment as well as among academics, scientists, medical doctors who tend to be “pro-American”.

China’s Academy of Sciences (中国科学院), China’s business schools (e.g. Beijing, Dalian, Guangzhou) going back to the early 1980s have ties with Ivy League institutions. Many of them have joint MBA programs, e.g. Shanghai’s  Fudan University School of Management with MIT. Stanford has a campus in China as well an agreement with Beijing University, etc.  

Another example is Tsinghua University’s School of Journalism’s graduate program which is funded by Bloomberg together with several Wall Street banking institutions.

The interests of powerful Chinese business groups (specifically within the pharmaceutical industry) including China’s billionaires (Forbes List 2022, Forbes New Billionaires) are represented at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership.

Ironically, these US-China “business alliances” are in starch contrast to the ongoing US-NATO threats directed against the People’s Republic of China, not to mention the various US sponsored acts of destabilization of China’s national economy. 

Needless to say there are deep divisions within the CCP leadership. 

China and the Geopolitical Chessboard

While China currently plays an important and positive balancing role on the geopolitical chessboard, it is not a “socialist” Nation State. 

It is important that people on the Left who describe China as a socialist country take cognizance of the oppressive nature of China’s cheap labour export economy, established in the late 1970s at the outset of the post-Mao Era, in liaison with their US trading and Wall Street investment partners. 

Currently, more than one third of the PRC’s labour force are seasonal rural migrant workers who are used as cheap labour in China’s flourishing low wage export economy.

This process of internal migrant labor unfolded with the abolition of the People’s Commune in the 1983 Constitution, which was conducive to the demise of communal ownership coupled with the privatization of agricultural land.

Unlimited Reserves of Cheap Labor: 292 Million Internal Migrant Workers

China has currently, according to official figures 292 million (2021) internal migrant workers employed in the cheap labor export economy, construction and infrastructure projects as well as in the urban services economy. 275 million (2015), 287 million (2017)

According to the Financial Times 2015:

About 275 million [2015], or more than a third of China’s entire labour force, are migrant workers from the countryside, without the right to settle permanently or access the education, pensions or healthcare provided to those with hereditary “urban” status.

These workers –who are largely although not exclusively from rural areas and townships– constitute more than a third of the PRC’s labor force. (See the definition  and details concerning the huku passport)

According to official statistics there is an  estimated 292 million rural migrant workers in China in 2021, comprising more than one-third of the entire working population. (official statistics)

 

Source clb.org.hk

A formidable labor force almost the size of the population of the US: 332,403,650 (2022)

China’s 292 million migrant workers (latest 2021 data) also constitute the driving force behind the development of infrastructure, roads and transport corridors not to mention the PRC’s “Belt and Road” Eurasian trade and investment initiatives.

Wages

The average monthly wage of seasonal migrant workers including overtime in 2021 based on (reported and often unreliable and inflated) official statistics was 4,432 RMB (equivalent to US$685).

The official work week without overtime is 44 hours; with overtime it can extend to 11-12 hours a day, 6 days a week.

“A survey of 1,518 migrant workers in 2013 revealed that they spent on average 11 hours at work each day”.

Payment in manufacturing is often on a piece rate basis.

The highest-paid sectors for migrant workers in 2021 were transport and logistics (5,151 yuan per month) and construction (5,141 yuan per month), while those employed in hotel and catering services, and household services, repairs, etc., were the lowest paid, earning just over 3,710 yuan per month

The “996 Work Culture”: 996工作制

What tends to prevail in numerous Chinese mega industrial sweatshops and hi tech assembly lines is the so-called “996 Work Culture” (996工作制) namely working from 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week, 72 hours a week. (almost 300 hours a month) often imposed without overtime pay. A recent study entitled:

“How managers use culture and controls to impose a ‘996’ work regime in China that constitutes modern slavery” by Jenny Jing Wang, 23 July 2020, describes the imposition of 996工作制:

“… as an unrestricted global capitalism and a Confucian culture of hierarchy and obedience … The cases cited involve semi-structured interviews with 11 managers and 19 workers working in the hospitality and manufacturing sectors. The interviews are analysed to determine how managers use controls to exploit power/distance, high levels of insecurity, and unenforced labour rights to impose harsh working conditions. (emphasis added)

Minimum Wages

Currently, Shanghai has the highest monthly minimum wage among 31 provinces (RMB 2,590/US$400 per month) and Beijing has the highest hourly minimum wage (RMB 25.3/US$3.9 per hour). Eight regions – Shanghai, Guangdong, Beijing, Tianjin, Jiangsu, Shandong, Hubei, and Zhejiang – have surpassed the RMB 2,000 (US$308) mark in their monthly minimum wage standards. [does not apply to seasonal migrant workers]

At the lower end of the wage spectrum, Liaoning’s minimum wage level (RMB 1,420/US$224 per month) is slightly higher than that in Anhui (RMB 1,340/US$212 per month).

Social Engineering and the Derogation of Workers Rights. China’s Mega Cheap Labor Factories 

See Video below: The so-called largest factory in the World (2009) EUPA is privately owned.

“EUPA runs on Human Sweat Alone”

It produces “Made in China” for export on behalf of numerous foreign businesses. It is located in the Xiamen Special Economic Zone in Fujian Province.

The following 2009 documentary video describes a tendency towards a highly regulated and oppressive social fabric which serves the development of the low wage (profit driven) industrial export economy.

The Confucian ethics of obedience and social subordination of the labor force is the driving force.

Socialists and progressives must acknowledge the nature of this process. China is not a socialist country. Quite the opposite. It is a low wage economy (See Karl Marx on relative and absolute surplus value, wages and the length of the working day, Capital (Book I, Parts IV- VI)

 

Note: the yellow uniform coincides with the color of the factory. The documentary points to an official 40 hour week and salaries (2009) varying from $90 to $300 dollars a month. These official figures do not include overtime.

More than ten years later, this “mega factory structure” has become a model of Chinese industrial capitalism in major manufacturing areas, including the Southern Guangdong Manufacturing Base, the Greater Shanghai region and Yangtze Delta (140 million people) and the Chongqing mega-industrial region located in Sichuan which has a population in excess of 30 million people.

History of China’s Cheap Labor Economy

In 1978, an “Open Door Policy” was put forth by Deng Xiaoping alongside the launching of China’s Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in Shenzhen and Xiamen and subsequently in major industrial cities.

These early reforms constitute the backbone of China’s cheap labor export economy.

Moreover, while contributing to impoverishing the Chinese people (particularly in rural areas), a large share of the profits of this capitalist growth process has been transferred via international commodity trade to China’s Western business partners.

It is worth noting, however, that the “Open Door” concept was first coined by US Secretary of State John Hay in 1899, as part of a US colonial agenda which consisted in obliging China to open its door to trade “on an equal basis” with the colonial powers.

Moreover, since the abolition of the People’s Commune (1983), agricultural land has in large part been privatized.

People in rural areas largely rely on remittances from migrant employment in the cities and “special economic zones” in manufacturing and construction.

The Socialist Mainstream has casually dismissed to even acknowledge the facts pertaining to land concentration, ownership and the rise of social inequality and the development of a buoyant luxury goods sector for a small privileged social minority.

The Restoration of Capitalism 

I will conclude on a personal note.

In 1981-82, based at the University of Hong Kong, Centre for Asian Studies (CAS), I started my research on the process of capitalist restoration in China.  This research –which extended over a period of 4 years–  included fieldwork in several regions of China (1981-83) focussing on economic and social reforms, analysis of the defunct People’s Commune (abolished in 1983) and the development of (state supported) privately owned capitalist industry including the cheap labor export economy.

I started reviewing Chinese economic history including the structures of the factory system prior to 1949, the development of the treaty ports established in the wake of the Opium wars (1842) and came to the realization that what was being reinstated in terms of the special economic zones, the open door policy had been influenced by the history of the treaty ports, which granted extraterritorial rights to Britain, France, Germany, the US, Russia and Japan.

I completed the manuscript of my book entitled “Towards Capitalist Restoration? Chinese Socialism after Mao” in 1984.

It was  casually turned down by the Left: “We unfortunately have no market for a book on this subject”.

The book was published by Macmillan in 1986. Click to download in pdf  (free of charge. very slow due to size of file)

About the Author

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research.

He has undertaken field research in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific and has written extensively on the economies of developing countries with a focus on poverty and social inequality. He has also undertaken research in Health Economics (UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC),  UNFPA, CIDA, WHO, Government of Venezuela, John Hopkins International Journal of Health Services (1979, 1983)

He is the author of 13 books including The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003), America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005),  The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015).

He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica.  His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. In 2014, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit of the Republic of Serbia for his writings on NATO’s war of aggression against Yugoslavia. He can be reached at [email protected]

See Michel Chossudovsky, Biographical Note

Michel Chossudovsky’s Articles on Global Research

 

A paciência da Hungria com a Ucrânia está a esgotar-se. Mais uma vez, Budapeste afirma que Kiev enfrentará graves consequências se não alterar imediatamente as suas políticas discriminatórias e racistas contra o povo de etnia húngara em território ucraniano. Na verdade, os cidadãos de etnia húngara na Ucrânia têm atravessado um processo de genocídio cultural semelhante ao que os russos sofreram no Donbass, razão pela qual as tensões entre a Hungria e a Ucrânia tendem a crescer cada vez mais.

O “ultimato” à Ucrânia foi feito pelo primeiro-ministro húngaro, Viktor Orban, durante um discurso no parlamento em 25 de agosto. Segundo ele, não haverá apoio à Ucrânia em qualquer questão internacional até que Kiev reverta as políticas racistas que afetam os cidadãos de etnia húngara que vivem no país. Orban enfatizou que é necessário que todos os direitos húngaros sejam restaurados e totalmente garantidos, e que o governo ucraniano deve parar de “atormentar” pessoas de outras etnias que vivem na Ucrânia.

“Não apoiaremos a Ucrânia em qualquer questão da vida internacional até que ela restaure as leis que garantiam os direitos dos húngaros da Transcarpátia, (…) durante anos [os ucranianos] têm atormentado [os húngaros]”, disse Orban.

Embora os principais meios de comunicação ocidentais não noticiem o caso, a situação dos húngaros na Ucrânia é verdadeiramente desastrosa do ponto de vista humanitário. Desde 2017, políticas de genocídio cultural têm sido implementadas em regiões de maioria húngara, como a Transcarpática, no oeste da Ucrânia. A língua ucraniana tem sido ensinada obrigatoriamente nas escolas, sendo proibidas as instruções na língua nativa húngara. No total, mais de uma centena de escolas húngaras foram fechadas na Ucrânia desde 2017. Nos documentos oficiais há também a obrigatoriedade do uso do ucraniano, prejudicando gravemente a população local.

Estas medidas têm sido criticadas há muito tempo por organizações internacionais de direitos humanos. O próprio Conselho Europeu condenou a atitude ucraniana. Mas desde o início da operação militar especial russa, Kiev parece ter recebido uma espécie de “carta branca” para cometer qualquer tipo de crime sem a desaprovação coletiva do Ocidente. E, como esperado, o regime neonazista aproveitou esta situação para endurecer ainda mais as suas políticas de perseguição étnica.

O regime de Kiev implementou uma política de recrutamento forçado centrada nas regiões de maioria não ucraniana. Os húngaros da Transcarpátia foram as maiores vítimas deste processo, sendo enviados à força para a linha da frente, mesmo sem treinamento e equipamento adequados. Isto foi intenso durante os combates brutais que ocorreram na região de Artyomovsk (chamada de “Bakhmut” pelos ucranianos).

Muitos húngaros étnicos morreram durante o chamado “moedor de carne de Bakhmut”, enquanto oficiais militares ucranianos enviavam cidadãos capturados à força na Transcarpátia para a frente. O objetivo era salvar o maior número possível de soldados ucranianos, uma vez que são considerados racialmente “superiores” pelo regime neonazista, mantendo-os na retaguarda, e eliminar cidadãos de outras etnias durante os intensos combates contra as forças armadas russas. Assim, as políticas de genocídio ucraniano foram elevadas do nível cultural para o nível de eliminação física, violando uma importante linha vermelha nas relações entre Kiev e Budapeste.

A Hungria é sem dúvida o país da OTAN e da UE que tem mais objeções ao apoio à Ucrânia. Budapeste recusa enviar armas ao regime de Kiev e também não permite que o seu território seja usado como rota para a chegada de armas à Ucrânia. Além das preocupações com a segurança do seu povo no estrangeiro, a Hungria condena as políticas de perseguição religiosa implementadas pelos ucranianos contra a Igreja Ortodoxa. Dado que a proteção do Cristianismo é um importante ativo de soft power do governo Orban, apoiar Zelensky parece inaceitável.

No entanto, a Hungria poderá ser decisiva em relação ao futuro da Ucrânia, já que Kiev depende obviamente do voto húngaro para chegar a um consenso de aprovação sobre a candidatura ucraniana à UE e à OTAN. Neste sentido, mesmo que exista uma vontade real por parte da maioria dos membros destas organizações internacionais em acolher a Ucrânia, a posição húngara permanecerá firme em vetar o processo de adesão enquanto o governo não mudar radicalmente as suas políticas racistas.

É muito difícil para a Ucrânia obedecer ao ultimato húngaro. O país é governado desde 2014 por uma junta neonazista que tem o racismo como ideologia de estado. Os russos são as maiores vítimas desta ideologia, mas não as únicas, pois há também uma forte perseguição contra os 156 mil húngaros que vivem no país. Não há, portanto, qualquer possibilidade de Kiev mudar as suas políticas, a menos que mude a sua própria ideologia de estado, o que só será possível com a dissolução da junta de Maidan.

Lucas Leiroz De Almeida

 

 

 

Article original en anglais : Hungarian patience with Ukraine running out, InfoBrics, 27 de Setembro de 2023

Lucas Leiroz, jornalista, pesquisador do Centro de Estudos Geoestratégicos, consultor geopolítico.

Você pode seguir Lucas Leiroz em: https://t.me/lucasleiroz e https://twitter.com/leiroz_lucas

 

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

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When I joined the CIA in January 1990, I did it to serve my country and to see the world. I believed at the time that we were the “good guys.” I believed that the United States was a force for good around the world. I wanted to put my degrees—in Middle Eastern Studies/Islamic Theology and Legislative Affairs/Policy Analysis—to good use. Seven years after joining the CIA, I made a move to counterterrorism operations to stave off boredom. I still believed we were the good guys, and I wanted to help keep Americans safe. My whole world, like the worlds of all Americans, changed dramatically and permanently on September 11, 2001. Within months of the attacks, I found myself heading to Pakistan as the chief of CIA counterterrorism operations in Pakistan.  

Almost immediately, my team began capturing al-Qaeda fighters at safehouses all around Pakistan. In late March, 2002, we hit the jackpot with the capture of Abu Zubaydah and dozens of other fighters, including two who commanded al-Qaeda’s training camps in southern Afghanistan. And by the end of the month, my Pakistani colleagues told me that the local jail, where we were temporarily holding the men we had captured, was full. They had to be moved somewhere. I called the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and said that the Pakistanis wanted our prisoners out of their jail. Where should I send them?

The response was quick. Put them on a plane and send them to Guantanamo. “Guantanamo, Cuba?” I asked. “Why in the world would we send them to Cuba?” My interlocutor explained what, at the time, sounded like it had been well thought out. “We’re going to hold them at the U.S. base in Guantanamo for two or three weeks until we can identify which federal district court they’ll be tried in. It’ll be Boston, New York, Washington, or the Eastern District of Virginia.”  

That made perfect sense to me. We were a nation of laws. And we were going to show the world what the rule of law looked like. These men, who had murdered 3,000 people on that awful day, would go on trial for their crimes. I called my contact in the U.S.  Air Force, made the arrangements for the flights, and loaded my handcuffed and shackled prisoners for the trip. I never saw any of them again.

The problem is that our country’s leaders, whether they were at the White House, the Justice Department, or the CIA, never really intended any of these men to face trial in a court of law, being judged by a jury of their peers. The fix was in from the beginning.  

Just a month after the September 11 attacks, the CIA leadership gathered its army of lawyers and black ops people and came up with a plan to legalize torture. This was despite the fact that torture has long been patently illegal in the United States. But it didn’t matter. There was no thought to the long term. There was no worry about what would happen if prisoners were tortured and then actually did have to go on trial. Nothing they said would be admissible. But nobody cared.  

On August 2, 2002, CIA officers and contractors began torturing Abu Zubaydah at a secret prison. That torture was well-documented in the Senate Torture Report, or rather, in the heavily-redacted Executive Summary of the Senate Torture Report. The report itself will likely never be released. But even in its redacted version, and with comprehensive footnotes, it paints a horrifying picture of what the CIA did to its prisoners. That torture, that policy, has come back to haunt the CIA.

Military trials have always moved at a glacial pace at the U.S. base at Guantanamo, Cuba, where the United States has kept a total of roughly 780 prisoners from the so-called “War on Terror” since early 2002. That number is down to a few dozen of what the government calls the “worst of the worst.” Only a small handful are cleared for eventual release, pending the identification of a country willing to take them. The rest will likely never be released.

The problem with charging a defendant at Guantanamo has proven to be several-fold. First, much of the evidence that the Pentagon wants to use against the likes of alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, accused al-Qaeda facilitator Abu Zubaydah, accused September 11 facilitator Ramzi bin al-Shibh and others was collected by CIA officers and contractors through the use of torture. That in and of itself essentially doomed the cases from the start. 

None of that information, no matter how damning it may be, can be used against them. Even the purported “worst of the worst” have constitutional protections, whether we like it or not. Second, what information that remains against each defendant is generally classified—usually at a very high level—and the CIA is unwilling to declassify it, even for a trial. Consequently, no trials progress except at the slowest possible bureaucratic pace. And if you’re the CIA, why would you care if trials proceed? Nobody’s going anywhere, whether they do or not.

With that said, the Pentagon is still willing to go through the motions. In 2006, the Pentagon initiated a program whereby law enforcement officers tried to get Guantanamo defendants to make voluntary confessions independent of what they had told their CIA torturers. That way, the torture couldn’t be used as a defense. But that effort failed. 

In 2007, a military judge threw out a confession that these officers obtained from Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi prisoner who has been accused of being the mastermind behind the USS Cole bombing, in which 17 American sailors were killed. The Pentagon argued that the officers made clear to Nashiri that his statement was completely voluntary. But the judge held that after four years in secret CIA prisons, where Nashiri was tortured mercilessly, “any resistance the accused might have been inclined to put up when asked to incriminate himself was intentionally and literally beaten out of him years before.”  

This is the same reason that Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, Abu Zubaydah, and others have not been tried, despite having been in U.S. custody for more than 20 years. And to make matters worse, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, accused of being one of the most dangerous masterminds of the September 11 attacks, last week was declared mentally unfit to stand trial. Relentless CIA torture at black sites around the world and at Guantanamo, has caused “psychosis and post-traumatic stress disorder” so severe that he is not only unable to participate in his own defense, but he is so insane that he cannot even enter a plea and understand what he is doing. Defense attorneys said in court last week that the only hope of making bin al-Shibh sane enough to be tried would be to provide him with post-trauma psychological care and to release him from military confinement. That will never ever happen.

Bin al-Shibh’s attorneys say that in the four years between when he was captured by the CIA in 2002 and his transfer to Guantanamo in 2006, their client “went insane as a result of what the Agency called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’ that included sleep deprivation, waterboarding, and beatings.” Bin al-Shibh ranted incoherently during a court hearing in 2008, and his mental state has been an issue ever since.

Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, and another accused September 11 conspirator, has had a similar experience. Like his co-defendants, Baluchi, who also goes by the name Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, is facing the death penalty, if he can ever get a trial.  But he, too, was the victim of CIA torture. A 2008 report by the CIA Inspector General, declassified and released in early 2023, found that Baluchi had been used as a “living prop” to teach CIA trainee interrogators, who lined up to take turns knocking his head against a wall, leaving him with permanent brain damage. The report also said that in 2018, Baluchi was given an MRI and examined by a neuropsychologist, who found “brain abnormalities consistent with traumatic brain injury, and moderate-to-severe brain damage.” Like bin al-Shibh, Baluchi is unable to participate in his own defense.  

All Americans should know about these recent developments. All Americans should understand that the purpose of trials would be to expose the truth. We all have a right to know what happened to us on September 11. Without that information, conspiracies run wild. Without that information, there is no accountability. We have a right to know about the planning for the attacks and about what al-Qaeda did to us. But at the same time, we have a right to know what the official government response was. Why did torture suddenly become acceptable? Who was responsible for it? And why weren’t they punished for obvious crimes against humanity?

In the end, I was the only person associated with the CIA’s torture program who was prosecuted and imprisoned. I never tortured anybody. But I was charged with five felonies, including three counts of espionage, for telling ABC News and the New York Times that the CIA was torturing its prisoners, that torture was official U.S. government policy, and that the policy had been approved by the president himself. I served 23 months in a federal prison. It was worth every minute.

There is certainly no easy fix to this situation. The New York Times reported in March 2022 that prosecutors had opened talks with attorneys representing Khalid Shaikh Muhammad and four co-defendants to negotiate a plea agreement that would drop the death penalty in exchange for sentences of life without parole and promises that the men would be allowed to remain in Guantanamo, rather than to be transferred to a Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, where prisoners are held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. Defense attorneys also said the men vastly prefer the weather of eastern Cuba to the snows of Colorado. The Times notes that such a deal would infuriate death penalty advocates among the families of the victims of the September 11 attacks.  

I’m sure that’s true, and I’m sorry if their feelings would be hurt by such a decision. But as angry as they might be at the likes of Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, and the others, they should be at least as angry with the likes of former CIA Director George Tenet, former CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin, former CIA Deputy Director for Operations Jose Rodriguez, former CIA Executive Director John Brennan, and CIA contract psychologist and torture program creators James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, all of whom were the godfathers of the torture program.  

They should be just as angry with the Justice Department attorneys John Yoo and Jay Bybee, who did intellectual handstands to convince themselves that the torture program was somehow legal. And let’s not forget that the buck has to stop somewhere. We also should blame George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. This cast of characters weakened our democracy by pretending that the Constitution and the rule of law didn’t exist. Their irresponsibility, childish emotion, and willingness to commit crimes against humanity guaranteed that the men who likely committed the worst ever crime against Americans will never be fully and legally punished. It’s up to us to make sure that future generations know that.

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John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act—a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration’s torture program.

Featured image: Picture from Abu Graib. (Source: ScheerPost)

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Calls have grown online for Justin Trudeau to resign as social media users argue House Speaker Anthony Rota “took the fall” to “save” the Canadian Prime Minister after a Ukrainian Nazi was given a standing ovation in parliament.

Former speaker Anthony Rota’s resigned on Tuesday less than a week after he praised a Ukrainian man who served in a Nazi unit during World War Two.

Mr Rota had previously praised 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka as a “Ukrainian hero” while recognising a number of Ukrainian-Canadians during a parliamentary meeting on Friday.

The group was given a standing ovation in parliament during a visit from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Mr Rota apologised for the incident after a Jewish human rights group found the 98-year-old served as a member of the Waffen-SS “Galicia” Division or the SS 14th Waffen Division.

 

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Featured image: Anthony Rota (Source / Photo by Dati Bendo)

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One of the cruelest things about being injured by a pharmaceutical is the degree to which doctors will deny the idea that the injury happened (as acknowledging it requires them to accept the shortcomings of the medical model they’ve invested their lives into).

This denial is known as medical gaslighting and it is often so powerful that friends and family members of the patient will adopt the reality asserted by those doctors and likewise gaslight the injured patient.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen this tragedy transpire in my immediate circle and one of my missions here has been to bring awareness to medical gaslighting and explain why it always happens (i.e., it was discussed in detail here).

I mention all of that because I recently saw a story that was shared by Pierre Kory on Twitter and realized it touched upon many of the reasons why I’ve invested myself into writing here [along with one of the more unique symptoms of COVID vaccine injuries]:

A hiking buddy of mine who had noticeably and suddenly stopped doing the more strenuous 14,000ft hikes a couple of years ago called me and made a confession:

He got myocarditis from his second mRNA shot. Listening to him describing being alone on a trail run and suddenly having chest pains and trouble breathing was horrifying. He was afraid he was going to die alone. He’s a marathoner and highly active, in his mid 30s.

The worst part: He was afraid to tell me or anyone in his friend group.

His literal quote:

“I saw how Oz [his best friend] and especially his fiance [a med school graduate in residency who is super attached to the establishment covid narrative] were talking about the antivaxxers, and I felt like if I talked about it with any of them, I would have hurt Oz’s relationship. I also felt like Kristen [a mutual friend of ours] would have judged me and stopped hanging out. I just kept it quiet. But yeah man, I’m still having a hard time with the 14ers, and my run times are all way down.”

This is a photo of him (on the left, not showing his face out of respect for his privacy) on our last hike where we were only at 10,000ft altitude, and at the time I had noticed he was struggling, but when we asked him about it, he said he was “hungover”. He wasn’t. It was about 10 month after the myocarditis, and he was hiding it from us.

Self-censorship is perhaps the most horrifying aspect of this. None of us should find out years later that our friends had to be hospitalized. The fact that he felt he had to hide it is horrifying.

He is an incredibly smart and driven guy, and he bluntly told me that he “knows, deep down, that if I said anything about this publicly, I’d be flushing my career down the toilet. I work in the software industry in Boulder. I know what will happen if I say something.”

When I told him that I believed him, and told him about my mother-in-law and my neighbor, he obviously felt a huge sense of relief. He was afraid that I was going to judge him for the crime of telling me about a medical side-effect. Ironically, his first job out of college was working for a pharma company, specifically on a new statin.

His description of the science on statins, and the things they were and were not allowed to study on statins, was horrifying. His exact words, which echoed what I’ve heard @BretWeinstein say:

“Working there, the entire culture is so messed up man. Like, the way they think is ‘we’re going to market this, now you go and make sure we can get it approved, and it was obvious that without studying anything, they already were making it clear that we WILL get it approved, and your job is to make sure you design the studies to make that happen.’ Dude, they don’t care about people at all. It’s just numbers to them.”

What have we done? There needs to be a reckoning for the regulatory capture of the CDC/FDA, and the current administration’s obviously political taint to the approval process.

The current booster that the US is pushing on the age group 6 months and up is only approved for those over 65 in the UK and Europe. There is no scientific explanation for this discrepancy. There is something wrong. (emphasis added)

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The verbal battle for Palestine erupted once again during the opening session of the UN General Assembly, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presenting his skewed version of the current situation and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas describing the reality.

Once again, Netanyahu projected an image to impress the few in the vast auditorium who were prepared to listen to him.

In 2012, he presented a cartoon of a bomb to justify military action against Iran’s civilian nuclear programme. He claims Iran intends to build an atomic bomb to drop on Israel. He adopted this ploy to instruct ignorant US citizens to adopt aggressive lines toward Iran and exert pressure on the then Obama administration to follow his lead.

This did not impress Obama administration officials who were negotiating with Iran on a deal for limiting its nuclear programme in exchange for lifting punitive sanctions. The agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, was signed in mid-2015 and implemented in January 2016. Iran complied fully with the terms of the JCPOA and derived some benefit from sanctions relief until Israel’s pal and patron Donald Trump exited the JCPOA in May 2018. This has given Netanyahu no end of opportunities to castigate Iran, kill its scientists, and threaten war. Tehran has not obliged Netanyahu by drawing up plans for a nuclear bomb and has repeatedly urged the Biden administration to restart negotiations on US re-entry to the JCOPA.

This time, Netanyahu presented a fantasy map of Israel which included in its territory 1967 occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

Make no mistake, this is the map Israel intends to impose on the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. Israel has already illegally annexed East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians demand for their state, and is in the process of ingesting the West Bank.

It is interesting that in his map he included Gaza, which Israel controls from land, sea, and air but does not seek to possess through colonisation.

It is unclear how Netanyahu and his right-wing extremist coalition partners plan to deal with the 3 million Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank or the 2.2 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza, which Israeli colonialists have already annexed in their minds. For Israeli imperialists, Palestinians simply are an inconvenience which they must remedy by emptying Palestine of its natives. They have not obliged.

In his address, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reminded the world that Palestinians are not inconvenient nobodies but a people who cannot be denied their identity, history and homeland. He warned that there will be no peace in this region until and unless Palestinians are granted their “full, legitimate national rights”. He did not display a cartoon or a map. Instead, he called upon the UN to convene an international peace conference to create a Palestinian state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza although claimed by Netanyahu on behalf of Israel. Abbas said this could be the “last opportunity to salvage the two-state solution” which has been adopted and legitimised by the international community.

He also demanded the UN to provide protection for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. They suffer from constant raids by the Israeli armed forces and attacks by Israeli colonists. At least 222 Palestinians have been killed this year while 31 Israelis and visitors have been killed in Israel. He complained that Israel’s actions take place ” in full view of the world, and without any deterrence, punishment, or accountability, and the leaders and ministers of [Netanyahu’s] government have even been bragging about their apartheid policies”. Apartheid being banned by the UN.

He pointed out that Israel should be expelled from the UN as Israel was admitted on condition that it would implement two General Assembly resolutions. The November 1947 resolution for the partition of Palestine which gave Israel 55 per cent of the country and the Palestinians 45 per cent although they accounted for two-thirds of its inhabitants at the time. During its 1948 war of establishment Israel conquered 78 per cent of Palestine and was not told by the UN to retreat to the areas allocated to Israel by the partition plan.

The second was the resolution adopted that December which called on Israel to permit the return of Palestinian refugees to their home cities, towns and villages “at the earliest practicable date” and to pay compensation for their losses. 

For Israel there was no “practicable date” for repatriation and Israel was not compelled to pay compensation. Instead, Israel was allowed to get away with permanent ethnic cleansing and with bulldozing 530 Palestinian villages. Since Israel’s establishment in 1948, Israel has violated far more UN resolutions than all other nations combined. Tolerated by the West whatever it does, Israel is never held accountable for its actions.

Other states are promptly held accountable when they commit aggression or a breach of international law. Take the example of Iraq which invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Four days later, the UN Security Council clamped a stiff sanctions regime on Iraq and called for the use of “all necessary means” if Iraq did not withdraw from Kuwait by January 15, 1991. Sanctions remained in force until the US illegally committed aggression by invading Iraq in 2003 without UN Security Council authorisation.

On February 27, 2022, three days after Russia invaded Ukraine, the UN Security Council, incapacitated by Russia’s veto, called an emergency General Assembly session for the 28th to deal with this violation of international law.

On March 2nd, the Assembly adopted a resolution entitled “Aggression against Ukraine”, which deplored the invasion and demanded full Russian withdrawal from Ukraine.

Sanctions were imposed on the 21st before Russian troops entered Ukraine. Double standards should have no place in international relations if the UN Charter and respect for the rule of law are observed.

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After the division of Macedonia in 1913 (according to the Bucharest Peace Treaty) neither Serbia, Bulgaria nor Greece recognized the existence of a Macedonian ethnolinguistic nation and, therefore, an assimilation policy of Macedonia’s Slavs was carried out by the state’s authorities of all those three countries.

Greece referred to Aegean Slavo-Macedonians as Slavophone Greeks or Macedoslavs (the region was and is today officially called “North Greece”), Serbia referred to Vardar Slavo-Macedonians as Serbs from “South Serbia” while for Bulgaria Pirin Slavo-Macedonians were Bulgarians.

Map Prior to World War I (1912)

Contemporary Map: Republic of North Macedonia and Greek region of Macedonia

When WWI started in 1914, Bulgaria sided with the Central Powers and in the fall of 1915 occupied Serbia’s part of Macedonia.[i] Vardar Macedonia was under Bulgaria’s occupation, together with East Serbia, until the fall of 1918 experiencing a full-scale brutal policy of Bulgarization and de-Serbization.

Nevertheless, with the defeat of Central Powers at the end of 1918, the 1913 partition of historical-geographic Macedonia was once again confirmed by the post-war peace treaties with one difference that Vardar Macedonia became after December 1^st, 1918, incorporated into the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed in 1929 into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia).[ii]

In the interwar period, a policy of assimilation of Macedonia’s Slavs continued by using different techniques and methods. For instance, in Greece, all Slavic personal and place names were Hellenized, and pieces of evidence of Slavic literacy were in many cases removed or destroyed.

In addition, in the 1920s, population exchanges took place between Greece and Bulgaria and Greece and Turkey. For instance, “over 1,200,000 Greeks left Turkey [from Asia Minor] of whom some 540,000 settled in Greek Macedonia along with approximately 100,000 more Greek refugees who settled there before 1920“.[iii]

Those Greek refugees who were transferred to Aegean Macedonia changed the ethnic breakdown of this region in favor of Hellenization and de-Slavization. Under the Ioannis Metaxas’ dictatorship (1936−1941)[iv] the position of all minorities in Greece worsened as the Greek government viewed the minorities as a danger to the state’s security but the repression of Slavic speakers in Greece was particularly severe. People were persecuted for expressing their national identity, like speaking their Slavic language.[v]

Over 5,000 Slavic speakers were interned from the border regions with the Kingdom of Yugoslavia[vi] and night schools served to teach adult Slavic speakers the Greek language.[vii] As a consequence, the number of people in Greek Macedonia with a sense of a Greek national identity increased substantially up to WWII. 

Despite the assimilation efforts, attempts were made to change the situation and create an independent Macedonia. In 1925, Bulgaria’s-sponsored United Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) was founded in Vienna with the focal political task of freeing all alleged Macedonian territories and creating an independent Macedonian state that would later become united with Bulgaria.

Furthermore, in 1935 in Vardar Macedonia, a Macedonian National Movement organization (MANAPO) was created and in 1940 some democratic groups in Macedonia defined a political program for the national and social liberation of the country. In 1941, however, the Vardar and Aegean Macedonia were again occupied by Bulgaria, now a member of the Axis Powers. During WWII, Yugoslav communists established the Anti-Fascist Assembly of National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM), with the “unification of all Macedonian people” as its explicit goal.[viii]

Even though the Yugoslav partisan movement was not able to achieve this goal during the war, it succeeded in laying the foundation for the Yugoslav People’s Republic of Macedonia.[ix] In August 1944 Tito and the leaders of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) established the People’s Republic of Macedonia as a member of the new Yugoslav federation recognizing, therefore, the existence of a Macedonian nation and providing, at the same time, Yugoslav Macedonians with a national homeland.[x]

Yugoslav Macedonia became the territory to which many Slavic-speaking Macedonians from Greece fled after the Greek civil war of (1944−1949) in which the Greek Communist Party (KKE) and its military movement National People’s Liberation Army (ELAS) had promised equal rights to the Slavic-speaking population with the rest of Greece’s citizens and thereby got their firm political support.[xi] Nevertheless, due to the communist defeat, the rights of the Slavic-speaking population in Greece remained poor as they had not been recognized as an ethnic minority.

Due to fear of reprisal after the war, many Greek Slavic-Macedonians fled to Yugoslavia (Vardar Macedonia) and other East European countries while others emigrated to the Western countries (mainly to Canada and Australia), creating numerous Macedonian diaspora. Consequently, the number of Slavic speakers decreased once again in the region of Aegean Macedonia which became additionally Hellenized after 1949 similarly as it was after the population exchanges in the 1920s.

Some Slavic-speaking people, nevertheless, remained in Greek Macedonia after 1949 but an official number of them is unknown as they are not recorded by Greece’s authorities. Nevertheless, according to some unofficial sources, like Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1990, published by the US Department of State, at that time around 50,000 Slavic speakers lived in North Greece but a majority of them have not clear Slavic Macedonian identity or already accepted a Greek national identity. For instance, they identified themselves as Greeks and Macedonians or as Greek-Macedonians. A significant number of them, however, still retained a Slavic Macedonian national identity.

Since Greece became an EU member state in 1981, a number of Slavic speakers from Greece saw a great opportunity to promulgate their requirement for official recognition of Slavic Macedonians in Greece as an ethnic minority and, therefore, became politically active in order to draw political attention to the poor human rights situation of their compatriots in Greece. They seek recognition by the Greek government of the existence of a Macedonian minority in Greece and strive for the repeal of several laws which, according to their opinion, discriminate against Slavic Macedonians.

In 1982, for instance, a law was passed that ceased to recognize university degrees obtained in Yugoslav Macedonia on the grounds that the Macedonian language was not internationally recognized. They also claimed that the law on the general amnesty under which political refugees who left Greece after the civil war in the 1940s could return to Greece and reclaim their properties discriminates against Slavic Macedonians as the law is only applied to the people who were “Greek by birth” and, therefore, is not valid for Slavic speaking refugees who do not want to declare themselves to be Greeks.

Further, they want Macedonians in Greece to have the right to attend church services in Macedonian, to receive primary and secondary education in their native language, and to publish newspapers and broadcast radio and television programs in Macedonian as well.[xii] It is, however, debatable whether the Macedonian minority group is numerically strong enough to create, for instance, separate educational institutions, as according to international standards, a minority population needs to be sufficiently numerous for such demand to be justified.[xiii]

The emigration of a significant number of Slavic Macedonians out of Greece was not only a consequence of the Greek civil war but was also caused by a Greek anti-communist sentiment, which was translated into a feeling of the threat coming from neighboring socialist Yugoslavia as in Greek eyes Yugoslav authorities established the People’s Republic of Macedonia in order to gain more international support for Yugoslavia.

