The Final Colonial Partition of Africa at the Turn of the 20th Century

By Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović, August 21, 2023

The “Black Continent” of Africa until the end of the eighth decade of the 19^th century was not properly known territory, especially its central parts which have been unknown to the Europeans. The West European powers until the 1880s were acquainted mainly with the African littorals and their immediate hinterland.

‘Fight Russia to the Last Ukrainian’ Is Official White House Policy

By Kyle Anzalone, August 22, 2023

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has dragged on with no end in sight. The fighting has ground to a near standstill, with thousands of lives being traded for miles of territory. The situation has delighted the political establishment in Washington, who see throwing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers into the meatgrinder as a cost-effective method for weakening Russia.

Breaking: US Not in a Position to Send More Missiles to Ukraine

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, August 22, 2023

Western criticism of the Ukrainian “counteroffensive” is increasing. In response to Kiev’s unlimited demand for arms, Western media claim that the US is not in a position to send more heavy weapons to the regime. According to a major western outlet, Washington does not produce enough tactical ballistic missiles to send the number that would be needed to guarantee the Ukrainian counterattack’s victory.

Climate Change Litigation: The Montana Precedent

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, August 22, 2023

Climate change litigation is falling into pressing fashion. In Australia, the 2021 case of Sharma, despite eventually failing before three judges in the Federal Court in 2022, suggested that ministers had been put on notice regarding a potential duty of care regarding the consequences of approving fossil fuel projects.

Time for Your Eighth COVID Vaccine Dose: Pfizer Says Latest Booster Won’t be Tested on Humans but It Works Great on Mice!

By Jordan Schachtel, August 22, 2023

Pfizer announced on August 17, 2023 that their new shot, which targets the Eris variant (whatever that is) of the cold/flu rebrand sickness that is commonly referred to as Covid-19, is showing great promise in mice.

The Decline of French Power

By Shane Quinn, August 22, 2023

For generations before the Napoleonic Wars (1803–15), France had been the dominant nation on the western European mainland and was among the world’s most powerful states. At different times, French military forces had occupied almost all of the major capitals of continental Europe.

9/11, Osamagate and the “Blowback”. America’s “Just War” Against Afghanistan

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, August 21, 2023

Within hours of the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden was identified as the architect of the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon, without a shred of evidence. On the following day, the “war on terrorism” was launched. The media disinformation campaign went into full gear.

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). Message from Afghan Women

By Friba and RAWA, August 21, 2023

First of all, we would like to express our gratitude to our sisters, who took a step-in solidarity with Afghan women on the second anniversary of the seizure of power by the Taliban’s anti-women executioners.

Donald Trump. Will the Country Survive Coordinating Four Indictments? One Defendant

By Renee Parsons, August 21, 2023

It has been a long time coming for an objective dissertation of the 2020 election fraud to be presented publicly in a comprehensive yet logical, easy to follow narrative that millions of Americans will find plausible and convincing. 

YouTube, Censorship, and the American Way of Life. Scott Ritter

By Scott Ritter, August 21, 2023

On Friday, August 11, YouTube shut down the US Tour of Duty channel. The reason cited was “violations of our Community Guidelines,” although no specific example was cited. Neither was a warning issued. Simple termination, with prejudice.

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The Russian invasion of Ukraine has dragged on with no end in sight. The fighting has ground to a near standstill, with thousands of lives being traded for miles of territory. The situation has delighted the political establishment in Washington, who see throwing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers into the meatgrinder as a cost-effective method for weakening Russia.

Over the past 18 months, the White House policy has become clear: provide Ukraine with just enough arms and money to keep Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from negotiating with Russia.

Prior to the war and within the first two months of the Russian invasion, Washington and Kiev had four opportunities to negotiate with Moscow and end the war on terms that would, today, be considered favorable to Ukraine. At each opportunity, the White House refused to engage in meaningful diplomacy with Moscow and encouraged Kiev to follow Washington’s lead.

Two months into the conflict, The Washington Post frankly reported that Washington and its Western allies preferred war instead of peace in Ukraine.

“Even a Ukrainian vow not to join NATO could be a concern to some neighbors,” the outlet reported. “That leads to an awkward reality: For some in NATO, it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying, than to achieve a peace that comes too early or at too high a cost to Kyiv and the rest of Europe.”

Joe Biden administration official Derek Chollett, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Ukrainian Pravada and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglul have all independently confirmed that the White House was a barrier to meaningful peace talks that could have prevented the war or brought it to a swift conclusion.

In April 2022, then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to Ukraine and delivered a message to Zelensky from NATO; even if Kiev is ready to make a deal with Moscow, the West is not. At the same time, leaders of NATO nations announced they would provide “new and heavier” arms to Kiev. That month, Washington would approve over $1.6 billion in weapons transfers to Ukraine.

In the grueling days since talks ended in March 2022, the West has dumped tens of billions in weapons onto the Ukrainian battlefield. Like the NATO-trained Ukrainian conscripts, those weapons have met their fate within days or hours of reaching the frontline.

Throughout the war, Kiev has sought long-range missiles, advanced aircraft, and tanks, and officials in Washington have repeated the catchphrase that Ukraine would be given all of the “weapons it needs” to win the war.

However, Washington has engaged in a gradual escalation of arms transfers to Ukraine. The Biden administration has ensured that Kiev has enough weapons to keep fighting and, at the same time, restrict the arms it sends to Ukraine in an effort not to provoke a direct war with Russia.