In essence, by the establishment of a constituent Republic of Macedonia within Yugoslavia, international recognition of Slavic Macedonians as a separate ethnic nation can be encouraged that would provoke international pressure for respecting Macedonian minority rights elsewhere (in Bulgaria and Greece), and thereby it could be used as an instrument of pressure in the realization of certain geopolitical calculations. Nevertheless, in reality, Greece denied the existence of a Macedonian minority on its own territory (Aegean Macedonia) and continued to strive for a good and close relationship with the Yugoslav government in the hope that it would restrain Macedonian irredentism.[xiv] 

Greece not only denied the existence of a Macedonian population on its territory but also argued that Macedonian nationality was an artificial construction of Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito.[xv] According to Greek authorities, J. B. Tito and his Communist Party of Yugoslavia created a separate Macedonian republic for the Macedonian nation for the crucial reason of eliminating pro-Bulgarian sentiments of a larger part of the population of Yugoslav Macedonia.

In order to achieve this political goal, it was necessary to invent the essential elements of a new artificial nationality: a distinct standardized language with a new alphabet, independent church affiliation and organization, an easily identifiable name, and a rewritten national history. Greek authorities are of the opinion that the standardized Macedonian language in ex-Yugoslavia is a new literary language produced by Yugoslav linguists for political purposes and has nothing in common with a philological reality. It is based on Macedonia’s Prilep dialect, enriched by Serbian, Russian, and Polish contributions for the sake of developing remarkable differences with the neighboring Bulgarian language and, therefore, nationality.[xvi]

The establishment of an autonomous (and internationally not recognized) Macedonian Orthodox Church in 1967 (separated from the Serbian Orthodox Church) contributed to the affirmation of separate Macedonian existence and raised Macedonian ethnonational consciousness. Nevertheless, what went the most against the grain with Greece and was seen as the most visible measure to establish an artificial anti-Greek historical and political legitimacy of the new republic, was the use of the term “Macedonia” as the republic’s name. According to the Greek viewpoint, there were three crucial reasons for J. B. Tito to adopt this name:

• The name sharply contrasted with Bulgarian, Serbian, or Greek names and could, therefore, break the ties that Slavic speakers in Macedonia historically had with these countries and their nations.
• The designation was well-known to the population and thus suitable for a quick adaptation.
• Most importantly, with the name of Macedonia, all historical events and culture associated with a historical-geographical region of Macedonia could be easily appropriated by the Yugoslav Socialist Republic of Macedonia.[xvii]

Because of the feeling of territorial threat (due to the establishment of a Macedonian republic and strengthened by the fact that J. B. Tito offered military assistance to Greek guerrillas during the civil war), there were no diplomatic relations between Greece and Yugoslavia until 1951 and they were re-established primarily due to international pressure. The relations between the two countries, nevertheless, were not warm over the next years and in 1962 the Greek government unilaterally suspended the joint border agreement.[xviii]

During J. B. Tito’s rule (1945−1980), Macedonian nationalism had always been controlled by the central government but after he died on May 4^th, 1980, the control was gradually loosened and Macedonian nationalism started to flourish as did all other nationalist sentiments within the country. When Yugoslavia began to collapse at the very beginning of the 1990s, a referendum was held on September 8^th, 1991 on the future of Yugoslav Macedonia and a great majority of Macedonia’s citizens voted in favor of a completely sovereign and independent state of the Republic of Macedonia.[xix]

However, a new independent Balkan state as a neighbor to Greece from the beginning of its sovereign existence, provoked hostile political and economic sanctions by Athens from 1991 to 1993, due to the support by Slavic Macedonian nationalists of an idea to create a united Greater Macedonia.

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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[i] The Bulgarian occupation of parts of Serbia was based on the treaty signed between Bulgaria and Central Powers on September 6^th, 1915 [Živko Avramovski, Ratni ciljevi Bugarske i Centralne sile 1914−1918, Beograd: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 1985, 150−171; Мира Радојевић, Љубодраг Димић, Србија у Великом рату 1914−1918. Кратка историја, Београд: Српска књижевна задруга−Београдски форум за свет равноправних, 2014, 170]. According to the secret Treaty of Sofia, signed on September  6^th, 1915, Bulgaria got whole Vardar Macedonia, East Serbia up to Morava River, Toplica region, and East Kosovo. That was almost 59% out of total territory of pre-war Serbia [Андреј Митровић, „Први светски рат“, Прекретнице новије српске историје, Крагујевац−Лицеум, 1995, 83]. 

[ii] An official proclamation of Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was done in Belgrade on December 1^st, 1918. The text of the proclamation is published in English in [Snežana Trifunovska, Yugoslavia Through Documents: From Its Creation to Its Dissolution, Dordrecht−Boston−London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1994, 157−160].

[iii] Hugh Poulton, The Balkans: Minorities and States in Conflict, London: Minority Rights Publications, 1994, 176.

[iv] Ioannis Metaxas (1871−1941) was a dictator of Greece from 1936 to 1941. Dictatorial position enabled him to crush hated political situation in Greece, reserving particular animosity for the communists. I. Metaxas created the notion of the „Third Hellenic Civilization“ that was a political attempt to combine the values of the ancient, pagan with those of the medieval, Christian Greek civilizations. He died in January 1941, two months before German invasion of Greece [Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, 218; Bernd J. Fišer (ed.), Balkanski diktatori: Diktatori i autoritarni vladari jugoistočne Evrope, Beograd: IPS−IP Prosveta, 2009, 191−227].

[v] Loring M. Danforth, “Claims to Macedonian Identity: The Macedonian Question and the Breakup of Yugoslavia”, Anthropology Today, Vol. 9, No. 4, 1993, 3−10.

[vi] Hugh Poulton, The Balkans: Minorities and States in Conflict, London: Minority Rights Publications, 1994, 177.

[vii] Историјата на Македонскиот народ, III, Скопје: НИП Нова Македонија, 1969, 271−275.

[viii] ASNOM (Antifašističko Sobranje narodnog oslobođenja Makedonije) was established on August 2nd, 1944 in the monastery of Prohor Pčinjski in Serbia nearby the border with today’s Macedonia. Macedonian communists, therefore, required after the war that the so-called „Ristovačka Macedonia“ with the monastery of Prohor Pčinjski should be annexed by the Socialist Republic of Macedonia [Branko Petranović, Istorija Jugoslavije 1918−1988, Druga knjiga, Beograd: NOLIT, 1988, 301].

[ix] Victor Roudometof, “Nationalism and Identity Politics in the Balkans: Greece and the Macedonian Question”, Journal of Modern Greek Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1996, 253−301.

[x] An official name of a new country composed by six federal republics was a Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia that was proclaimed on November 29^th, 1945 [Branislav Ilić, Vojislav Ćirković (eds.), Hronologija revolucionarne delatnosti Josipa Broza Tita, Beograd: NIP “Export-Press”, 1978, 102].

[xi] As in Yugoslavia and Albania, the task of Greek communists was to “ensure that they would be the only organized, armed force in the country when liberation came, in which case they would clearly be well placed to assume control of the levels of power” [Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, 132]. 

[xii] Loring M. Danforth, “Claims to Macedonian Identity: The Macedonian Question and the Breakup of Yugoslavia”, Anthropology Today, Vol. 9, No. 4, 1993, 3−10.

[xiii] About the rights of ethnic minorities, see [Will Kymlicka (ed.), The Rights of Minority Cultures, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000].

[xiv] Nikolaos Zahariadis, “Nationalism and Small-State Foreign Policy: The Greek Response to the Macedonian Issue”, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 109, No. 4., 1994, 647. Another, more pragmatic reason for the keeping as good as political relations with Yugoslavia was the fact that Greek economy very much profited from Yugoslav (in fact, Serbian) tourists since 1974 onward.

[xv] In contemporary Serbian historiography, there is a great dispute about how many personalities had a nickname of Tito. The first Tito was, anyway, half Croat and half Slovenian but Tito who was in power after WWII was either second or third. On this issue, see [Vladan Dinić, Tito (ni)je Tito. Konačna istina, Beograd: Novmark, 2013]. One of the best historiographical biographies of Tito is [Перо симић, Тито. Феномен 20. века, Треће допуњено издање, Београд: ЈП Службени гласник, 2011]. According to the official report by Belgrade police on December 13th, 1943, a leader of Yugoslav partisans and Communist Party of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, was „speaking corrupted Serbian language which was similar to Kajkavian“ (i.e., Croatian-Slovenian) [Перо Симић, Звонимир Деспот (eds.), Тито: Строго поверљиво. Архивски документи, Београд: ЈП Службени гласник, 2010, 130−131].

[xvi] Among all Balkan languages and mythologies about national identities founded on them, Albanian case is, probably, the most remarkable as “Albanian is said to be the surviving descendant of the ancient Illyrian language, although its lexicon is derived from languages belonging to other groups” [Stephen Barbour, Cathie Carmichael (eds.), Language and Nationalism in Europe, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, 223].

[xvii] Nikolaos Zahariadis, “Nationalism and Small-State Foreign Policy: The Greek Response to the Macedonian Issue”, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 109, No. 4., 1994, 647.

[xviii] Ibid.

[xix] Loring M. Danforth, “Claims to Macedonian Identity: The Macedonian Question and the Breakup of Yugoslavia”, Anthropology Today, Vol. 9, No. 4, 1993, 3−10.

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Papers Reviewed 

• Sep. 22, 2023 – Blix et al. – Norwegian study of 20,000 women
• Sep. 2023 – Thabet et al. – Saudi Study of 500 women ages 18-45
• Sep. 2023 – Jensen et al. – Danish study of 13,600 women ages 16-65
• Aug. 2023 – Trogstad et al. – Norwegian study of 3972 women ages 18-30
• June 2023 – Paik et al. – South Korean study of abnormal uterine bleeding
• June 2023 – Yoon et al. – South Korean Survey of 2849 people ages 18-49
• June 2023 – Wali et al. – Saudi Study of 300 women ages 15-50
• Aug. 2022 – Isaakov et al – Israeli study of 7476 vaccinated women

Sep. 22, 2023 – Unexpected vaginal bleeding and COVID-19 vaccination in non-menstruating women

• Norwegian study of women who self-reported experiencing unexpected vaginal bleeding after COVID-19 vaccination
• Results are based on self-reported data from questionnaires issued in August and September 2021.
• 7725 postmenopausal women (non-menstruating) – 3.3% had bleeding
• 7148 perimenopausal women (non-menstruating) – 14.1% had bleeding
• 7052 premenopausal women (non-menstruating) – 13.1% had bleeding
• 50% of these happened within 28 days of COVID-19 Vaccination
• Moderna had 32% increased risk compared to Pfizer
• In postmenopausal women, the risk of unexpected vaginal bleeding in the 4 weeks after COVID-19 vaccination was increased two- to threefold
• risk of unexpected vaginal bleeding after vaccination was increased three- to fivefold in both non-menstruating peri- and premenopausal women
• European Medicines Agency recently decided that the product information of the mRNA vaccines (i.e., Spikevax and Comirnaty) should be updated to include heavy menstrual bleeding as a potential side effect
• postmenopausal bleeding following COVID-19 vaccination can be a symptom of endometrial carcinoma and precancerous lesions and is considered an important medical event
• Authors: “Increased risk after both Pfizer and Moderna suggest a mechanism related to the spike protein and not to other vaccine components. Pathways related to local changes in the endometrium, possibly resulting from a spike related immune response or related to the endometrial expression of ACE2 receptors may be involved”
• Experts are not entirely sure why changes in menstruation occur, but some believe the vaccine causes some of the body’s tissue to become inflamed, causing changes to the lining of the uterus and hormone levels throughout the body.

Sep. 2023 – Thabet et al. – Saudi Study of 500 women ages 18-45 

• Online self-administered survey of 500 Saudi women ages 18-45
• 44% reported menstrual disturbance
• “found a significant relationship between the duration of flow, menstrual blood loss, and severity of dysmenorrhea before and after receiving the first, second, and third doses of Covid-19 vaccine”
• “present study concluded that women who receive the Covid-19 vaccine may experience menstrual abnormalities, such as a significant difference in cycle length, flow duration, menstrual blood loss, and dysmenorrhea severity before and after receiving the first, second, and third doses of the vaccine.”

Sep. 2023 – Jensen et al. – Danish study of 13,600 women ages 16-65

•  Danish study of 13,648 women ages 16-65 who completed surveys
• 30% of all menstruating women reported menstrual changes after COVID-19 vaccination
• “several potential risk factors including stress, vaccine concerns, severe COVID-19 infection, and immediate vaccine symptoms were associated with these reports.”

Aug. 2023 – Trogstad et al. – Norwegian study of women ages 18-30 

• Norwegian survey of 3972 women ages 18-30 years old
• 38.8% reported menstrual disturbance after 1st vaccine dose
• heavy bleeding in 13.6% after 1st dose and 15.3% after 2nd dose
• prolonged bleeding in 12.5% after 1st dose and 14.3% after 2nd dose
• Authors: “We found increased risk of menstrual disturbances after vaccination, particularly for heavier bleeding than usual, prolonged bleeding, shorter interval between menstruations, and stronger period pain.”

June 2023 – Paik et al. – South Korean study of abnormal uterine bleeding

• “Korean Specialized Committee for the compensation of loss after COVID-19 vaccination has decided to include abnormal uterine bleeding (AUB) as a “suspected related symptom” after COVID-19 vaccination on August 16, 2021, for all vaccine types, including those manufactured by Oxford-AstraZeneca, Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, and J&J.”
• “This decision has enabled those who developed AUB after vaccination for COVID-19 to claim compensation from the committee and receive support.”
• “The scientific basis for this decision was the analysis by the COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Committee of the National Academy of Medicine of Korea. After a comprehensive analysis of domestic and international data on adverse reactions reported after COVID-19 vaccination, the committee has announced the discovery of a statistically significant association between AUB and COVID-19 vaccination, which is sufficient evidence to establish a causal relationship.”

June 2023 – Yoon et al. – South Korean Survey ages 18-49 

• South Korean researchers conducted a survey of 2849 people ages 18-49
• “A notable finding was that over 15% of female participants reported menstrual disorders and unexpected vaginal bleeding after mRNA vaccination”

June 2023 – Wali et al. – Saudi Study of 300 women ages 15-50 

• Saudi researchers studied 300 women ages 15-50 years old
• 44% reported a change in the length and amount of the menstrual cycle
• 29% reported worsened premenstrual syndrome (PMS)
• 11% reported decreased libido
• 10% noticed a decrease in milk production
• 4% lost their pregnancy

Aug. 2022 – Isaakov et al – Israeli study of 7476 vaccinated women 

• Israeli researchers conducted a nationwide questionnaire survey: 7904 women
• 49.3% of women had changes in menstrual patterns after COVID-19 vaccination
• 80.6% of them had “excessive bleeding”
• 61.1% of cases it occurred between vaccination and the ensuing menstrual period
• Conclusion: “long-term consequences of the BNT162b2 vaccine on uterine bleeding warrant further investigation.”

Serious Adverse Event Cases of Vaginal Bleeding:

VAERS ID 1904168 – 7 year old from Georgia had 1st Pfizer

VAERS ID 2014388 – 8 year old from Illinois, had 1st Pfizer and had vaginal bleeding 9 days & 16 days later

VAERS ID 2108864 – 5 year old had 1st Pfizer mRNA – developed vaginal bleeding and vaginal disorder

TGA 649566 (AUSTRALIA) – 6 year old had dysmenorrhea, heavy menstrual bleeding, menstrual disorder after Pfizer

TGA 695126 (AUSTRALIA) – 11 year old had “vaginal hemorrhage” after Pfizer

VAERS 1531771 – 30 year old from Colorado had 2nd Pfizer mRNA vaccine, then had vaginal bleeding, placenta abruption, infarction in placenta, preterm labor, hemorrhage during delivery. “Delivered my stillborn son”

VAERS 1675804 – 33 year old from Minnesota had 1st Moderna mRNA – had vaginal bleeding, urgent C-section, premature separation of placenta, etc.

VAERS 1860486 – 29 year old from Illinois had 1st Pfizer mRNA at 15 weeks pregnancy – developed hemorrhage, fetal growth restriction, fetal disorders

VAERS 2069904 – 33 year old had 3rd Pfizer mRNA Vaccine, then developed vaginal bleeding and miscarriage – this report was eventually erased/covered-up

My Take…

WHO’s VigiAccess has over 300,000 reports of abnormal vaginal bleeding or menstrual irregularities reported for COVID-19 Vaccines.

Surveys show that COVID-19 vaccination causes menstrual irregularities in a large percentage of women, that ranges from 30% (Danish), 39% (Norwegian), 44% (Saudi), to 49% (Israeli) of women.

The most common menstrual irregularities are heavy bleeding and prolonged bleeding.

Up to 14% of non-menstruating women have abnormal vaginal bleeding after COVID-19 vaccination, in the latest Sep.2023 study by Blix et al.

No one is talking about post COVID-19 Vaccine abnormal vaginal bleeding in children ages 5 to 11 years old, despite the fact there are very disturbing reports in VAERS and TGA – no one is publishing these cases, no one is studying these cases.

No one knows the long term effects on fertility in children 5-11 years old, or 12-19 years old who suffer abnormal vaginal bleeding after COVID-19 vaccination

No one is studying the impact on fertility of reproductive age women who report menstrual irregularities after COVID-19 vaccination.

In the June 2023 Haerin Paik study “Female reproduction and abnormal uterine bleeding after COVID-19 vaccination” authors refer to these studies for the “safety” of COVID-19 vaccines on fertility:

• A Pfizer sponsored study of 44 rats showing “no fertility issues”, where the manuscript was reviewed by Pfizer and BioNTech Officials and the authors own Pfizer stocks (you can’t make this up).
• A study looking at 32 IVF patients in a single IVF Clinic
• Another study looking at 222 IVF patients with senior author sitting on the Boards of several Big Pharma companies.
• Another study looking at 441 IVF patients at a single IVF Clinic in Spain.

Authors Conclude: “COVID-19 vaccines certainly seem to affect the menstrual cycle; however, the effects are generally well-tolerated and transient. The most frequently reported problems are menstrual irregularities, followed by menorrhagia. However, the findings of recent studies are generally reassuring, as symptoms resolve within about 2 months.”

“It remains unclear whether certain groups are particularly vulnerable to menstruation-related adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination.” (no mention of the risks to children suffering these adverse events, or pregnant women)

“The natural pregnancy rates following vaccination also remain unclear.”

This is the elephant in the room that no one is addressing. 

Up to 49% of women are suffering menstrual irregularities after COVID-19 vaccination – what are the long term effects on their fertility?

What are the long term risks to children who have abnormal vaginal bleeding after COVID-19 Vaccination?

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

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When I talk about the war on cash and a cashless society, some people think I’m exaggerating the threat or they don’t take it seriously.

But I’m not exaggerating the threat. It’s here, it’s growing and it’ll only get worse. Today I’ll show you the latest example.

The proponents of the cashless society cite convenience as a major benefit. Why bother having to tote a bunch of cumbersome cash and coins around when you can just swipe a card or pay with your smartphone?

Besides, they say, cash enables criminal activity on the black market. Cash is the money of crime. And in some respects, they’re right.

Swiping a card or scanning your smartphone is certainly easier than having to get cash from a bank or ATM and lugging it around in your wallet, dealing with change, etc.

If you eliminated cash and replaced it with digital money, it would impact the black market (though they’d figure out a workaround).

Meanwhile, cash is costlier to produce than digital money and unlike with cash, you don’t need to hire a Brinks truck to move digital money around. No more bank robberies! And all those truck drivers and security guards can now learn to code!

You get the point. And that’s why the war on cash has been so successful. Digital money is simply more convenient to use than cash.

And the surest way to lull someone into complacency is to offer a “convenience” that quickly becomes habit and impossible to do without.

The Digital Cattle Pen

But here’s what they won’t tell you, as I’ve warned time after time: You’re being herded into what I call a “digital cattle pen” from which there’s no escape.

The fact is, governments always use money laundering, drug dealing and terrorism as excuses to keep tabs on honest citizens and deprive them of the ability to use money alternatives such as physical cash, gold and, these days, cryptocurrencies.

The real burden of the war on cash falls on honest citizens who are made vulnerable to wealth confiscation through negative interest rates, loss of privacy, account freezes and limits on cash withdrawals or transfers.

In reality, the so-called “cashless society” is just a Trojan horse for a system in which all financial wealth is electronic and represented digitally in the records of a small number of megabanks and asset managers.

Once that is achieved, it will be easy for state power to seize and freeze the wealth, or subject it to constant surveillance, taxation and other forms of digital confiscation like negative interest rates.

They can’t do that as long as you can go to your bank and withdraw your cash. That’s the key. Cash prevents central banks from imposing negative interest rates because if they did, people would withdraw their cash from the banking system.

If they stuff their cash in a mattress, they don’t earn anything on it; that’s true. But at least they’re not losing anything on it. Once all money is digital, you won’t have the option of withdrawing your cash and avoiding negative rates. You will be trapped in a digital pen with no way out.

In other words, it’s much easier for them to control your money if they first herd you into a digital cattle pen. That’s their true objective and all the other reasons are just a smoke screen.

Again, that’s the part they won’t tell you.

The good news is that cash is still a dominant form of payment in many countries including the U.S. The bad news is that as digital payments grow and the use of cash diminishes, a “tipping point” is reached where suddenly it makes no sense to continue using cash because of the expense and logistics involved.

Once cash usage shrinks to a certain point, economies of scale are lost and usage can go to zero almost overnight. Remember how music CDs disappeared suddenly once MP3 and streaming formats became popular?

Once the war on cash gains that kind of momentum, and we’re really not that far from it, it will be practically impossible to stop.

Biden Bucks: The Trojan Horse

My regular readers are well-versed in the technical features and dangers of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), which I call Biden Bucks.

CBDCs are a form of money issued by central banks or the Treasury in digital-only form. It’s true that most payments today — credit cards, direct deposit, ATMs, online shopping, etc. — are already digital.

But there’s a difference.

All the digital payments we have today are private. They’re between you and your bank or the online store. The government does not see that information at the individual level unless they get a warrant. That’s not true for CBDCs.

With CBDCs, the government controls the ledger. They see everything you buy, your charitable contributions, your political donations, your entertainment choices, your travel and more.

When that information is combined with geospatial location (from the GPS data on your iPhone, E-ZPass toll transmitters and license plate scanners) and analyzed by artificial intelligence applications, it’s easy to develop a political profile of you.

Based on that profile, the government can decide you’re an “enemy of the people” or a “MAGA extremist” as Biden threatened in his infamous Philadelphia speech in September 2022 (the one with the military guards and blood-red lighting that visually resembled the Nuremberg rallies of the Nazi Party in the 1930s).

Once you’re on the enemies list, CBDCs can be used to freeze your bank accounts. This happened to the Freedom Convoy drivers in Canada in January 2022. It can easily happen here.

Some Americans have been relieved that CBDCs have not been fully implemented yet and members of Congress and some governors such as Ron DeSantis have stood up against them. That’s true.

“It’s Not Coming; It’s Already Here”

But the authoritarians never take no for an answer. When you close one channel, they find another. Here’s an example…

Citibank (which is entirely under the government’s thumb because of the many bailouts it has received) has announced what they call Citi Token Services (CTS).

With CTS, you convert your regular dollars into digital tokens. These tokens can be used to move money or make payments around the world. Citi calls this a “tokenized deposit.”

Notice the term “CBDC” is not used anywhere. But that’s what it is. Once you convert your dollars to digital tokens, you don’t have dollars anymore. Citi controls the ledger under the government’s thumb. They have complete information on all transactions.

This is a CBDC by another name. It’s not coming; it’s already here.

The time to protect yourself is yesterday — and if not yesterday, then today. The best way is to keep a portion of your wealth outside of the banking system.

That’s why I urge you to keep some of your liquidity in physical gold and silver.

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James G. Rickards is the editor of Strategic Intelligence, Project Prophesy, Crash Speculator, and Gold Speculator. He is an American lawyer, economist, and investment banker with 40 years of experience working in capital markets on Wall Street. He was the principal negotiator of the rescue of Long-Term Capital Management L.P. (LTCM) by the U.S Federal Reserve in 1998. His clients include institutional investors and government directorates.

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Western politicians are afraid of Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House because of his desire to end the conflict in Ukraine, claims Anne Rovan in an article in the top French newspaper Le Figaro. While Americans are feeling the pinch from Biden’s woeful economic management, reports are emerging that Russia’s economy is performing better than expected despite the Western sanctions, increasing the chances of Trump’s re-election.

In the article titled, “Trump 2 is already making Europeans tremble,” Rovan writes:

“Trump’s first term was a nightmare for Europeans. A second term could mean hell for them. He continually repeats that it will not take more than a day to resolve the Ukrainian conflict.”

According to Rovan, the possibility of Trump returning to the White House is extremely alarming because the US could withdraw its troops from Europe. This is especially problematic, in her view, since NATO has barely recovered from Trump’s first term when he reduced American involvement in the alliance. Therefore, according to the author, Trump’s return to the US presidency would be a disaster for Europe and Ukraine.

On several occasions, Trump has spoken out against US support for Kiev and promised to end the conflict if elected president in 2024. Recently, US media have also suggested he could ease sanctions against Russia and resolve hostile US relations with China, even though he was the main instigator of declining ties with Beijing.

If polls are anything to go by, Trump would return to the White House if elections were held tomorrow. This is to the dismay of pro-Ukraine factions in the US and Europe, but it must be noted that there are still more than 13 months until the next presidential elections, so much could change.

A new Washington Post-ABC poll shows that Trump has a ten-point lead over Joe Biden. This is hardly surprising since Americans have experienced a decline in their quality of life since Biden became president, who is evidently prioritising Ukraine instead of serving his own country since he is pumping well over $100 billion into the financial blackhole that the eastern European country has become.

The Bank of America (BofA) announced only days ago the new findings from its 13th annual Workplace Benefits Report, “The Transforming Workplace.” It was found that more than two-thirds (67%) of employees believe the cost of living is outpacing growth in their salary or wages, a 9% increase compared to February 2022. According to the BofA report, inflation and economic uncertainty have increased financial stress and wellness among employees, dropping to 42%, the lowest rate since this research began in 2010.

Meanwhile, the Russian economy is forecast to smash predicted predicaments and expand this year after rising oil prices overpower the effects of Western sanctions. 

Rising oil prices have boosted the expected performance of the Russian economy, which is now predicted to grow by 1.5% this year by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), owned by 71 countries and two EU institutions, which has revised its projections from its May forecast.

According to AFP, the EBRD expected Western sanctions against Moscow, including the price cap on its oil exports, to “be more effective in constraining” growth. 

“But oil revenues have been supported by rising oil prices and Russia’s ability to offset the impact of the cap by exporting to new markets,” it said.

Instead, oil prices have soared by 30% since June after protracted supply cuts by OPEC and its allies, with crude now nearing $100 a barrel. It is recalled that the G7 and Australia late last year agreed to a $60 a barrel price cap on Russian crude oil exported by sea. At the same time, wider petroleum products were also included in February, which prompted Russia to export more to countries like China and India. 

Although a lot can change over the next 13 months until the election, the trajectory since Biden entered office has been one of decline, so there is little indication he will improve things as he enters the final period of his presidential mandate. This significantly increases Trump’s chances of being re-elected if he emerges as the Republican candidate, which, as highlighted by Anne Rovan, even creates fear in Europe as it will be difficult to continue waging the war on Russia via the Ukrainian proxy without US support.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

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By celebrating a Waffen-SS volunteer as a “hero,” Canada’s Liberal Party highlighted a longstanding policy that has seen Ottawa train fascist militants in Ukraine while welcoming in thousands of post-war Nazi SS veterans.

Canada’s second most powerful official, Chrystia Freeland, is the granddaughter of one of Nazi Germany’s top Ukrainian propagandists.

In the Spring of 1943, Yaroslav Hunka was a fresh-faced soldier in the 14th Grenadier Division of the Waffen-SS Galicia when his division received a visit from the architect of Nazi Germany’s genocidal policies, Heinrich Himmler. Having presided over the battalion’s formation, Himmler was visibly proud of the Ukrainians who had volunteered to support the Third Reich’s efforts.

80 years later, the Speaker of Canada’s parliament, Anthony Rota, also beamed with pride after inviting Hunka to a reception for Volodymyr Zelensky, where the Ukrainian president lobbied for more arms and financial assistance for his country’s war against Russia.

“We have in the chamber today Ukrainian war veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today even at his age of 98,” Rota declared during the September 22 parliamentary event in Ottawa.

“His name is Yaroslav Hunka but I am very proud to say he is from North Bay and from my riding of Nipissing-Timiskaming. He is a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service,” Rota continued.

Gales of applause erupted through the crowd, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Zelensky, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Canadian Chief of Defense Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre and leaders of all Canadian parties rose from their seats to applaud Hunka’s wartime service.

Canada’s parliament gives a standing ovation to a 98-year-old Ukrainian Nazi collaborator likely to keep a music box at home stuffed with grainy black and white execution photos

If John Demjanjuk had lived a little longer he too could have been a hero https://t.co/WXYBYCwuXr

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) September 23, 2023

Since the exposure of Hunka’s record as a Nazi collaborator – which should have been obvious as soon as the Speaker announced him – Canadian leaders (with the notable exception of Eyre) have rushed to issue superficial, face-saving apologies as withering condemnations poured in from Canadian Jewish organizations.

The incident is now a major national scandal, occupying space on the cover of Canadian papers like the Toronto Sun, which quipped, “Did Nazi that coming.” Meanwhile, Poland’s Education Minister has announced plans to seek Hunka’s criminal extradition.

The Liberal Party has attempted to downplay the affair as an accidental blunder, with one Liberal MP urging her colleagues to “avoid politicizing this incident.” Melanie Joly, Canada’s Foreign Minister, has forced Rota’s resignation, seeking to turn the the Speaker into a scapegoat for her party’s collective actions.

Trudeau, meanwhile, pointed to the “deeply embarrassing” event as a reason to “push back against Russian propaganda,” as though the Kremlin somehow smuggled an nonagenarian Nazi collaborator into parliament, then hypnotized the Prime Minister and his colleagues, Manchurian Candidate-style, into celebrating him as a hero.

NEW – Justin Trudeau blames Russian propaganda for Canadian Parliament honoring a Nazi.

"Obviously, it's extremely upsetting that this happened… this is something that is deeply embarrassing to the Parliament of Canada…

It's going to be really important that all of us push… pic.twitter.com/Zvk5ytkxmC

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) September 25, 2023

To be sure, the incident was no gaffe. Before Canada’s government and military brass celebrated Hunka in parliament, they had provided diplomatic support to fascist hooligans fighting to install a nationalist government in Kiev, and oversaw the training of contemporary Ukrainian military formations openly committed to the furtherance of Nazi ideology.

Ottawa’s celebration of Hunka has also lifted the cover on the country’s post-World War Two policy of naturalizing known Ukrainian Nazi collaborators and weaponizing them as domestic anti-communist shock troops. The post-war immigration wave included the grandfather of Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who functioned as one of Hitler’s top Ukrainian propagandists inside Nazi-occupied Poland.

Though Canadian officialdom has worked to suppress this sordid record, it has resurfaced in dramatic fashion through Hunka’s appearance in parliament and the unsettling contents of his online diaries.

Yaroslav Hunka, front and center, as a member of the Waffen-SS Galicia division

“We welcomed the German soldiers with joy”

The March 2011 edition of the journal of the Association of Ukrainian Ex-Combatants in the US contains an unsettling diary entry which had gone unnoticed until recently.

Authored by Yaroslav Hunka, the journal consisted of proud reflections on volunteering for the 14th Grenadier Division of the Waffen-SS Galicia. Hunka decribed the Nazi Wehrmacht as “mystical German knights” when they first arrived in his hometown of Berezhany, and recalled his own service in the Waffen-SS as the happiest time in his life.

“In my sixth grade,” he wrote, “out of forty students, there were six Ukrainians, two Poles, and the rest were Jewish children of refugees from Poland. We wondered why they were running away from such a civilized Western nation as the Germans.”

The Jewish Virtual Library details the extermination of Berezhany’s Jewish population at the hands of the “civilized” Germans:

“In 1941 at the end of Soviet occupation 12,000 Jews were living in Berezhany, most of them refugees fleeing the horrors of the Nazi war machine in Europe. During the Holocaust, on Oct. 1, 1941, 500–700 Jews were executed by the Germans in the nearby quarries. On Dec. 18, another 1,200, listed as poor by the Judenrat, were shot in the forest. On Yom Kippur 1942 (Sept. 21), 1,000–1,500 were deported to Belzec and hundreds murdered in the streets and in their homes. On Hanukkah (Dec. 4–5) hundreds more were sent to Belzec and on June 12, 1943, the last 1,700 Jews of the ghetto and labor camp were liquidated, with only a few individuals escaping. Less than 100 Berezhany Jews survived the war.”

When Soviet forces held control of Berezhany, Hunka said he and his neighbors longed for the arrival of Nazi Germany.

“Every day,” he recalled, “we looked impatiently in the direction of the Pomoryany (Lvov) with the hope that those mystical German knights, who give bullets to the hated Lyakhs are about to appear.” (Lyakh is a derogatory Ukrainian term for Poles).

In July 1941, when the Nazi German army entered Berezhany, Hunka breathed a sigh of relief.

“We welcomed the German soldiers with joy,” he wrote. “People felt a thaw, knowing that there would no longer be that dreaded knocking on the door in the middle of the night, and at least it would be possible to sleep peacefully now.”

Two years later, Hunka joined the First Division of the Galician SS 14th Grenadier Brigade – a unit formed under the personal orders of Heinrich Himmler. When Himmler inspected the Ukrainian volunteers in May 1943 (below), he was accompanied by Otto Von Wachter, the Nazi-appointed governor of Galicia who established the Jewish ghetto in Krakow.

“Your homeland has become so much more beautiful since you have lost – on our initiative, I must say – those residents who were so often a dirty blemish on Galicia’s good name, namely the Jews…” Himmler reportedly told the Ukrainian troops. “I know that if I ordered you to liquidate the Poles … I would be giving you permission to do what you are eager to do anyway.”

“Hitler’s elite torturers and murderers have been passed on RCMP orders”

Following the war, Canada’s Liberal government classified thousands of Jewish refugees as “enemy aliens” and held them alongside former Nazis in a network of internment camps enclosed with barbed wire, fearing that they would infect their new country with communism. At the same time, Ottawa placed thousands of Ukrainian veterans of Hitler’s army on the fast-track to citizenship.

The Ukrainian Canadian newsletter lamented on April 1, 1948, “some [of the new citizens] are outright Nazis who served in the German army and police. It is reported that individuals tattoooed with the dread[ed] SS, Hitler’s elite torturers and murderers have been passed on RCMP orders and after being turned down by screening agencies in Europe.”

The journal described the unreformed Nazis as anticommunist shock troops whose “‘ideological leaders’ are already busy fomenting WWIII, propagating a new world holocaust in which Canada will perish.”

In 1997, the Canadian branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Center charged the Canadian government with having admitted over 2000 veterans of the 14th Volunteer Waffen-SS Grenadier Division.

That same year, 60 Minutes released a special, “Canada’s Dark Secret,” revealing that some 1000 Nazi SS veterans from Baltic states had been granted citizenship by Canada after the war. Irving Abella, a Canadian historian, told 60 Minutes that the easiest way to get into the country “was by showing the SS tattoo. This proved that you were an anti-Communist.”

Abella also alleged that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (Justin’s father) explained to him that his government kept silent about the Nazi immigrants “because they were afraid of exacerbating relationships between Jews and Eastern European ethnic communities.”

Yaroslav Hunka was among the post-war wave of Ukrainian Nazi veterans welcomed by Canada. According to the city council website of Berezhany, he arrived in Ontario in 1954 and promptly “became a member of the fraternity of soldiers of the 1st Division of the UNA, affiliated to the World Congress of Free Ukrainians.”

Also among the new generation of Ukrainian Canadians was Michael Chomiak, the grandfather of Canada’s second-most-powerful official, Chrystia Freeland. Throughout her career as a journalist and Canadian diplomat, Freeland has advanced her grandfather’s legacy of anti-Russian agitation, while repeatedly exalting wartime Nazi collaborators during public events.

During a March 2, 2020 rally, Canadian Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland proudly displayed a banner of the Ukrainian Partisan Organzation which fought alongside Nazi Germany during WWII.

Canada Welcomes Hitler’s Top Ukrainian Propagandists

Throughout the Nazi German occupation of Poland, the Ukrainian journalist Michael Chomiak served as one of Hitler’s top propagandists. Based in Krakow, Chomiak edited an antisemitic publication called Krakivs’ki visti (Krakow News), which cheer-led the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union – “The German Army is bringing us our cherished freedom,” the paper proclaimed in 1941 – and glorified Hitler while rallying Ukrainian support for the Waffen-SS Galicia volunteers.

Chomiak spent much of the war living in two spacious Krakow apartments that had been seized from their Jewish owners by the Nazi occupiers. He wrote that he moved numerous pieces of furniture belonging to a certain “Dr. Finkelstein” to another aryanized apartment placed under his control.

Michael Chomiak at a party with Emile Gassner, the Nazi media chief for Occupied Poland

In Canada, Chomiak participated in the Ukrainian Canadian Committee (UCC), which incubated hardcore nationalist sentiment among diaspora members while lobbying Ottawa for hardline anti-Soviet policies. On its website, the UCC boasted of receiving direct Canadian government assistance during World War Two: “The final and conclusive impetus for [establishing the UCC] came from the National War Services of Canada which was anxious that young Ukrainians enlist in military services.”

The UCC’s first president Volodymyr Kubijovych, had served as Chomiak’s boss back in Krakow. He also played a part in the establishment of the 14th Grenadier Division of the Waffen-SS Galicia, announcing upon its formation, “This historic day was made possible by the conditions to create a worthy opportunity for the Ukrainians of Galicia, to fight arm in arm with the heroic German soldiers of the army and the Waffen-SS against Bolshevism, your and our deadly enemy.”

Freeland Nurtures Media Career as Undercover Regime Change Agent in Soviet-era Ukraine

Following his death in 1984, Chomiak’s granddaughter, Chrystia Freeland, followed in his footsteps as a reporter for various Ukrainian nationalist publications. She was an early contributor to Kubijovych’s Encyclopedia of Ukraine, which whitewashed the record of Nazi collaborators like Stepan Bandera, referring to him as a “revolutionary.” Next, she took a staff position at the Edmonton-based Ukrainian News, where her grandfather had served as editor.

A 1988 edition of Ukrainian News (below) featured an article co-authored by Freeland, followed by an ad for a book called “Fighting for Freedom” which glorified the Ukrainian Waffen-SS Galician division.

During Freeland’s time as an exchange student in Lviv, Ukraine, she laid the foundations for her meteoric rise to journalistic success. From behind cover as a Russian literature major at Harvard University, Freeland collaborated with local regime change activists while feeding anti-Soviet narratives to international media bigwigs.

“Countless ‘tendentious’ news stories about life in the Soviet Union, especially for its non-Russian citizens, had her fingerprints as Ms. Freeland set about making a name for herself in journalistic circles with an eye to her future career prospects,” the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported.

Citing KGB files, the CBC described Freeland as a de facto intelligence agent:

“The student causing so many headaches clearly loathed the Soviet Union, but she knew its laws inside and out – and how to use them to her advantage. She skillfully hid her actions, avoided surveillance (and shared that knowledge with her Ukrainian contacts) and expertly trafficked in ‘misinformation.’”

In 1989, Soviet security agents rescinded Freeland’s visa when they caught her smuggling “a veritable how-to guide for running an election” into the country for Ukrainian nationalist candidates.

She quickly transitioned back to journalism, landing gigs in post-Soviet Moscow for the Financial Times and Economist, and eventually rising to global editor-at-large of Reuters – the UK-based media giant which today functions as a cutout for British intelligence operations against Russia.

Canada Trains, Protects Nazis in Post-Maidan Ukraine

When Freeland won a seat as a Liberal member of Canada’s parliament in 2013, she established her most powerful platform yet to agitate for regime change in Russia. Milking her journalistic connections, she published op-eds in top legacy papers like the New York Times urging militant support from Western capitals for Ukraine’s so-called “Revolution of Dignity,” which saw the violent removal of a democratically elected president and his replacement with a nationalist, pro-NATO government in 2014.

In the midst of the coup attempt, a group of neo-Nazi thugs belonging to the C14 organization occupied Kiev’s city council and vandalized the building with Ukrainian nationalist insignia and white supremacist symbols, including a Confederate flag. When riot police chased the fascist hooligans away on February 18, 2014, they took shelter in the Canadian embassy with the apparent consent of the Conservative administration in Ottawa. “Canada was sympathizing with the protesters, at the time, more than the [Ukrainian] government,” a Ukrainian interior ministry official recalled to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Canada’s Foreign Ministry provided shelter to the neo-Nazis (above) who occupied and vandalized Kiev’s city hall in 2014.

Official Canadian support for neo-Nazi militants in Ukraine intensified after the 2015 election of the Liberal Party’s Justin Trudeau. In November 2017, the Canadian military and US Department of Defense dispatched several officers to Kiev for a multinational training session with Ukraine’s Azov Battalion. (Azov has since deleted the record of the session from its website).

Azov was controlled at the time by Adriy Biletsky, the self-proclaimed “White Leader” who  declared, “the historic mission of our nation in this critical moment is to lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival… A crusade against the Semite-led Untermenschen [sub-human].”

US and Canadian military officers meet uniformed members of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion during a November 2017 multinational training session in Ukraine.

Photos from a deleted page on Azov's website: https://t.co/08C1FLQ6Ee pic.twitter.com/5RAIif6OFf

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) March 20, 2022

As Nazi Family History Surfaces, Freeland Lies to the Public

Back in Canada, Freeland’s troubling family history was surfacing for the first time in the media. Weeks after she was appointed in January 2017 as Foreign Minister – a post she predictably exploited to thunder for sanctions on Russia and arms shipments to Ukraine – her grandfather’s role as a Nazi propagandist in occupied Poland became the subject of a raft of reports in the alternative press.

The Trudeau government responded to the factual reports by accusing Russia of waging a campaign of cyber-warfare. “The situation is obviously one where we need to be alert. And that is why the Prime Minister has, among other things, encouraged a complete re-examination of our cyber security systems,” Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale declared.

Yet few, if any, of the outlets responsible for excavating Chomiak’s history had any connection to Russia’s government. Among the first to expose his collaborationism was Consortium News, an independent, US-based media organization.

For her part, Freeland deployed a spokesperson to lie to the public, flatly denying that “the minister’s grandfather was a Nazi collaborator.”

When Canadian media quoted several Russian diplomats about the allegations, Freeland promptly ordered their deportation, accusing them of exploiting their diplomatic status “to interfere in our democracy.”

By this time, however, her family secrets had tumbled out of the attic and onto the pages of mainstream Canadian media. On March 7, 2017, the Globe and Mail reported on a 1996 article in the Journal of Ukrainian Studies confirming that Freeland’s grandfather had indeed been a Nazi propagandist, and that his writing helped fuel the Jewish genocide. The article was authored by Freeland’s uncle, John-Paul Himka, who thanked his niece in its preface for helping him with “problems and clarifications.”

“Freeland knew for more than two decades that her maternal Ukrainian grandfather was the chief editor of a Nazi newspaper in occupied Poland that vilified Jews during the Second World War,” the Globe and Mail noted.

After being caught on camera this September clapping with unrestrained zeal alongside hundreds of peers for a Ukrainian veteran of Hitler’s SS death squads, Freeland once again invoked her authority to scrub the incident from the record.

LPC House Leader Karina Gould sought unanimous consent to strike Anthony Rota's comments about Yaroslav Hunka from the record and the CPC denied it

CPC MP Marty Morantz says “deleting the words from Hansard would only have one purpose, to try and forget what happened" #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/S78DkwyPra

— Mackenzie Gray (@Gray_Mackenzie) September 25, 2023

Three days after the embarrassing scene, Freeland was back on the floor of parliament, nodding in approval as Liberal House leader Karina Gould introduced a resolution to strike “from the appendix of the House of Commons debates” and from “any House multimedia recording” the recognition made by Speaker Anthony Rota of Yaroslav Hunka.

Thanks to decades of officially supported Holocaust education, the mantra that demands citizens “never forget” has become a guiding light of liberal democracy. In present day Ottawa, however, this simple piece of moral guidance is now treated as a menace which threatens to unravel careers and undermine the war effort in Ukraine.

*

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The editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath, The Fifty One Day War, and The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America’s state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.

Featured image: Yaroslav Hunka, front and center as a member of the Waffen-SS Galicia division (Source: The Grayzone)

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***

The North Korean Ambassador to the UN warned that tensions with the US have escalated so far that there is a realistic potential for a nuclear conflict. The head of the UN, Antonio Guterres, expressed concern that nuclear tension between several states risks a catastrophe of “epic proportions.”

Kim Song, Pyongyang’s representative at the UN, delivered an address to the General Assembly on Tuesday.

“Owing to the reckless and continued hysteria of nuclear showdown on the part of the US and its following forces, the year 2023 has been recorded as an extremely dangerous year that the military security situation in and around the Korean peninsula was driven closer to the brink of a nuclear war,” he said. “Due to [Seoul’s] sycophantic and humiliating policy of depending on outside forces, the Korean peninsula is in a hair-trigger situation with imminent danger of nuclear war.” 

Kim blamed Washington for attempting to create an “Asian NATO” that will bring a “new Cold War structure to northeast Asia.”

Since taking office, President Joe Biden has repeatedly provoked North Korea by deploying more military assets to the Korean Peninsula. Of particular concern to Pyongyang is Washington sending strategic assets, including bombers and submarines, to South Korea. 

Additionally, the White House has worked to mend the relationship between Japan and South Korea. During a summit at Camp David, Biden signed an agreement with Tokyo and Seoul vowing to increase military ties between the three nations. 

UN Secretary-General Guterres also expressed his concern that global tensions could lead to a nuclear war.

“Any use of a nuclear weapon – anytime, anywhere and in any context – would unleash a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions,” he said to the General Assembly.

Guterres stressed that nations must uphold their commitments never to use nuclear weapons and work towards eliminating strategic arms.

“We reaffirm our commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons and the humanitarian catastrophe their use would unleash.” He continued, “This means nuclear-weapon States leading the way by meeting their disarmament obligations, and committing to never use nuclear weapons under any circumstances.”

*

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Kyle Anzalone is news editor of the Libertarian Institute, opinion editor of Antiwar.com and co-host of Conflicts of Interest with Will Porter and Connor Freeman.

Featured image is from TLI

---

“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute   

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***

There has been a wave of highly damaging but unsubstantiated allegations of antisemitism against students and academics, according to a new survey of British universities.

In 38 of 40 cases brought against lecturers, students, student unions and societies in the five years to 2022, no evidence was found to support the accusations of antisemitism. Hearings in the other two cases have yet to conclude.

Hidden in the raw figures is the enormous toll such false allegations take on the accused: personal suffering and reputational and career damage, as well as the additional chilling effect on academic freedom in the wider university community.

That is unlikely to be an unfortunate side product of these allegations. It seems to be precisely their point.

Brismes, a group representing British academics studying the Middle East, published the survey findings in a report this month that suggests wrongful or malicious claims of antisemitism are likely to increase in number.

The spate of allegations was unleashed after universities began adopting a revised, and highly controversial, definition of antisemitism issued by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016.

Three-quarters of universities have now rubber-stamped the definition after Gavin Williamson, as education secretary, threatened in 2020 to cut the funding of any that refused to do so.

A majority of the IHRA’s 11 illustrative examples – some of which, as the report notes, contradict the main definition – shift the focus away from the traditional meaning of Jew-hatred to emphasise criticism of Israel.

As many warned, that has handed Israel’s most staunch supporters a dragnet they can use to smear anyone expressing solidarity with Palestinians against Israeli oppression, while intimidating onlookers into a complicit silence.

In truth, that was always the aim. The IHRA definition grew out of covert efforts by the Israeli government to blur traditional distinctions between antisemitism and anti-Zionism to shield itself from critics, including human rights groups, who were highlighting Israel’s apartheid rule over Palestinians.

Critics Silenced

Promotion of the IHRA definition has risked violating Britain’s legal obligations to protect free speech. The UK government is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, and paradoxically it passed the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act back in May.

The act is ostensibly designed to “ensure students are able to speak freely in and out of the classroom, while offering more protection for academics who teach material that may offend some students”.

This may explain why the government’s taskforce on antisemitism was keen to publicise feedback from universities that, it says, shows adoption of the IHRA definition has had no impact on academic freedom.

The evidence compiled by Brismes, backed by research from the European Legal Support Centre, appears to blow that claim apart. Weaponised antisemitism is creating a climate on campuses that increasingly makes discussion of Israeli crimes off-limits.

But the lessons to be learnt from the growing weaponisation of antisemitism in academia aren’t limited to universities. As Middle East Eye has regularly documented, similar smear tactics, invariably based on the IHRA definition, have been used for years to silence political activists, human rights groups, cultural icons and Palestinians.

The British establishment’s aim has been to use the IHRA definition to scrub political and social discourse of all but the mildest criticism of Israel.

That is the context making it possible for the UK to step up trade links with Israel and pass legislation to give Israel special protections, at a time when a consensus has been reached by the international human rights community that Israel is an apartheid state, and after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu included self-declared fascist politicians last year in his new government.

With barely a murmur from the opposition Labour party, the UK government’s Economic Activity of Public Bodies Bill will deny public bodies such as local authorities the right to support boycott, sanctions and divestment campaigns against Israel over its oppression of Palestinians.

The Orwellian truth of official policy is this: the more Israel’s crimes are made public, the less we are allowed to speak about them or do anything.

Legal Complaint

The Brismes report is the belated sign of a fightback. As is the decision by Jewish political activists this month to alert the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to the Labour party’s discriminatory treatment of Jewish members under Keir Starmer’s leadership.

Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), representing left-wing Jews in the party, sent a formal complaint to Labour, prepared by the law firm Bindmans, accusing it of “discriminating unlawfully against its Jewish members and unlawfully harassing them”.

The letter, copied to the equalities watchdog, argues that Jews are being singled out for punishment, invariably based on the IHRA definition, over their vocal criticisms of Israel. It suggests legal action may follow if the group’s concerns are not addressed.

JVL notes that Labour’s Jewish members feel a special moral responsibility to speak out about Israeli brutality towards Palestinians because that oppression is carried out by Israel in the name of all Jews.

Nonetheless, Labour statistics show that Jewish party members are six times more likely than non-Jews to be investigated over antisemitism, and nearly 10 times more likely to be expelled from the party.

The letter adds that harassment of left-wing Jewish members by Labour head office includes a “harsh disciplinary regime” that subjects them to investigation as well as an unwillingness to take their own complaints seriously. Eleven of the JVL’s 12 Jewish executive committee members have been investigated.

Last year John McDonnell, a former shadow chancellor, himself wrote to the party warning that “disrespectful” treatment of JVL members amounted to discrimination.

Jenny Manson, one of JVL’s founders, told MEE that Jewish members were often required to receive antisemitism training after being disciplined for alleged antisemitic conduct if they wished to remain in the party. 

“It’s a cruel, even brutal, trick to brand these Jewish members as antisemites when they have experience and in-depth understanding of real antisemitism,” she said.

Labour, she added, not only appeared to tolerate their characterisation as “the wrong sort of Jews” but often implicitly endorsed this racist labelling by refusing to deal with their harassment.

Findings Buried

The JVL’s notification to the equalities watchdog of the abusive treatment of Jewish party members is likely to embarrass Starmer. It has echoes of claims made against his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn. 

In Corbyn’s case, unlike Starmer’s, there was no evidence beyond media-fuelled insinuations that Labour discriminated against Jews or indulged antisemitism. 

Nonetheless, in 2018, two pro-Israel groups referred Labour to the EHRC, claiming that antisemitism was rife under Corbyn. The watchdog carried out an investigation – the first into a major political party –  that reported two years later.

Even relying on the IHRA definition, the Equalities Commission could identify only two instances of what it characterised as “antisemitic harassment“, in each instance by an individual rather than party structures.

In fact, its main conclusion – buried in both the report and the media coverage – was that, when Corbyn’s officials discriminated by interfering in antisemitism disciplinary cases, it was usually in favour of complainants. In other words, Labour under Corbyn was unfairly ruling incidents as antisemitic when the evidence was lacking.

The over-eagerness of Corbyn’s team to suspend or expel members for antisemitism on flimsy evidence was hardly surprising, given that the entire British media were portraying Labour under his leadership as a nest of antisemites.

An independent investigation by Martin Forde KC, ordered by Starmer, found last year that the issue of antisemitism had been weaponised for factional purposes, chiefly to damage Corbyn and his left-wing supporters and strengthen the Labour right.

Forde’s inquiry confirmed many of the revelations contained in a leaked internal report that showed the right-wing Labour bureaucracy plotting against Corbyn, dragging its feet on disciplinary cases to embarrass him, and actively trying to sabotage his 2017 election campaign.

Starmer has done his best to bury the Forde report since its publication last year. He is also preparing to risk up to £4m ($4.9m) in legal billsto pursue former Corbyn staff members he accuses of leaking the report.

Labour did not respond to a request from Middle East Eye for comment.

Rigged Politics

Paradoxically, discrimination against Jews by Labour is now quantifiable under Starmer’s leadership: Jewish members critical of Israel have been disproportionately targeted. 

Such an outcome was something Corbyn’s team explicitly warned against while he was leader, even as he came under severe pressure from the media and pro-Israel lobby groups.

Despite the thinness of the evidence against Corbyn, the EHRC imposed on Labour an “action plan“, effectively monitoring it “to prevent continuation or reoccurrence” of unlawful acts relating to antisemitism. The action plan, it added, “was legally enforceable by the court if not fulfilled”.

Jewish Voice for Labour, it appears, is calling the EHRC’s bluff. The equalities body was all too ready to investigate Labour when Corbyn was leader, even on weak evidence of antisemitism and harassment of Jews. 

Will it subject Starmer to similar scrutiny, especially when evidence of harassment against Jewish party members seems overwhelming and the equalities watchdog’s action plan is being so flagrantly flouted?

Don’t hold your breath. The EHRC released Labour from special measures back in January.

An EHRC spokesperson told Middle East Eye the commission was “satisfed [Labour] had implemented the necessary actions to improve their complaints, recruitment, training and other procedures to the legal standards required”.

As Corbyn warned in response to the publication of the commission’s report in 2020, the scale of antisemitism in Labour under his leadership was “dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party”. Those opponents have won. 

The lack of concern about Jews being so openly discriminated against by one of Britain’s two largest parties will, however, demonstrate how right Corbyn was. 

The furore was never about antisemitism or the welfare of Jews. For some, it was about silencing criticism of Israel, while for others it was about preventing a moderate socialist from getting anywhere near No 10 Downing Street. 

Starmer, who has put patriotism, Nato and big business at the top of his programme, has nothing to fear. No one in power cares about how much his party harasses Jews, when those Jews are on the left. 

Weaponised antisemitism is still serving its purpose: it has crushed the left politically, using Israel as the cudgel, and is now busy stifling discussions on campuses that might have exposed how bogus and politicised the campaign against the left really was. 

That is why the fightback matters. It is not just about setting the record straight. It is about exposing how rigged British politics truly is.

*

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Jonathan Cook is the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His website and blog can be found at www.jonathan-cook.net

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***

Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly has launched a United Nations declaration that calls for action to protect what it calls “information integrity” and to tackle “disinformation.”

Ms. Joly launched the Global Declaration on Information Integrity Online jointly with Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Hanke Bruins Slot during the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Sept. 20.

“Information integrity is essential to help ensure the strength of democratic processes and to protect fundamental rights,” says a joint statement by Canada and the Netherlands.

“The erosion of information integrity, including the propagation of disinformation, weakens the strength of democratic engagement.”

Speaking to the U.N. on the same day, Ms. Bruins Slot said the emerging online environment makes it difficult to determine what is and what is not truthful.

“Every day, the world is flooded with disinformation and misinformation. Rapid advances in technology—particularly generative AI—make it more and more difficult to tell fact from fiction,” she said.

Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Japan, and South Korea are among the 30 countries that have signed the declaration.

The declaration promotes concepts such as respect for “the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information.”

It says signatories need to “take active steps to address misinformation and disinformation targeted at women, LGBTIQ+ persons, persons with disabilities and Indigenous Peoples.”

Some initiatives are the result of international collaborative efforts to shape the flow of information, and others have been conceived closer to home.

Canada’s participation in the Rapid Response Mechanism, established by G7 leaders at the 2018 G7 Summit in Charlevoix, Quebec, monitors the digital information environment. Its goal is to encourage cooperation among member countries to provide a coordinated response to “foreign state-sponsored disinformation” and the “evolving foreign threats to democracy.”

The Liberal government has enacted legislation to shape the information space, with bills C-18 and C-11 being passed in recent months.

The Online News Act, Bill C-18, which passed in June, has been framed as an attempt to defend democracy by bolstering the coffers of flailing legacy media with money from Big Tech.

In reaction to the new legislation, Meta has restricted Canadians’ access to news content in their feeds, to avoid sharing revenue with media outlets. Google has threatened to take action but hasn’t yet.

The Liberal government also passed Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, in order to boost Canadian content and to regulate some aspects of online streaming and social media.

A new bill to address “online harms” is also in the works, but it does not appear to be a legislative priority for the government at this time.

*

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Amanda Brown is a reporter and editor based in the Calgary area.

Featured image: Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly speaks with reporters in the foyer of the House of Commons in Ottawa on April 27, 2023. (The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld)

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***

Earlier this month, Canada hosted the third Ukraine Reform Conference, a gathering of diplomats and officials from over 100 countries aimed at bringing Kiev even more directly under the geopolitical and economic domination of the Western imperialist powers.

After meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the conference sidelines, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed “to stand with Ukraine against Russian interference and aggression” and to support it in the struggle to end Russia’s “illegal annexation” of Crimea.

Trudeau’s portrayal of Russia as the aggressor in Ukraine and Eastern Europe turns reality on its head. It conceals the fact that Canada played a major supporting role in the US-orchestrated, fascist-spearheaded February 2014 coup that chased Ukraine’s elected president from power and brought a far-right, pro-Western regime to power in Kiev; and that the 2014 coup was the continuation of a longstanding US-led, Canadian-backed drive to expand NATO to Russia’s borders and harness Ukraine to the West.

Moreover, Canadian imperialism has been playing a leading role in the subsequent US-NATO war drive against Russia. This includes supporting Washington’s withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia; taking command and providing the bulk of the troops for one of NATO’s four new “forward deployed” battalions in Poland and the three Baltic states; and deploying 200 Canadian Armed Forces personnel to Ukraine since 2015 to help prepare its army and National Guard to, in Trudeau’s words, “liberate” Ukrainian territory.

But Canada’s intimate alliance with far-right Ukrainian nationalists did not begin in 2014 or even in December 1991, when Canada became the first Western country to recognize Ukraine as a sovereign state. In the decades following World War II, Canada became a haven for far-right Ukrainian nationalists, many of whom had collaborated with the Nazis both in their drive to find “Lebensraum” (living space) through the conquest of the Soviet Union and their genocidal “final solution to the Jewish problem.”

Under conditions of the postwar US-led military-strategic offensive against the Soviet Union—what euphemistically came to be known as the Cold War—these ultra-reactionary political forces came to be seen as useful allies due to their virulent anticommunism and hostility to anything and anyone associated with the Soviet Union.

In the immediate postwar period, Canada’s then Liberal government, working in close cahoots with US and British intelligence, opened Canada’s doors to Ukrainian Nazi collaborators. These included members of the infamous 14th Grenadier Division of the Waffen SS, also known as the Galicia Division.

Among the beneficiaries of this policy was Mikhail Chomiak, the grandfather of current Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland. During the war, Chomiak served as editor of a pro-Nazi Ukrainian nationalist newspaper, Krakivs’ki Visti, which used publishing equipment commandeered by the Nazis from a Jewish newspaper they had shut down. Chomiak emigrated to northern Alberta after fleeing to Vienna in late 1944 in the face of the advancing Red Army (See: Canadian media denounces exposure of foreign minister’s grandfather as Nazi collaborator).

A recruitment poster for the Waffen SS Galacia division. It includes an image of Krakivs’ki Visti, which campaigned for its creation. Freeland’s maternal grandfather was Krakivs’ki Visti’s business manager.

The scale of the influx of Nazi collaborators only became public knowledge in the 1980s. A comprehensive study carried out by Alti Rodal on behalf of the federal government-appointed Deschênes Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada uncovered records proving that US intelligence agents in Europe had funneled Nazi collaborators from Eastern Europe through the Canadian immigration system using false papers. Rodal revealed that large numbers of identically typed applications were received by Canada’s immigration department from one address in West Germany. On closer inspection, this address turned out to be a US military base.

The Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney established the Deschênes Commission in 1985, in response to a mounting public outcry over exposures of Nazis and Nazi accomplices who had found a safe haven in Canada and tasked the inquiry with identifying Nazi war criminals residing in the country.

Around the same time, the Simon Wiesenthal Center estimated that upwards of 2,000 Nazis and Nazi collaborators emigrated to Canada in the years after the war. A quarter-century later, in 2011, it would give Canada an “F minus” in its annual report ranking countries on their efforts to prosecute war criminals. This placed Canada on a par with Ukraine and the former Baltic republics, i.e., countries where the right-wing, nationalist regimes that have emerged since the Stalinist bureaucracy’s dissolution of the Soviet Union openly venerate the ultranationalists who aligned with the Nazis when they invaded the USSR.

War Criminals in Canada

A significant number of those who made their way to Canada were members of the Nazi SS’s Galicia Division, which was made up of Ukrainian nationalist volunteers who fought on the side of the Wehrmacht against the Red Army during the Nazis’ war of annihilation against the Soviet Union. This preplanned onslaught—launched in June 1941 when a 3 million-strong force comprised of German troops, their Axis allies and fascist volunteers invaded the Soviet Union—led to the deaths of 27 million Soviet citizens and the Holocaust.

In waging war, suppressing the population, and pursuing the annihilation of the Jews, across Eastern Europe and above all in the USSR, Hitler’s Wehrmacht and SS shock troops relied on the loyal collaboration of ultraright-wing, anti-Semitic forces. Among the Ukrainian nationalists, in both occupied Poland and the USSR, the Nazis found eager collaborators. The Galicia Division was formed in 1943 out of volunteers recruited from the fascist Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), both of whose factions—the OUN (Melnyk) and the OUN (Bandera)—had welcomed the launching of Hitler’s war on the Soviet Union, actively participated in the mass extermination of Jews (the Holocaust) and continued to fight with the Nazis against the Red Army into 1945.

Massacres perpetrated by the division against Polish and Jewish civilians have been well documented, including at Huta Pieniacka, Podkamien and Palikrowy. At Podkamien, 100 Polish civilians were massacred in a hilltop monastery, and at least a further 500 in surrounding villages as the Red Army approached the German-occupied area in March 1944.

Members of the Galicia Division were initially prohibited from entering Canada due to their membership in the SS. But in 1950, Britain made an appeal to the Commonwealth for volunteers to accept a total of 9,000 division members who were at that time residing in the UK after being disarmed by British troops at the war’s end.

When Canada’s External Affairs Department, prompted by complaints from the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC), raised concerns about the division’s ties to the Nazis and role in Nazi atrocities, the British government insisted that it had carried out background checks. “While in Italy these men were screened by Soviet and British missions and neither then nor subsequently has any evidence been brought to light which would suggest that any of them fought against the Western Allies or engaged in crimes against humanity,” claimed the British Foreign Office. “Their behaviour since they came to this country,” added London, “has been good, and they have never indicated in any way that they are infected with any trace of Nazi ideology.”

With this letter serving as political cover, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent and his cabinet declared that Galicia Division members would be permitted to immigrate to Canada unless it could be proved that they had personally committed atrocities against civilian populations based on “race, religion or national origins.” Simply having been a Galicia Division member would not be considered a valid reason to prevent entry, even though the postwar Nuremburg Trials had found—given the organization’s leading role in the Holocaust, other atrocities and the bloody repression of civilians—all Waffen-SS members to have been complicit in war crimes.

The immigration of Nazi and Nazi-allied war criminals continued for more than a decade after the war and was a significant factor in Canada’s emergence during the Cold War as a political-ideological centre of far-right Ukrainian nationalism.

Speaking to a CBS “60 Minutes” programme in 1997, Canadian historian Irving Abella, who is currently Professor for Canadian Jewish history at York University, bluntly summed up the political climate of the time. “One way of getting into postwar Canada,” he said “was by showing the SS tattoo. This proved that you were an anti-Communist.”

Ottawa carried out this policy in close collaboration with US authorities, who similarly permitted ex-Nazis to settle in the US and recruited hundreds to act as spies against the Soviet Union and the Soviet-allied regimes in Eastern Europe. According to investigative reporter Eric Lichtblau, up to 1,000 former Nazis were made use of by the CIA in Europe, within the US itself, the Middle East and in Latin America.

The open door policy towards Nazi collaborators stood in stark contrast to the cold shoulder given by Canada to Jews desperately fleeing persecution. Abella coauthored a well-known book, None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, which was published in 1983 just prior to the establishment of the Deschênes Commission. Abella and Harold Troper detailed how Canada accepted a mere 5,000 Jewish refugees between 1936 and 1945. Most infamously, Canada was among the countries to refuse to provide asylum to the 900 Jewish refugees on the ship the MS St Louis, which sailed from Hamburg for the Americas in April 1939. Canada’s refusal to accept any of the refugees forced the St. Louis to return to Europe, where over 200 of its passengers later died in the Holocaust.

Exoneration of the Galicia Division

Due to the continued high-level protection members of the Galicia Division enjoyed from the government and other establishment circles, the Deschênes commission granted the Brotherhood of Veterans of the First Division of the Ukrainian National Army (Galicia Division) special intervener status in its hearings. This meant it was able to cross-examine testimony from witnesses, as well as make use of the standard right to submit legal documents and provide its own testimony.

The Nazi War Criminals commission also refused Soviet offers to gather testimony in the USSR, on the purported grounds that Moscow had refused to allow Canadian officials to interrogate witnesses in accordance with Canadian rules of evidence.

Outrageously, the Deschênes commission exonerated the Galicia Division of any wrongdoing in its December 1986 final report. Its most important findings in this connection read: “The Galicia Division (14 Waffengrenadierdivision der SS [gal. Nr. 1]) should not be indicted as a group,” and “Charges of war crimes against members of the Galicia Division have never been substantiated, either in 1950 when they were first preferred, or in 1984 when they were renewed, or before this Commission.”

The commission also summarily dismissed the charge that hundreds, if not thousands, of Nazi and Nazi-allied war criminals had immigrated to Canada, declaring these figures to be “grossly exaggerated.”

Another Ukrainian nationalist outfit given special representation rights before the Deschênes commission was the Ukrainian Canadian Committee (UCC), which has since renamed itself the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. In 1950, the UCC had successfully campaigned for the lifting of the ban on Galicia Division veterans entering the country.

The UCC continues to uphold the legacy of the Galicia Division. On Remembrance Day in 2010, the organisation saluted Ukrainian veterans of the Waffen SS as fighters for “freedom of their ancestral Ukrainian homeland.” The press release came from Paul Grod, the current head of the UCC. Grod has accompanied both Trudeau and his predecessor, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on their trips to the Ukraine.

The Case of Vladimir Katriuk

Nobody should believe that the Canadian ruling elite’s defence of pro-Nazi war criminals is a thing of the past.

In 2015, Vladimir Katriuk, a Ukrainian and member of the SS during World War II, died in Quebec at the age of 93. His personal fate exemplifies how the Canadian state actively connived to ensure Nazi war criminals escaped justice.

Katriuk, who came to Canada under a false name in 1951, was accused of war crimes, the most documented of which was his participation in the Khatyn massacre, carried out in what is now Belarus in early 1943. In the last years of Katriuk’s life, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre placed his name near the top of its list of the 10 most-wanted war criminals.

Katriuk’s case first came to prominence in 1999, when a federal court ruled that he had gained Canadian citizenship on false pretenses, because he had neglected to inform Canadian immigration officials about his Nazi past. After a lengthy period of deliberation, the Conservative government decided in 2007 that it would not revoke Katriuk’s citizenship and claimed there was insufficient evidence for him to be charged with war crimes.

Katriuk, who later joined the SS, was identified by multiple sources as being a machine gunner at the Khatyn massacre, which occurred on 22 March 1943. A total of 149 villagers were either burnt alive or shot by members of Battalion 118, a volunteer auxiliary police battalion of which Katriuk was a member, with the support of a Waffen SS unit. Evidence of his participation in other lesser known crimes has also been documented, as mentioned in a 2012 article by Swedish academic Per Anders Rudling.

Even in the last weeks of his life, when a Russian extradition request was submitted for the Ukrainian-born Katriuk, a spokeswoman for the Conservative government justified Canada’s refusal to allow Katriuk’s extradition to face trial on the basis of the political situation in Russia and its alleged “aggression” against Ukraine. “While I cannot comment on any specific extradition request, to be clear, we will never accept or recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea or the illegal occupation of any sovereign Ukrainian territory,” a spokeswoman for then Justice Minister Peter McKay declared.

Nothing has changed under Justin Trudeau’s Liberals. Anxious to cover up the ultraright-wing character of the forces Ottawa and Washington have allied with in their drive to harness Ukraine to Western imperialism and these forces’ ties to the Ukrainian nationalist collaborators with the Nazis, Foreign Minister Freeland has denounced the revelations of her grandfather’s ties to the Nazis as Russian-orchestrated “disinformation.”

When Trudeau visited Ukraine in 2016, he was accompanied by a strong UCC delegation and members of the Army SOS group, set up to procure military equipment for the pro-Kiev volunteer militias, which are drawn overwhelmingly from far-right, fascistic groups.

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Featured image: Yaroslav Hunka (front center) among Nazi Waffen-SS Galicia Division troops. [Photo: Ivan Katchanovski/Twitter or X]

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Throughout August and September, anti-government protests have rocked Syrian cities. While the crowds are typically small, numbering only a few hundred, they show little sign of abating. Demonstrators are motivated by increasingly unlivable economic conditions spurred by crippling U.S.-led international sanctions against Damascus. These have produced hyperinflation, mass food insecurity, and many daily hardships for the population. They also prevent vital humanitarian aid from entering the country.

The media has given the unrest blanket coverage. No reference to Washington’s central role in imposing the misery under which average Syrians suffer today, let alone that several key figures in the protests are former opposition fighters who laid down their arms under a government-approved reconciliation deal in 2018, can be found in the reporting.

By contrast, mainstream news outlets appear positively exuberant at the prospect of a new Syrian ‘revolution’ erupting, and many comparisons have been drawn to the protests in March 2011 that turned into an all-out war by the year’s end. In the process, the long-standing, indomitably established narrative that those demonstrations were initially peaceful and only turned violent after many months in response to brutal repression by authorities has been endlessly reiterated.

This is despite the reality of what happened during that fateful time being spelled out in the Syrian government’s own internal documents. Namely, records of the Central Crisis Management Cell, created in March 2011 by Damascus to manage responses to the rioting that began a few weeks earlier.

While mainstream outlets have previously reported on this trove, dubbing them “The Assad Files,” they have universally misrepresented, distorted or simply falsified the contents to wrongfully convict Syrian officials of horrific crimes. In some instances, quite literally. The documents show that Assad and his ministers struggled valiantly to prevent the upheaval from escalating into violence on either side, protect demonstrators, and keep the situation under control.

Meanwhile, sinister, unseen forces systematically murdered security service officials, pro-government figures, and protesters to foment catastrophe in a manner similar to many CIA regime change operations old and new. This shocking story has never before been told. Now, with dark insurrectionary clouds again pullulating over Damascus, it must be.

2011: ‘This Opposition Is Armed’

Over the first months of 2011, the Arab Spring spread revolutionary fervor rapidly throughout North Africa and West Asia. Mass protests dislodged long-reigning dictators Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. Libya was plunged into civil war, and even the hyper-repressive Gulf monarchies appeared threatened. There was one exception, however.

For the most part, the streets of Syria remained stubbornly calm.

This was despite relentless calls for upheaval by local opposition elements. Repeated demands for a “day of rage” against the government of Bashar al-Assad were widely publicized in the Western media but locally unheeded. As “Al Jazeera” explained in February of that year, Syrians had no appetite for regime change. For one, the country’s ethnically and religiously diverse population cherished their state’s secularism and feared unrest would create potentially violent tensions between them all.

Inconveniently, too, Assad was extremely popular, particularly with younger Syrians. He was widely perceived as a reformer who encouraged and protected diversity and inclusion and oversaw a system that, while far from perfect, delivered extremely high standards of education, healthcare, and much else. Unlike many other leaders in the region, his refusal to accommodate Israel was also greatly respected.

Peace in Damascus finally shattered in mid-March when regime style “demonstrations” against the government broke out in several major cities following weeks of sporadic, small-scale bursts of public disobedience across the country. [Unconfirmed] reports of thousands arrested and an uncertain number of protesters killed spread widely. This was the spark that ignited the West’s proxy war in Syria. Ominously, mere days earlier, a truck carrying vast quantities of grenades and guns was intercepted at Syria’s border with Iraq.

Pater Frans was a Jesuit priest from the Netherlands who, in 1980, established a community center and farm near Homs where he preached harmony between faiths and cared for people with disabilities. When the crisis erupted, he began publishing regular observations of events that were deeply critical of both the government and the opposition.

Along the way, Frans repeatedly noted that “from the start,” he witnessed armed demonstrators fire on police. “Very often,” he once recorded, “the violence of the security forces has been a reaction to the brutal violence of the armed rebels.” In September 2011, he wrote:

From the start there has been the problem of the armed groups, which are also part of the opposition…The opposition of the street is much stronger than any other opposition. And this opposition is armed and frequently employs brutality and violence, only in order then to blame the government.”

It is unknown whether such problematic insights motivated Frans’ murder by armed militants in April 2014, not long after he refused an offer of UN evacuation.

‘No Drop of Blood’

If peaceful protesters were killed in the initial stages of the failed “revolution,” the question of who was responsible remains unanswered. The Central Crisis Management Cell records indicate that in the days leading up to the mid-March protests, government officials issued explicit instructions to security forces that citizens “should not be provoked”:

In order to avoid the consequences of continued incitement…and foil the attempts of inciters to exploit any pretext, civil police and security agents are requested not to provoke citizens.”

Similarly, on April 18, the Cell ordered the military to only “counter with weapons those who carry weapons against the state, while ensuring that civilians are not harmed.” Four days later, though, “at least” 72 protesters were allegedly shot dead by authorities in Daraa and Douma, the highest reported daily death toll since the demonstrations began. Condemnation from rights groups and Western leaders was fiery.

Three months later, a number of Syrian Arab Army officers defected and formed the Free Syrian Army. Claiming to have become disaffected, they threw their weight behind the opposition due to the April 18 slaughter and alleged the shooting was expressly ordered by their superiors, which they refused to fulfill. However, if orders to execute protesters were given, they evidently weren’t approved by Assad or his ministers.

Contemporary Cell records show that the highest echelons of the Syrian government were extremely unhappy about the killings in Daraa and Douma, with one official cautioning this “difficult day” had “created a new situation…pushing us into circumstances we are better off without.” They went on to lament, “If the directives previously issued had been adhered to, we would have prevented bloodshed, and matters would not have come to this culmination.”