The influx of weapons likely helped Ukrainian forces stop Russian advances and even recapture some territory. The West says it supports Kiev’s stated goals, including recapturing all Ukrainian territory, but also refuses to provide Ukrainian forces with the sophisticated arms to recapture the Crimea peninsula.

The Joe Biden administration’s portrayal of Russian President Vladimir Putin as the new Hitler and the claim that any Ukrainian territorial concession would mean the destruction of the “international world order” has placed the White House in two paradoxes it cannot escape.

The first puzzle facing the West is that Kiev says the war can only end after it recaptures Ukraine, including Crimea. The Kremlin, which annexed Crimea in 2014, says the peninsula is a part of Russia and will be defended with Moscow’s full military capabilities.

So, Biden is faced with the options of provoking a nuclear conflict with Russia over control of the Crimea peninsula or telling Zelensky to negotiate with “Hitler” and make territorial concessions.

The second paradox is when, if ever, to talk with Putin. In May, The New York Times reported that debate in the White House had become amorphous and paradoxical. “The debate in Washington over potential peace talks is amorphous and paradoxical. There are even competing arguments based on the same hypothetical outcome,” the Times reported. “If Ukraine makes substantial gains, that might mean it is time for talks, some officials say—or it could mean Ukraine should put diplomacy on the back burner and keep fighting.”

It appears the White House has decided the best option is the status quo, let the fighting go on without allowing either side to prevail. This has required Washington to consistently provide Kiev with increasingly sophisticated military equipment without provoking Russia into a direct conflict with NATO.

The ongoing counteroffensive perfectly illustrates this point. After Kiev’s fall counteroffensive stalled after early successes and the death toll mounted, Washington needed positive news from Ukraine and began talking up the spring counteroffensive.

For months, Western officials publicly sold the idea that Ukrainian forces could retake another chunk of territory. However, Ukrainian and American officials privately acknowledged Ukraine did not have the troops or military assets needed to defeat the fortified Russian defenses.

Still, Washington viewed a successful counteroffensive as politically necessary to continue keeping the American public onboard with sending billions in aid to Ukraine. So, Kiev relented to Washington’s demands and sent hundreds of thousands of poorly trained troops into heavily mined Russian defensive lines.

As retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis explained in a recent article, thousands of Ukrainian troops being sent to their deaths were predictable.

“Ukraine also suffers from a chronic lack of air defense capacity, inadequate numbers of howitzers and artillery shells, insufficient electronic warfare systems, a dearth of missiles, and perhaps most crucial of all, barely 25 percent of the de-mining capacity needed.” He wrote in 19FortyFive, “Thus, when Ukraine launched its offensive across a broad front on June 5th, it should have surprised no one in Kyiv, Washington, or Brussels that they ran into a Russian buzzsaw.”

In April 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Washington elected to wage the proxy war to “weaken” Russia. Since, several administration and elected officials have repeatedly asserted the war has been a boon for America. Last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called for more aid to Ukraine, explaining how it strengthens America while noting no Americans have died in the war.

Steven Moore, a powerful Republican politico, said he was enlisted by the party’s leadership to convince the caucus that aid to Ukraine was crucial.

“If you’re a fiscal conservative, you know this is a great use of taxpayer dollars. And not one single American soldier has had to die,” Moore argued to the GOP caucus.

There is a near-universal blackout of the mounting death toll among Ukrainian soldiers. During the battle in Bakhmut, former U.S. soldiers fighting for Kiev said new soldiers were dying within hours of reaching the front lines. A Ukrainian citizen recently told The Washington Post that most soldiers from her town die within two or three days of reaching the battlefield.

The massive losses and minimal gains have blunted Ukrainians’ morale. Early in the war, recruitment centers overflowed. However, Kiev is now relying on a general mobilization of nearly all men to fill its ranks.

The conscription program created a plague of corruption, as many young men—hoping to avoid killing and being killed in the war—paid bribes to officials for medical waivers and illegal transportation out of the country. The corruption was so pervasive that Zelensky elected to fire the heads of all local recruitment centers and pressed charges against dozens of officials.

In a recent article, Micheal Vlahos observed,

“Ukraine was a nation of perhaps 33 million in early 2022. Today, a quarter of that already-diminished country’s population has fled to the European Union, and another quarter is in the now-Russian oblasts or residing as new migrants in the Russian Federation itself. Ukraine, at 20 million, ranks somewhat bigger than the Netherlands, and somewhat smaller than Taiwan.” He continues, “Yet in casualties-to-population terms, Ukrainian military losses, after more than 500 days of war, are approaching those sustained by Germany in World War I over more than 1,500 days. This is a catastrophic attrition rate…that can break an army and a nation.”

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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: Ukraine flag and military uniform of ukrainian soldier. Armed Forces of Ukraine

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***

Western criticism of the Ukrainian “counteroffensive” is increasing. In response to Kiev’s unlimited demand for arms, Western media claim that the US is not in a position to send more heavy weapons to the regime. According to a major western outlet, Washington does not produce enough tactical ballistic missiles to send the number that would be needed to guarantee the Ukrainian counterattack’s victory.