An obvious suspicion is that the use of lethal force was directed by Army commanders planning to defect who wanted to concoct a valiant pretext while creating significant problems for the government. This interpretation is amply reinforced by the defectors who claimed that soldiers who refused the order to kill civilians were themselves executed.

An FSA fighter holds a bullet riddled poster of President Assad in Aleppo, Syria, March 30, 2013. Sebastiano Tomada | SIPA

That narrative was eagerly seized upon by Western media, rights groups, and the Syrian opposition as alleged “proof of Assad’s maniacal bloodlust”. Yet, even the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory of Human Rights has dismissed it as entirely false “propaganda” intended to create divisions within government forces and encourage further defections. More sinisterly, it also provided a convenient explanation for why Syrian security operatives were dying in large numbers after the “peaceful” protests began.

From late March onwards, targeted killings of security operatives and soldiers by unknown assailants became routine before the military was formally deployed in Syria. By early May, the Cell requested daily updates on casualties among “our own forces.” Publicly, though, the government initially remained silent on the slaughter. The Cell records suggest officials were afraid of showing weakness, inflaming tensions, and encouraging further violence.

It was not until June, with the slaughter of at least 120 security forces by armed militants who’d taken over the town of Jisr al-Shughour, that Damascus – and the Western media – acknowledged the killing spree. Cell records show that by this time, government supporters were being abducted, tortured, and murdered by opposition actors. This led to the formal deployment of the military to handle the crisis, which subsequently became even more deadly. Despite the carnage, the Cell’s instructions remained unambiguous.

“Ensure that no drop of blood is shed when confronting and dispersing peaceful demonstrations,” an August memo states. The following month, an order to “prohibit harming any detainee” was issued. “If there is evidence” that any security official “fell short in carrying out any mission,” the Cell dictated, “any officer, head of branch or field commander” implicated would have to explain themselves to the government “to hold them accountable.”

‘Toppling Down the Regime’

Some of the most compelling passages in the Cell documents refer to unidentified snipers lurking on rooftops and buildings adjacent to protests from the upheaval’s beginning, firing on crowds below. One memo records that in late April 2011, a sniper near an Aleppo mosque “shot demonstrators, killing one and injuring 43,” and “the situation of some injured is still delicate.”

As such, “focusing on arresting inciters, especially those shooting at demonstrators,” was considered a core priority for the Assad government for much of that year. Around this time, the Cell also hit upon the idea of capturing “a sniper, inciter or infiltrator” and presenting them publicly in a “convincing” manner. One official suggested that “surrounding and catching a sniper alive or injured and exposing him in the media is not impossible” and would “restore public trust in security agencies and the police.”

But this never came to pass. Damascus also neglected to publicly present a bombshell document circulated among “the so-called Syrian opposition in Lebanon” that its intelligence services intercepted in May 2011. The remarkable file, reproduced in full in the Cell records, lays bare the opposition’s insurrectionary plans, providing a clear blueprint for precisely what had happened since March, and what was to come.

The opposition proposed convening mass demonstrations so that security forces “will lose control of all regions,” be “taken unaware,” and become “exhausted and distracted.” This, along with “honest officers and soldiers” joining “the ranks of the revolution,” would make “toppling down the regime” all the more straightforward, particularly as any crackdown on these protests would encourage a Western “military strike,” ala Libya. They foresaw mainstream news outlets playing a significant role in making this happen:

Everyone should be confident that with the continuation of demonstrations today, media channels will have no choice but to cover the events…Al Jazeera will be late due to considerations of mutual interests. But we have Al Arabiya and Western media channels who will come forward, and we will all see the change of tone in covering the events and demonstrations will be aired on all channels and they will have wide coverage.”

The document is the most palpable evidence to date that the entire Syrian “revolution” unfolded according to a pre-prepared, well-honed script. Whether this was drawn up in direct collusion with Western powers remains to be proven. Still, the presence of snipers picking off protesters is a strong indication among many that this was the case.

Unidentified snipers are a frequent fixture of U.S.-orchestrated ‘color revolutions’ and CIA coups, such as the attempted overthrow of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in 2002 and the 2014 Ukrainian ‘revolution.’ In both cases, the shooting of unarmed protesters by snipers was pivotal in unseating the targeted government. In Kiev, demonstrations that began months earlier started running out of steam when 70 protesters were abruptly slain by sniper fire.

This turned the entire crowd violent while triggering an avalanche of international condemnation, which made President Viktor Yanukovych’s downfall a fait accompli. In the years since, three Georgian mercenaries have claimed they were expressly ordered by nationalist opposition actors and a U.S. military veteran embedded with them to carry out a massacre “to sow some chaos.” Officially, the crime remains unsolved today.

‘Burn Enormous Sums’

The Central Crisis Management Cell documents would have forever remained a Syrian government secret were it not for the enterprising work of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA). This shadowy organization was founded in May 2011 by Western military and intelligence veterans to prosecute Syrian officials for war crimes. Its first act was to train Syrian investigators “in basic international criminal and humanitarian law” in service of a “domestic justice process in a future transitional Syria.”

For years, CIJA enjoyed glowing profiles in major news outlets and connected journalists and rights groups with material that formed the basis of several hard-hitting investigations exposing purported Syrian government atrocities. At no point was any concern raised about the Commission’s collaboration with dangerous armed groups to smuggle sensitive documentation out of abandoned government buildings in opposition-occupied areas of the country.

CIJA chief Bill Wiley claimed in 2014 that his organization worked with every Syrian opposition group “up to but excluding Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State.” However, an investigation by “The Grayzone” indicates that the Commission’s staff in Syria were frequently in extremely close quarters with both groups and, in fact, paid them handsomely for their assistance in securing documentation. This included material seized in the city of Raqqa after its January 2014 capture by ISIS, when the terrorist group was massacring Alawites and Christians.

“We burn enormous sums of money moving this stuff,” Wiley told The “New Yorker” in 2016. Accordingly, CIJA received tens of millions of dollars for these efforts from a number of Western governments, including states at the forefront of the Syrian proxy war.

The Commission’s work produced no prosecutions for many years. This changed in late 2019 when Anwar Raslan and Eyad al-Gharib, two former Damacus’ General Intelligence Directorate members, were indicted in Germany for crimes against humanity.

Raslan headed the Directorate’s domestic security unit, while al-Gharib was one of his departmental lackeys. The pair defected in December 2012, with Raslan and his family fleeing to Jordan, where he would play “an active and visible role in the Syrian opposition.” He was part of the opposition delegation to the Geneva II conference on Syria in January 2014. In July of that year, he was granted asylum in Germany.

Following his escape, Raslan told numerous tales of abuse and atrocities perpetrated by his unit and the Syrian government during his 20 years of state service. He claimed his defection was spurred after learning of an apparent opposition attack in Damascus that he was investigating was, in fact, staged by security forces. Significant doubts about his accounts and whether his defection was principled or just cynical opportunism have been raised.

In a bitter irony, Raslan’s loudmouth tendencies were his undoing. His assorted claims provided grounds for his arrest by German authorities and were used against him in his prosecution, which heavily relied on documents seized by CIJA, including the Cell records. An expert statement submitted to the court by Commission operative Ewan Brown, a British Army veteran, falsely frames these as indicative that Assad’s government sanctioned and encouraged brutality and repression against peaceful protesters.

Al-Gharib was found guilty of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity and received four-and-a-half years in prison in February 2021. A year later, Raslan was given life imprisonment for crimes including mass torture, rape, and murder. The pair were convicted not for personally perpetrating these horrors but for serving in the General Intelligence Directorate when they were allegedly committed. Details of these purported crimes were, in some cases, provided to the court by highly unreliable witnesses.

The conclusion that Al-Gharib and Raslan were prosecuted because they were within easy reach, and CIJA and its Western backers needed something to show for all their efforts, is ineluctable. The Commission had good reason to be nervous about failing to fulfill its founding objective. In March 2020, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) formally accused the organization of “submission of false documents, irregular invoicing, and profiteering” in connection with an EU “Rule of Law” project it ran in Syria.

CIJA’s crusade to punish Syrian officials could only succeed in the event of regime change. Its launch in May 2011 shows that foreign actors were laying the foundations for that eventuality from the earliest days of the ‘peaceful revolution.’ The recent protests may indicate that Western powers haven’t given up on the objective yet.

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Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist and MintPress News contributor exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. His work has previously appeared in The Cradle, Declassified UK, and Grayzone. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg.

Featured image is from MintPress News

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The British government is acquiescing in Pakistan’s imprisonment of former prime minister Imran Khan.

After being removed from office in a no-confidence vote in parliament in April last year, Khan was arrested last month and given a three year sentence for corruption. This was for violating election laws by having failed to properly declare gifts received from foreign dignitaries – an act which in Britain gets merely a warning.

These moves ultimately derive from the real power broker in Pakistan – its army, a close ally of successive UK governments. In the last 10 years, for example, the UK has exported £124m worth of military equipment to Pakistan while training its military officers at the Sandhurst army academy.

Strikingly, Britain has made no prominent public calls to release Khan, unlike numerous press releases issued by the UK government calling on Russia to release opposition figure Alexei Navalny.

For the UK, it’s business as usual. This month, Pakistan’s state-owned weapons manufacturer exhibited at a major arms fair in London. In May, the head of the British army, General Patrick Sanders, even visited Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General Asim Munir.

The visit took place amid a crackdown on Khan’s political party, the PTI, which has a huge support among the Pakistani diaspora in UK and US.

The visit also came while British nationals of Pakistani descent who are Khan supporters were being seized in the country, for which family members in Britain were contacting the UK Foreign Office for assistance.

Why is Britain so keen to cosy up to the Pakistani military?

Constant Intelligence

Watching the Twin Towers collapse after being hit by hijacked planes convinced Sir Hilary Synott, Britain’s then high commissioner in Pakistan of shifting times ahead for Britain and the West’s policy towards the government in Islamabad. 

He wrote that

“the position completely changed post 9/11. The Western approach of finger-wagging at Musharraf [the then military dictator in Pakistan] and pressing for democracy changed”. 

He thought the West needed to respond with military force in Afghanistan and purge growing extremism by forces like Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and for that they needed Pakistan’s most influential player – its army. 

Another shock for Britain came through the tragic 7/7 2005 terrorist attacks in London, which took 52 lives. Since then, British security services have become permanent clients of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate C – feeding constant intelligence to their counterparts about dual nationals and others travelling to and from Pakistan. 

The fear in British policymakers’ minds of another attack in Britain linked to Islamic extremism and Pakistani tribal areas, or Afghanistan, has drawn it closer to Pakistan’s security agencies and army than it would like to acknowledge. 

The most important person for Britain in Pakistan is now not the elected prime minister but the Chief of Army Staff. 

Preference for the Military

Britain’s preference for dealing directly with the military has been publicly on display as well, such as when in August last year, Pakistan’s then COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa became the first Pakistani ever to be the sovereign representative of the Queen at Sandhurst’s military parade. 

This happened at a time when political dissenters were facing human rights abuses in Pakistan, amidst a crackdown on media and freedom of expression. 

General Bajwa, who retired in November last year, was accused of having removed at least two elected prime ministers, with one – Imran Khan – accusing him publicly of an assassination attempt against him. 

It shows how blunt the shift in British foreign policy has been, preferring this unholy alliance concerned with “security” rather than championing the promotion of democracy and human rights.

UK high commissioners today primarily deal directly with Pakistani military chiefs, the ultimate heads of the hybrid regime, where political rulers are ineffective while real power and decision making lies with the powerful military. 

Historically, the dynamics of the relationship between Britain and Pakistan were rather different and certainly not security-centric. There is a deeper connection and history, given the colonial past with a fully anglophile education system, and civil service and feudal background politicians who still romanticise the good ole’ times of the Empire. 

Britain played an important role in building institutions and systems in Pakistan post-independence and most high commissioners enjoyed close relations with policy makers. There was a pattern of posting individuals with linkages to Pakistan or the subcontinent that gave them personal connections. 

High Commissioners

Before 9/11, the profile of high commissioners appointed to Pakistan suggested Britain was more focused on promoting democratic processes in the country. Post-9/11, all the UK’s top diplomats in the country have been “security” experts or served in security roles. 

The latest appointee is Jane Marriott, a former Director of the UK’s International Counter-Terrorism Unit. One of her recent predecessors, Thomas Drew (2016-2019), was previously the Foreign Office’s national security director and is now its director of defence and intelligence. 

Another recent high commissioner, Christian Turner, was the deputy national security advisor to prime minister Theresa May. 

Both Drew and Turner enjoyed very close relationships with General Bajwa, who is known as the architect of the newer version of hybrid rule in Pakistan. 

There is an interesting public display of affection from a cricket match in 2019 at Lords where Bajwa sat alongside Drew and the head of the UK military, General Nick Carter. The photograph showcases the importance of personal connections and the UK’s preference for doing business with the army, more so than with a fragile civilian Pakistani polity that struggles to survive.

The Pakistani military and ISI’s promotion of security fears, at times exaggerating links between Islamic extremism and the British Pakistani diaspora, makes them appear a useful resource in dealing with threats and prolongs hybrid rule in Pakistan.

In return, the UK is assisting Pakistani army generals way more than it would like to publicly admit. A recent story by the Intercept reveals the Pakistani military sold ammunition worth over $900m to Ukraine in a secret deal and in return the US helped Islamabad secure an IMF bailout arrangement, brokered by a British company. 

Pakistan displays its weapons at the DSEI arms fair in London, September 2023. (Photo: Matt Kennard / Declassified UK)

Anti-corruption

It seems UK high commissioners are doing more than just parading Pakistani generals to one-off cricket matches. The Pakistani military is the richest corporation in the country, operating as a business and utilising state resources but not sharing its profits with the national exchequer and the Pakistani public. 

There are also credible stories about the unexplained wealth of many generals including Bajwa, raising serious concerns about the UK’s approach to accountability and anti-corruption.

It might be argued that Britain has a pragmatic approach of dealing with whoever is in charge in Pakistan and that fixing its failing democracy, lack of the rule of law and media freedom is not hers to do. 

However, in the longer term, the only way of dealing with security concerns from radicalisation is through having a functioning democracy in Pakistan and for the Pakistani diaspora in the UK to believe that Britain is not supporting any abusive, despotic regime for its short-term gain.

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Shahzad Akbar is a Pakistani politician and barrister who served from 2018-22 as an adviser to prime minister Imran Khan on domestic and accountability issues, in the capacity of a minister in Cabinet.

Featured image: Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan gives a speech from his home on March 15, with tear gas cannisters that had been fired at protesters by the police trying to arrest him (Source: Geopolitical Economy Report)

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In the early weeks of the war, a peace was still possible that would have seen Ukraine lose few lives and little to no land. Even the Donbas would have remained in Ukraine with autonomy under a still possible Minsk agreement. Only Crimea would have remained lost.

A year and a half later, Ukraine’s daily loss of life is horrific and Russia is determined to hold not only Crimea and the Donbas, but Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

But while Ukraine has struggled on the battlefield, it has sustained its diplomatic support. But this week, that too showed strains. Ukraine had a difficult week with both the aligned and the nonaligned.

A year ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed an enthusiastically supportive U.S. Congress live and a warm General Assembly via video. A year later, perhaps for fear of a different tone, Zelensky will meet privately with U.S. officials instead of publicly with a televised address to Congress.

In a perhaps even more worrisome sign for Ukraine, when Zelensky’s turn came to speak to the General Assembly on September 19, “he delivered his address,” The Washington Post reported, “to a half-full house, with many delegations declining to appear and listen to what he had to say.” Many countries have refused to condemn Russia or join the U.S.-led sanctions on Russia, but refusing to attend the General Assembly session and listen to Zelensky may be sending a strong signal.

And that was not the only signal. The Post further reports that “leaders from some developing nations are increasingly frustrated that the effort to support Ukraine is taking away, they say, from their own struggles to drum up enough money to adapt to a warming world, confront poverty and ensure a more secure life for their citizens.” The nonaligned global majority has all along seen the war as yet another proxy war between NATO and Russia that distracts from the problems that are most urgent to the world.

But Ukraine’s diplomatic worries come not just from the nonaligned countries but from the aligned ones. Poland has been, perhaps, Ukraine’s strongest supporter. It has been one of the biggest suppliers of weapons—and the central hub through which other NATO countries have sent their weapons to Ukraine—and the spearhead for sending tanks and more advanced weaponry. It has given Ukraine about a third of its own weapons valued at over $4 billion. And it has been a force behind the push for NATO membership for Ukraine.

But disagreement over the export of Ukrainian grain has shown how fragile that fraternity really is. Though united over a common animosity toward Russia, there are old strains in the Polish-Ukrainian relationship. Poland has been bothered by what they perceive as Ukraine’s continued glorification of their anti-Polish nationalist past. In January, a Polish official reminded Ukraine that they “continue to glorify” Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera, who was “responsible for the genocide of Poles in 1943-44, when UPA troops horribly killed about 100,000 Polish citizens.” The Polish parliament has adopted a resolution that includes “recognition of guilt” by Ukraine for the genocide as a condition for “Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation.”

But the strain has recently torn over the issue of grain imports. Ukraine has complained about the betrayal of Polish restrictions on the import of Ukrainian grain to protect Polish farmers and markets. In August, echoing recent U.S. and U.K. statements, Marcin Przydacz, head of the Polish President’s Office of International Affairs, said that Ukraine should be “more grateful.” He took to Polish television to harshly scold that Kiev “should start to appreciate the role that Poland has played for Ukraine in the past months and years.” In angry response, Kiev called the Polish ambassador to Ukraine into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Furiously, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki shot back that, “The summoning of the Polish ambassador to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry—the representative of the only country that remained in Kiev the day Russia invaded Ukraine—should not have happened.” Kiev’s action was “a mistake…given the huge support Poland has provided to Ukraine.”

And there the disagreement simmered until Zelensky’s speech to the General Assembly. There Zelensky lashed out at “how some in Europe play out solidarity in a political theatre—making thriller from the grain. They may seem to play their own role but in fact, they are helping set the stage to a Moscow actor.”

The accusation that Ukraine’s greatest supporter is betraying Ukraine and helping Russia, coupled with Ukraine filing a complaint against Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia with the World Trade Organization over their import ban on Ukrainian grain, proved too much for Poland. Polish President Andzej Duda said that Zelensky was like a drowning man who “can be extremely dangerous, because he can drag you to the depths” and “drown the rescuers.” He scolded that “It would be good for Ukraine to remember that it receives help from us and to remember that we are also a transit country to Ukraine.”

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki then announced that Poland is “no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons.” He clarified that Poland would still permit other countries to ship their arms to Ukraine through Poland.

Poland has since clarified that they will continue to honor the arms agreements they have made with Ukraine made until now:

“Poland is only carrying out previously agreed supplies of ammunition and armaments, including those resulting from the contracts signed with Ukraine,” spokesman Piotr Muller said.

Poland has also now said that, at a later date, it may send Ukraine more of its older weapons.

“We cannot transfer our new weapons that we buy to strengthen Poland’s security or modernize the Polish army,” Duda said. “We’ve signed agreements with Ukraine regarding, among others, ammunition and special vehicles, and we are implementing them.”

And Poland is not alone. The three Eastern European nations that Ukraine has brought files against at the World Trade Organization form a triumvirate of trouble for Ukraine. Poland is the most threatening because it is the most important. Hungary is the least surprising because they have been an outlier in NATO unity on the war since the beginning. And Slovakia is becoming worrisome.

Polls show that former Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico is leading heading into the September 30 election. Slovakia has, up until now, been a strong supporter of Ukraine and a supplier of arms. But Fico has promised that, if he is elected, Slovakia “will not send a single round to Ukraine.” Fico has also criticized the sanctions on Russia and called for improving relations with Russia when the war ends.

Zelensky’s speech at the General Assembly has revealed underlying tensions with the nonaligned world and heightened tensions with nations previously aligned with Ukraine.

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Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative as well as other outlets.

Featured image: APR-23-2022 Press conference of Volodymyr Zelenskyy the President of Ukraine during Russian Ukrainian war at Kyiv Metro station to protect against air strikes. Kyiv, Ukraine

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Jamaica may be the next country to sever ties with the British monarchy, with a referendum in the island nation on whether to remove King Charles as their head of state set for 2024.

It’s not the only one considering leaving the monarchy behind. According to media reports, government officials in Belize, the Bahamas, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, and St.Kitts and Nevis have all signaled that they want to become republics in the near future too. While on the other side of the world, there have been calls in Australia to become fully independent of Britain.

If these nations do choose to become republics, then they will join the ranks of several others in the Caribbean region – Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Dominica – which all removed the then-monarch Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state in the 1970s. Barbados too followed suit in November 2021, becoming the world’s newest republic and in the words of the country’s first president Dame Sandra Mason, took the steps “to fully leave our colonial past behind.”

There are 56 independent countries in the Commonwealth. Only 14 of those are considered a part of the ‘Commonwealth Realm’, where King Charles is the official head of state.

The following chart shows the results of a poll on the topic by Lord Ashcroft, a pollster and former deputy chairman of the UK Conservative Party, which was carried out between February and March of 2023. It found that when asked “If there was a referendum tomorrow, would you vote to remain a monarchy or to become a republic?” a greater share of people in seven out of the 14 surveyed nations of the Commonwealth Realm wanted to remove King Charles as their head of state rather than to keep him. Among these were the people of the Solomon Islands (59 percent would vote to become a republic versus 34 percent to remain a monarchy), the Bahamas (51 percent to 27 percent), Canada (47 percent to 23 percent) and Jamaica (49 percent to 40 percent). The remaining respondents in these countries either said they didn’t know or would not vote.

In several countries the response was more mixed, such as Antigua and Barbuda (47 percent opting for becoming a republic and 45 percent remaining a monarchy) and Belize (43 percent to 48 percent). Meanwhile, respondents in Tuvalu, St. Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Wales were more clear cut in their ambitions to maintain the status quo.

Within the UK, Scottish respondents – despite close referendums and polls on the topic in recent years – said that they would choose to remain part of the monarchy, at least under the circumstances of a ‘next day’ referendum, with 32 percent of respondents saying that they would prefer to become a republic. Northern Ireland, which has also observed close polls on the question of leaving the UK to become a United Ireland once more, had a closer divide of 46 percent leave to 42 percent remain.

It is important to note here that while surveys can be useful for capturing the sentiment of a population, it is better to rely on multiple surveys over a time period.

This chart and text had to be updated based on incorrect figures for Scotland, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Wales. Those countries’ figures had previously shown the percent of respondents answering the question: “If there was a referendum tomorrow do you think your country would vote to remain a part of the monarchy or to become a republic.”

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Join us for an exclusive Expert Witness Testimony from Dr. William Makis, a distinguished Nuclear Medicine Radiologist and Oncologist.

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

Featured image:  A hand holding an mRNA vaccine vial. (Spencer Davis / Unsplash)

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PILOT Incident: Austrian A320 near Vienna on Sep 24th 2023, captain temporarily incapacitated

By Simon Hradecky, created Tuesday, Sep 26th 2023 08:06Z

An Austrian Airlines Airbus A320-200, registration OE-LZA performing flight OS-188 from Stuttgart (Germany) to Vienna (Austria), was enroute at 310 nearing the top of descent towards Vienna when the captain started to feel unwell.

While descending towards Vienna the captain became incapacitated, the first officer took control of the aircraft, continued the descent towards Vienna and intercepted the localizer for runway 34. Upon intercepting the glidepath the captain recovered and was able to resume his duties. The aircraft continued for a safe landing on runway 34.

Pilot Incapacitations and Deaths in Aug-Sep 2023 

Sep. 23, 2023 – Alaska Airlines Pilot – 37 year old Captain Eric McRae died suddenly in his hotel room during layover, was to fly that morning

Aug. 27, 2023 – Air Canada Flight AC348 (YVR-YOW) Vancouver to Ottawa, one of the pilots felt ill and became incapacitated 50 min before landing in Ottawa.

Aug. 17, 2023 – IndiGo Flight (NAG-PNQ) Nagpur to Pune, India, pilot 40 year old Manoj Subramanium died after collapsing at the boarding gate, about to board.

Aug. 16, 2023 – Qatar Airways Flight QR579 (DEL-DOH) Delhi to Doha, Qatar, 51 year old pilot collapsed as a passenger inflight and died, plane diverted to Dubai.

Aug. 14, 2023 – LATAM Flight LA505 (MIA-SCL) Miami to Santiago, Chile – 2 hours into 8hr flight, 56 year old Captain Ivan Andaur collapsed and died in the lavatory – plane diverted to Panama City!

Aug. 9, 2023 – United Airlines UAL1309 (SRQ-EWR) Sarasota to Newark, pilot had a heart attack and lost consciousness in flight

Aug. 7, 2023 – TigerAIR Flight IT237 (CTS-TPE) Sapporo to Taipei, copilot had a medical emergency after landing plane in Taipei

Pilot Incapacitations and Deaths Jan-July 2023

July 19, 2023 – Eurowings Discover Flight 4Y-1205 (HER-FRA) Heraklion to Frankfurt, pilot incapacitated, first officer took control, landed safely

June 7, 2023 – Air Canada Flight ACA692 (YYZ-YYT) Toronto to St.John’s, First Officer became incapacitated, deadheading Captain assumed duties

June 4, 2023 – Cessna Citation N611VG flying Tennessee to Long Island, fighter jets spotted pilot slumped over in cockpit unconscious, plane crashed and all onboard died

May 11, 2023 – HiSKy Flight H4474 (DUB-KIV) Dublin to Chisinau (Moldova), 20 min after liftoff pilot became “unable to act”, plane diverted to Manchester

May 4, 2023 – British Charter TUI Airways Flight BY-1424 (NCL-LPA) Newcastle to Las Palmas Spain pilot became ill, plane diverted back to NCL.

April 21, 2023 – Easyjet Flight U2-6469 (LGW-AGA) London Gatwick to Agadir, Morocco, first offer became incapacitated, diverted to Faro, Portugal.

April 4, 2023 – United Airlines Flight 2102 (BOI-SFO) – captain was incapacitated, first officer was only one in control of the aircraft.

March 25, 2023 – TAROM Flight RO-7673 TSR-HRG diverted to Bucharest as 30 yo pilot had chest pain, then collapsed

March 22, 2023 – Southwest Flight WN6013 LAS-CMH diverted as pilot collapsed shortly after take-off, replaced by non-Southwest pilot

March 18, 2023 – Air Transat Flight TS739 FDF-YUL first officer was incapacitated about 200NM south of Montreal

March 13, 2023 – Emirates Flight EK205 MXP-JFK diverted due to pilot illness hour and a half after take-off

March 11, 2023 – United Airlines Flight UA2007 GUA-ORD diverted due to “incapacitated pilot” who had chest pains

March 3, 2023 – Virgin Australia Flight VA-717 ADL-PER Adelaide to Perth flight was forced to make an emergency landing after First Officer suffered heart attack 30 min after departure.

Military Pilot Incapacitations 

Aug. 18, 2023 – US Army Aviation Center (Alabama) student pilot went into cardiac arrest behind the controls midflight (Aug.18, 2023), Instructor landed plane – pilot was dead for 18 minutes!

Recent Pilot Deaths

Pilot death July 16, 2023 – 2006 Piper Meridian, flying from Westchester NY, crashed at Martha’s Vineyard Airport after pilot had medical emergency upon final approach and passenger took control of the plane and attempted a landing. Pilot, 79 year old Randolph Bonnist, died later in hospital.

Pilot death – May 2023 – 4 Singapore Airlines pilots died suddenly in May 2023

Pilot death – May 9, 2023 – United Airlines and US Air Force Pilot Lt. Col. Michael Fugett, age 46, died unexpectedly at his home

Pilot death – May 3, 2023 – Air Transat and Air Canada Pilot Eddy Vorperian, age 48, died suddenly during layover in Croatia

Pilot death – April 13, 2023 – Phil Thomas, graduate of Flight Training Pilot academy in Cadiz, Spain (FTEJerez) died suddenly.

Pilot death – March 17, 2023 – 39 year old Westjet Pilot Benjamin Paul Vige died suddenly in Calgary

Pilot death – March 11, 2023 – British Airways (CAI-LHR) pilot died of heart attack in crew hotel in Cairo before a Cairo to London flight (name & age not released)

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

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In January, four-star Air Force General, Mike Minihan, sent a memo to the officers he commands predicting that the U.S. and China would be at war within two years. Minihan said, “I hope I am wrong [but] my gut tells me we will fight in 2025.”

If either President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump is re-elected in 2024, then Minihan’s prognosticating gut may prove right. But if Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is the victor, then he will have been wrong.

Kennedy is intent on avoiding a war with China that would be suicidal for the U.S. and China. In July, Kennedy tweeted: “the indications are that the Chinese leadership does not want a military confrontation with us, and we shouldn’t want that either.” A few weeks earlier, the Boston Herald quoted Kennedy criticizing U.S. provocations directed against China and saying that he thought the U.S. putting military bases in the South China Sea was a mistake.

The indications are that the Chinese leadership does not want a military confrontation with us, and we shouldn’t want that either. America should compete with China on an economic plane, however. It would be good for the Chinese, good for Americans, and good for the rest of the… pic.twitter.com/8UWFl2s9Qn

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 11, 2023

These statements represent a refreshing divergence from the saber-rattling rhetoric coming from the Biden White House and Republican Party leadership that alarms even seasoned Air Force Generals. 

Kennedy is absolutely correct to emphasize that China does not want a military confrontation, as Chinese Premier Xi Jinping has publicly advocated for a “win-win” cooperative strategy, in which the U.S. and China work together and collectively try to advance their national interests. 

On September 17, the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff acknowledged that the Chinese spy balloon hysteria earlier in the year, which contributed greatly to the deterioration of U.S.-China relations, was entirely baseless. Many other accusations directed against China appear to be either false or inflated for political reasons, including the claim, according to The Grayzone, that China has committed genocide against the Uyghur. 

The U.S. allegation of Chinese aggression centers on China’s attempt to control the Senkaku, Spratley, and Paracels Islands in the South China Sea. Their claims to these islands, however, are disputed, with the Senkakus having been taken from China by Japan in the 1894-1895 Sino-Japanese War. 

The Biden administration has antagonized China by sending Navy warships into the South China Sea and flying spy planes over the Taiwan Strait, over which China has jurisdiction under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. 

CIA Director William F. Burns, the first career diplomat to head the agency, and recently named to Biden’s cabinet, has carried out an expansive covert influence operation focusing on China, according to the New York Times. Two years ago, Burns created the China Mission Center and has since hired more China experts, increased spending on China-related intelligence gathering and counter espionage efforts that include flying spy planes off China’s coast.

The Biden administration has further signaled a possible break with the traditional “One China Policy” that recognizes Taiwan as part of China, by ratcheting up arms sales and covertly supporting separatist movements within Taiwan, according to Global Times. 

A U.S. government official described the U.S. strategy as being designed to turn Taiwan—the recipient of $3 billion in U.S. military aid in 2023—into a “porcupine,” a territory bristling with armaments and other forms of U.S.-led support that makes it “appear too painful to attack.”

Kennedy stands opposed to this policy, stating that the U.S. should “back off militarily” and “take the pressure off China and Taiwan and let them figure it out for themselves.” Additionally, Kennedy has called for diplomatic talks between the U.S. and China to “see if there are ways that we can work with each other peacefully and keep the world at ease.”

This progressive approach does not correlate with the interests of the military industrial complex that has corrupted the Democratic and Republican parties and, as Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in his farewell address over 60 years ago, hijacked U.S. foreign policy. It was the most controversial speech of Eisenhower’s life, yet, he edited and thereby diminished what his speechwriters, Malcolm Roos and Ralph E. Williams, originally termed the “Military-Industrial Congressional Complex.”

During the 2020 election, Northrop Grumman of Falls Church Virginia, which received a $180 million Pentagon contract for Volcano anti-tank munitions to Taiwan, gave Joe Biden $419,156 and another $492,003 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for Congressional races.

General Dynamics contributed $237,278 to Joe Biden and another $224,809 to the DNC for Congressional races in 2020, while benefiting from the sale of 66 F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan. 

Raytheon’s support for Joe Biden took the form of $506,424 for his 2020 presidential campaign. $2 billion in contracts were awarded to Raytheon by the Pentagon in just the first three months of Biden’s presidency. Raytheon has since sold Sidewinder and HARM missiles to Taiwan and agreed to a $100 million deal for the maintenance of Taiwan’s missile defense system, which led China to impose sanctions on the company.

Biden’s $842 billion defense budget for FY 2024 includes $9.1 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, whose purpose is to upgrade U.S. military infrastructure and readiness and to “bolster the capacity and capabilities of U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region.” These allies/partners include the Philippines, South Korea, India and Okinawa, Japan, which has been transformed into a military garrison directed against China. 

By far, the biggest winners of the Pacific Deterrence Initiative have been the arms companies listed above and Wall Street investment firms that own them, and make large donations to the DNC. 

Among them is Veritas Capital, which has owned sub-divisions of Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin and gave $97,479 to Democratic Party candidates in 2020.

Another is Renaissance Capital, which at the time of the 2020 election owned 1.2 million shares of RTX (parent company of Raytheon) worth over $75 million, and 130,000 shares in Lockheed Martin worth $50 million. Renaissance’s founder, Jim Simons, a former MIT mathematics professor who resigned from a military-connected think tank in the 1960s because he opposed the Vietnam War, gave over $7 million to Biden’s campaign in 2020, and $21.8 million to the DNC in 2018. 

Perhaps the most infamous on that short list of big winners, Blackrock, which owns 6.9% of Raytheon, 5% of General Dynamics, 6.8 percent of Lockheed Martin, and 6.3% of Northrop Grumman, is another Wall Street investment firm profiting massively from the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. During the 2022 midterm elections, Black Rock gave $410,675 to Republican and $606,366 to Democratic Party candidates, including $113,950 to Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, a longtime Sinophobe and China hawk.

And just to circle back for a sense of how tightly dominated this industry is by a handful of corporations, the federal IT and mission support of Northrop Grumman was bought by Veritas Capital in 2021. 

Kennedy has called the billion dollar U.S. weapons supplies to Ukraine “a money-laundering scheme,” taking wealth out of the pockets of tax-payers and putting it into the coffers of Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed-Martin, which, he notes, are owned by the investors of “BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard.”

These comments are equally true of the U.S. military buildup in Southeast Asia, which a President Kennedy would put an end to. Kennedy has said that he supports and encourages America competing with China on an economic plane. But he has emphasized that “meeting the needs of the American people”—whether in the realm of health-care, education, housing or fighting homelessness—is “more important than funding wars, it’s more important than funding overseas adventures.”

This is not the message that Wall Street plutocrats and weapons manufacturers who manage and pull the levers of the DNC want to hear. It is, however, one that resonates with millions of American voters from all political parties who understand that a war with China, as with Russia, is not in the best interests of the country.

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As it did last year, the 2023 United Nations General Assembly has been debating what role the United Nations and its members should play in the crisis in Ukraine. The United States and its allies still insist that the UN Charter requires countries to take Ukraine’s side in the conflict, “for as long as it takes” to restore Ukraine’s pre-2014 internationally recognized borders.

They claim to be enforcing Article 2:4 of the UN Charter that states

“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

By their reasoning, Russia violated Article 2:4 by invading Ukraine, and that makes any compromise or negotiated settlement unconscionable, regardless of the consequences of prolonging the war.

Other countries have called for a peaceful diplomatic resolution of the conflict in Ukraine, based on the preceding article of the UN Charter, Article 2:3:

“All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.”

They also refer to the purposes of the UN, defined in Article 1:1, which include the “settlement of international disputes” by “peaceful means,” and they point to the dangers of escalation and nuclear war as an imperative for diplomacy to quickly end this war.

As the Amir of Qatar told the Assembly,

“A long-term truce has become the most looked-for aspiration by people in Europe and all over the world. We call on all parties to comply with the UN Charter and international law and resort to a radical peaceful solution based on these principles.”

This year, the General Assembly has also been focused on other facets of a world in crisis: the failure to tackle the climate catastrophe; the lack of progress on the Sustainable Development Goals that countries agreed to in 2000; a neocolonial economic system that still divides the world into rich and poor; and the desperate need for structural reform of a UN Security Council that has failed in its basic responsibility to keep the peace and prevent war.

One speaker after another highlighted the persistent problems related to U.S. and Western abuses of power: the occupation of Palestine; cruel, illegal U.S. sanctions against Cuba and many other countries; Western exploitation of Africa that has evolved from slavery to debt servitude and neocolonialism; and a global financial system that exacerbates extreme inequalities of wealth and power across the world.

Brazil, by tradition, gives the first speech at the General Assembly, and President Lula da Silva spoke eloquently about the crises facing the UN and the world. On Ukraine, he said,

“The war in Ukraine exposes our collective inability to enforce the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. We do not underestimate the difficulties in achieving peace. But no solution will be lasting if it is not based on dialogue. I have reiterated that work needs to be done to create space for negotiations… The UN was born to be the home of understanding and dialogue. The international community must choose. On one hand, there is the expansion of conflicts, the furthering of inequalities and the erosion of the rule of law. On the other, the renewing of multilateral institutions dedicated to promoting peace.”

After a bumbling, incoherent speech by President Biden, Latin America again took the stage in the person of President Gustavo Petro of Colombia:

“While the minutes that define life or death on our planet are ticking on,” Petro declared, “rather than halting this march of time and talking about how to defend life for the future, thanks to deepening knowledge, expand it to the universe, we decided to waste time killing each other. We are not thinking about how to expand life to the stars, but rather how to end life on our own planet. We have devoted ourselves to war. We have been called to war. Latin America has been called upon to produce war machines, men, to go to the killing fields.