In a recent article for the Financial Times called “US grows doubtful Ukraine counteroffensive can quickly succeed”, Western experts reported that the US does not manufacture enough tactical ballistic missiles to make a difference on the battlefield. The “necessity” to send weapons to Ukraine coexists with the need for internal supply for the arsenal of the American armed forces, with no possibility of accelerating production significantly in the short term.

In addition, the newspaper’s informants allege that Washington is currently “holding back” as many missiles as possible, as Americans are concerned about the possibility of escalation in the conflict. Kiev’s officials blamed the failure of the counteroffensive on the supposed “slowness” in the supply of weapons, mainly high-range missiles capable of reaching the undisputed territory of the Russian Federation. Many American experts, however, seem to disagree with this analysis.

Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the US think tank Rand Corporation, told Financial Times’s journalists that ballistic missiles are capable of causing damage to Russian logistics, but assessed that this is not the main problem to be solved by Ukrainians to achieve the victory. According to him, there is no “magic wands” able to make the counteroffensive become successful, thus echoing the growing Western pessimism with the Ukrainian military moves.

“I don’t think that you’ll hear an argument from anyone that this [Ukraine’s counteroffensive] is going well right now or that this is heading to a place that people would view as good, but there is not much by way of plan B (…) There’s no magic wands,” Charap said. “It’s hard to make the case that long-range strike [missiles] can fix the problem of minefields or all these defences (…) It will complicate Russian logistics but that’s not the main or the only problem the Ukrainians are facing today”, Charap said.

In fact, this assessment exposes growing dissatisfaction on the part of the West with Ukraine’s progress in the conflict. The strategy used by the Ukrainians – certainly instructed by NATO agents – failed on the battlefield and Kiev quickly lost massive amounts of soldiers and equipment. The Ukrainian defeat was so evident that it was not even possible for the western media to continue doing its propaganda work, which meant that more critical and pessimistic opinions began to be exposed by the newspapers.

For its part, Kiev responds to the criticism by demanding even more weapons. It became commonplace among the regime’s officials and Western warmongers to blame a supposed “failure” in NATO’s aid for the fiasco of the counteroffensive. It is said that the more lethal and long-range weapons Ukraine receives the faster it will achieve victory against Russian forces. But, in practice, this has not been seen so far.

The West sent heavy – and even illegal – weapons to its proxy regime as much as it could. Packages including banned cluster bombs, radioactive depleted uranium ammunition and British long-range missiles arrived in Kiev and were used on the battlefield, not to seek any military victory, but to murder civilians and bomb undisputed demilitarized zones, making “counteroffensive” a mere wave of terrorist attacks.

Apparently, American experts understood that the more lethal weapons they send to Ukraine, the greater the risks of escalation and, consequently, the greater the regime’s losses will be. In this sense, in the Financial Times article, it is also said that until next year, military aid to Kiev is expected to decrease, at least in terms of quality – lethality of the weapons. There is a concern to avoid greater losses in an eventual scenario of escalation by Russia – which is aggravated by the upcoming presidential elections and the inability of the American defense industry to produce arms in even larger quantities.

“Even if Congress authorizes the latest package of Ukraine funding requested by the White House, some US officials and analysts say it is unlikely that Washington will be able to offer the same level of lethal assistance to Ukraine next year, given the looming presidential election and munitions manufacturers’ longer-term schedule to increase production”, the article reads.

This scenario of American disappointment with Ukraine must be analyzed from a realistic point of view. Washington does not want the war to end. On the contrary, it wants to prolong the hostilities in order to generate friction with Russia for as long as possible. And this is precisely why the country is avoiding increasing the deployment of long-range weapons, as it fears that Russian responses to Ukrainian provocations could be strong enough to end the conflict quickly.

For the US and NATO, what matters is to keep Russia fighting on multiple flanks as the alliance prepares for a direct military conflict with China. With no hope of defeating Russia on the battlefield, the US just wants to keep Moscow fighting in various proxy conflicts. Therefore, it is in Washington’s interest to prolong the war in Ukraine as well as to generate provocations in other regions where Russia could be militarily involved.

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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 by Nicholas Pilch/Air Force

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***

Climate change litigation is falling into pressing fashion. In Australia, the 2021 case of Sharma, despite eventually failing before three judges in the Federal Court in 2022, suggested that ministers had been put on notice regarding a potential duty of care regarding the consequences of approving fossil fuel projects.

The lower court decision had shaken the fossil fuel industry with its finding in favour of the eight children and their litigation guardian, an octogenarian nun. Justice Bromberg found that considering the potential harm arising from carbon dioxide emissions was a mandatory consideration of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. The Minister for the Environment also had a duty of care given that it was reasonably foreseeable that the Australian children would face a risk of harm in extending the mine project. Furthermore, the Minister had control over that risk, given that she could approve the extension, and that the children were vulnerable to a real risk of harm arising from climatic threats.

While the three Federal Court justices disagreed with Justice Bromberg’s reasoning, rejecting his finding that the minister needed to consider the potential harm arising from greenhouse gas emissions to the children under the EPBC, one of the justices did leave room for a future consideration about finding a duty of care.

In Montana, a court has found in favour of 16 individuals aged from 5 to 22 who argued that their constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment was violated by permitting fossil fuel projects. Only a smattering of states in the US, including Hawaii, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, have enshrined environmental protections in their constitutions. The Montana constitution specifically enumerates that “the state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment … for present and future generations.”

In her August 14 decision, District Court Judge Kathy Seeley specifically held that the policy of evaluating fossil fuel permits, a process that did not permit agencies to consider greenhouse gas emissions, was unconstitutional. “Every additional ton of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions exacerbates the plaintiffs’ injuries and risks locking in irreversible climate injuries.” As it stood, the policy had already contributed, unlawfully, to “depletion and degradation” of the state’s environment.

The judge refused to accept the state’s contention that Montana’s environmental role was miniscule and insignificant in the scheme of such emissions, and that stopping carbon dioxide emissions would have no effect in any tangible way given the global contributions of other countries.

Talking heads have expressed a range of views about the significance of the decision. Michael Gerrard of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change called the Held decision “the strongest decision on climate change ever issued by any court.”

Richard Lazarus, Harvard Law School professor, suggests that the impact of the decision should not be exaggerated, though nonetheless accepted its singular nature. (The decision is the first of its kind in the US.) “To be sure, it is a state court not a federal court and the ruling is based on a state constitution and not the US Constitution,” he stated to the Associated Press, “but it is still clearly a major, pathbreaking win for climate plaintiffs.”

James Huffman of the Portland-based Lewis & Clark Law School was even less impressed. “The ruling really provides nothing beyond emotional support for the many cases seeking to establish a public trust right, human right or federal constitutional right.”

Indeed, the judge’s finding is also hampered by a failure to enforce the remedial right. The plaintiffs can only expect the Montana legislature to implement policies that do not violate entitlements to a clean environment, suggesting that the right is negative in nature. It involves no imposition of any duty to adopt a GHG mitigation strategy.

That said, the state regulator now faces the prospect of having to consider climate effects and greenhouse gas emissions regarding current projects, including the $283 million, 175 MW gas-fired powerplant under construction on the Yellowstone River south of Billings. As Seeley noted, construction on the project was initially paused as a consequence of an April court ruling that the Department of Environment Quality had erred in not considering the effects of an estimated 23 million tons of GHG emissions. Work had resumed, however, after the legislature’s amendment to the state energy law explicitly preventing state agencies from considering “an evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions and corresponding impacts to the climate in the state or beyond the state’s borders.” Such a resumption of construction had taken place in the absence of any review about the “cumulative impacts of the permits [the regulator] issues on GHG emissions or climate change.”

Seeley also noted that four private coal power plants have been authorised to produce 30% of Montana’s energy needs “without considering how the added GHG emissions will contribute to climate change or be consistent with the standards the Constitution imposes” on the state’s entities “to protect people’s rights.”

The Montana legislature, which remains the least impressed of all, promises to appeal the decision, and they, as with the Australian Commonwealth in the Sharma case, might well succeed. Emily Flower, spokesperson for the state’s attorney general, Austin Knudsen, restated the government position that those in Montana “can’t be blamed for changing the climate.” The legal theory being tested “has been thrown out of federal court and courts in more than a dozen states. It should have been here as well.”

Despite such consternation and opposition from legislatures, a judicial clearing is being made for plaintiffs keen to drag lawmakers and decision-makers away from blithe complacency and comfortable accommodation with the fossil fuel lobby. Ecological sustainability, in time, promises to become a matter, not merely of express rights as solemnly implied ones.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected] 

Featured image: Judge Kathy Seeley (THOM BRIDGE, Independent Record)

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***

It’s time for another dose!

Hooray science!

Pfizer announced on August 17, 2023 that their new shot, which targets the Eris variant (whatever that is) of the cold/flu rebrand sickness that is commonly referred to as Covid-19, is showing great promise in mice.

And given that Big Pharma heavyweights like Pfizer pretty much control America’s Government Health institutions, we should expect to see FDA authorization for another “emergency use” shot in the coming weeks.

For the True Believers who are on schedule with “the science,” this would make for an eighth dose of mRNA in under three years.

In April, the FDA authorized a seventh dose of a new shot labeled the “bivalent booster.” When the new “Eris” formulated shot comes out, it will make for an eighth shot.

But for some pharma captured doctors and institutions, eight is still not enough! According to this new article in NPR, some of the “experts” now recommend a booster every two months for the immunocompromised. If you’re not yet immunocompromised, you can take a shot every four months. Once you are immunocompromised by the shots, you have unlocked the every two months achievement and you will be rewarded with a free Pfizer toaster. Time to get those antibody levels up. Personalize the dose!

Last year, the FDA stopped pretending to care about the safety of the shots, allowing for the latest formulations from Pfizer and Moderna to skip any testing on humans or any semblance of independent review. So we hope it’s encouraging to know that the human trials are taking place in a different, more live format than before. Very exciting to be on the cutting edge of science.

Luckily, for the sake of humanity, most Americans have stopped getting mRNA injections, largely because many quietly realized that they have been bamboozled by Big Pharma into taking a shot that does not in fact stop the sniffles.

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For a year and a half, Pakistani politics has been gripped by word of a diplomatic cable said to describe U.S. State Department officials encouraging the removal of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan from power. Last week, The Intercept published the contents of the cable, known internally as a cypher, which revealed U.S. diplomats pressing for the removal of Khan over his neutral stance on the conflict in Ukraine.

Since it was published, the response to the story from Pakistani and U.S. officials has been both defensive and contradictory.