They’re forgetting that our countries have been invaded several times by the very same people who are now talking about combatting invasions. They’re forgetting that they invaded Iraq, Syria and Libya for oil. They’re forgetting that the same reasons they use to defend Zelenskyy are the very reasons that should be used to defend Palestine. They forget that to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, we must end all wars.

But they’re helping to wage one war in particular, because world powers see this suiting themselves in their game of thrones, in their hunger games.and they’re forgetting to bring an end to the other war because, for these powers, this did not suit them. What is the difference between Ukraine and Palestine, I ask? Is it not time to bring an end to both wars, and other wars too, and make the most of the short time we have to build paths to save life on the planet?

…I propose that the United Nations, as soon as possible, should hold two peace conferences, one on Ukraine, the other on Palestine, not because there are no other wars in the world – there are in my country – but because this would guide the way to making peace in all regions of the planet, because both of these, by themselves, could bring an end to hypocrisy as a political practice, because we could be sincere, a virtue without which we cannot be warriors for life itself.”

Petro was not the only leader who upheld the value of sincerity and assailed the hypocrisy of Western diplomacy. Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent and the Grenadines cut to the chase:

“Let us clear certain ideational cobwebs from our brains. It is, for example, wholly unhelpful to frame the central contradictions of our troubled times as revolving around a struggle between democracies and autocracies. St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a strong liberal democracy, rejects this wrong-headed thesis. It is evident to all right-thinking persons, devoid of self-serving hypocrisy, that the struggle today between the dominant powers is centered upon the control, ownership, and distribution of the world’s resources.”

On the war in Ukraine, Gonsalves was equally blunt.

“…War and conflict rage senselessly across the globe; in at least one case, Ukraine, the principal adversaries — the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and Russia — may unwittingly open the gates to a nuclear Armageddon… Russia, NATO, and Ukraine should embrace peace, not war and conflict, even if peace has to rest upon a mutually agreed, settled condition of dissatisfaction.”

The Western position on Ukraine was also on full display. However, at least three NATO members (Bulgaria, Hungary and Spain) coupled their denunciations of Russian aggression with pleas for peace. Katalin Novak, the President of Hungary, said,

“…We want peace, in our country, in Ukraine, in Europe, in the world. Peace and the security that comes with it. There is no alternative to peace. The killing, the terrible destruction, must stop as soon as possible. War is never the solution. We know that peace is only realistically attainable when at least one side sees the time for negotiations as having come. We cannot decide for Ukrainians about how much they are prepared to sacrifice, but we have a duty to represent our own nation’s desire for peace. And we must do all we can to avoid an escalation of the war.”

Even with wars, drought, debt and poverty afflicting their own continent, at least 17 African leaders took time during their General Assembly speeches to call  for peace in Ukraine. Some voiced their support for the African Peace Initiative, while others contrasted the West’s commitments and expenditures for the war in Ukraine with its endemic neglect of Africa’s problems. President Joao Lourenço of Angola clearly explained why, as Africa rises up to reject neocolonialism and build its own future, peace in Ukraine remains a vital interest for Africa and people everywhere:

“In Europe, the war between Russia and Ukraine deserves our full attention to the urgent need to put an immediate end to it, given the levels of human and material destruction there, the risk of an escalation into a major conflict on a global scale and the impact of its harmful effects on energy and food security. All the evidence tells us that it is unlikely that there will be winners and losers on the battlefield, which is why the parties involved should be encouraged to prioritize dialogue and diplomacy as soon as possible, to establish a ceasefire and to negotiate a lasting peace not only for the warring countries, but which will guarantee Europe’s security and contribute to world peace and security.”

Altogether, leaders from at least 50 countries spoke up for peace in Ukraine at the 2023 UN General Assembly. In his closing statement, Dennis Francis, the Trinidadian president of this year’s UN General Assembly, noted,

“Of the topics raised during the High-Level Week, few were as frequent, consistent, or as charged as that of the Ukraine War. The international community is clear that political independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity must be respected, and violence must end.”

You can find all 50 statements at this link on the CODEPINK website: https://www.codepink.org/unurkaine23.

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Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

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

They are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022. They are regular contributors to Global Research.

Featured image: President Gustavo Petro Urrego of Colombia addresses the UN General Assembly (Photo credit: UN)

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Abstract

The association between coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination and vaginal bleeding among nonmenstruating women is not well studied. The Norwegian Institute of Public Health followed several cohorts throughout the pandemic and early performed a systematic data collection of self-reported unexpected vaginal bleeding in nonmenstruating women. Among 7725 postmenopausal women, 7148 perimenopausal women, and 7052 premenopausal women, 3.3, 14.1, and 13.1% experienced unexpected vaginal bleeding during a period of 8 to 9 months, respectively. In postmenopausal women, the risk of unexpected vaginal bleeding (i.e., postmenopausal bleeding) in the 4 weeks after COVID-19 vaccination was increased two- to threefold, compared to a prevaccination period. The corresponding risk of unexpected vaginal bleeding after vaccination was increased three- to fivefold in both nonmenstruating peri- and premenopausal women. In the premenopausal women, Spikevax was associated with at 32% increased risk as compared to Comirnaty. Our results must be confirmed in future studies.

Introduction

After the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination rollout in December 2020, spontaneous reporting systems received reports of menstrual disturbances at frequencies not seen in previous vaccination campaigns (1, 2). Such events were not addressed in the preceding clinical vaccine trials (3, 4). The European Medicines Agency recently decided that the product information of the mRNA vaccines (i.e., Spikevax and Comirnaty) should be updated to include heavy menstrual bleeding as a potential side effect (5).Spontaneous reporting systems have also received reports of vaginal bleeding after menopause [i.e., postmenopausal bleeding (PMB)] following COVID-19 vaccination (6, 7). PMB can be a symptom of endometrial carcinoma and precancerous lesions (8) and is considered an important medical event (9). According to clinical guidelines, women with PMB should be referred for specialized gynecological examination (10). A slightly increased risk of being diagnosed with PMB after COVID-19 vaccination has been described in a large U.S. cohort of women aged ≥55 years (11) and in a Swedish registry study (12). However, vaginal bleeding might be transient and experienced as nonsevere, and medical care is not always sought. Therefore, the excess risk of unexpected vaginal bleeding after vaccination may not be well described by diagnosis trends alone.A substantial proportion of the female population does not menstruate because they use long-term hormonal contraception. While an altered bleeding pattern after COVID-19 vaccination has been frequently addressed among menstruating women (13–16), few studies have investigated such experiences in women who do not menstruate due to hormonal contraception (12, 17).

In the early fall of 2021, questions about bleeding disturbances and unexpected vaginal bleeding were included in questionnaires to several running Norwegian cohorts to explore free-text field comments from the participants shortly after introduction of the vaccine (18).

By use of questionnaire data from nearly 22,000 participants of the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Study (MoBa) (19) and the Senior cohort (20), we have investigated the association between COVID-19 vaccines and unexpected vaginal bleeding, i.e., (i) vaginal bleeding in postmenopausal women (e.g., PMB), (ii) unexpected vaginal bleeding in perimenopausal women, and (iii) breakthrough bleeding in nonmenstruating premenopausal women.

Results

The results are based on self-reported data from questionnaires issued in August and September 2021.

All female Senior cohort participants (ages 66 to 81 years) were considered nonmenstruating. Women who reported having had a hysterectomy were ineligible. After exclusion, the remaining eligible women (n = 2015) were allocated to the postmenopausal category (Fig. 1).

All female MoBa participants (ages 32 to 64 years) were asked “Do you still menstruate” (Yes/No/Do not know). Women who stated that they were still menstruating (“Yes”) were not eligible for inclusion. Women who reported having had a hysterectomy or were pregnant in 2021 were also ineligible. Women who denied (“No”) or were uncertain (“Do not know”) whether they were still menstruating were included and were all considered nonmenstruating.

The nonmenstruating MoBa participants were further categorized as post-, peri-, or premenopausal based on the response to three questions. They were defined as postmenopausal if they stated to have entered the menopausal transition, confirmed that their menstruations had stopped completely, and reported that their last menstruation occurred in 2019 or before (i.e., at least 1 year and 8 months prior) (n = 5710). Women were defined as perimenopausal if they stated to have entered the menopausal transition, confirmed that their menstruations had stopped completely, and reported that their last menstruation occurred in 2020 or 2021. Other combinations, including if they confirmed having entered the menopausal transition but denied or were uncertain whether their menstruations had stopped completely, also qualified for perimenopause (n = 7148). All nonmenstruating women who denied having entered the menopausal transition were defined as premenopausal (n = 7052). Age and reported hormone use was not applied in the categorization. See Materials and Methods for the complete description. A total of 21,925 participants from both cohorts were included (Fig. 1).

The median age of post-, peri-, and premenopausal women was 56, 52, and 45 years, respectively (Table 1). The vast majority received their first (98.0 to 98.4%) and second (91.5 to 95.0%) vaccine doses during the period covered by the questionnaire (1 January 2021 to the date of filling in the questionnaire). In post-, peri-, and premenopausal women, any hormone/contraception use was reported among 26.5, 57.2, and 85.5%, respectively. Among postmenopausal women, 13.7 and 7.4% reported using hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in MoBa and the Senior cohort, respectively (table S1). Most women in the premenopausal category reported having a hormonal intrauterine device (IUD) (74%). A medical history of any gynecological condition was reported among 14.5 to 19.3%. Further details of hormone use and gynecological conditions are shown in table S1.

Click here to expand for more data.

All nonmenstruating women were asked whether they had experienced unexpected vaginal bleeding in 2021 (i.e., the year the COVID-19 vaccination campaign was initiated) and whether this happened before or after COVID-19 vaccination. There were 252 (3.3%) postmenopausal women, 1008 (14.1%) perimenopausal women, and 924 (13.1%) premenopausal women who reported of unexpected vaginal bleeding during 2021. Of those who reported unexpected vaginal bleeding, 45, 51, and 55% of the post-, peri-, and premenopausal women, respectively, reported that the bleeding occurred within 4 weeks after the first and/or second vaccine dose. Perimenopausal women more often characterized the bleeding as heavy (27.9%) as compared to post- and premenopausal women (18.3 and 18.0%, respectively) (Table 2). In all three groups, bleeding after vaccination was more often characterized as heavy as compared to before vaccination. Perimenopausal women reported the longest bleeding duration, and in all groups, bleeding episodes were generally reported with slightly longer duration after vaccination compared to before vaccination. Similarly, the proportion of women who experienced only one bleeding episode was higher after vaccination in all three groups. The overall proportion who sought health care was higher among postmenopausal women compared to the peri- and premenopausal (30.6% versus 13.8% and 9.3%, respectively). Women more rarely sought health care when bleeding was reported to have occurred during the first 4 weeks after vaccination, as compared to before vaccination, in all three groups.

Click here to expand for more data.

Prevaccination rates of unexpected vaginal bleeding in post-, peri-, and premenopausal women were 4.0, 13.4, and 11.5 per 100 person years, respectively (Table 3). Compared to before vaccination, age-adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) after the first and second dose in postmenopausal women were 3.0 [95% confidence interval (CI), 2.0 to 4.4] and 2.2 (95% CI, 1.4 to 3.5), respectively. In perimenopausal women, the corresponding aHRs were 4.2 (95% CI, 3.5 to 5.2) and 3.7 (95% CI, 2.9 to 4.7), and 4.7 (95% CI, 3.8 to 5.7) and 4.2 (95% CI, 3.3 to 5.2) in premenopausal women. In all groups, the rates observed more than 4 weeks after the first dose were consistently lower than the prevaccination rates. The risk estimates were virtually unchanged by additional adjustment (table S2). Direct comparison of the four postvaccination weeks after any dose of Spikevax against Comirnaty (reference), showed a 32% increased risk after Spikevax in premenopausal women [aHR, 1.32 (95% CI, 1.05 to 1.65)] (Table 4). Stratified analyses according to history of gynecological condition(s) consistently showed higher rates in women with any gynecological condition, whereas HRs were slightly higher for those without any such condition (table S3). In postmenopausal women, the proportions who reported unexpected vaginal bleeding declined rapidly according to the year of last menstruation both before and after vaccination (Table 5). In all groups of women, rates were higher in HRT users and women with hormonal IUD as compared to women not using hormones (Table 6). In postmenopausal women, the HRs were similar in nonhormone users and users of HRT; HRs were 2.9 (95% CI, 1.7 to 4.9) and 2.8 (95% CI, 1.5 to 5.2), respectively. In perimenopausal women, the HR was higher in nonhormone users [4.9 (95% CI, 3.6 to 6.6)] as compared to women using HRT [2.9 (95% CI, 1.7 to 5.0)] or hormonal IUD [3.8 (95% CI, 2.9 to 5.1)]. In premenopausal women, where hormonal IUD was the most common, the HRs were similar across categories of hormone use. When postmenopausal women were stratified according to early and late menopause (here, defined as ≤5 years and ≥6 years since last menstrual bleeding), the HR of PMB was slightly higher in nonhormone users in the early menopause [3.3 (95% CI, 1.7 to 6.4)] as compared to nonhormone users in late menopause [2.2 (95% CI, 0.9 to 5.6)] (Table 7).

Click here to expand for more data.

Click here to expand for more data.

Discussion

By use of data from two large population-based cohorts, we have observed an increased risk of unexpected vaginal bleeding after COVID-19 vaccination in nonmenstruating women across different stages of reproductive aging. Among post-, peri-, and premenopausal women, 3.3, 14.1, and 13.1% reported having one or several unexpected vaginal bleeding episodes during the last 8 to 9 months, of which approximately 50% were reported to have happened within 28 days of vaccination. In postmenopausal women, the risk of vaginal bleeding was increased two to threefold in the 4 weeks after vaccination, as compared to the prevaccination period. The association with vaccination was slightly stronger in peri- and premenopausal women where the risk was increased three to fivefold. In premenopausal women, the first 4 weeks after a dose of Spikevax was associated with a 32% increased risk as compared to Comirnaty.

Incidence rates of PMB in the population vary in previous publications, ranging from 0.2 to 1.5 per 100 person years (age dependent) based on hospital diagnoses (12, 21) to 13 per 100 person years in a 1-year daily diary study (22). Although not directly comparable, it is reassuring that our baseline estimate of PMB (i.e., 4.0 per 100 person years) lies between the estimates from these two approaches. Few studies have investigated the association between COVID-19 vaccination and unexpected vaginal bleeding in nonmenstruating women (11, 12, 17, 23), and PMB after COVID-19 vaccination has rarely been addressed (11, 12, 17, 23, 24).

Cross-sectional studies have reported higher frequencies of unexpected bleeding after COVID-19 vaccination compared to our study (17, 24). A small survey of pre- and postmenopausal women found that 11 and 38% of the postmenopausal women reported “menstrual symptoms” after the first and second dose, respectively (24). In a large sample recruited from social media, unexpected bleeding after vaccination was reported among 70% of women aged 18 to 45 years using long-acting reversible contraceptives and among 66% of postmenopausal women aged ≥55 years (17). In comparison, in the present study of previously enrolled cohort participants, the proportions of women with unexpected vaginal bleeding within 4 weeks of vaccination were 7.4% for premenopausal women and 1.5% for postmenopausal women. As acknowledged by Lee et al. (17), having experienced any of these outcomes probably increased the likelihood of participation in their study. Of note, a small survey in Japanese health care workers reported that among 103 postmenopausal women, none had reported irregular bleeding after vaccination (25).

In agreement with our findings, two large studies from the United States (11) and Sweden (12) using health record systems found positive associations between COVID-19 vaccination and PMB. The risk of a PMB diagnosis was increased by 21 and 14% respectively, when compared to prevaccination periods. In our cohort, only 31% of women who reported a PMB sought medical care, and the proportion was even lower if the bleeding occurred after vaccination. Thus, lower risk estimates are expected from a diagnosis-based approach. Furthermore, the defined risk windows were longer than the 28 days in our study (i.e., 82 to 112 days) (11, 12).

Two of the abovementioned studies saw no clear difference in bleeding reports according to vaccine type (12, 17). However, the Spikevax vaccine used in primary vaccination (first and second doses) contains a higher dose of mRNA (100 μg) as compared to the Comirnaty vaccine (30 μg) and has been associated with higher rates of adverse events, in particular at younger age (26–29). In line with this, we observed a higher risk of vaginal bleeding after Spikevax as compared to Comirnaty in premenopausal women. Also, a study analyzing the free-text fields of unsolicited reactions after COVID-19 vaccination in the CDC v-safe surveillance system found that a larger proportion of respondents with PMB had received the Spikevax vaccine than expected if vaccine type were independent (23).

After the menopause, the endometrium normally undergoes a gradual atrophy, starting with an inactive phase in which neither proliferation nor secretion is present and ending in a thin layer, often with cystic cavities (30). HRT, most commonly a combination of estrogen and progestogen, may interfere with the physiological atrophy (30, 31), and vaginal bleeding is a common side effect (32). Ljung et al. (12) observed a slightly stronger association between vaccination and PMB after the third dose in a subsample analysis of nonhormone users as compared to the analysis on the complete sample. In our study, the strength of the association between vaccination and PMB was similar in HRT users and nonhormone users. However, we observed a slightly stronger association between vaccination and vaginal bleeding in nonhormone users who more recently entered menopause, but the CIs were wide. In HRT users, the strength of the association was similar irrespective of time elapsed since the last menstrual bleeding. Given that HRT stimulates the endometrium and may delay the endometrial atrophy, this finding seems reasonable. However, care should be taken in the interpretation due to small groups and the nonrandom distribution of hormone use (i.e., the hormone use per se cannot be distinguished from the indication).

An irregular bleeding pattern is the clinical hallmark of perimenopause. According to the Stages of Reproductive Aging Workshop (STRAW) criteria for staging reproductive aging (33), perimenopause begins at stage −2 (early menopausal transition), characterized by increased variability in menstrual cycle length, and ends 12 months after the final menstrual period. It is therefore reassuring that perimenopausal women had the highest prevaccination bleeding rates in the study. However, despite the high baseline rates (reference), the association with vaccination was not weaker in this group. In perimenopause, the strongest association between vaccination and bleeding was observed among nonhormone users, but the CIs were wide.

Most nonmenstruating premenopausal women in our study had a hormonal IUD (74%). Thus, the overall estimates for the premenopausal group reflect women with such device. Common endometrial changes in these women are glandular atrophy and stromal decidualization, in addition to a foreign body reaction characterized by an increase in inflammatory cells. Breakthrough bleeding is common, in particular during the initial period after insertion (34). However, despite the physiological changes, we did not detect clear differences in the relative risk of bleeding across hormone use in premenopausal women.

In all three groups, the association between vaccination and bleeding tended to be slightly stronger in women without gynecological conditions as compared to women with such history. Yet, as the rates were generally higher among women with any gynecological condition, the absolute excess risk posed by vaccination was greater among women with these conditions.

Our findings indicate that the COVID-19 vaccines, or the host response to them, can lead to vaginal bleeding in a wide range of women. Unexpected vaginal bleeding in post-, peri-, and premenopausal women generally have different underlying causes. However, our findings of an increased risk across the reproductive stages raise the possibility that the mechanisms linking COVID-19 vaccination to unexpected vaginal bleeding may be similar across the stages. Although our data are not fit to explore biological mechanisms, the increased risk after vaccination across different stages of reproductive aging (i.e., in post-, peri-, and premenopausal women) and exogenous hormone use may suggest that the mechanism is not through disruptions of the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis. Increased risk after both Comirnaty and Spikevax suggest a mechanism related to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike protein and not to other vaccine components. This is also supported by a higher risk observed after Spikevax in premenopausal women. An increased risk of PMB diagnosis after SARS-CoV-2 infection has also been described (12), further supporting a role of the viral agent. Pathways related to local changes in the endometrium, possibly resulting from a spike related immune response or related to the endometrial expression of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors (i.e., the receptor for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein) may be involved (17, 35–37). However, a general bleeding tendency after vaccination cannot be ruled out.

Major strengths of this study are the large sample, high response rates, and the reduced risk of selection bias as participants were already enrolled at the time of vaccination. Being self-reported, outcome frequencies are more complete than if limited to medical diagnoses. Although it can be argued that participants who had experienced any kind of adverse event would be more motivated to return their questionnaire, the questionnaires covered a wide spectrum of other health- and pandemic-related topics, not specifically targeting adverse events after vaccination. Also, the response rates were similar in preceding and subsequent questionnaires, and the sensitivity analysis for the subpopulation complete for all covariates showed almost identical results. The study collected data on the time elapsed from vaccination to the bleeding event. Unlike diagnosis-based studies, which must investigate a longer time-period due to diagnosis delay (11, 12), we could calculate rates within a biologically plausible time interval of 4 weeks postvaccination. The study was conducted early in the pandemic, before the Omicron surge, and therefore, only to a minimal degree influenced by unrecognized SARS-CoV-2 infection. We also had information on important characteristics such as hormone treatment, hysterectomy, and gynecological conditions, as well as body mass index (BMI) and educational level for a large subsample (80%), allowing for relevant categorizations and sensitivity analysis with correction for potential confounders. We had information on menopausal status and did not have to use an arbitrary age limit with inevitable misclassification (38).

Our study has some important limitations. Outcomes were retrospectively collected and vulnerable to recall bias. More complete reporting postvaccination compared to the prevaccination period may have existed, and differential misclassification in the sense of a higher proportion of true cases classified as noncases in the reference period could have influenced the results. Participants were asked to state if their change in bleeding occurred after vaccination, and further time precision was defined from time elapsed from the vaccination date. The risk more than 4 weeks after the first dose was lower than that of the reference period. This is most likely the result of a timing-related misclassification. This tendency disappeared after the second dose, which may suggest that more recent events were more accurately allocated. However, as a COVID-19 vaccine potentially could have triggered an endometrial breakdown/bleeding (which otherwise would have happened within weeks/months), the lower risk could also be a true observation. Media attention could have introduced further bias in the reporting. However, in contrast to menstrual changes, which in a sense are subjective and can be influenced by awareness, we believe that unexpected bleeding in nonmenstruating women represents a more robust event that most women are likely to remember and be able to report quite accurately. Presumably, this is especially true for postmenopausal women. It is also possible that the media attention was helpful, as women would be more likely to remember when their own bleeding occurred, in relation to their vaccines (i.e., before or after). Supporting our hypothesis of reliable reporting, our data show clear expected trends of bleeding rates across menopausal status and year since last menstruation (22). Furthermore, the observed increased risk after Spikevax compared to Comirnaty, which is not unreasonable due to the higher mRNA dose, is unlikely to have been influenced by differential recall bias or awareness. Last, some misclassification of the reproductive stages is necessarily present. The classification was based on self-reported information and partly required that respondents were familiar with the term “menopausal transition.” While nearly 85% of the women assigned to the premenopausal category reported use of hormonal contraception, thus providing a reasonable explanation as to why they did not menstruate, we know less about the remaining 15%. Probably, this subgroup contains women misclassified to the category as well as women with amenorrhea due to other cause (hysterectomized and pregnant women were not eligible). The menopausal transition may be difficult for women to clinically recognize and the perimenopausal category was therefore also broadly defined in our study. Furthermore, because information about the participants’ last menstrual bleeding was available in years only, and a cutoff of 2019 was used to ensure true postmenopausal status (i.e., 12 months or more since their last menstrual bleeding), some women in the early postmenopause have been assigned perimenopausal status. Women in the early menopausal transition have not been fully addressed in this study. As this period is defined by increased variability in menstrual cycle length, and not amenorrhea, we expect that women in this stage, who were not amenorrheic due to exogenous hormones, reported to still be menstruating and therefore not eligible.

Some aspects might influence the generalizability of our results. First, the cohort participants are not completely representative of the general population. Participants have a higher educational level (20, 39) and are probably more health conscious as compared to the general Norwegian population. Reassuringly, investigation of self-selection in MoBa has suggested that while prevalence estimates of exposures and outcomes may be biased, estimates of exposure-outcome associations are not (40). We do not expect that the selection into the cohorts introduces substantial bias to our estimates in this study. Secondly, MoBa, representing 91% of our study sample, is a pregnancy-based cohort, and thus, most women in our study have been pregnant at least once. However, although pregnancies cause some structural and functional changes to the uterus (41, 42), we do not suspect that the association between COVID-19 vaccination and vaginal bleeding would be markedly different in nulliparous women. Of note, menstrual disturbances after vaccination have been reported in nulliparous women from the age of 12 years (18, 43).

PMB represents an important medical event that cannot be explained by circumstantial factors such as pandemic-related stress. Thus, the finding of increased risk of PMB is a strong advocate for a true biological effect of vaccination on female bleeding patterns overall. Since PMB also has clinical implications in the sense of elaborated diagnostics and severe patient concerns, clarification of an association is imperative.

We believe that this study, which focuses on major groups of women rarely included in related studies, offers an important contribution to the current body of evidence within this field. In our sample of health-conscious women, only 31, 14, and 9% of the post-, peri-, and premenopausal women with reported bleeding also reported that they sought medical care, respectively. This health-seeking behavior also differed by vaccination status. This illustrates the role of self-reported data in the investigation of certain end points. While bias may partly explain the association in this retrospective analysis, we do not believe that it accounts for all the increased risk we observed. Together with current knowledge, it seems probable that both pre- and postmenopausal women are at increased risk of unexpected vaginal bleeding after COVID-19 vaccination. Our findings must be confirmed by well-designed prospective studies and such events should be addressed in clinical trials of future vaccines.

Materials and Methods

We used data from two cohorts administered by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, namely, the MoBa and the Senior cohort. The MoBa is an ongoing, nationwide population-based pregnancy cohort with recruitment from 1999 to 2008 (19). Mothers consented to participate in 41% of the pregnancies. Since March 2020, adult participants have been invited to answer electronic questionnaires with questions related to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic every 14 days. Questions about bleeding disturbances and unexpected vaginal bleeding were included in two consecutive questionnaires, distributed to 103,904 and 103,791 participants on 20 August and 1 September 2021 [Q(Aug,21) and Q(Sep,21)]. The response rates were high (71 and 72%, respectively), and most of the respondents returned the questionnaire on the date of distribution (61 and 62%, respectively).

The Senior cohort was established in December 2020 to cover older age groups during the pandemic. About 13,000 randomly selected citizens of Oslo aged 65 to 80 years were invited, and 36% consented to participation. To date, eight electronic questionnaires have been distributed. Gynecological history and unexpected vaginal bleeding were covered in the questionnaire distributed to 4814 subjects on 23 September 2021 [Q(Sep,21)]. The response rate was 95 and 54% returned the questionnaire on the distribution date.

In MoBa, we used information from Q(Sep,21) (n = 46,356), and if not available, we added responses from Q(Aug,21) (n = 5445) (Fig. 1). The number of female respondents to Q(Sep,21) in the Senior cohort was 2387. All Senior cohort participants were considered nonmenstruating. In MoBa, all women were asked “Do you still menstruate?” (Yes/No/Do not know). Women who answered “Yes” were ineligible for inclusion in the present study (n = 27,478). In both cohorts, women with reported hysterectomy (n = 2383) or pregnancy in 2021 (n = 28) were also ineligible. The eligible study population of nonmenstruating women consisted of 24,299 subjects.

The study was approved by The Regional Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics, Southeast Norway. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Exposure

Vaccination dates and the type of vaccine against COVID-19 was obtained through linkage with the Norwegian Immunization Registry by use of each participant’s unique national identity number. Notification to the registry is mandatory and performed by the personnel providing the vaccines at the time of vaccination. A time-dependent exposure variable was created by use of vaccination dates [i.e., unvaccinated/prevaccination; first 4 weeks after dose 1; more than 4 weeks after dose 1 (but before dose 2); first 4 weeks after dose 2; more than 4 weeks after dose 2].

Outcome

The main outcome was based on retrospective reporting of vaginal bleeding events in 2021. Because of the different age distributions, the questions on vaginal bleedings and menopausal status were slightly different in the two cohorts. MoBa participants were asked if they had experienced the following “Unexpected bleeding(s) during 2021 although I no longer menstruate (postmenopause, menopausal transition, or hormonal contraception)” (Yes/No/Do not know). Women in the Senior cohort were asked if they experienced “Unexpected bleeding(s) during 2021 although I no longer menstruate” (Yes/No/Do not know). Women who answered “Yes” were defined as cases, whereas “Do not know” (3.0%) were considered noncases. Those who answered “Yes” were then asked if the change occurred after vaccination, if it occurred after the first or second/last dose, and how soon after vaccination it occurred (“Less than 1 day”, “1–2 days,” “3–5 days,” “6–7 days,” “1–2 weeks,” “3–4 weeks,” or “More than 4 weeks”). We estimated the bleeding date by sampling randomly among the candidate dates, which were defined according to the women’s response and vaccination date. Events that did not occur after COVID-19 vaccination were assigned a random date between 1 January 2021 and the date of the first vaccine dose or the fill in date, whichever occurred first.

Covariates and categorization

Year of birth and educational level for MoBa participants were retrieved from the existing MoBa and Senior cohort databases. Height and weight, for calculation of BMI, were retrieved from recent MoBa and Senior cohort questionnaires (January and June 2021, respectively). Educational level in the Senior cohort was retrieved from a questionnaire from February 2022. Information about previous SARS-CoV-2 diagnoses was obtained through linkage with the Norwegian Surveillance System for Communicable Diseases (MSIS). Laboratory-confirmed [polymerase chain reaction (PCR)] infections are reported to MSIS without need for consent.Senior cohort participants were all considered postmenopausal. Eligible MoBa participants (nonmenstruators) were categorized as pre-, peri-, or postmenopausal based on three questions; “Have you entered the menopausal transition?” (Yes/No/Do not know), “Have your menstruations stopped completely (Yes/No/Don’t know) and “In what year did you have your last menstruation?”Postmenopausal women includes women who confirmed having entered the menopausal transition (“Yes”), confirmed that their menstruations had stopped completely (“Yes”), and provided a year of last menstruation of 2019 or earlier (i.e., at least 12 months earlier). Women in the Senior cohort (ages 66 to 81 years) were automatically assigned to this category.

Perimenopausal women includes women who confirmed having entered the menopausal transition (“Yes”) and confirmed that their menstruations had stopped completely (“Yes”) but provided a year of last menstruation of 2020 or 2021. Women were also allocated to this category if they (i) confirmed having entered the menopausal transition (“Yes”) and denied that their menstruations had stopped completely (“No”), (ii) confirmed having entered the menopausal transition (“Yes”) and were uncertain whether their menstruations had stopped completely (“Do not know”), (iii) were uncertain whether they had entered the menopausal transition (“Do not know”) and were uncertain whether their menstruations had stopped completely (Do not know), and (iv) were uncertain whether they had entered the menopausal transition (“Do not know”) and denied that their menstruations had stopped completely (“No”).

Premenopausal women includes women who denied having entered the menopausal transition (“No”), irrespective of their response to whether their menstruations had stopped completely (i.e., “Yes,” “No,” or “Do not know”).

Study sample

Women who were registered with a positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR-test (n = 548) were excluded (Fig. 1). Since subjects were asked about bleeding events in relation to their first and/or second/last vaccine dose, subjects with three vaccine doses before the fill in date were also excluded (n = 24). Women with missing or unclear information on menopausal status (n = 1690) and/or hormone use status (n = 32) were also excluded. Last, we excluded women who reported a bleeding event but did not report if the change occurred before or after vaccination or failed to report how soon after vaccination the event occurred (n = 80). A total of 21,925 nonmenstruating women were included in the analyses.

Design and statistical analyses

Since women were asked about bleeding events during 2021, all the women were followed from 1 January 2021. End of follow-up was the fill in date of the questionnaire or the estimated date of bleeding, whichever occurred first. We used Cox regression to estimate the association between vaccination and risk of unexpected bleeding. The model was adjusted for age as a continuous variable. In addition, a multivariate model (adjusted for age, hormone use, BMI category, educational level, and any gynecological condition), and crude and age-adjusted analyses were performed for a subset of participants with complete information on all covariates. In a separate analysis, the first 4 weeks after a dose of Spikevax was compared to the first 4 weeks after Comirnaty. The main analyses were stratified according to any gynecological conditions and certain categories of hormone use. Postmenopausal women were also stratified according to the number of years since last menstrual bleeding. Because of power limitations, in the stratified analyses, the first and second doses were combined. Statistical analyses were performed in STATA version 17.0.

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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

Reviews

This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon

In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia

In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig 

Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac

A reading of  Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late.  You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 FREE COPY! Click here (docsend) and download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page. 

Slouching Towards “Beelzebub”. The White House, NIH, CDC, Were Fully Aware that the “Miraculous” Pfizer mRNA COVID Vaccine Resulted in Myocarditis and Blood Clotting

By James Howard Kunstler, September 27, 2023

All these officials proceeded to craft a campaign to tell the public that this myocarditis was mild… Rochelle Walensky kept pushing the vaccines as “safe and effective” until she resigned in June, 2023.

Latest Poll Shows Trump Up 10 Points Over Biden for 2024 Election

By Ahmed Adel, September 28, 2023

The Biden administration has called on the US Congress to approve an additional $24 billion package for Ukraine as only a few weeks’ worth of funds are currently available. The Democrat push to ensure the war continues comes as Donald Trump promised to end it if he was re-elected in 2024 and is now leading in the polls over Joe Biden.

Ukraine: Has PM Trudeau Succumbed to Nazi Ideology?

By Hindustan Times, Sky News, and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, September 27, 2023

The issue of “the Ukrainian hero of the 14th Division Waffen SS Yaroslav Hunka” has opened up a can of worms, a Pandora’s box. In a bitter irony, President Zelensky who is of Jewish Russian descent has embraced Neo-Nazism. He fully endorsed (together with Trudeau and Freeland) the standing ovation in support of Yaroslav Hunka.

56-year-old Australian Dr. Richard Scolyer Was Diagnosed with Worst Possible Brain Turbo Cancer. He’s Now Receiving World’s First mRNA Cancer Vaccine to Treat mRNA Turbo Cancer

By Dr. William Makis, September 27, 2023

Internationally renowned Australian Pathologist Dr. Richard Scolyer was diagnosed with the worst possible Brain Turbo Cancer with months to live. He is now first in the World to receive an mRNA Cancer Vaccine to treat a cancer that was likely caused by COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines. 

Israel-Saudi Arabia: Netanyahu Promotes Normalisation with New Map Erasing Palestine

By Middle East Eye, September 27, 2023

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a new map erasing Palestine during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly’s (UNGA) 78th session on Friday. The illustration showed a “new Middle East” wherein the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip appeared to be part of Israel.

Australia’s Aboriginal Peoples Are Entitled to a “Special Voice” to Its Parliament

By Irwin Jerome, September 27, 2023

In March 2023, Stan Grant, a First Nation Widjuri journalist, writer and ABC radio and television presenter, gave an iconic talk “Racism is Destroying the Australian Dream”. Grant’s talk was as moving and inspiring as it was furiously-angry about what continues to happen every day to humanity’s aboriginal peoples, not only in Australia but throughout the world.

Russia-Ukraine Crisis: Can Multipolar BRICS-11 Ensure Global Peace and Stability?

By Kester Kenn Klomegah, September 27, 2023

At the United Nations General Assembly high-level meetings held in New York, a number of global leaders including those from Africa vehemently called for global peace and sustainable development.

France Recalls Diplomats from Niger Ahead of Troop Withdrawal

By Abayomi Azikiwe, September 27, 2023

President Emmanuel Macron for several weeks has falsely claimed that the French ambassador in Niamey was being held hostage by the newly installed government established by the National Council for the Safeguarding of Our Homeland (CNSP) after the July 26 military-led revolt.

Unexpected Vaginal Bleeding Rises After COVID Vaccination. Study

By Jay Croft, September 27, 2023

Non-menstruating women were more likely to experience unexpected vaginal bleeding after receiving COVID-19 vaccinations, according to a new study. Researchers suggested it could have been connected to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in the vaccines. The study was published in Science Advances.

China-Syria Strategic Partnership Faces the US-imposed Stalemate

By Steven Sahiounie, September 27, 2023

On September 22, during a diplomatic meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, he told Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that China would help Syria to rebuild its ruined economy by upgrading ties to a “strategic partnership“, which means close coordination on regional and international affairs, including in the military sphere, and is just one grade below what Beijing calls a “comprehensive strategic partnership”.

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The Biden administration has called on the US Congress to approve an additional $24 billion package for Ukraine as only a few weeks’ worth of funds are currently available. The Democrat push to ensure the war continues comes as Donald Trump promised to end it if he was re-elected in 2024 and is now leading in the polls over Joe Biden.

John Kirby, the strategic communications coordinator at the White House National Security Council, said in an interview with CNN that the US has enough funding to “last another few weeks or so” but that not having the additional funding requested would have a huge “impact” on their ability to support Ukraine in the autumn and winter. Kirby also urged members of Congress to hurry to approve the additional $24 billion requested by the White House for Kiev.

He added that a possible shutdown of Congress due to a lack of agreement on the budget, whether for the 2024 fiscal year or a short-term emergency budget, could negatively impact the supply of weapons to Ukraine, with effects starting as early as October.

However, there is major pushback on the Democratic hope to continue pumping resources into the financial blackhole that Ukraine has become. Leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump continually slams the Biden administration’s policy, and nearly 30 congressional Republicans sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget director saying they reject the request for an additional $24 billion for Ukraine.

“The American people deserve to know what their money has gone to. How is the counteroffensive going? Are the Ukrainians any closer to victory than they were six months ago? What is our strategy, and what is the president’s exit plan? What does the administration define as victory in Ukraine?” the letter says.