Pakistan’s leadership quickly began to question the authenticity of the document. Former Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari — who is part of the political opposition to Khan — had gone public suggesting that the published cable was “inauthentic,” arguing that “anything can be typed up on a piece of paper.” Even so, he blamed Khan and said the former prime minister should be tried under Pakistan’s Official Secrets Act for potentially leaking classified documents.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in the days after the cable was reported, told local media that the leak represented a “massive crime,” while hedging about whether its contents were true. Just days later, though, Sharif confirmed the document in an interview with The Guardian. “Khan said he had the [cable] but he had lost it,” Sharif, who handed over the government to a caretaker prime minister on Monday, said. “Now it has been published on a website.”

Neither Sharif nor Bhutto Zardari have provided evidence of Khan’s involvement in the leak of the document, which was provided to The Intercept by a source inside the Pakistani military. On Wednesday, a month after it announced an investigation, the Pakistani government filed charges against Khan for mishandling and misusing the cable.

Despite confirming the document’s authenticity, Sharif said that the cable — which quoted U.S. diplomats, furious with Khan for his alleged “aggressive neutrality” toward Russia, threatening Pakistan with “isolation” should he stay in power — did not represent a conspiracy against the former prime minister.

The self-contradictory three-step move — to simultaneously question the document’s authenticity, blame Khan for leaking it in what amounts to a treasonous act, and then add that the substance of the cable is unremarkable — has characterized the Pakistani and State Department response over the past week.

On the U.S. side, the State Department had previously dismissed claims by Khan that the U.S. had pressured him to be removed from power. After the disclosure of the leaked cable, State Department officials told The Intercept that they could not comment on the accuracy of a foreign government document but argued that the comments did not show the U.S. taking sides in Pakistani politics. “Nothing in these purported comments shows the United States taking a position on who the leader of Pakistan should be,” State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said in a statement to The Intercept.

When pressed further on the document at a press briefing, Miller told a reporter, who asked whether the substance of the reported conversation in the cable was accurate, that the report was “close-ish.”

Khan himself has reportedly been placed under escalating pressure while in prison; he is currently serving a three-year sentence for corruption charges that his supporters say are politically motivated. The campaign against Khan culminated in this week’s terror investigation for the cable leak.

A widespread crackdown against his supporters continues, with thousands still languishing in detention over allegations of involvement in his political party and a series of anti-military demonstrations that took place in the country in May.

The U.S. government, meanwhile, deemed the crackdown an “internal matter” for the Pakistani government, while continuing to engage the Pakistani military that is believed to have orchestrated Khan’s removal.

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For generations before the Napoleonic Wars (1803–15), France had been the dominant nation on the western European mainland and was among the world’s most powerful states. At different times, French military forces had occupied almost all of the major capitals of continental Europe.

During this period of French hegemony, it seemed that France posed one of the biggest challenges to global stability. Great Britain, France’s principal rival, had long sought to reduce French expansion and influence. It was repeatedly the efforts of the British military, particularly the Royal Navy, which prevented France from spreading its power as far as she would have liked.

While the French were frustrated by the Royal Navy’s suffocating presence out to sea, they had more success in dictating matters to their liking on European soil. Various notable French leaders – Richelieu (1585-1642), Mazarin (1602-1661), Louis XIV (1638-1715) and Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) – had all succeeded in keeping the territories of the Germanies weak and divided.

Since the 15th century, the Germans had desired better things of their own and they dreamed of a national state. There was a romantic, mystical quality about these aspirations. The Germans awaited the arrival of their king or “Feldherr”, a magician who would emerge from the public’s ranks and unite the German peoples under one flag.

Image: Otto von Bismarck (Licensed under the Public Domain)

When the Prussian-born Otto von Bismarck began his rise to prominence in the mid-19th century, it looked as though the leader the Germans wanted had at last arrived. The Germans were helped further, however, by the fact that their nemesis France was by this point in decline. France never recovered from Napoleon’s unprovoked invasion of the Russian Empire on 24 June 1812. The French-led forces were decisively defeated by the Russian Army, as they inflicted a shattering blow on the prestige of France.

By the time the Franco-Prussian War, or Franco-German War, started in the mid-summer of 1870 France had been in decline for over half a century. Just as the Russians had beaten the French, now it was the turn of the Germans. With the surrender of Napoleon III (Napoleon Bonaparte’s nephew) at the town of Sedan in northern France, the tide irrevocably turned against the French and was flowing in Germany’s favour.

The Germans incorporated the former French territory of Alsace-Lorraine to the Reich in 1871, as part of the Treaty of Frankfurt. Alsace-Lorraine in any case was a largely German-speaking region whose inhabitants, overall, had questionable loyalty to France.

The new German Empire was established on 18 January 1871 and two months later the 56-year-old Bismarck became its first chancellor (head of government). He would remain in this post for the next 19 years. Bismarck held conservative, anti-liberal views, distrusted democracy and was one of the most famous political leaders of the 19th century. Bismarck previously served as the Prussian ambassador to Russia from 1859 to 1862. He believed it was unwise and dangerous for Germany to ever wage war against Russia, a feeling not shared by everyone in Berlin.

Bismarck also feared Russia because the country had a large, powerful army, deep natural resources and contained a population that was more than twice bigger than Germany’s. The Russian population in 1870 was estimated to be at just over 84 million, while the German population was 41 million that year. Russia was a far older and more established country than Germany, and the Russians were in the process of constructing advanced weapons like the formidable Mosin rifle.

Surrender of Napoleon III after the Battle of Sedan, 1 September 1870 (Licensed under the Public Domain)

With the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, the balance of power shifted drastically in western and central Europe. Almost overnight, Germany had inherited what remained of France’s greatness. This success imbued the Germans with pride and self-confidence, and many German citizens were firm advocates of pursuing military means in order to promote their country’s aims.

The French leadership and its people, by and large, were also supporters of finding solutions through military action if required. The beating the French soldiers had taken, in the Franco-Prussian War, did not result in an increase in pacifist feelings across France. To the contrary, from the early 1870s onward army reforms were instead enacted in France, along with the introduction of universal compulsory military service. New infrastructure of a military nature was built on French soil, armaments were upgraded and production of weapons increased.

The French were bitter and depressed that Germany had gotten the better of them. Influential circles in France openly expressed their hatred of Germany, with what Bismarck described as “feminine vindictiveness”.

In his analysis of the international arena, Bismarck recognised 5 great powers: Germany, Russia, Britain, France and Austria-Hungary. He excluded the United States because the latter had not sufficient strength, or motive, to project its influence over the Atlantic and threaten Europe’s interests. It appeared to Bismarck too that America would continue with its policy of non-intervention in European affairs, which unfortunately has not remained the case to the present.

Bismarck hoped that France would get over its defeat in the recent war with Germany, as France had eventually become reconciled to its losses in the Napoleonic Wars. Regardless of French feeling, among the main goals of Bismarck’s foreign policy was to keep France in a weakened and vulnerable position.

From the late 19th century on, France herself lacked the strength to threaten Germany. In 1880 the French population amounted to 37 million, whereas the German population that year was 45 million. By 1890 France’s population was 38 million while Germany’s had risen to 49 million. The gap was growing. Alarming also was that the French population was smaller than the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany’s ally. German industry was outstripping that of France too.

For the majority of the period between 1870 and 1890, relations between Germany and Russia were positive. Matters were helped by the fact that Tsar Alexander II was the nephew of Kaiser Wilhelm I, and they got along very well together. Russia and Germany were overseen by conservative monarchies and the countries shared common interests.

Prussia’s sympathetic attitude towards Russia during the Crimean War (1853–56) and the Polish revolt of 1863–64 had met the approval of the Russians, while in return the Germans appreciated Russia’s stance of benevolent neutrality during the Franco-Prussian War.

Despite this, friendship between Germany and Russia was not always entirely easy to preserve. Western populations, including the Germans, were sometimes reluctant to admit that Russia was a part of Europe, even though many maps show that a sizeable part of western Russia lies within Europe’s official frontiers.

The Russian hierarchy strongly disliked the liberalism and decadence which was becoming prevalent in parts of Germany and western Europe. The Russians were understandably suspicious of events that were changing the nature of European societies and altering traditional values, usually not for the better.

It might simply be true as well that the Russian and German peoples had a tendency to think they were slightly different from each other, that they had contrasting cultural and religious beliefs. There was bound to be an underlying tension between two such powerful states as the Russian and German empires.

Bismarck found it a bit easier to maintain smooth relations with another neighbour of Germany’s, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. One key reason behind this was that Austria-Hungary was weaker than Russia. Bismarck had not much respect for the Austrians, who he felt possessed worrying tendencies towards liberalism and modern art. As a northern German, Bismarck was a little contemptuous of southern Germans like the Bavarians who lacked the Prussian drive and work ethic. Bismarck had said, “A Bavarian is a cross between a man and an Austrian”.

It seems more than likely that Austria has been in decline since at least 1848. During the widespread revolutions of 1848, the Hungarian half of the empire was prevented from gaining independence only by the successful intervention of Russian troops. France, allied to Italian forces, defeated Austrian armies in 1859 at Magenta and Solferino (both today in Lombardy, northern Italy). Due to these reverses, Austria lost control over the region of Lombardy. The Kingdom of Italy was then founded in 1861, a decade before the German Empire came into existence.

In 1866 Prussia, with critical support provided by Italy, defeated Austria in the Austro-Prussian War. Because of this outcome, Austria also lost its authority over the territory of Venetia which the Italians permanently gained control of, as with Lombardy in 1859. Consequently, Bismarck was perhaps unfair not to have included Italy in his list of major powers.

Some of the weakness within Austria-Hungary lay in the fact that, for an empire not so large, it contained an incredible variety of nationalities – Austrians, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians, Bulgarians, Romanians, and also Germans, Italians and Poles. Vienna, the Austrian capital and Budapest, the Hungarian capital, had a parliament each and there were joint Austro-Hungarian ministries of war, foreign affairs and finance.

Austria-Hungary was not really a single state but was a feudal conglomerate, where the Habsburg monarch held his residence in Vienna. Austria-Hungary’s internal issues should not be overemphasised, however. The emperor Franz Joseph I, who came to the throne in Vienna during the unrest of 1848, governed with a paternal authority over the coming decades. Separatist movements within the Austro-Hungarian Empire lacked mass support.

The Czechs desired a constitution similar to that which the Hungarians had gained, but the Czechs wanted such a constitution to be put into effect by Franz Joseph. Some Germans living in Austria-Hungary desired “Anschluss” (union) with Germany, but there was hardly any chance of it then unfolding.