The lawmakers highlighted that it would be “an absurd abdication of congressional responsibility” to grant additional aid for Ukraine without answers to the inquiries.

“For these reasons—and certainly until we receive answers to the questions above and others forthcoming—we oppose the additional expenditure for war in Ukraine included in your request,” the letter adds.

In late August, the White House requested additional funds from Congress to cover the federal government’s needs while agreeing to a full budget for fiscal year 2024. The short-term budget was designed to avoid a government shutdown due to the exhaustion of resources. The stoppage, known as “shutdown,” could occur as early as October 1, when the new fiscal year begins in the US. The provisional budget must be adopted by September 30, which marks less than 14 months until the next presidential election.

Another point of the Republican pushback against the Biden administration’s reckless funding plan for Ukraine is the consistently made promise by Trump to quickly find a resolution to end the conflict if he is elected for another term, with the latest made on September 25 at a rally in South Carolina. Furthermore, the former president declared that he would strive to avoid a Third World War, stressing that the current situation is very close to a global conflict.

A new Washington Post-ABC poll shows Joe Biden trailing Trump by ten percentage points. This is inconvenient news for the establishment media, who responded aggressively to the poll, saying it was flawed. For his part, Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, called the decision to release the poll results “ridiculous.”

“Ignore the Washington Post–ABC poll,” Sabato wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “How could you even publish a poll so absurd on its face? Will be a lingering embarrassment for you. Just plain embarrassing – for them.”

Despite the criticisms, Sunday’s ABC This Week host, Martha Raddatz, stood by the poll and said: “Whatever caveats, whether that is an outlier, that’s a tough one to spin.”

Even after mocking the Washington Post–ABC poll in an article, The Guardian had to concede that “Trump does hold commanding leads in national and key state polls regarding the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.”

This is hardly surprising since Americans can see how their quality of life has drastically declined in the few short years that Biden has been president. Americans want issues like the cost of living to improve. Instead, the president makes excuses for why this cannot be achieved despite pumping well over $100 billion into the financial blackhole that Ukraine has become, and this is why Trump will likely continue leading in the polls unless there is a major change in the current political dynamic.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.  

Featured image is from CBS/InfoBrics

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“Mr Hunka was applauded for fighting against the Soviet Red Army with the “first Ukrainian division” — as the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (“Galicia”), a largely Ukrainian Nazi collaborator unit, was renamed in March 1945 as Germany was on the point of losing the war.

Following the incorporation of openly Neo-nazi units like the Azov and Aidar battalions into the Ukrainian military, the incident underlines the way the war is being used to rewrite history and rehabilitate fascist collaborators while depicting the Soviet Union as the aggressor in World War II.” (Morningstar Online)

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Part III

Is Trudeau Supportive of Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Party Svoboda?

“Trudeau  personally met and honoured the veteran of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (A Nazi Division).

Liberals then arranged for this Nazi veteran to be recognized on the Floor of the House of Commons” (Pierre Poilievre, Leader the Opposition) 

 

The leader of the Opposition Pierre Poilievre begs the question. Has P.M. Trudeau succumbed to Nazi ideology? 

From the outset in early 2016, Trudeau’s Liberal government has been supportive of Neo-Nazi elements within the Kiev regime, including the Azov Battalion and the Svoboda Neo-Nazi Party. 

February 23, 2016, Parubiy, second from Left meet PM Trudeau 

Chrystia Freeland’s Facebook, May 2019

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So, here’s what you might have learned over the weekend if you ventured into the thickets of alt news:

In April and May of 2021, the president (“Joe Biden”), the whole White House Covid Response Team (Andy Slavitt & Co), and everyone in the White House communications office, the US Surgeon General (Vivek Murthy), senior officials of the CDC including director Rochelle Walensky, Francis Collins, head of NIH, and Dr. Anthony Fauci of NIAID were all freaking out, holding crisis meetings, and sending blizzards of emails among each other after being informed by a Pfizer safety report that the miraculous new mRNA Covid vaccines produced significant cases of myocarditis and blood-clotting abnormalities.

All these officials proceeded to craft a campaign to tell the public that this myocarditis was mild, extremely rare, and self-resolving (it wasn’t), and urged all Americans over twelve to keep taking the vaxx shots. Later, they expanded the vaccine program to include children down to six months old.

By 2022, all of US public health officialdom had to know that the vaxxes were also ineffective at preventing infection and transmission of Covid.

Her replacement, Mandy K. Cohen, is still pushing the latest mRNA booster shots in the face of reports (mainly from the UK and other foreign countries) of a shocking rise in all-causes deaths and disabilities from heart and blood disease, neurological injury, and cancers. The CDC refused this month to release updated information on case numbers of myocarditis and pericarditis in the USA.

The record of those frantic 2021 doings in the White House and the CDC came from a document dump prompted by a FOIA request by Edward Berkovich, a lawyer associated with Naomi Wolf’s Daily Clout news organization.

He requested emails between February and June, 2021, that included the term “myocarditis.” CDC sent 472 pages, followed by an additional 46 pages, (believed to be sent by a whistleblower) that included emails between White House officials up to the president. Of the 47, 37 were entirely redacted (whited-out, not blacked-out, that is, blank pages).

Only two pages of the 46 contained no redactions. The redactions were made, the CDC said, pursuant to Exemptions 5 and 6 under code 5 U.S.C. §552, which protects documents received by the president.

That was a lot to wade through. Apologies. What’s the upshot?

From early on, our government lied about the safety of the vaccines, at the same time that they lied and confabulated about the origins of the Covid-19 virus.

They continue lying about all of this to this day even as they appear to prepare for a replay of a pandemic. Now that the weekend is over, you will not read about any of this in The New York Times.

Why is that? I will offer my theory: that newspaper’s business model, based on pages and pages of print advertising, is completely broken and it is on financial life-support from the CIA and / or DARPA, probably facilitated by private sector cut-outs laundering the money. That’s how dishonorable the flagship of the US news media is.

And, of course, there is the added layer of government-directed censorship, also through private sector cut-outs, that is aimed at suppressing the truth about Covid from every angle, especially the vaccines.

Doesn’t all of this look rather sinister? Choose one of two possible explanations:

1) the Covid-19 episode from the beginning was a fantastic fiasco of blundering incompetence by hundreds of officials from many agencies plus elected leaders, and at every stage was made worse by additional incompetent actions aimed at concealing massive chains of prior misdeeds producing more misdeeds resulting in the wholesale collapse of authority in our country. 

Or

2) The entire Covid episode is a chain of crimes committed deliberately with malicious intent to kill and injure large numbers of people while contriving to deprive the survivors of their basic liberties and their property.

Because identical events are seen in all the other nations of Western Civ, it would be reasonable to infer some kind of coordination managed by a supervisory force or entity. What we see is a globalist coalition formed of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the World Health Organization (WHO),

The European Union (EU), the United Nations (UN), the pharmaceutical industry, the “Five Eyes” intel alliance, the global banking establishment, The Democratic Party, and scores of well-endowed non-governmental agencies such as the George Soros constellation of councils and foundations. What else is unseen?

One conspicuously strange element of the whole picture is the phantom leadership of the supposed world hegemon USA in the figurehead, “Joe Biden.”

Never in history has such a move into tyranny been fronted by such an embarrassingly un-charismatic empty vessel. Never in our country’s history have our affairs whirled in such a mystifying flux of bewildering forces.

Even our Civil War was a more straightforward clash of interests. Events are moving quickly now. They’re setting up the steam-table for that banquet of consequences.

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Internationally renowned Australian Pathologist Dr. Richard Scolyer was diagnosed with the worst possible Brain Turbo Cancer with months to live. He is now first in the World to receive an mRNA Cancer Vaccine to treat a cancer that was likely caused by COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines. 

If this was science fiction, it would be deemed too unbelievable to be published.

Who Is Professor Richard Scolyer? 

• Australian pathologist and Senior Staff specialist in tissue pathology and diagnostic oncology at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, Australia
• Co-Medical Director at Melanoma Institute Australia
• Professor at University of Sydney
• Received the New South Wales Premier’s Award for Outstanding Cancer Research in 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2020
• He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for “distinguished service to medicine, particularly in the field of melanoma and skin cancer, and to national and international professional organisations” in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours
• In February 2019, he was ranked the world’s 10th leading publisher on the topic of melanoma and the world’s leading publisher in melanoma pathology
• has co-authored more than 700 publications and book-chapters on the subject
• was an editor of the 4th Edition of the WHO Classification of Tumours
• h-index 130

Diagnosis of Turbo Brain Cancer (Glioblastoma)

• As a practicing Australian doctor, Dr.Richard Scolyer is COVID-19 vaccinated
• In June 2023 he was diagnosed with the worst type of brain cancer: Glioblastoma IDH wild-type (poorest prognosis subgroup) & “has many extra poor prognosis molecular features”
• “No one saw it coming, least of all me. I was fit, having represented Australia at the world aquathon championships in Ibiza in early May,” he said.
• In June, he travelled to Poland with his wife Katie Nicoll, and the day before had gone hiking in the mountains. “I woke the next morning not feeling quite right”
• He was rushed to hospital and after a number of tests, Professor Scolyer was diagnosed with glioblastoma IDH wild-type, a cancer that’s considered incurable and usually fatal within six to nine months.
• The disease, he told Saturday Morning, was “the worst of the worst, as far as brain cancers go“.
• “It’s incurable and the standard treatment hasn’t changed in 18 years.“

Searching for a Cure for Turbo Cancer Caused by mRNA… 

• There is a high probability that Dr. Richard Scolyer has a COVID-19 Vaccine Induced Turbo Cancer of the brain with poor features and extremely poor prognosis.
• However, he has made no mention of this possibility.
• He is now trying to find a cure for his brain cancer with an approach that is being celebrated by Big Pharma and Australian healthcare leaders

Melanoma Researcher Experimenting on His Own Brain Tumor

• delivering immunotherapy prior to tumor resection is an interesting idea that is worth exploring.
• “In addition…Scolyer received a personalized brain cancer vaccine based on the RNA and DNA of his tumor”
• This is an mRNA Cancer Vaccine

National Press Conference Sep. 21, 2023

Moderna Announces mRNA Cancer Vaccine Trial 

• On July 26, 2023 Moderna (MRNA.O) and its partner Merck (MRK.N) said on Wednesday that they had “begun enrolling patients in a late-stage study testing their personalized mRNA-based skin cancer vaccine in combination with the immunotherapy Keytruda.”
• Data from a mid-stage study in 157 patients had shown that the vaccine combination cut the risk of recurrence or death by 44% in patients with melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, when compared with Keytruda alone.
• The vaccine is tailored for each patient to generate T-cells, a key part of the body’s immune response, based on the specific mutational signature of a tumor.
• BioNTech SE (22UAy.DE) and Gritstone Bio (GRTS.O) are also working on competing cancer vaccines based on the mRNA technology.
• Scientists have been chasing the dream of vaccines to treat cancer for decades with few successes. According to industry experts, mRNA vaccines, which can be produced in as little as eight weeks, paired with drugs that rev up the immune system may lead to a new generation of cancer therapies.
• In October 2022, Merck exercised an option to jointly develop and commercialize the treatment, known as mRNA-4157/V940, sharing costs and any profits equally.
• Merck and Moderna plan to discuss the results with regulatory authorities and start a large Phase III study in melanoma patients in 2023.
• The Merck/Moderna collaboration is one of several combining powerful drugs that unleash the immune system to target cancers with mRNA vaccine technology. They are designed to target highly mutated tumors.

This is exactly the “revolutionary” treatment regimen that Dr.Richard Scolyer has been put on. He has received 2 doses of the personalized mRNA Cancer Vaccine.

My Take… 

I sympathize with Dr. Richard Scolyer’s terminal brain cancer diagnosis and I wish him every success with the experimental treatment combination of immunotherapy and personalized mRNA Cancer Vaccine. I hope it works for him.

It is highly probable that Dr.Scolyer’s hyper aggressive brain cancer was caused by COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines and that it is a Turbo Cancer.

Thousands of Australians are dying from Turbo Cancer. Millions around the world will ultimately die from COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Induced Turbo Cancer. This is the grim reality that I’m already seeing all around me.

Dr.Scolyer complied with COVID-19 Vaccine mandates in Australia. He kept his prestigious job and University positions, while others who didn’t comply lost everything. It was a choice every doctor faced.

If Dr.Scolyer were to speak up and raise concerns about COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines and Turbo Cancer, he would be denounced by the media that currently adore him, he would be denounced by the politicians and the entire Australian medical establishment that is currently giving him the red carpet treatment.

His doctor colleagues would turn their back on him and they would almost certainly leave him to die. That includes his surgeon colleagues, his oncology colleagues and his long time cancer research collaborators.

The ONLY REASON Dr.Scolyer is being treated well by the medical establishment is because he is helping them advance a multi billion dollar pharmaceutical fraud – failed mRNA Vaccines. In this case, Moderna’s mRNA Cancer Vaccines.

Merck sabotaged its own drug, Ivermectin, and now has a multi billion dollar partnership with Moderna to produce mRNA Cancer Vaccines (the identical Treatment Regimen that Dr.Scolyer was coincidentally put on) where Merck and Moderna will share profits equally. A deal that was paid for by the deaths of millions who were denied early treatment for COVID-19.

I’m not here to judge Dr.Scolyer. At this point, it’s comply or die.

But I can openly say that which he can’t.

You can’t build on a foundation of fraud and the mRNA platform is a fraud. It’s not only the Oncologists who are corrupt and who sold out to Big Pharma. The rot in the medical establishment is systemic.

Also, you also cannot treat or cure that which you don’t understand.

The Medical establishment doesn’t understand (or want to understand) the phenomenon of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Induced Turbo Cancer.

There is no indication that COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Induced Turbo Cancers will respond to either Immunotherapy or experimental personalized mRNA Cancer Vaccines, or a combination of both. 

But that won’t stop Moderna and Merck from making billions of dollars selling fraud to desperate cancer patients as thousands and eventually millions die of “unexplained” aggressive cancers.

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a new map erasing Palestine during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly’s (UNGA) 78th session on Friday. 

The illustration showed a “new Middle East” wherein the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip appeared to be part of Israel.

An earlier erroneous map shown by Netanyahu also included the Palestinian territories as part of Israel in 1948. 

Israel did not control the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, or the Gaza Strip following its violent creation in 1948 on 80 percent of historic Palestine. It illegally occupied them in 1967, and continues to do so in what is known as the longest occupation in modern history. 

The inclusion of Palestinian lands (and sometimes land belonging to Syria and Lebanon) in Israeli maps is common among believers of the concept of Eretz Yisrael – Greater Israel – a key part of ultra-nationalist Zionism that claims all of these lands belong to a Zionist state.

Earlier this year, Netanyahu’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, spoke from a podium adorned with a map that also included Palestine, Lebanon and Syria as part of Greater Israel. In the same event, he said there was “no such thing as Palestinians”. 

The use of such maps by Israeli officials comes at a time when Netanyahu’s ultra-nationalist government has taken steps that experts say amount to the “de jure annexation” of the occupied West Bank. De jure is a legal term that describes a practice as it is recognised in law.

Check out Netanyahu's map; the Israeli annexation of the oPt is not merely a plan, it is a current reality.

There will never be peace with apartheid. https://t.co/k2UtnVvdnX

— Mauricio Lapchik (@MauricioLapchik) September 22, 2023

During the presentation of the map on Friday, Netanyahu enthusiastically promoted the reshaping of the region based on establishing ties with Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia. 

“There’s no question: the Abraham Accords heralded the dawn of a new age of peace,” he claimed. “I believe we’re on the cusp of a more dramatic breakthrough: a historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”

His remarks come amid US-sponsored talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia to establish formal relations.

This week, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman suggested that they are edging closer to such an agreement “every day”.

During an interview with Fox News, the crown prince said the “Palestinian issue is very important” in these talks, but did not elaborate further. 

When asked what concessions he would expect Israel to give to the Palestinians, he said that was “part of the negotiation”.  

Netanyahu stressed on Friday that “we must not give the Palestinians a veto over new peace treaties with Arab states”. 

His speech comes a day after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the UNGA, saying that Middle East peace is not achievable until Palestinians are granted full rights with statehood.

“Those who think that peace can prevail in the Middle East without the Palestinian people enjoying their full legitimate and national rights would be mistaken,” Abbas said.

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Featured image: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds up a map showing the occupied West Bank and Gaza as part of Israel during his speech at the UN General Assembly, 22 September 2023 (Reuters)

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A new group formed to rally GOP support for Ukraine released an ad this weekend that said US spending on the war in Ukraine is good for the US because it “weakens” Russia.

The ad was made by Republicans for Ukraine, a campaign launched by Defending Democracy Together, an organization led by neoconservative Bill Kristol. The effort comes as support for arming Ukraine is waning among GOP voters, with a recent CNN poll finding 71% of Republicans were against Congress authorizing more Ukraine aid.

This ad will air on the Sunday shows tomorrow in DC.@GOP4Ukraine pic.twitter.com/5C3KWBarAg

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) September 23, 2023

“When America arms Ukraine, we get a lot for a little. Putin is an enemy of America. We’ve used 5% of our defense budget to arm Ukraine, and with it, they’ve destroyed 50% of Putin’s Army,” the ad says.

The ad is blunt and does not attempt to frame US support for Ukraine as a fight for democracy as the Biden administration does, and claims hurting Russia will also hurt China.

“The more Ukraine weakens Russia, the more it also weakens Russia’s closest ally China. America needs to stand strong against our enemies, that’s why Republicans in Congress must continue to support Ukraine,” the ad says.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin used similar language in the early days of the war, saying one of the US goals in Ukraine was to “weaken Russia,” leaving no doubt the conflict is a proxy war.

Hawks in Congress have adopted similar talking points to justify more spending on the Ukraine war. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) recently said the US was getting its “money’s worth” in Ukraine because Russia is taking losses and no Americans are dying. The argument shows a lack of concern for Ukrainian lives.

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

Featured image is from Euronews

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In March 2023, Stan Grant, a First Nation Widjuri journalist, writer and ABC radio and television presenter, gave an iconic talk “Racism is Destroying the Australian Dream”. Grant’s talk was as moving and inspiring as it was furiously-angry about what continues to happen every day to humanity’s aboriginal peoples, not only in Australia but throughout the world.

His talk became a finalist in the United Nation’s Media Peace Awards for its role in stimulating a greater public awareness and understanding of the common plight of Australia’s native’s. Grant’s words speak to the upcoming October 14th Yes or No Referendum Vote to decide whether or not it is important enough to grant its First Nation peoples a special ‘Voice’ to Australia’s Parliament. Listen to his heart-felt talk in this preface.

Stan Grant: Racism and the Australian dream – The Ethics Centre

Stan Grant’s intensely-personal testimony at once struck a chord in this writer’s own heart and soul; being as he is one of Irish descent, whose ancestors, long ago, were themselves dispossessed of their once sacred aboriginal homelands in the Old World, which still is the source of so much existential angst among himself and those of his kind, no matter how much time has since passed. The memory of indigenous peoples and the earth everywhere is simply an exceedingly long one not easily erased.

This writer’s Celtic grandfathers, grandmothers and kinfolk also once were forcibly-evicted from their own ancestral lands and forced to flee to wherever some safe harbour could be found in the New or Old World; forever after snubbed instead of honored and paid tribute to for their sacred lands that once were. Yet their memories in the minds of their descendants still possesses a vital, living resonance.

Especially each time they read again the cargo manifests of the ships that described them as “Vagrants”, instead of ‘Dispossessed Indigenous,’ as they were spirited away from that Green Emerald Isle of their ancient ancestry to parts unknown. A sad epitaph, to which many others in the world still can so readily attest.

While his Great, Great, Great Grandmother Bridget, before she could ever be forcibly evicted, suffering from extreme malnutrition due to a lack of food, other than the common grasses that lay underfoot, seeking some basic warmth, fell into her hearth and was nearly burnt alive before her kin outside, themselves seeking some meagre comfort in the healing warmth of the sun, noticed the smell of her burning flesh.

This writer many times has simply wished that someone like himself, in some long, long ago distant time and place, would have also attempted to say ‘Yes’ to a vote that would have given them their own strong. independent native voice in a now woefully disconnected world that day by day, month by month, year by year, continues to drift that much farther away from the basic human relationships with Mother Earth, Country and one another. It’s to their spirit and honor, as well, that these words also are forever offered. But how will the epitaph of the aboriginal peoples of Australia also one day read if the Yes Vote on Oct 14th isn’t so honored?

All those non-aboriginal peoples in the world, who still possess even a modicum of memory, however faint, of their own aboriginal past, and who care about the desperate plight of aboriginal peoples everywhere on our Mother Earth, and how their survival is intimately inter-twined to the fate of all of life on this beautiful. lush green and watery blue planet of ours, should be aware of the critically-important decision with which Australia’s voters now must face.

This vote symbolically represents a long-time coming reconciliation, not only between Australia’s Aboriginal peoples, Torres Strait Islanders and descendants of its non-aboriginal ‘Settler–Colonial’ forbears, but it represents a possible major turning point in the complicated, obfuscated, contentious ‘can of worms’ debate underway in the world between everything from climate change, the preservation of the planet’s endangered natural world and species of life, to the constant threat of nuclear war. A ‘Yes’ vote majority will mean the non-aboriginal world finally is prepared to either listen or not listen to its own aboriginal past and the many lessons that still awaits their conscious awareness.

Until now, on the eve of Australia’s October 14th Vote, these big world issues have never before been couched, in such plain talk terms, to both aboriginal and non=aboriginal voters alike, about what all is involved in Australia simply granting its aboriginal peoples their own SPECIAL VOICE TO PARLIAMENT. This thought scares the living Be-Jesus out of all those in Australia and the world who have strayed too far away from any living memory of their aboriginal past and its higher awareness of the meaning of life.

Instead of clarity as to what the actual question of whether or not aboriginal peoples should have a special voice to the Australian government’s daily conduct and future life of all Australians, the reality of the vote only continues to threaten the racists and ideologues in Australia and the world’s public and private sector, especially among their reactionary counterparts in the business, financial and mass media sectors. So heated and contentious has this debate on the vote become, that the vote’s critics, in a desperate attempt to scare Australia’s voters from voting ‘Yes’, attempt to characterize the ultimate outcome of the vote as Australia’s Brexit Moment.

But the long and the short of it all simply asks Australian voters to add to Australia’s Commonwealth Constitution, Australia’s ultimate law, the words:

“In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, in the capacity of an advisory body, may make representations to the Parliament and Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.”

This is it, pure and simple. But, of course, it isn’t pure and simple because the corporate interests in the world, who continue to run everything just the way they like it, know that, in the long run, a ‘Yes’ Vote will negatively impact upon every aspect of their total corporate hegemony upon the planet.

EPILOGUE

Stan Grant, the First Nation Widjuri  journalist, writer and Australian Broadcasting (ABC) radio and television presenter, noted in the preface (Stan Grant: Racism and the Australian dream – The Ethics Centre), how: Australia was beginning to tear itself apart because of racism; much in the same way England essentially has done and continues to do to its own nation over its viscous and divisive class-based Brexit Debate, or; how the U.S. continues to do the same in its warmongering desire for world war in Ukraine. Stan Grant’s observations of what is happening in Australia are spot on!

According to an ABC Investigation report Australia’s White Supremacists are dividing the Yes and No Voters on different given long-standing political, cultural and racial issues surrounding the vote. Its report tracked down how the nation’s related, decades-old, contentious ‘land rights’ movement divisions have now been repurposed with the debate over the current Yes/No Vote. Red Over Black, a book and documentary, released in the early 1980’s, claimed the aboriginal land rights movement was a communist plot to erode Australia’s sovereignty.

The ABC report reveals how Australia’s white supremacist activists now are playing a major role in the anti-Yes movement by circulating the ‘Red Over Black’ book and documentary in rallies opposed to the Yes Vote all around Australia.

The report quotes Kaz Ross, a leading far-right and conspiracy theorist analyst, who has examined dozens of Telegram, Facebook and Wiki groups who continue to denigrate the Yes Vote campaign, as being a deliberate infiltration strategy by one Geoff Macdonald, a former Australian Communist Party member, turned right-wing activist, who initially, at the outset of the Yes/No Vote debate, was mum on this aspect of the Yes/No debate. Until, that is, the anti-Semitic website XYZ, founded by white supremacist David Hiscox, linked Macdonald’s efforts to the proposed ‘Voice’, describing it as communism by the back door”.

The scare and smear tactics of tireless, never-ending ideological “pro-Capitalism/anti-communist” propagandic news campaigns throughout the world, many owned by enormously-rich and powerful private family’s, like North America’s Shaw and Balboni Family’s, and the giant, octopus-like reach of their Corus Entertainment and Global Television Network’s, and other similar world news networks, have, for over a century since the Russian Revolution in 1917, continued to denigrate anything in the world, and especially now in Australia, that smacks of “left-wing socio-political-cultural communalistic” land rights, pro-indigenous issues.

Especially since the emergence of a new Telegram Channel, Aboriginal Voice Exposed (AVE), entered into the ‘Voice’ debate and now is one of the most shared anti-indigenous, anti-land rights, anti-Yes voices in Australia. It’s now virtually impossible to know the real truth today about any given world issue, so cooked, managed and manipulated are whatever the news source.

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At the United Nations General Assembly high-level meetings held in New York, a number of global leaders including those from Africa vehemently called for global peace and sustainable development. Russia and South Africa, both members of BRICS association attended the September meetings, and as it was during previous summits and conferences have renewed their commitment for ensuring peace within the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

“As we gather here, much of humanity is confronted by war and conflict. Solidarity and trust between states is being eroded. At the moment when every human effort should be directed towards the realisation of Agenda 2030, our attention and our energies have once again been diverted by the scourge of war,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said during his speech delivered there in New York.

Ramaphosa added that South Africa has consistently advocated for dialogue, negotiation and diplomacy to prevent and end conflict and achieve lasting peace. From the experience of his country’s own journey from apartheid to democracy, South Africa highly values the importance of engaging all parties to conflicts to achieve peaceful, just and enduring resolutions. 

It is these principles that inform South Africa’s participation in the African Peace Initiative, which seeks a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. In this conflict, as in all conflicts, and that the UN Charter’s principle of respect for the territorial integrity of every country should be upheld.

South Africa supports the urgent call by the UN Secretary-General in the New Agenda for Peace for Member States to provide more sustainable and predictable financing to peacebuilding efforts. It is South Africa’s desire to see an end to the suffering of those most directly affected by the conflict in Ukraine.

Ahead of the Johannesburg summit that was August 20, Ramaphosa in a speech to the nation indicated that South Africa participated in the African initiative to seek peace in the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

Through this African Peace Initiative, he said emphatically:

“We firmly believe that dialogue, mediation and diplomacy is the only viable path to end the current conflict and achieve a durable peace. We support the principle of respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all states and peoples.”

South Africa’s foreign policy has been based on what forebears inscribed in the Freedom Charter in 1955 that “South Africa shall be a fully independent state which respects the rights and the sovereignty of all nations; South Africa shall strive to maintain world peace and the settlement of all international disputes by negotiation – not war.”

Brazilian Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s return to the presidency in January 2023 has paved the way for a revival of an ambitious and assertive foreign policy set out by the leader during his first term in office between 2003 and 2010. He has been voicing for global peace as well as practical development with geopolitical partners, especially in the Global South.

China insisted on dialogue for conflict resolution. It has also presented its Ukrainian peace plan which Russia keeps on hold. Despite criticisms that it has lured Africa into debts, China is tremendously contributing to Africa’s infrastructure development. China appreciably brings “new opportunities” for diverse cooperation, and has unveiled five new development plans for Africa at the last BRICS summit in Johannesburg.

Even at the end of the 15th BRICS summit, the document adopted encapsulates significant viewpoints on matters of global significance including peace and development. In this document, the BRICS leaders expressed their highest and sentimental concern “to enhance its strategic partnership for the benefit of its people through the promotion of peace.”

It further states…

“We reiterate the need for all countries to cooperate in promoting and protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms under the principles of equality and mutual respect. We agree to continue to treat all human rights.”

“We agree to strengthen cooperation on issues of common interests both within BRICS and in multilateral fora including the United Nations General Assembly and Human Rights Council. We call for the respect of democracy and human rights,” the BRICS declaration (slightly shortened for space) says. 

For BRICS-11 (Brazil, India, China and South Africa+ new members) to remain unconcerned and show continous blatant indifference could be interpreted, first and foremost, as an integral failure on its commitments. Arguably it is a turning and critical point to show to the world its primary effectiveness on conflict resolution sealed in its summit documents.  

Records show that Kenya is not a member of BRICS. But in a similar direction together with a few African leaders at UNGA, Kenyan President William Ruto also made reference to the proactive commitment to peace, which is not limited to the continent; African Union was inspired to dispatch the African Peace Delegation, consisting of six African heads of states to Moscow and Kiev with a ten-point peace plan, beginning with efforts to initiate a mediation process to resolve the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Although the delegation encountered significant challenges in their mission, Kenya and for the matter the entire Africa remain very proud that the peace delegation showed up. The African Peace Initiative group headed by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, made serious efforts for recognition as peace brokers. 

The delegation included the current Chairperson of the African Union and Comoros president, Azali Assoumani; President of Senegal, Macky Sall; President of Zambia, Hakainde Hichilema and Prime Minister of Egypt, Mostafa Madbouly. In addition, the delegation included representatives of Uganda and Congo.

The group put forward a 10-point proposal was presented in Kyiv and St. Petersburg. The key aim of the African peace mission primarily to propose “confidence-building measures” in order to facilitate peace between the two countries. It was to seek a peaceful settlement of the conflict which began late February 2022. 

At the United Nations, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov afresh offered the signal that

“Russia can’t give up goals of special military operation in Ukraine.” From several official documents, Russia underlined the reason as – “to de-militarize and de-nazify” Ukraine.

Quoting President Vladimir Putin, Lavrov said the West was “truly an empire of lies” which even during the battle against Nazism in World War Two, had plotted an offensive against their Soviet allies.

Soviet and then Russian leaders “were given concrete political assurances regarding the non-expansion of the NATO military alliance to the east”, which turned out to be pure deception.

Washington and Brussels have ceaselessly sought to expand their interests and alliances to subordinate the Global South and East, rejecting Russia’s desire for mutual security guarantees, he stated, and closed his case with an appeal for compromise, saying “humanity is at a crossroads…It is in our shared interest to prevent a downward spiral into large scale war.”

He invoked the Secretary-General’s call for world leaders to meet and negotiate in the spirit of compromise at this year’s UN General Assembly, “when designing our common future for our common good” and concluded that it was an excellent response to those who divide the world up into democracies and autocracies and dictate their neocolonial rules to others.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the Security Council session spoke assertively in reference to children who have gone missing, been abducted, are being concealed and starved. Lavrov called them allegations, issues without substantiation.

Lavrov, later at the media conference, attributed the conflict in his country’s backyard to  the West’s years-long efforts to transform Ukraine into anti-Russia, while stressing Russia’s policy in a multipolar architecture and, in principle, that strictly seeks adherence for global peace and respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty. 

Putin Decrees ‘Special Military Operation’ in Ukraine

On 24 February 2022, Russian President declared the ‘Special Military Operation’ in Ukraine. In his nation-wide address, Putin emphasized that over the past 30 years have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe.

In the middle of the long speech that February 24, Putin indicated that one could say, with good reason and confidence, that the whole so-called Western bloc formed by the United States in its own image and likeness, in its entirety, the very same “empire of lies.”

“Despite all that, in December 2021, we made yet another attempt to reach agreement with the United States and its allies on the principles of European security and NATO’s non-expansion. The United States has not changed its position. It does not believe it necessary to agree with Russia on a matter that is critical for us. The United States is pursuing its own objectives, while neglecting our interests,” Putin stressed.

He further pointed:

“As for military affairs, even after the dissolution of the USSR and losing a considerable part of its capabilities, today’s Russia remains one of the most powerful nuclear states. Moreover, it has a certain advantage in several cutting-edge weapons. In this context, there should be no doubt for anyone that any potential aggressor will face defeat and ominous consequences should it directly attack on Russia.”

For the United States and its allies, it is a policy of containing Russia, with obvious geopolitical dividends. For Russia, it is a matter of life and death, a matter of historical future as a nation. This is not an exaggeration; this is a fact. It is not only a very real threat to Russia’s interests but to the very existence of the state and to its sovereignty. It is the red line. They have crossed it.

In this context, in accordance with Article 51 (Chapter VII) of the UN Charter, with permission of Russia’s Federation Council, and in execution of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic, ratified by the Federal Assembly on February 22, I made a decision to carry out a special military operation, Putin declared ‘Special Military Operation’ on Ukriane.

The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, Russia would seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation. The officers of Russia’s Armed Forces would perform their duty with professionalism and courage. It is not Russia’s plan to occupy the Ukrainian territory.

Cost of Russia’s ‘Special Military Operation’ in Ukraine

Forbes media has reported that Russia already spent over US$167 billion on war against Ukraine.

“In a year and a half since the start of its full-scale invasion, Russia spent about US$167.3 billion on the war against Ukraine, of which US$34 billion worth of equipment were destroyed by Ukraine’s Armed Forces alone,” it reported.

Source: Forbes calculations based on data from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Details: According to Forbes, Russia spends about US$300 million a day on its war against Ukraine.

Direct military spending and the cost of Russia’s lost equipment over 18 months of the war (from 24 February 2022 to 24 August 2023) is about US$167.3 billion. This estimate does not include constant defence spending not related to military operations, as well as economic losses of the aggressor country.

The largest items of expenditure: ensuring military operations (US$51.3 billion), salaries of the servicemen (US$35.1 billion), compensation to the families of the dead (US$25.6 billion) and wounded (US$21 billion) and the cost of destroyed equipment (US$34 billion).

After the rapid fall of the ruble, the “cost” of the Russian soldier for the budget of the Russian Federation decreased significantly. If for 2022 the total payments per one serviceman were about US$200 per day, now it is about US$120 per day.

The level of Russian losses in recent months has remained at a significantly higher level than last year, according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Accordingly, Russia is forced to spend more on compensation to the families. The cost of compensation to the family of the deceased in the Russian Federation was about US$110,000, now it is only about US$65,000. The amount of compensation to the wounded, respectively, decreased from US$45,000 to US$27,000.

The main item of expenditure of the Russian Federation on the war in Ukraine is ammunition and military support of the army. The total cost of this is US$51.34 billion. At the same time, the Russians spent over US$9 billion on providing for Russian artillery in a year and a half of the great war. The total cost of missiles fired on the territory of Ukraine has already reached a hefty sum of more than US$21.1 billion.

In September 2022, the State Duma (lower house of Russia’s parliament) and the Federation Council (upper house) approved legislation on ratifying treaties, as well as federal constitutional laws on the accession of the four regions to Russia.

On February 24, Russian President Putin said in a televised address that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had decided to carry out a special military operation to protect people “who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years” and Putin explained – “demilitarization and denazification” in Ukraine, approved by the State Duma and Federation Council of the Russian Federation.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), Weekly Blitz and InDepthNews, is now a regular contributor to Global Research. He researches Eurasia, Russia, Africa and BRICS. His focused interest areas include geopolitical changes, foreign relations and economic development questions relating to Africa. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

On July 24th, Doctors Without Borders announced it had “reached the difficult decision to withdraw” from the main hospital in Las Anod, a war-torn city in the Horn of Africa claimed by both Somalia and Somaliland.

The charity said “the level of extreme violence in Las Anod” and “recurrent attacks on medical facilities” had forced its healthcare workers to pull out.

Earlier that month, the hospital had been hit for the fifth time this year, injuring staff, damaging an ambulance and shuttering the maternity ward.

Amnesty International has blamed such attacks on Somaliland’s army, which is said to have “indiscriminately shelled” the city.

And yet these apparent violations of humanitarian law did not deter a British MP from flying to Somaliland a week later on an all-expenses-paid trip in support of their government.

The politician in question, Sir Gavin Williamson, represents South Staffordshire – a rural constituency 4,000 miles away on the outskirts of Birmingham.

Since being kicked out of Cabinet for leaking intelligence, he has become a regular guest of Somaliland and holds honorary citizenship.

Last month their Chamber of Commerce spent £3,100 on his flights, food and accommodation for a week-long “trade and political visit to discuss environmental issues and deepening relations between educational institutions”.

SSC-Khaatumo, the pro-Somalia group that wrested control of Las Anod from Somaliland’s authorities, has condemned Williamson’s trip.

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President Emmanuel Macron for several weeks has falsely claimed that the French ambassador in Niamey was being held hostage by the newly installed government established by the National Council for the Safeguarding of Our Homeland (CNSP) after the July 26 military-led revolt.

Ousted leader of Niger Mohamed Bazoum was overthrown, ushering in a different direction regarding domestic and foreign policy in this uranium-rich Sahel state which had become an outpost for the French and United States troops.

Macron refused to recognize the CNSP administration after the seizure of power by the new government. In retaliation, Niger ordered the French ambassador and some 1,500 troops out of the country. Macron continued to make allegations about the ambassador being held against his will by the Niger authorities.

These inflammatory statements by Macron coincided with French efforts to encourage the assemblage of a regional military force under the rubric of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). President Bola Tinubu of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was the most vociferous in threatening a military intervention under the guise of reimposing Bazoum.

However, broad segments of Nigerian society spoke out definitively against an invasion. Other organizations, media personalities and political parties in Nigeria, Ghana, Mauritania and Algeria joined the chorus in denouncing Tinubu and his counterparts in Senegal and Ghana. As the threats of a full-blown intervention faded, France maintained its view that the CNSP government had no authority to cancel diplomatic recognition of its ambassador. The same position was held regarding the military presence of Paris in this vast West African state.