The Austrian prime minister Eduard von Taaffe, who held office from 1868-70 and 1879-93, had significant influence in keeping the nationalities of the Austro-Hungarian Empire “in a balanced state of mild dissatisfaction”. With its internal distractions, Austria-Hungary had no inclination to conquer territory overseas, i.e. to obtain colonies. Franz Joseph’s ally, Bismarck, had scant regard for these ventures as well. “Colonies for Germany are like the furs possessed by noble Polish families who have no shirts”, Bismarck insisted.

Bismarck’s primary focus was on the European mainland and in ensuring German supremacy, above all over France. He felt after the defeat of the French in the Franco-Prussian War that Germany was a “satiated power”. Later, Bismarck relented to political pressures by sanctioning the capture of parts of south-west and east Africa, along with Togoland and the Cameroon. Yet the chancellor found it difficult to get excited about Germany’s colonial actions.

In early September 1872, the three conservative monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany, Franz Joseph I, Tsar Alexander II and Kaiser Wilhelm I, met together in Berlin and they agreed to co-ordinate their foreign policies. The formal treaty agreed on in this meeting, which was signed the following year on 22 October 1873, was not groundbreaking; but it stressed the need for Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany to consolidate monarchic rule, conservative sentiment and to respond if necessary, including with military force, to unprovoked armed actions taken by countries such as France or Britain.

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This article was originally published on Geopolitica.RU.

Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree and he writes primarily on foreign affairs and historical subjects. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Sources

“Population of the major European countries in the 19th century”, Wesleyan University

“Kaiser William [Wilhelm] I”, Heritage History

Kyle Mizokami, “Why Russia’s Mosin rifle is one of the greatest ever made”, National Interest, 8 January 2020

Donald J. Goodspeed, The German Wars (Random House Value Publishing, 2nd edition, 3 April 1985)

“Chassepot rifle”, Arms and Armour, Pitt Rivers Museum

Sue Clarkson, “History of Alsace-Lorraine”, feefhs.org

Featured image is from Geopolitica.RU

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***

Since the start of the year, the US media has promoted Ukraine’s “spring offensive” as a decisive turning point in the war.

It has become clear, however, that this offensive has produced nothing but a blood-drenched debacle. Despite the deaths of tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, the Ukrainian military has failed to breach even the first defensive line set up by the Russian military.

On Friday, the Washington Post published an article reporting that US intelligence agencies have concluded that the offensive will fail to reach its main objectives of driving to the Azov Sea in order to cut off the “land bridge” to the Crimean Peninsula.

“The US intelligence community assesses that Ukraine’s counteroffensive will fail to reach the key southeastern city of Melitopol,” the Post reported, meaning that “Kyiv won’t fulfill its principal objective of severing Russia’s land bridge to Crimea in this year’s push.”

The “grim” assessment means that despite the provision of tens of billions of dollars in advanced military hardware, the offensive “fell short of its goals,” the Post writes.

Beyond detailing the scale of the debacle for Ukrainian forces, the article characterizes the role of the US in demanding a further significant escalation of the war, no matter the cost in Ukrainian lives.

The Post reported,

“in the first week of fighting, Ukraine incurred major casualties against Russia’s well-prepared defenses despite having a range of newly-acquired Western equipment, including US Bradley Fighting Vehicles, German-made Leopard 2 tanks, and specialized mine-clearing vehicles.”

The article continued,

“Joint war games conducted by the US, British and Ukrainian militaries anticipated such losses but envisioned Kyiv accepting the casualties as the cost of piercing through Russia’s main defensive line, said US and Western officials.”

“But Ukraine chose to stem the losses on the battlefield and switch to a tactic of relying on smaller units to push forward across different areas of the front. That resulted in Ukraine making incremental gains in different pockets over the summer.”

This is an extraordinary admission. Washington planned out an offensive operation whose success was determined by its client government in Ukraine forcing its conscript army into a massed, suicidal charge against well-defended front lines.

The Zelensky government, likely fearing a total breakdown of morale or mutiny, concluded that such a suicidal rush would not be possible, and switched to a military strategy that would result in fewer casualties, to the ire of Washington.

These statements confirm the repeated warnings of the World Socialist Web Site that the Biden administration, seeing the population of Ukraine as nothing more than cannon fodder, was determined to fight “to the last Ukrainian.”

The World Socialist Web Site wrote in May,

“the imperialist powers are demanding that this weaponry be put to use in the hands of newly conscripted Ukrainian troops, many of them grabbed off the street, to be thrown at heavily fortified Russian positions…The only certain outcome of the much-hyped counteroffensive will be a further massive loss of life.”

Critically, the Post article admits that the US had known as early as February that Ukrainian forces were facing disaster. The Post writes:

The new intelligence assessment aligns with a secret U.S. forecast from February indicating that shortfalls in equipment and force strength may mean that the counteroffensive will fall “well short” of Ukraine’s goal to sever the land bridge to Crimea by August.

At the time, the contents of these documents were not seriously examined or publicized by the US media, which continued to hype the offensive as a turning point in the war.

By contrast, the WSWS pointed to the significance of documents, which revealed “significant ‘force generation and sustainment shortfalls’” and likely to yield only “modest territorial gains,” as completely puncturing the fraudulent narrative used by the Biden administration and US media to promote the latest bloodbath.

The real goal of the US, however, was to maximize the number of Russians killed, expend Russian war material, and weaken the Russian economy, using Ukrainian forces as cannon fodder.