LeMonde, the French newspaper said of the announcement by Macron:

“It took only a few words on Sunday, September 24, for French President Emmanuel Macron to announce during an interview devoted to purchasing power on French television that he had decided to repatriate the French ambassador in Niamey, Sylvain Itté, to Paris and to withdraw 1,500 French troops deployed in Niger to fight terrorism. The decision came two months after a military coup in the Sahelian country, ending weeks of tensions with the junta and a situation that had become untenable for Paris.” 

The attitude of France towards its former colonies on the African continent has been one of paternalism. Since the independence of many states in West Africa, France has maintained substantial economic and military domination.

In Niger, a French-owned mining firm controls the largest stake in the country’s uranium deposits and their extraction. These resources are utilized to power French cities while huge swaths of territory within Niger remain without adequate electricity.

Sanctions imposed at the aegis of France by Nigeria against its northern neighbor of Niger, has resulted in power outages impacting the functioning of the country’s infrastructure. Industrial equipment, consumer goods and foodstuffs have been held up at the borders with Nigeria and Benin as part of the draconian sanctions against the CNSP.

In the same above-mentioned report from Le Monde, it quotes the French president as saying:

“’France has decided to withdraw its ambassador. In the next hours, our ambassador and many diplomats will return to France. And we are ending our military cooperation with the de facto authorities in Niger because they no longer want to fight terrorism,’ Macron told TF1 and France 2. French soldiers in Niger ‘will return in an orderly fashion over the coming weeks and months,’ Macron added, specifying that their return was to take place before ‘the end of the year.’ His words were immediately greeted with joy in Niamey. Thousands spontaneously rallied at a traffic circle on a road leading to the main military base housing French soldiers.”

Nigerien youth and workers have maintained a sit-in outside the French embassy and military base in the capital. The masses of people want the former colonizer out of their country saying that the presence of French troops, ostensibly there to fight “Islamic terrorism” are in fact responsible for the further weakening of the state.

Regional Implications of the French Withdrawal

Troops from Paris have been asked to leave Mali, Burkina Faso along with Niger. Consequently, France will have to reposition its forces in other less hostile African states.

French military bases in Senegal, Ivory Coast and Gabon remain intact. Nonetheless, a military seizure of power in Gabon on August 30 in the aftermath of the announcement of election results placed France once again in a precarious situation diplomatically. Macron took a completely different posture in comparison to their hostility towards Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali.

The new leadership in Gabon emerged from the presidential guard military units working under the control of the former President Ali Bongo. This new administration in Libreville has refrained from attacking France since taking power in late August. Gabonese military leaders have appointed a civilian prime minister who represented the oil-rich state at the United Nations General Assembly 78th session in New York City.

The new Gabon administration explained that the Bongo family had been in power in the country since 1967. Despite its oil wealth and relative strength of the national economy, the Bongo regime had been investigated and charged for widespread corruption in France. Several elections in recent years were marked by systematic suppression of the opposition and vote rigging. During this time period spanning 56 years, France has continued to defend the Bongo presidencies, with Omar and later his son Ali.

Since the August 30 military takeover, most of the focus of the new Gabonese administration has been directed toward ending corruption and nepotism inside the country. Nonetheless, things could rapidly shift if events in other African states provide indications of the changing political situation in the Sahel and other regions of the continent.

In relations to Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea-Conakry, the statements of their governmental representatives at the UN General Assembly revealed a renewed emphasis on anti-imperialism and Pan-Africanism. These speakers evoked the names of Capt. Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana along with Malcolm X from the U.S.

The Link Between the Struggle Against Neo-Colonialism and the Working Class Movement

The current security crisis in the Sahel and other regions is a reflection of the crisis of neo-colonialism, where despite independence which was won over six decades ago, the economy of these states remains dependent upon the world capitalist system. This world capitalist system is facing its own crisis due in part to the liberatory efforts of the peoples of the Global South, most of whom are the former colonial and semi-colonial states dominated by imperialism.

In addition, the internal contradictions with the capitalist and imperialist systems are creating sharp class divisions and struggles. In Europe, Britain and the U.S., workers are striking demanding substantial increases in wages, benefits and better conditions of employment.

Moreover, the struggle of the working class combined with the upsurge in consciousness, mass actions and urban rebellions of the oppressed nations and minorities of African Americans, Latin Americans along with the African, Arab and Muslim communities in France, provides a glimpse into the potential for building of international alliance committed to total liberation and social emancipation.

France has been the scene of protracted struggles against pension theft and police repression. The government of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and President Emmanuel Macron have responded to the demands of the workers and oppressed with brutality, mass arrests and accusations of criminality and delinquency.

Obviously, France, Britain and the U.S. have no solutions to the immense problems of imperialist war, political repression, national oppression and economic exploitation. These important questions of the 21st century must be resolved through the organization and empowerment of the majority of people within the world community.

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

Featured image is from the author

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[This article was first published on October 14, 2022.]

Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice for all records in the possession of FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten regarding an August 6, 2020, briefing provided to members of the U.S. Senate. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) raised concerns that the briefing was intended to undermine the senators’ investigation of Hunter Biden (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:22-cv-02821)) 

Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the DOJ failed to reply to an August 2, 2022, FOIA request for:

• All unclassified records including emails, email chains, email attachments, notes (digital and / or hand-written), briefings, data, documents, letters, evidence, assessments, in the possession of FBI
• Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten concerning an August 6, 2020, briefing provided to members of the U.S. Senate, specifically, Senator’s Johnson and Grassley.

In a July 25, 2022, letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, Senator Grassley, ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary, wrote:

On May 31, 2022, I wrote to you regarding likely violations of Federal laws, regulations and Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) guidelines by Assistant Special Agent in Charge (“ASAC”) Timothy Thibault of the Washington Field Office (“WFO”) based on a pattern of active public partisanship in his then public social media content…. My letter … invited individuals, including current and former government employees, to contact me and my office to confidentially report allegations of fraud, waste, abuse and gross mismanagement by FBI and Justice Department (“Department”) officials including, but not limited to, ASAC Thibault. In response, my office has received a significant number of protected communications from highly credible whistleblowers.

The information provided to my office involves concerns about the FBI’s receipt and use of derogatory information relating to Hunter Biden, and the FBI’s false portrayal of acquired evidence as disinformation. The volume and consistency of these allegations substantiate their credibility and necessitate this letter.

First, it’s been alleged that the FBI developed information in 2020 about Hunter Biden’s criminal financial and related activity. It is further alleged that in August 2020, FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten opened an assessment which was used by a FBI Headquarters (‘FBI HQ’) team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease. Based on allegations, verified and verifiable derogatory information on Hunter Biden was falsely labeled as disinformation.

The basis for how the FBI HQ team selected the specific information for inclusion in Auten’s assessment is unknown, but in more than one instance the focus of the FBI HQ team’s attention involved derogatory information about Hunter Biden. Accordingly, the allegations provided to my office appear to indicate that there was a scheme in place among certain FBI officials to undermine derogatory information connected to Hunter Biden by falsely suggesting it was disinformation.

Importantly, it’s been alleged to my office that Auten’s assessment was opened in August 2020, which is the same month that Senator Johnson and I received an unsolicited and unnecessary briefing from the FBI that purportedly related to our Biden investigation and a briefing for which the contents were later leaked in order to paint the investigation in a false light.

On July 26, 2022, Senator Johnson, the ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security, wrote a letter to Garland, Wray, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, and DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz:

Yesterday, Senator Grassley sent a letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealing information that may confirm what I have suspected for years: “[T]here was a scheme in place among certain FBI officials to undermine derogatory information connected to Hunter Biden by falsely suggesting it was disinformation.”

***

[O]n August 6, 2020, Senator Grassley and I received a briefing from the FBI which we always assumed was a set up to intentionally discredit our ongoing work into Hunter Biden’s extensive foreign financial entanglements. Indeed, months after that briefing—which was not specific and unconnected to our investigation—it was leaked to the Washington Post who reported on it and tied it to “an extensive effort by the [FBI] to alert members of Congress . . . that they faced a risk of being used to further Russia’s attempt to influence the election’s outcome[.]”

If these recent whistleblower revelations are true, it would strongly suggest that the FBI’s August 6, 2020 briefing was indeed a targeted effort to intentionally undermine a Congressional investigation. The FBI being weaponized against two sitting chairmen of U.S. Senate committees with constitutional oversight responsibilities would be one of the greatest episodes of Executive Branch corruption in American history.

Auten is reportedly under investigation for his role in the FBI Crossfire Hurricane investigation targeting Trump and just testified in the Durham Special Counsel trial of Igor Danchenko, who was paid by both the Clinton campaign and the FBI to dig up dirt on President Trump.

“It is no coincidence the FBI operatives implicated in improperly protecting Hunter and Joe Biden were also abusing President Trump,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The Justice Department and the FBI have been irredeemably compromised and their refusal to follow federal transparency law further confirms their corruption.”

Through FOIA, Judicial Watch has uncovered significant information about Hunter Biden, who served on the board of directors for Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings despite having no previous experience in the energy industry.

Judicial Watch recently sued the Department of Homeland Security for Secret Service records related to the investigation of Hunter Biden’s gun, reportedly disposed of in a dumpster in Delaware.

In December 2020, Judicial Watch received records from the State Department tying Hunter Biden’s Burisma Holdings’ lobbying operation to an influence-peddling operation involving the Clinton campaign during the 2016 election. Also uncovered were State Department records showing that former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch had specifically warned in 2017 about corruption allegations against Burisma Holdings.

In October 2020, State Department records that included a briefing checklist of a February 22, 2019, meeting in Kyiv between then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and Sally Painter, co-founder and chief operating officer of Blue Star Strategies, a Democratic lobbying firm which was hired by Burisma Holdings to combat corruption allegations. The briefing checklist notes that Painter also planned to meet with Foreign Commercial Service (FCS) Officer Martin Claessens “regarding the Burisma Group energy company.” (Painter was implicated in the Clinton-era fundraisingscandal exposed by Judicial Watch that involved the alleged sale of seats on Commerce Department trade missions to Democratic National Committee donors.)

In September 2020, State Department records  include a January 17, 2017, email from George Kent, the Obama administration’s deputy assistant secretary of state in charge of Ukraine policy, which was copied to then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, highlighting Russia-linked media “trolling” Joe Biden over “his son’s business.” An email was sent four days prior to the inauguration of President Donald Trump to a redacted recipient and CCd to Yovanovitch with the subject line “medvedchuk-linked vesti trolls Biden.” Kent writes: “Burisma – gift that keeps on giving. (With medvedchuk affiliated Vesti pushing the troll like storyline on visit day)”

In June 2020, U.S. Secret Service records showed that, for the first five and a half years of the Obama administration, Hunter Biden traveled extensively while receiving a Secret Service protective detail. During the time period of the records provided, Hunter Biden took 411 separate domestic and international flights, including to 29 different foreign countries. He visited China five times.

Judicial Watch is also suing the DHS for Secret Service records on Hunter Biden’s travel and security costs, and suing the State Department for messages sent through the SMART (State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolkit) system that mention Hunter Biden.

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***

Non-menstruating women were more likely to experience unexpected vaginal bleeding after receiving COVID-19 vaccinations, according to a new study.

Researchers suggested it could have been connected to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in the vaccines. The study was published in Science Advances.

After vaccinations became widely available, many women reported heavier menstrual bleeding than normal. Researchers at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo examined the data, particularly among women who do not have periods, such as those who have been through menopause or are taking contraceptives.

The researchers used an ongoing population health survey called the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study, Nature reported. They examined more than 21,000 responses from postmenopausal, perimenopausal and non-menstruating premenopausal women. Some were on long-term hormonal contraceptives.

They learned that 252 postmenopausal women, 1,008 perimenopausal women and 924 premenopausal women reported having unexpected vaginal bleeding.

About half said the bleeding occurred within four weeks of the first or second shot or both. The risk of bleeding was up 3 to 5 times for premenopausal and perimenopausal women, and 2 to 3 times for postmenopausal women, the researchers found.

Postmenopausal bleeding is usually serious and can be a sign of cancer, Nature wrote.

“Knowing a patient’s vaccination status could put their bleeding incidence into context,” said Kate Clancy, a biological anthropologist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

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Writer Jay Croft brings three decades of professional communications experience to his WebMD coverage. Jay contributes articles on consumer health and recreation topics, chiefly those around exercise and fitness.

Sources

Science Advances: “Unexpected vaginal bleeding and COVID-19 vaccination in nonmenstruating women”

Nature: “COVID vaccines linked to unexpected vaginal bleeding”

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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***

On September 22, during a diplomatic meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, he told Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that China would help Syria to rebuild its ruined economy by upgrading ties to a “strategic partnership“, which means close coordination on regional and international affairs, including in the military sphere, and is just one grade below what Beijing calls a “comprehensive strategic partnership”. After the talks, the two heads of state witnessed the signing of bilateral cooperation documents in the areas of the Belt and Road cooperation, economic, and technological cooperation.

On September 21, Assad and his wife touched down in Hangzhou, China, accompanied by a high-ranking Syrian delegation, where they will attend the opening of the 19th Asian Games on September 23.  Syria has sent Majid Aldeen Ghazal (track and field), Ahmad Hamsho and his brother Omar Hamsho (equestrian), Maen Assad (weightlifting) and Omar Sarem and Enal Braze (boxing) to the sporting event representing Syria.

“China supports Syria’s opposition to foreign interference, unilateral bullying … and will support Syria’s reconstruction,” Xi said.

Syria fell victim to a US-NATO attack for regime change in 2011, which failed to produce results, but was successful in cutting the country into pieces, aided by the US military occupation, and the US-EU sanctions on Syria have prevented reconstruction or investments.

“China is willing to strengthen cooperation with Syria through the Belt and Road Initiative … to make positive contributions to regional and world peace and development,” said the leader of the world’s second-largest economy, who offers an alternative to the global US-domination. Xi called on the US and EU to lift the sanctions on Syria, for the benefit of the suffering Syrian people, who are facing poverty and food insecurity.

Under the 2020 Caesar Act in the US Congress, any company who has any business dealing with any private or public business entity in Syria can have their financial assets frozen by the US Department of Treasury. Elizabeth Hoff, former WHO director in Damascus, said medical machines in hospitals across Syria often sat idle because the firms who made the replacement parts were not willing to risk sanctions.

Syria’s location offers a huge leverage for China, or any international player. Turkey, Iraq, Jordan are all neighbors of Syria and important for China.  Russia and Iran are inside Syria, so it’s in geo-economic interest for China to increase its’ presence in Syria.

China and Russia are united on the global stage, and that’s clear in Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. 

The central government in Damascus controls most of the territory, with the exception of the Al Qaeda controlled province of Idlib in the northwest, and the US occupation’s partner in the northeast. Syria and China share intelligence because of China’s fears of the 3,500 radicalized Muslim Uyghurs from China fighting in Idlib, where they have been supported by President Erdogan of Turkey.

In March, Beijing helped broker a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran to end a seven-year-long diplomatic rift, which has furthered peace and stability in the region, much to the surprise of Washington, who has depended on creating problems among neighbors in the Middle East to further US interests.

After 67 years of diplomacy, Syria joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2022, in which China has been investing in and building infrastructure on several continents to establish land and sea trade routes linking Asia to the rest of the world, harkening back to the ancient Silk Road which stretched from China to Syria. 17 countries in the Middle East and North Africa have joined the BRI.

China is will strengthen Belt and Road cooperation with Syria, increase the import of high-quality agricultural products from Syria, and perhaps gain additional energy sources.

On 20 June, China’s state-owned energy and chemical giant Sinopec named a new manager for Syria. Sinopec’s entrance into Syria’s oil sector dates back to 2009 when the corporation acquired Canada’s Tanganyika Oil Company. Sinopec’s holdings encompass the Oudeh, Tishreen, and Sheikh Mansour oilfields are today all occupied by the US military, who confiscates the oil production to deprive the Syrian people of electricity and gasoline.  Trump ordered the US military in 2019 to steal the Syrian oil, not because the US needs oil, but only to make Syria suffer more, and it has.

In 2008-09, China had invested around $3 billion in petroleum extraction and other energy ventures in Syria, but the projects were shut down in 2014 amid US-EU sanctions.

China become a net importer of energy in 1993, and by 2017, it became the largest crude oil importer globally, and 48%, comes from the Middle East, which is why the Middle East will continue to gain significance in the next decade for China. 

In 1998, Richard N. Haas wrote a paper “Economic sanctions: too much of a bad thing”. In that policy briefing, he proves that economic sanctions to not work on big projects, like regime change, and only hurt the innocent people living under sanctions, while having no effect on administrations. After 25 years you would think someone in the US Congress would have learned the lesson, but they doggedly follow political strategies which have no merit, and yield no results.

While the US government is spending billions on weapons for Ukraine, they sent absolutely nothing to the people of Syria in Aleppo and Latakia, who were the hardest hit areas in Syria from the February 6 earthquake of 7.8 magnitude, which took 10,000 lives in Syria. Latakia sits on three fault lines, one of which is directly connected to the Turkish epicenter. The US sent tons of aid to Idlib, which is occupied by Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, and controlled by Mohammad al-Julani, formerly of ISIS.

The Obama-Trump-Biden war on Syria for regime change utilized foot soldiers following Radical Islam, the same terrorist ideology that some of the Uyghur community follow in western China, where they have carried out horrific terrorist attacks on Chinese civilians.  Russia and Iran have also been the victims of numerous attacks by terrorists following Radical Islam. The UN charter calls for all members to fight terrorists where they are, and in the case of Russia, Iran and China they do their part; but, in the case of the US and EU it is a selective process.  If there is a terrorist attack in New York or Paris, then it is condemned. But, if the same brand of terrorists’ attack Aleppo, they are idolized and called ‘freedom fighters’, and if they manage to occupy Idlib, they are supported by UN humanitarian aid, US aid, and international charities.

The US and EU have prolonged the suffering of the Syrian people by the sanctions, and the protection of the terrorists in Idlib, which has turned the Syria conflict into a status quo. The Syrian war is over, the battlefields are silent since 2017, and people want to rebuild and start their life anew, but the western governments refuse to give them a break.  Without an influx of foreign investments, Syria cannot be rebuilt. All eyes are on China now, to see if they can break free of the status quo.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from MD

Ukraine: A Complex War and “The Neo-Nazi Element”: Holes in the Mainstream Account of “Justice in Ukraine”

By Michael Welch, Eva Bartlett, and Richard Sanders, September 26, 2023

It needs to be acknowledged quickly that the invasion of Ukraine (which Global Research does NOT support) is not as simple as the mainstream media makes it out to be. As has been documented in past episodes of the program, there has been a rise in the incidence of Nazis in Ukraine since the undemocratic coup against president Yanukovych in 2014.

Amnesty International Pushes Regime Change in Eritrea with Dubious, Unverifiable Report

By Ann Garrison, September 27, 2023

Amnesty’s new report accusing Eritrea’s government of gruesome war crimes relies heavily on anonymous testimony, grainy satellite images, and zero field investigation. It is the latest salvo in the West’s campaign to topple the country’s independent government.

A Year of Lying About Nord Stream. Seymour Hersh

By Seymour M. Hersh, September 27, 2023

The American men and women who moved, under cover, in and out of Norway in the months it took to plan and carry out the destruction of three of the four Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea a year ago left no traces—not a hint of the team’s existence—other than the success of their mission. 

Post-COVID Vaccination Heart Inflammation: CDC Refuses to Release Updated Information

By Zachary Stieber, September 27, 2023

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is refusing to release updated information on reported cases of myocarditis and pericarditis following COVID-19 vaccination. COVID-19 vaccines can cause the inflammatory conditions, the CDC previously confirmed.

The US-Egypt Weapons to Ukraine Dispute. Menendez Indictment

By Steven Sahiounie, September 27, 2023

US Senator Robert Menendez, (D. NJ.) temporarily stepped down from his powerful role as chairman of the Senate Relations Committee, according to Senate Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer, following accusations of political corruption and breach of US national security.

Canadian Parliament Honours Man Who Fought for Nazis. Speaker Regrets Decision

By Hindustan Times, September 27, 2023

The speaker of Canada’s House of Commons apologized Sunday for recognizing 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka as a “Ukrainian hero” before the Canadian Parliament. Hunka served in World War II as a member of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, according to a Jewish human rights group that demanded an apology.

The Subversion of Democracies and “The Global Surveillance State”. Don’t Forget About Cambridge Analytica

By Megan Sherman, September 26, 2023

In a masterpiece of investigative reporting by Carole Cadwallr on the aggressive infiltration and subversion of democracies worldwide by Cambridge Analytica, a troubling story emerged.

Video: “Permanent Pandemics and Vaccines”. Michel Chossudovsky

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky and Caroline Mailloux, September 26, 2023

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***

Amnesty’s new report accusing Eritrea’s government of gruesome war crimes relies heavily on anonymous testimony, grainy satellite images, and zero field investigation. It is the latest salvo in the West’s campaign to topple the country’s independent government.

Eritrea is a small country with a geostrategically significant coast on the Red Sea. Fiercely independent, it is one of only two African nations that refuse to collaborate with AFRICOM, the US Africa Command. Committed to an incremental, self-reliant development strategy, it has chosen not to saddle itself with IMF or World Bank debt. It was also the only African nation to vote against  the March 2, 2022 UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and demanding that it withdraw unconditionally.  

Not surprisingly, Eritrea is constantly under attack by the Western human rights industrial complex that serves the interests of NATO states. On September 4, one of the organizations at the forefront of this soft power network, Amnesty International, published a report claiming that Eritrean troops were guilty of rape, sexual slavery, and extrajudicial execution in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray Region near the end of the two-year Tigray War and thereafter. 

That war began on November 3, 2020, when the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a longtime US ally, attacked an Ethiopian national army base in the Tigray Region, then fired on Eritrea, which responded by entering the war on the side of Ethiopia. Together Ethiopia and Eritrea had effectively defeated the TPLF by November 2022.

However, Mike Hammer, US Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa, swept into Tigray’s capital on a US Air Force jet and flew TPLF leadership off to peace talks in Pretoria, South Africa. There, Hammer made sure that the TPLF would be allowed to survive as the regional authority in Tigray, placing them firmly in control at the time Amnesty researched its report.

The report’s headline threatens, “Today or tomorrow, they [Eritrea’s leadership] should be brought before justice.” While exempting the US-backed TPLF leadership from scrutiny, Amnesty demands that Eritreans be tried before an international tribunal. Indictments in international courts lead to international warrants and arrests, or set the stage for regime change war, as was seen with the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was murdered by jihadist bandits armed by the West during the height of NATO’s bombing campaign in 2011.

Back in 1990, Amnesty International published a lengthy report based on the claims of a Kuwaiti girl named Nayirah, who told US Congress that Iraqi troops had stormed into hospitals in her hometown, yanked babies from their incubators, thrown the babies on the floor, then stolen the incubators. Amnesty was forced to retract its report when Nayirah was revealed to be the niece of Kuwait’s ambassador to the US, who had hired an army of public relations firms to craft her testimony, which turned out to be a complete fabrication. But by then, the damage had been done: Then President George H.W. Bush cited Amnesty’s report repeatedly during a nationally televised address to justify his initiation of the first Gulf War.

Because Amnesty’s new report on Eritrea, a target of US empire, is based entirely on the testimonies of anonymous people and satellite images taken from Google Earth, it is impossible to assess their credibility. What is clear is that Amnesty relies on tabloid-style techniques to paper over the organization’s failure to conduct any field investigation at a time when travel to the region was unhindered.

Telephone Calls to Anonymous Witnesses

The Amnesty report was based on 49 telephone interviews with anonymous witnesses and some grainy satellite photos generated by Google Earth. Though Ethiopian Airlines flights from Addis Ababa to Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, had resumed more than five months earlier, on December 28, 2022, Amnesty declined to send a single field researcher to the area.

The report’s executive summary leads with a large font, boldfaced quote attributed to “37-year-old Bezawit, woman who was held captive by the EDF in her house for three months:”

“They told me, ‘Whether you shout or not, no one is going to come and rescue you.’ And then they raped me for around three months since then. They were taking turns on me, just like a doorkeeper.”

A large boldface, all-caps section titled “RAPE AGAINST WOMEN IN KOKOB TSIBAH” is followed by another boldface section called, “SEXUAL SLAVERY INSIDE EDF’S MILITARY CAMP.” Once again, Amnesty relies on a boldfaced, large font, indented quote from “a mother of three who was kept in EDF camp for nearly three months.” She declared, “They [EDF soldiers] took turns on me, for the entire three months”. 

This claim is followed by many more such testimonies of gang rape, all boldfaced for effect and indented to draw the reader’s eye.

Ensuing, subheaded sections on “SEXUAL SLAVERY AND RAPE IN RESIDENTIAL HOUSES,” “GANG RAPE,” “IMPACTS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE,” contain more boldfaced, indented quotations, all footnoted with attribution to anonymous witnesses and the dates they were interviewed by phone. 

Ensuing sections introduced with the largest, all caps boldface type are “EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS OF CIVILIANS” and “PILLAGE OF CIVILIAN PROPERTIES.” Like the others they include one shocking boldfaced, indented quote after another, all footnoted, again, with attribution to anonymous sources identified as survivors, victims, witnesses, residents, social workers, health workers, medical experts, government officials.

Multiple satellite photos are also offered as evidence of Eritrea’s monstrous treatment of Tigrayans. The photos arrive with the reassurance that they have been examined by Amnesty’s “Evidence Lab,” yet they consist of nothing more than grainy, vaguely geographic images marked up with dots, circles, squares, rectangles, and arrows to indicate locations that further the report’s narrative. 

None of the photos or testimonies contained in Amnesty’s report on Eritrea are independently verifiable. Readers are therefore expected to accept their veracity based upon the moral authority of the human rights industry’s leading light.

Unverifiable Amnesty satellite images intended to reinforce the charge that Eritrea committed extrajudicial executions

Amnesty Ignores Critical Questions

Why did Amnesty investigators neglect to fly its staff to Tigray to speak to witnesses in person? The organization said it conducted telephone interviews between May 13 and July 15, five to seven months after flight service had been resumed.

Amnesty staff might not have been welcomed by customs in Addis Ababa if they identified as such, but it is hard to believe that investigators could not have entered Tigray one way or another during the past eight months. When I flew into Addis at the end of March 2022, I simply identified as a journalist and no one stopped or even questioned me. When I traveled from one airport to another inside the country, no one asked for anything but my identification card. 

Most serious investigators would be intrepid enough to risk a denial of visa, and Ethiopia would have nothing to gain by jailing anyone flashing Amnesty credentials.

It is even harder to believe that Amnesty investigators researching crimes allegedly committed by the Eritrean Defense Forces would not have been welcomed with open arms by the TPLF, who were firmly back in power in Tigray Region thanks to the US diplomatic intervention. Throughout the war, the TPLF had cried “Tigray genocide!” and demanded help from the “international community,” and they still have not given up their grievances, most of all their grievances against Eritrea. 

Stranger still, Amnesty had, on August 18, published a demand that independent investigators and media be admitted to Ethiopia’s Amhara Region, where the national government declared a state of emergency because government troops are engaged in a conflict with the ethnic Amhara Fano militia. Why make telephone calls to a region you could fly into and then demand access to a region where you could not?

Why did all of Amnesty’s interviews have to be conducted anonymously? It’s understandable that rape victims might not want to provide their identities, even if they are now safe within TPLF-controlled territory, but more difficult to comprehend why witnesses to extrajudicial execution would fear being identified.

Doctors and social and humanitarian workers were also quoted anonymously. Why would they too be afraid to go on record from within TPLF-controlled territory?

Should Amnesty not have noted the possibility that any or all of these anonymous witnesses could have been coached by the TPLF? Shouldn’t they have noted that a report based on all but wholly anonymous telephone testimony might beggar belief? Finally, what were Amnesty’s satellite images supposed to prove? They were no more than dots, circles, squares, rectangles and arrows pointing to this and that spot on a blurry, vaguely geographic background.

On September 10, I submitted these questions to the Amnesty e-address for inquiries on the report. I then called the UK telephone number on the report three times, leaving detailed messages requesting an answer.

At the time of publication, I have yet to receive any reply. 

Distinct Bias Toward TPLF Narratives

Amnesty’s report demonstrates a distinct deference towards TPLF narratives, just as Western press and officialdom did throughout the war. On the historic significance of the city of Axum in Tigray Region, Amnesty cites the highly partisan, Tigrayan publication Omna Tigray, which reads:

“Since November 2020—and following the invasion, occupation, destruction, and siege of Tigray—the city that was once a symbol for Ethiopia’s independence has become victim to the violence of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s genocidal war.”

With regard to the two-year civil war, Amnesty falsely declares that it began not with the TPLF’s attack on the Northern Command of the Ethiopian National Defense Force, but with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s response:

“The armed conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, which later extended into neighbouring Amhara and Afar regions, began on 4 November 2020 when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched a ‘law enforcement operation’ against TPLF-led security forces in the Tigray region, following an attack on the Ethiopian National Defense Force’s Northern Command based there.”

Was the Prime Minister supposed to avert a war by responding passively to an armed attack on a national army base? By that logic, he should have held his troops back when the TPLF marched on Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa.

“Getting Ethiopia Dead Wrong”

Danish journalist Rasmus Sonderris first traveled to Ethiopia in 2004 and has since spent seven of the last 18 years living there. This September, Sonderris published “Getting Ethiopia Dead Wrong,” a free e-book, in which he painstakingly recounts every unverified allegation of genocide, rape, extrajudicial execution, and starvation that Western press, officialdom, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International launched at Ethiopia and Eritrea throughout the two-year Tigray War. The veteran reporter pointed to the collaborative effort of legacy Western press and Western governments as the source of a massive disinformation campaign that has shaken his liberal worldview to its foundation. 

Sonderris questions Amnesty’s evidence-gathering methods on what came to be known as the Axum Massacre, for which Ethiopian and Eritrean forces were blamed: 

“So how did Amnesty gather this information? With the war still raging, there was no question of traveling to Axum. Instead, eleven days were spent talking to “41 witnesses and survivors of the massacre,” who could not be named “given security concerns.” Testimonies were either delivered face-to-face in a refugee camp of Tigrayans in Sudan, or by means of “numerous phone interviews with witnesses in Axum.” Crucially, it says nothing about how these 41 persons were identified or by whom, which obviously raises suspicion that they were selected and coached by the TPLF.”

Sonderris says that while he does not know for certain what happened in Axum, determining the truth “calls for hard-nosed investigators on the ground.” 

While Amnesty might not have been able to travel to Axum while the war was still raging, there is no such justification for its latest report, which was published eight months after flights to Mekelle had resumed and the TPLF regained political and military control of the Tigray Region.  

With regard to the charge of mass rape, Sonderris writes:

“Rape is even more taxing on the human heart than murder. We feel both empathy with the horrified victim and revulsion that a mind could be so sick as to obtain sexual gratification, or whatever it is, from such a misdeed. So when a woman accuses a man of rape, we do not jump to the defense of the accused, but listen to the accuser. This is how it should always be. 

. . . 

“When it comes to sexual violence in a war scenario, however, lying does not require a crazy or vindictive woman, but merely a cold political calculation. And rather than one person shouldering the burden of deceit, a propaganda department can be at hand to reward and organize it.”

The inflammatory, dubiously-sourced allegations contained in Amnesty’s report on Eritrea bring to mind former US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice’s tales of Viagra use by Libyan troops accused of every international crime during the run-up to NATO’s destruction of Libya in the name of stopping genocide. Rice’s accusations were eventually revealed as pure fiction: a fabricated story spun out by the Libyan opposition, and fed to the West through the Al Jazeera Network of the Qatari monarchy, which was funding the Islamist rebels. But by the time the lie was exposed, it was too late, as NATO bombing was well underway.

Though the West did not attack Eritrea and Ethiopia directly, it relied on the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front as a proxy force as it attempted to dislodge their independent governments. And it helped this sectarian army launch a global propaganda campaign, painting it disingenuously as the target of a genocide, even after it initiated the conflict.

The Manufacturing of #TigrayGenocide

Within 24 hours of the TPLF’s November 3, 2020 attack on Ethiopia’s Northern Command base, the hashtag #TigrayGenocide appeared on Twitter, and Tigrayans quickly attained favored victim status from the West.

Throughout the war, Western press and officialdom focused almost exclusively on Tigrayan suffering while Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch branded their plight as ethnic cleansing. 

When the Associated Press reported on Samantha Power’s trip to the region, it nudged readers with the headline, “US genocide expert to press Ethiopia on Tigray aid blockade.” The Washington Post joined in with an opinion piece entitled, “Why the U.S. should call the famine and violence in Tigray a genocide.” A parade of articles echoed the inflammatory narrative, including from the putatively left-wing Nation Magazine. Democracy Now produced a series of similarly slanted reports alleging genocide, ethnic cleansing, and the use of rape as a weapon in Tigray, relying heavily on CNN reporter Nima Elbagir.

(The Sudanese-born Elbagir relentlessly pushed the narrative of genocide perpetrated by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces, and in September 2022 won an Emmy Award for her documentary “Ethiopia: Hallmarks of a Genocide.” She is reportedly married to the current British ambassador to Iraq, Mark Bryson-Richardson).

When the TPLF invaded Ethiopia’s Amhara and Afar Regions, Western press generally looked the other way, giving Amhara and Afari victims only occasional mention. 

From April to June 2022, I traveled through Ethiopia’s Amhara and Afar Regions and saw immense suffering in many overcrowded IDP camps, where deeply traumatized Amharas and Afaris told me that the TPLF had murdered their family members and taken all they had until they fled. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre estimated that there were over 5.1 million IDPs in Ethiopia in 2021, the highest annual figure ever recorded for a single country at that time.

While ignoring the TPLF’s crimes, including its initiation of the conflict and attempt to seize power by force in Addis Ababa, Amnesty’s report portrays Eritrea’s military as a collection of bestial, irrational monsters. 

The report therefore reads like a companion to President Joe Biden’s September 9 renewal of Executive Order 14046, the Declaration of a National Emergency with Respect to Ethiopia, which alleges massive human rights abuses by Ethiopia and Eritrea, and provides justification for ongoing US sanctions on both countries. 

Of these, the harshest sanctions, such as exclusion from the SWIFT system for conducting international financial transactions, are reserved for Eritrea. These unilateral measures not only violate international law; they punish the entire Eritrean population, whose annual per capita income is $650. Oddly, Amnesty International has nothing to say about these human rights violations.

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Ann Garrison is a Black Agenda Report Contributing Editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for promoting peace through her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes Region. She can be reached on Twitter @AnnGarrison and at ann(at)anngarrison(dot)com.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

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***

Last week, Secretary of State Blinken, in a speech at Johns Hopkins University, said bluntly:

“What we’re [facing], is no test of the post-Cold War order.  It’s the end of it … a hinge moment in history … Countries and citizens are losing faith in the international economic order – their confidence rattled by systemic flaws … The longer these disparities persist, the more distrust and disillusionment they fuel in people, who feel the system is not giving them a fair shake”.

So far, so good — but he continued:

“the US is leading in this pivotal period from a position of strength … One era is ending, a new one is beginning … We must act, and act decisively … We must live history forward. We must put our hand on the rudder of history, because …”

“No nation on Earth has a greater capacity to mobilize others in common cause. Because our ongoing endeavour … allows us to fix our flaws and renew our democracy from within.  And because our vision for the future – a world that is open, free, prosperous, and secure – is not America’s alone, but the enduring aspiration of people in every nation on every continent” (emphasis added).

The ‘new era’, then, resembles the familiar ‘old one’: Our Western ‘liberal vision’ and its economic doctrine is that of everyone, everywhere in the world – claims Blinken.

But the ‘new era’ challenge is that,

“‘our’ competitors [Russia and China] have a fundamentally different vision … The contrast between these two visions could not be clearer. And the stakes of the competition we face could not be higher – for the world, and for the American people”.

So we — Team America — are working “to align our friends in new ways so that we can meet the three defining tests of this emerging era: a fierce and lasting strategic competition; existential threats to lives and livelihoods everywhere –  and the urgent need to rebalance our technological future and our economic future, so that interdependence is a source of strength – not vulnerability”.  (Interdependence? … hmm)

“We’re doing this through what I like to call diplomatic variable geometry. We’ve aligned scores of countries in imposing an unprecedented set of sanctions, export controls, and other economic costs on Russia”.

Ahh — so the old Cold War is over? And what is to replace it? Well, a new Cold War of ‘variable geometry’. Plainly, the message emanating out from the BRICS and the G20 summits has not ‘sunk in’.

The message ringing out in a clear peal of bells from these summits was that the collective Non-West has coalesced around the urgent demand for radical reform of the global system. They want change in the global economic architecture; they contest its structures (i.e. the voting systems that lie behind those institutional structures such as the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF) — and above all they object to the weaponised dollar hegemony.

The demand — put plainly — is for a seat at Top Table. Period.

To that demand, Blinken’s response is that of outright challenge — Variable Geometry:

“We’re assembling a fit‑for‑purpose coalition. We’re transforming the G7 into the steering committee for the world’s most advanced democracies; combining our political and economic muscle … We’re taking critical bilateral relationships, [especially] with the European Union to a new level. We’re using that power to shape our technological and economic future…” .

Plainly put, the Variable Geometry to the new Cold War on China and Russia amounts to continued weaponised financial war:

“We’ve aligned scores of countries in imposing an unprecedented set of sanctions, export controls, and other economic costs on Russia. We coordinated the G7, the European Union, and dozens more countries to support Ukraine’s economy, to build back its energy grid. That’s what variable geometry looks like”.

The new Cold War tools — as defined in Blinken’s speech – are firstly, ‘Narrative’ (our vision is the world’s vision); a weaponised economy; new lending capacity for the US-controlled IMF; and a protective ‘belt’ that constrains the commanding heights of western tech from finding an exit to China.

What is clear is that the ruling strata in Washington are settled on the primacy of containing China. Debate over.

There are, however, two principal paradoxes contained within this blueprint: The first is that financial war on Russia has resulted in an economically stronger Russia, and a weaker, poorer US ally: Europe. Similarly, as one Chinese official highlighting the breakthrough represented by the Huawei Mate 60 Pro noted: “Sanctions are not such a bad thing. They only strengthen the ‘de-westernization movement”’, as it is informally termed in China. In other words, ultimately they strengthen China, and weaken the US.

The second paradox is that in framing the ‘New Cold War’ in such explicitly Manichean ‘with or against us’ terms that foreclose on any ‘middle ground’, BRICS waverers such as India will have little room in which to play ‘both ends’. Geography alone, finally, will impel India to mesh unreservedly into the Heartland sphere.

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Alastair Crooke is the Director of Conflicts Forum; Former Senior British Diplomat; Author.

Featured image is from AME

Authoritarian control freaks out to micromanage our lives have become the new normal or, to be more accurate, the new abnormal when it comes to how the government relates to the citizenry.

This overbearing despotism, which pre-dates the COVID-19 hysteria, is the very definition of a Nanny State, where government representatives (those elected and appointed to work for us) adopt the authoritarian notion that the government knows best and therefore must control, regulate and dictate almost everything about the citizenry’s public, private and professional lives.

Indeed, it’s a dangerous time for anyone who still clings to the idea that freedom means the right to think for yourself and act responsibly according to your best judgment.

This tug-of-war for control and sovereignty over our selves impacts almost every aspect of our lives, whether you’re talking about decisions relating to our health, our homes, how we raise our children, what we consume, what we drive, what we wear, how we spend our money, how we protect ourselves and our loved ones, and even who we associate with and what we think.

As Liz Wolfe writes for Reason, “Little things that make people’s lives better, tastier, and less tedious are being cracked down on by big government types in federal and state governments.”

You can’t even buy a stove, a dishwasher, a showerhead, a leaf blower, or a light bulb anymore without running afoul of the Nanny State.

In this way, under the guise of pseudo-benevolence, the government has meted out this bureaucratic tyranny in such a way as to nullify the inalienable rights of the individual and limit our choices to those few that the government deems safe enough.

Yet limited choice is no choice at all. Likewise, regulated freedom is no freedom at all.

Indeed, as a study by the Cato Institute concludes, for the average American, freedom has declined generally over the past 20 years. As researchers William Ruger and Jason Sorens explain, “We ground our conception of freedom on an individual rights framework. In our view, individuals should be allowed to dispose of their lives, liberties, and property as they see fit, so long as they do not infringe on the rights of others.”

The overt signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government (and its corporate partners in crime) are all around us: censorship, criminalizing, shadow banning and de-platforming of individuals who express ideas that are politically incorrect or unpopular; warrantless surveillance of Americans’ movements and communications; SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; community-wide lockdowns and health mandates that strip Americans of their freedom of movement and bodily integrity; armed drones taking to the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip searches; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that spy on, collect and disseminate data on Americans’ private transactions; and militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling.

Yet as egregious as these incursions on our rights may be, it’s the endless, petty tyrannies—the heavy-handed, punitive-laden dictates inflicted by a self-righteous, Big-Brother-Knows-Best bureaucracy on an overtaxed, overregulated, and underrepresented populace—that illustrate so clearly the degree to which “we the people” are viewed as incapable of common sense, moral judgment, fairness, and intelligence, not to mention lacking a basic understanding of how to stay alive, raise a family, or be part of a functioning community.

When the dictates of petty bureaucrats carry greater weight than the individual rights of the citizenry, we’re in trouble, folks.

Federal and state governments have used the law as a bludgeon to litigate, legislate and micromanage our lives through overregulation and overcriminalization.

This is what happens when bureaucrats run the show, and the rule of law becomes little more than a cattle prod for forcing the citizenry to march in lockstep with the government.

Overregulation is just the other side of the coin to overcriminalization, that phenomenon in which everything is rendered illegal, and everyone becomes a lawbreaker.

You don’t have to look far to find abundant examples of Nanny State laws that infantilize individuals and strip them of their ability to decide things for themselves. Back in 2012, then-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg infamously proposed a ban on the sale of sodas and large sugary drinks in order to guard against obesity. Other localities enacted bans on texting while jaywalking, wearing saggy pants, having too much mud on your car, smoking outdoors, storing trash in your car, improperly sorting your trash, cursing within earshot of others, or screeching your tires.

Yet while there are endless ways for the Nanny State to micromanage our lives, things become truly ominous when the government adopts mechanisms enabling it to monitor us for violations in order to enforce its many laws.

Nanny State, meet the all-seeing, all-knowing Surveillance State and its sidekick, the muscle-flexing Police State.

You see, in an age of overcriminalization—when the law is wielded like a hammer to force compliance to the government’s dictates whatever they might be—you don’t have to do anything “wrong” to be fined, arrested or subjected to raids and seizures and surveillance.

You just have to refuse to march in lockstep with the government.

As policy analyst Michael Van Beek warns, the problem with overcriminalization is that there are so many laws at the federal, state and local levels—that we can’t possibly know them all.

“It’s also impossible to enforce all these laws. Instead, law enforcement officials must choose which ones are important and which are not. The result is that they pick the laws Americans really must follow, because they’re the ones deciding which laws really matter,” concludes Van Beek. “Federal, state and local regulations — rules created by unelected government bureaucrats — carry the same force of law and can turn you into a criminal if you violate any one of them… if we violate these rules, we could be prosecuted as criminals. No matter how antiquated or ridiculous, they still carry the full force of the law. By letting so many of these sit around, just waiting to be used against us, we increase the power of law enforcement, which has lots of options to charge people with legal and regulatory violations.”

This is the police state’s superpower: empowered by the Nanny State, it has been vested with the authority to make our lives a bureaucratic hell.

Indeed, if you were unnerved by the rapid deterioration of privacy under the Surveillance State, prepare to be terrified by the surveillance matrix that will be ushered in by the Nanny State working in tandem with the Police State.

The government’s response to COVID-19 saddled us with a Nanny State inclined to use its draconian pandemic powers to protect us from ourselves.

The groundwork laid with COVID-19 is a prologue to what will become the police state’s conquest of a new, relatively uncharted, frontier: inner space, specifically, the inner workings (genetic, biological, biometric, mental, emotional) of the human race.

Consider how many more ways the government could “protect us” from ourselves under the guise of public health and safety.

For instance, under the guise of public health and safety, the government could use mental health care as a pretext for targeting and locking up dissidents, activists and anyone unfortunate enough to be placed on a government watch list.

When combined with advances in mass surveillance technologies, artificial intelligence-powered programs that can track people by their biometrics and behavior, mental health sensor data (tracked by wearable data and monitored by government agencies such as HARPA), threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, precrime initiatives, red flag gun laws, and mental health first-aid programs aimed at training gatekeepers to identify who might pose a threat to public safety, these preemptive mental health programs could well signal a tipping point in the government’s efforts to penalize those engaging in so-called “thought crimes.”

This is how it begins.

On a daily basis, Americans are already relinquishing (in many cases, voluntarily) the most intimate details of who we are—their biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to navigate an increasingly technologically-enabled world.

Having conditioned the population to the idea that being part of society is a privilege and not a right, such access could easily be predicated on social credit scores, the worthiness of one’s political views, or the extent to which one is willing to comply with the government’s dictates, no matter what they might be.

COVID-19 with its talk of mass testing, screening checkpoints, contact tracing, immunity passports, and snitch tip lines for reporting “rule breakers” to the authorities was a preview of what’s to come.

We should all be leery and afraid.

At a time when the government has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state, it won’t take much for any of us to be considered outlaws or terrorists.

After all, the government likes to use the words “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably. The Department of Homeland Security broadly defines extremists as individuals “that are mainly anti-government, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely.”

At some point, being an individualist will be considered as dangerous as being a terrorist.

When anything goes when it’s done in the name of national security, crime fighting and terrorism, “we the people” have little to no protection against SWAT team raids, domestic surveillance, police shootings of unarmed citizens, indefinite detentions, and the like, whether or not you’ve done anything wrong.

In an age of overcriminalization, you’re already a criminal.

All the government needs is proof of your law-breaking. They’ll get it, too.

Whether it’s through the use of surveillance software such as ShadowDragon that allows police to watch people’s social media activity, or technology that uses a home’s WiFi router and smart appliances to allow those on the outside to “see” throughout your home, it’s just a matter of time.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, it’s no longer a question of whether the government will lock up Americans for defying one of its numerous mandates but when.

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I do not know much about covert CIA operations—no outsider can—but I do understand that the essential component of all successful missions is total deniability. The American men and women who moved, under cover, in and out of Norway in the months it took to plan and carry out the destruction of three of the four Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea a year ago left no traces—not a hint of the team’s existence—other than the success of their mission. 

Deniability, as an option for President Joe Biden and his foreign policy advisers, was paramount.

No significant information about the mission was put on a computer, but instead typed on a Royal or perhaps a Smith Corona typewriter with a carbon copy or two, as if the Internet and the rest of the online world had yet to be invented. The White House was isolated from the goings-on near Oslo; various reports and updates from the field were directly provided to CIA Director Bill Burns, who was the only link between the planners and the president who authorized the mission to take place on September 26, 2022. Once the mission was completed, the typed papers and carbons were destroyed, thus leaving no physical trace—no evidence to be dug up later by a special prosecutor or a presidential historian. You could call it the perfect crime.

There was a flaw—a gap in understanding between those who carried out the mission and President Biden, as to why he ordered the destruction of the pipelines when he did. My initial 5,200-word report, published in early February, ended cryptically by quoting an official with knowledge of the mission telling me: “It was a beautiful cover story.” The official added: “The only flaw was the decision to do it.” 

This is the first account of that flaw, on the one-year anniversary of the explosions, and it is one President Biden and his national security team will not like.

Inevitably, my initial story caused a sensation, but the major media emphasized the White House denials and relied on an old canard—my reliance on an unnamed source—to join the administration in debunking the notion that Joe Biden could have had anything to do with such an attack. I must note here that I’ve won literally scores of prizes in my career for stories in the New York Times and the New Yorker that relied on not a single named source. In the past year we’ve seen a series of contrary newspaper stories, with no named first-hand sources, claiming that a dissident Ukrainian group carried out the technical diving operation attack in the Baltic Sea via a 49-foot rented yacht called the Andromeda. 

I am now able to write about the unexplained flaw cited by the unnamed official. It goes once again to the classic issue of what the Central Intelligence Agency is all about: an issue raised by Richard Helms, who headed the agency during the tumultuous years of the Vietnam War and the CIA’s secret spying on Americans, as ordered by President Lyndon Johnson and sustained by Richard Nixon. I published an exposé in the Times about that spying in December 1974 that led to unprecedented hearings by the Senate into the role of the agency in its unsuccessful attempts, authorized by President John F. Kennedy, to assassinate Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Helms told the senators that the issue was whether he, as CIA director, worked for the Constitution or for the Crown, in the person of presidents Johnson and Nixon. The Church Committee left the issue unresolved, but Helms made it clear he and his agency worked for the top man in the White House. 

Back to the Nord Stream pipelines: It is important to understand that no Russian gas was flowing to Germany through the Nord Stream pipelines when Joe Biden ordered them blown up last September 26. Nord Stream 1 had been supplying vast amounts of low-cost natural gas to Germany since 2011 and helped bolster Germany’s status as a manufacturing and industrial colossus. But it was shut down by Putin by the end of August 2022, as the Ukraine war was, at best, in a stalemate. Nord Stream 2 was completed in September 2021 but was blocked from delivering gas by the German government headed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz two days prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Given Russia’s vast stores of natural gas and oil, American presidents since John F. Kennedy have been alert to the potential weaponization of these natural resources for political purposes. That view remains dominant among Biden and his hawkish foreign policy advisers, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and Victoria Nuland, now the acting deputy to Blinken.

Sullivan convened a series of high-level national security meetings late in 2021, as Russia was building up its forces along the border of Ukraine, with an invasion seen as almost inevitable. The group, which included representatives from the CIA, was urged to come up with a proposal for action that could serve as a deterrent to Putin. The mission to destroy the pipelines was motivated by the White House’s determination to support Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. Sullivan’s goal seemed clear. “The White House’s policy was to deter Russia from an attack,” the official told me. “The challenge it gave to the intelligence community was to come up with a way that was powerful enough to do that, and to make a strong statement of American capability.”

The major gas pipelines from Russia to Europe. / Map by Samuel Bailey / Wikimedia Commons.

I now know what I did not know then: the real reason why the Biden administration “brought up taking out the Nord Stream pipeline.” The official recently explained to me that at the time Russia was supplying gas and oil throughout the world via more than a dozen pipelines, but Nord Stream 1 and 2 ran directly from Russia through the Baltic Sea to Germany. “The administration put Nord Stream on the table because it was the only one we could access and it would be totally deniable,” the official said. “We solved the problem within a few weeks—by early January—and told the White House. Our assumption was that the president would use the threat against Nord Stream as a deterrent to avoid the war.”

It was no surprise to the agency’s secret planning group when on January 27, 2022, the assured and confident Nuland, then undersecretary of state for political affairs, stridently warned Putin that if he invaded Ukraine, as he clearly was planning to, that “one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.” The line attracted enormous attention, but the words preceding the threat did not. The official State Department transcript shows that she preceded her threat by saying that with regard to the pipeline: “We continue to have very strong and clear conversations with our German allies.”

Asked by a reporter how she could say with certainty that the Germans would go along “because what the Germans have said publicly doesn’t match what you’re saying,” Nuland responded with an astonishing bit of doubletalk: “I would say go back and read the document that we signed in July [of 2021] that made very clear about the consequences for the pipeline if there is further aggression on Ukraine by Russia.” But that agreement, which was briefed to journalists, did not specify threats or consequences, according to reports in the Times, the Washington Post, and Reuters. At the time of the agreement, on July 21, 2021, Biden told the press corps that since the pipeline was 99 percent finished, “the idea that anything was going to be said or done was going to stop it was not possible.” At the time, Republicans, led by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, depicted Biden’s decision to permit the Russian gas to flow as a “generational geopolitical win” for Putin and “a catastrophe” for the United States and its allies. 

But two weeks after Nuland’s statement, on February 7, 2022, at a joint White House press conference with the visiting Scholz, Biden signaled that he had changed his mind and was joining Nuland and other equally hawkish foreign policy aides in talking about stopping the pipeline. “If Russia invades—that means tanks and troops crossing . . . the border of Ukraine again,” he said, “there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” Asked how he could do so since the pipeline was under Germany’s control, he said: “We will, I promise you, we’ll be able to do it.”

Scholz, asked the same question, said: “We are acting together. We are absolutely united, and we will not be taking different steps. We will do the same steps, and they will be very very hard to Russia, and they should understand.” The German leader was considered then—and now—by some members of the CIA team to be fully aware of the secret planning underway to destroy the pipelines. 

By this point, the CIA team had made the necessary contacts in Norway, whose navy and special forces commands have a long history of sharing covert-operation duties with the agency. Norwegian sailors and Nasty-class patrol boats helped smuggle American sabotage operatives into North Vietnam in the early 1960s when America, in both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, was running an undeclared American war there. With Norway’s help, the CIA did its job and found a way to do what the Biden White House wanted done to the pipelines. 

At the time, the challenge to the intelligence community was to come up with a plan that would be forceful enough to deter Putin from the attack on Ukraine. The official told me: “We did it. We found an extraordinary deterrent because of its economic impact on Russia. And Putin did it despite the threat.” It took months of research and practice in the churning waters of the Baltic Sea by the two expert US Navy deep sea divers recruited for the mission before it was deemed a go. Norway’s superb seamenfound the right spot for planting the bombs that would blow up the pipelines. Senior officials in Sweden and Denmark, who still insist they had no idea what was going on in their shared territorial waters, turned a blind eye to the activities of the American and Norwegian operatives. The American team of divers and support staff on the mission’s mother ship—a Norwegian minesweeper—would be hard to hide while the divers were doing their work. The team would not learn until after the bombing that Nord Stream 2 had been shut down with 750 miles of natural gas in it.

What I did not know then, but was told recently, was that after Biden’s extraordinary public threat to blow up Nord Stream 2, with Scholz standing next to him, the CIA planning group was told by the White House that there would be no immediate attack on the two pipelines, but the group should arrange to plant the necessary bombs and be ready to trigger them “on demand”—after the war began. “It was then that we”—the small planning group that was working in Oslo with the Royal Norwegian Navy and special services on the project—“understood that the attack on the pipelines was not a deterrent because as the war went on we never got the command.”

After Biden’s order to trigger the explosives planted on the pipelines, it took only a short flight with a Norwegian fighter and the dropping of an altered off-the-shelf sonar device at the right spot in the Baltic Sea to get it done. By then the CIA group had long disbanded. By then, too, the official told me: “We realized that the destruction of the two Russian pipelines was not related to the Ukrainian war”—Putin was in the process of annexing the four Ukrainian oblasts he wanted—“but was part of a neocon political agenda to keep Scholz and Germany, with winter coming up and the pipelines shut down, from getting cold feet and opening up” the shuttered Nord Stream 2. “The White House fear was that Putin would get Germany under his thumb and then he was going to get Poland.”

The White House said nothing as the world wondered who committed the sabotage. “So the president struck a blow against the economy of Germany and Western Europe,” the official told me. “He could have done it in June and told Putin: We told you what we would do.” The White House’s silence and denials were, he said, “a betrayal of what we were doing. If you are going to do it, do it when it would have made a difference.”

The leadership of the CIA team viewed Biden’s misleading guidance for its order to destroy the pipelines, the official told me, “as taking a strategic step toward World War III. What if Russia had responded by saying: You blew up our pipelines and I’m going to blow up your pipelines and your communication cables. Nord Stream was not a strategic issue for Putin—it was an economic issue. He wanted to sell gas. He’d already lost his pipelines” when the Nord Stream I and 2 were shut down before the Ukraine war began. 

Within days of the bombing, officials in Denmark and Sweden announced they would conduct an investigation. They reported two months later that there had indeed been an explosion and said there would be further inquiries. None has emerged. The German government conducted an inquiry but announced that major parts of its findings would be classified. Last winter German authorities allocated $286 billion in subsidies to major corporations and homeowners who faced higher energy bills to run their business and warm their homes. The impact is still being felt today, with a colder winter expected in Europe.

President Biden waited four days before calling the pipeline bombing “a deliberate act of sabotage.” He said: “now the Russians are pumping out disinformation about it.” Sullivan, who chaired the meetings that led to the proposal to covertly destroy the pipelines, was asked at a later press conference whether the Biden administration “now believes that Russia was likely responsible for the act of sabotage?” 

Sullivan’s answer, undoubtedly practiced, was: “Well, first, Russia has done what it frequently does when it is responsible for something, which is make accusations that it was really someone else who did it. We’ve seen this repeatedly over time.

“But the president was also clear today that there is more work to do on the investigation before the United States government is prepared to make an attribution in this case.” He continued: “We will continue to work with our allies and partners to gather all of the facts, and then we will make a determination about where we go from there.”

I could find no instances when Sullivan was subsequently asked by someone in the American press about the results of his “determination.” Nor could I find any evidence that Sullivan, or the president, has been queried since then about the results of the “determination” about where to go. 

There is also no evidence that President Biden has required the American intelligence community to conduct a major all-source inquiry into the pipeline bombing. Such requests are known as “Taskings” and are taken seriously inside the government.

All of this explains why a routine question I posed a month or so after the bombings to someone with many years in the American intelligence community led me to a truth that no one in America or Germany seems to want to pursue. My question was simple: “Who did it?” 

The Biden administration blew up the pipelines but the action had little to do with winning or stopping the war in Ukraine. It resulted from fears in the White House that Germany would waver and turn on the flow of Russia gas—and that Germany and then NATO, for economic reasons, would fall under the sway of Russia and its extensive and inexpensive natural resources. And thus followed the ultimate fear: that America would lose its long-standing primacy in Western Europe.

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Featured image: Half a million tons of methane rise from the sabotaged Nord Stream pipeline. Photo: Swedish Coast Guard

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Every so often, the UK Labour prime minister James Callaghan once remarked, there is a sea change in politics. This happened in 1979, when British voters lost faith in Callaghan’s Labour party and put their trust in Margaret Thatcher. It happened again in 1997, when Tony Blair swept aside John Major.

And it is happening today.

Over the last few weeks, the authority of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has weakened considerably. The latest shambolic U-turn over net zero targets is the most recent example.

Sunak was heralded as a return to competence after the chaos of prime ministers Liz Truss and Boris Johnson. That narrative has exploded. Today, Sunak is an increasingly disliked leader stuck in the exit chamber of politics. 

As Sunak’s status has fallen, Labour leader Keir Starmer‘s ratings have soared. Starmer suddenly occupies the position of prime minister in waiting. Abroad, he is treated more seriously than Sunak – hence last week’s visit to see President Emmanuel Macron in France.

And, crucially, at home, the mood has changed. Fawning profiles of Starmer are starting to appear. British political journalism has never been about holding politicians to account. It’s about picking the winner and the worship of power. 

In this article, however, we won’t join the rush to praise the Labour leader.

Our objective is to raise the alarm.

Ruthless Authoritarianism

The Labour leader’s methods are authoritarian, anti-democratic and above all illiberal. We are in a position to state this with confidence because we have the evidence.

This month marks the first anniversary of Al Jazeera’s The Labour Files, an investigation into factionalism and dubious practices within the British Labour party which drew on a vast leak of internal party documents. 

Both of us worked on this series, which was entirely ignored by the British media. Today, with the Labour party on the brink of power, its revelations have assumed ever greater significance.

The series exposed a culture of brutal factionalism and ruthless authoritarianism on the right of the party, which controlled Labour’s bureaucracy even during the first two-and-a-half years of former leader Jeremy Corbyn‘s leadership. 

It revealed a party apparatus profoundly uncomfortable with the huge surge in membership that Corbyn unleashed. 

Frequently, the response of local officials was not to debate and challenge the ideas of those entering the party, but to make allegations of misconduct. 

Al Jazeera’s The Labour Files showed that, in a number of instances, these allegations were outright fabrications. Nevertheless, the fiercely factional disciplinary unit at party headquarters was happy to nod through suspensions and push for expulsions.

Stories of homophobia, antisemitism and bullying were eagerly swallowed by the media, which portrayed the Corbynite base as a curious combination of working-class thugs and hyper-woke, out-of-touch metropolitans. 

Al Jazeera did what the British media failed to do – it went and spoke to those accused.

Questionable Legality

It found elderly Jewish ladies accused of antisemitism, the parents of bisexual children accused of homophobia, and a host of perfectly respectable, responsible trade unionists, community workers and ordinary party members bewildered by the allegations levelled against them and distraught at their utter powerlessness to refute them.

The complicity, complacency and sheer incompetence of much of the media was shocking, and it’s scarcely surprising it opted not to report on an investigation that exposed it. 

With the election of Starmer as party leader, this toxic and undemocratic culture returned – with a vengeance. 

Under Starmer, the party has proscribed a number of left-wing groups. Members can be expelled for expressing support for these organisations, even if they did so before they were proscribed.

If this seems patently unjust, the party has been careful to guard itself against any legal challenge.

A new clause in the party’s rulebook reads: “Neither the principles of natural justice nor the provisions of fairness… shall apply to the termination of party membership” – an astonishing assertion for a democratic party and one that is surely of questionable legality. 

Members have a right of appeal against expulsion. But so far not a single appeal has been successful.

However, such is the wave of suspensions and expulsions, and so crude has the interference of the party HQ in the selection of candidates become, that concern is beginning to creep beyond the radical left.

Even the Guardian – effectively the in-house journal of anti-Corbyn Labour before 2020 – is becoming queasy. In July, the paper opined in an editorial that Labour’s “crackdown on free thinkers” was “bad for the party and politics”.

This was prompted by the start of disciplinary procedures against Neal Lawson, director of the think tank Compass, whose crime was to support tactical voting and whose prosecution signalled that the purges now extended beyond the radical left.

Michael Crick, former political correspondent for both Channel 4 and the BBC, recently wrote an article entitled “Starmer Will Regret Purging the Left”.

Under current criteria for selection of parliamentary candidates, Crick wrote: “It’s unthinkable that Neil Kinnock, John Prescott, Clare Short and Robin Cook, all of whom were rebels in their early careers, would be selected.”

He added: “It’s a mistake to confine one’s government to a narrow band of loyal yes-men and women.”

Jamie Driscoll, the popular Labour mayor for the North of Tyne, interviewed recently by Unherd, identified a division within the leadership.

“There are those who are absolutely focussed on the polls and say whatever we need to win an election… But then there are those who are just factional warriors, wanting to settle scores. And I think it was that side that did it,” he said, referring to his own deselection as a candidate for forthcoming elections. 

This purge of the left – even Diane Abbott, Britain’s first black woman MP, has had the whip withdrawn by the parliamentary party – goes far deeper than under Blair. 

Middle East Eye understands that, internally, senior officials tend to dismiss critics of the party’s growing authoritarianism as “cranks”, or as having allied themselves with “cranks” – a term that seems to have replaced “Trot” as the go-to insult for those the party’s bureaucracy deems dangerously left wing. 

The Labour party did not respond to a request from Middle East Eye for comment.

Brutally Pummelling the Left

To the dismay of many of his initial backers, Starmer is revealing himself as a profoundly illiberal politician – something, his critics would say, that was already clear to anyone who studied his period as director of public prosecutions between 2008 and 2013.

Starmer’s (unsympathetic and hostile) biographer Oliver Eagleton tells the chilling tale of how Starmer flew to Washington to apologise after Theresa May intervened to block the US extradition request of a young autistic man, Gary McKinnon, who had hacked into the CIA’s database in search of information about UFOs. 

Labour remains 20 percent ahead in the polls, and Labour’s internal politics matter little to most voters. But progressive parties work best when there is at least some sort of balance – the left providing the energy and passion, the right cold realism.

In the US Democratic party, the right tends to be in the ascendant. But its leaders rarely define themselves against the left, and President Joe Biden has incorporated many radical elements into his presidency.

In the Labour party, not only is the right in control, it is brutally pummelling the left into the dirt, determined that it will never again wield so much as a shred of meaningful influence within the Labour movement. 

At the start of the first programme in The Labour Files, a Merseyside activist, Paul Davies, posed a question: 

“If a small group of secretive people manipulate and control one of the two great parties in Great Britain, what will they do when they have control of MI5? When they have control of all the levers of the state? Are they suddenly going to believe in justice and proper investigations and fairness? Or are they going to be the same as they are now? Or even worse?”

In Britain, a prime minister with a large majority possesses immense power. 

Today, it is not just the Corbynite left who have a gnawing fear that the way Starmer runs his party may provide disturbing clues as to the way he will run the country. 

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Peter Oborne won best commentary/blogging in both 2022 and 2017, and was also named freelancer of the year in 2016 at the Drum Online Media Awards for articles he wrote for Middle East Eye. He was also named as British Press Awards Columnist of the Year in 2013. He resigned as chief political columnist of the Daily Telegraph in 2015. His latest book is The Fate of Abraham: Why the West is Wrong about Islam, published in May by Simon & Schuster. His previous books include The Triumph of the Political Class, The Rise of Political Lying, Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran and The Assault on Truth: Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism.

Richard Sanders is an award winning TV producer specialising in history and news and current affairs. He has made more than 50 films, mostly for Channel 4. He has written for a number of publications including The Daily Telegraph and the Boston Globe and is also the author of two history books.

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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is refusing to release updated information on reported cases of myocarditis and pericarditis following COVID-19 vaccination.

COVID-19 vaccines can cause the inflammatory conditions, the CDC previously confirmed.

The agency has regularly conveyed the number of post-vaccination myocarditis and pericarditis cases reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which it helps manage, as it has consulted with its advisers on updates to the vaccines.

But during a meeting on Sept. 12, the CDC didn’t mention VAERS data.

Asked for the information, a CDC spokesman pointed to a CDC study that covers data only through Oct. 23, 2022.

That study identified nine reports of myocarditis or pericarditis following vaccination with one of the bivalent COVID-19 vaccines, which were introduced in September 2022. Seven of the reports were verified by medical review.

Asked for more current data, the spokesman acknowledged that the agency has it but isn’t making it public.

“When appropriate, the updated safety data will be published,” the spokesman told The Epoch Times in an email.

“The CDC has acknowledged that heart inflammation is a complication of mRNA COVID-19 shots and, yet, the only published data released by CDC officials about that complication is a seven-week study that ended on Oct. 23, 2022,” Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center, said in an email to The Epoch Times.

“Where is more specific myocarditis/pericarditis data related to bivalent COVID shots for the past 10 months?”

The mRNA shots are made by Pfizer and Moderna. Novavax’s updated shot, which uses different technology, hasn’t yet been authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“I am tired of the CDC and FDA deciding what information the public needs and doesn’t need. This is precisely the information that parents need to have especially when there are still schools and activities mandating these shots. This is evil playing out right before our eyes,” Kim Witczak, a drug safety advocate who runs the nonprofit Woodymatters, told The Epoch Times in an email.

“The CDC’s response of ‘when appropriate, the updated safety data will be published’ is unacceptable and they wonder why there is vaccine hesitancy and lack of trust in public health officials.”

Presentation

During the recent meeting, CDC officials and their partners presented data on the bivalent shots to their advisory panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The advisers were considering which groups they should recommend get one of the new COVID-19 vaccines, which were cleared by regulators with scant clinical trial data.

 

Dr. Nicola Klein, a Kaiser Permanente doctor who works closely with the CDC, gave a presentation (pdf) on COVID-19 vaccine safety. She presented data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a monitoring system that covers a much smaller population than VAERS.

Dr. Klein said that two cases of myocarditis after bivalent vaccination were detected in the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) through March 11. The cases didn’t trigger a safety signal among adults, Dr. Klein said. It isn’t clear why more current data weren’t presented.

Dr. Klein didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The presented data were widely cited by doctors quoted in news outlets, including Dr. Andrew Pavia, who said at a briefing that there didn’t appear to be a “detectable risk” of myocarditis caused by the bivalent shots.

“What I was conveying is that in the era of the bivalent vaccine, the number of cases has fallen to where it no longer is giving a signal that is detectable,” Dr. Pavia, chief of the University of Utah’s Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, told The Epoch Times in an email.

Regarding how the missing VAERS data affect the strength of that claim, he said, “The strongest data are from the controlled studies like the VSD where you have built-in controls.”

Through Sept. 8, 98 cases of myocarditis, pericarditis, or myopericarditis were reported to VAERS following bivalent vaccination, according to a search of the system by The Epoch Times.

Although anybody can submit reports to VAERS, research has shown that most reports are entered by health care providers. People who submit false information can face prosecution.

Five reports were for people aged 6 to 17 years, and another 13 were for people aged 18 to 29.

When presenting to the panel, CDC official Megan Wallace said, “There are limited data to inform the myocarditis risk following an updated mRNA dose.”

She didn’t mention the cases reported to VAERS but alleged that the benefits of the vaccines outweigh the risks, even for young, healthy males. The Vaccine Safety Datalink, she acknowledged, did have a “relatively lower sample size” of recipients.

Dr. Oliver Brooks said after the presentation, “Feel good about the fact that in the bivalent we saw no signal from myocarditis.” Dr. Brooks, chief medical officer at Watts Healthcare Corp., didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Dr. Pablo Sanchez was the lone member who was against a widespread recommendation, citing the risk of myocarditis.

“I think we really need to level with our patients and say what is known and unknown, rather than make a complete recommendation,” he said, “especially for some groups that there are limited data.”

The labels for the new vaccines say they can cause myocarditis.

“Postmarketing data with authorized or approved mRNA COVID-19 vaccines demonstrate increased risks of myocarditis and pericarditis, particularly within the first week following vaccination,” the labels state. While some people have recovered, others have not. The labels also say, “Information is not yet available about potential long-term sequelae.”

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Zachary Stieber is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times based in Maryland. He covers U.S. and world news.

Featured image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta on Aug. 25, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

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US Senator Robert Menendez, (D. NJ.) temporarily stepped down from his powerful role as chairman of the Senate Relations Committee, according to Senate Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer, following accusations of political corruption and breach of US national security.

On September 22, Menendez was indicted by federal prosecutors in New York, along with four others, including his wife Nadine Arslanian Menendez, on one count of conspiracy to commit bribery, one count of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit extortion. 

New Jersey businessmen Wael Hana, Jose Uribe, and Fred Daibes were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bribery and one count of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, also included in the indictment are unnamed Egyptian government officials Menendez dealt with between 2018 and 2022, from which he received bribes.

Menendez opened the US Senate for business with Egypt, and is facing serious corruption charges, which have US national security implications, as he passing along confidential US government information to Egyptian officials.

Instead of fighting for the safety and prosperity of his New Jersey constituents, Menendez was working for the benefit of the Egyptian government, which represses their own people, including foreign journalists in jail without charges or trial, as is the case of journalists from Al Jazeera media.

Fellow Senators, and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, called on Menendez to resign, and Murphy said the allegations “implicate national security”. Menendez held a seat in the House of Representatives from 1993 to 2006 and has been in the Senate since 2006.

Menendez was working on behalf of the Egyptian government to release pending US military aid to Egypt, that the State Department had held up due to Egyptian human rights violations. The indictment says Menendez, and his wife, met with Egyptian officials in July 2018 and promised to lobby for “Egyptian foreign policy goals and positions and setting forth Egypt’s requests for the approval of foreign military financing and foreign military sales to Egypt.”

At first glance, the Menendez story looks like a classic case of US political corruption, but it coincides with a US pressure campaign on Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi because he refused to cave-in to pressure from US President Joe Biden to send weapons to Ukraine. Is the exposure of Menendez corruption with Sisi, a pay-back from Biden?

Egypt had tried to remain neutral in the Ukraine conflict, while maintaining good relations with both Russia and the US. Egypt relies on Russian wheat imports, and increased sales are in Russia’s interest.

In March, US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, asked Sisi to send artillery shells, anti-tank missiles, air defense systems and small arms to Ukraine, but Washington did not receive the answer they expected.

In subsequent talks between the US and members of the Sisi administration, it was confirmed that there were no plans to supply weapons to Kiev.

The Egyptian request came after US President Joe Biden admitted previously that the stocks of weapons that the US could send to Ukraine, especially artillery shells, were depleting.

In early April, US intel leaks indicated that Cairo sought to export 40,000 missiles, and other equipment to Russia, after Sisi instructed a minister to provide the arms. Under pressure, Egypt agreed it wouldn’t send weapons to Russia.

In early August, the US asked Egypt to supply artillery, antitank missiles, air defense systems and small arms for Ukraine, but Egypt refused to back down to pressure from Washington according to Egyptian media. 

Egypt’s failure to deliver requested weapons has concerned members of the US Congress. Pressure is mounting on the Biden administration not to release $320 million in military aid to Egypt over human rights violations. The US currently provides Egypt with $1.3 billion in annual military aid, with a portion depending on Egypt’s human rights improvement.

The new indictment features photographs of the $480,000 in cash, close-ups of the two one-kilogram gold bars worth over $100,000 and a photo of the brand new Mercedes Benz C-300 found in the garage of the Menendez home. Further bribes included payments on a home mortgage, home furnishings, and exercise equipment. Equally surprising, was compensation for the senator’s wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, for a job dubbed as ‘low-or-no-show’.

US Attorney Damian Williams said a grand jury charged Menendez for using his power and influence to protect and enrich those businessmen and to benefit the government of Egypt.

In 2015, Menendez was indicted on bribery and fraud charges involving requests that the State Department pressure a foreign government which would benefit a Florida businessman, who gave Menendez money, and paid for his lavish vacation trips on a private jet.

In 2017, Menendez escaped conviction when a judge in New Jersey declared a mistrial, and by January 2018, the Department of Justice announced that it was dropping all charges.

On January 25, Biden approved a whopping $2.5bn in arms sales to Egypt. Typically, the State Department will honor requests to delay grants and weapons sales from the chair or the ranking member of the Senate committee. Menendez, who has served as the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee since 2018, has publicly criticized Sisi over human rights violations, while privately acting as his ‘man on Capitol Hill’.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), co-founder of the Egypt Human Rights Caucus, urged Menendez to resign. The indictment alleges that a person who acted between Sisi and Menendez bribed the Senator to use his position as a leader of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to weaken America’s response to human rights violations in Egypt. 

The Justice Department accuses Egypt’s intelligence and military of a scheme that saw payments of bribes to ensure US military assistance and arms sales continued despite congressional objections to Egypt’s abysmal record of repression.

Beyer recently urged the Biden administration to significantly withhold military assistance to Egypt in response to ongoing human rights violations by the Sisi government.

For years, Egypt was the second-largest recipient of US aid, behind Israel. During the three-decade rule of Hosni Mubarak, the US-Egypt relationship was stable with Egypt stepping up to provide valuable security in conflicts in the region.

In 2011, the US-NATO project called Arab Spring, engineered by President Obama and VP Biden, forced Mubarak from power, and through a rigged election executed by Hillary Clinton operatives, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Mursi was put in power.  But, in less than a year, after killing thousands of protesters, Mursi was overthrown and Sisi came to power in 2013.

If Sisi continues to refuse Biden’s request for weapons to Ukraine, we may see further attacks on his government.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from MD