The article quoted General Mark Milley to argue that there was an upside to the disaster. Milley bragged about how many Russian soldiers had been killed, saying,

“The Russians are in pretty rough shape… They’ve suffered a huge amount of casualties. Their morale is not great.”

This was effectively a paraphrase of the declaration by Senator Lindsey Graham who boasted that as a result of US funding of Ukraine, “the Russians are dying” and that it’s the “best money we’ve spent.”

The offensive has produced a bloodbath for Ukrainian forces. Last week, The New York Times reported of the existence of a unit whose soldiers had been replaced three times.

Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that 50,000 or more Ukrainians have become amputees, citing data from Germany’s Ottobock, the world’s largest prosthetics manufacturer. This would put the level of amputations in the Ukraine war on par with those of major combatants in the First World War.

Ukraine is now the most heavily mined country in the world, with approximately 30 percent of the country or about 67,000 miles, having been littered with explosive ordnance.

The growing recognition in the US media of the failure of the counteroffensive does not lessen the danger posed by the war. Rather, there is an immense danger of the US responding to the increasingly desperate state of its proxy war with Russia with a major new military escalation.

Earlier this month, the White House requested another $24 billion from Congress for the war in Ukraine, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledging to continue the war “as long as it takes.”

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Featured image: This still image from a video published by the Russian armed forces showed destroyed Leopard 2 battle tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles that were used as part of Urkaine’s offensive operations. (Source: WSWS)

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***

In September 2022, researchers at BC Whales, a Canadian research nonprofit studying cetaceans in the north of British Columbia province, gasped when they saw a drone image of a humpback whale known as Moon. Each summer, she regularly visited the many meandering waterways in the region with her calves, along with hundreds of other humpbacks, feeding in the food-rich, tranquil waters. But this time, she looked different.

Moon’s spine was crooked and her back half was paralyzed, probably after being hit by a ship, BC Whales researchers concluded. Despite heroically swimming thousands of kilometers to Hawai‘i propelled by only her pectoral fins, she likely died emaciated and eaten by parasites within months — a fate met by many whales hit by ships.

“Ship strikes can kill or injure whales, and injuries can eventually lead to death, either through infection or reduced mobility, which eventually leads to starvation,” said Eric Keen, science director at BC Whales. He called Moon’s case a “fate worse than death.”

As more ships cruise the waterways in northern British Columbia, mostly passenger cruise liners and freight carriers sailing to expanding ports in Prince Rupert and Kitimat, many cetaceans on the route are likely to meet Moon’s destiny, according to a recent study led by Keen.

The biggest cause of concern in the next decade is the liquefied natural gas terminal at Kitimat, being built as part of one of the largest, and very popular, energy investments in Canadian history. The LNG Canada project is jointly owned by Royal Dutch Shell, Malaysia’s Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi Corporation, and Korea Gas Corporation.

Killer whales in Gitga’at territory. The nutrient-rich ancestral waters of the Gitga’at First Nation in northern British Columbia are a critical habitat for fin, humpback and killer whales. Image by Brodie Guy via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

The study, published in the journal Endangered Species Research, predicts that by 2030, two fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) and 18 humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) may die annually from ship strikes in the territorial waters of the Gitga’at First Nation and its surrounding waterways in northern BC. Those numbers amount to a twofold and fourfold spike, respectively, in whale deaths compared to today. The researchers predict most of these deaths to occur during August, when many whales congregate in the region during their migration.

The waterways in this region have been a critical habitat for fin , humpback and killer whales (Orcinus orca) for millennia. However, commercial whaling operations in the 1900s decimated their numbers, which only began recovering in the early 2000s.

Surveys estimate that more than 450 humpback whales and over 120 fin whales frequent these waterways today. About three-fourths of the humpback whales and 70% of fin whales return here from their tropical breeding grounds each year. In Canada, fin whales are considered a threatened species, and humpback whales are of special concern.

In recent decades, as whale numbers begin to recover worldwide following the end of commercial whaling, the rise in global shipping traffic has made ship strikes the biggest threat to whale populations.

“It’s probably the dominant, human-related cause of death [for large whales],” says cetacean biologist John Calambokidis at Cascadia Research Collective in the U.S. state of Washington. Fishing gear entanglements and underwater noise are other threats.

A humpback whale in Gitga’at territory. The waterways in this region have been a critical habitat for fin, humpback and killer whales for millennia. Image by Brodie Guy via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

More ships, more strike risk

The researchers analyzed present-day vessel traffic in Gitga’at territorial waters using a vessel information database, and simulated the possible vessel traffic after the LNG terminal in the port town of Kitimat becomes operational in 2030.

The C$48 billion ($35.5 billion) project aims to export 26 million metric tons of LNG per year once at full operating capacity, from the controversial Coastal GasLinkpipeline mainly to Asian markets. The Gitga’at Nation will receive an initial funding of C$1.5 million ($1.11 million from the province and more than C$500,000 ($370,000) yearly thereafter. LNG Canada has promised around 7,500 local jobs, sparking approval from the First Nation, which cites economic gains to the Indigenous community’s poverty alleviation and social welfare efforts.

The project also comes with a massive carbon cost: about 4 million metric tons of CO2 emissions each year, for at least 25 years.

The researchers then juxtaposed the vessel traffic data with data on the density of whales seen in the region and their seasonal abundance. This latter data set comes from meticulous surveys by Gitga’at environmental guardians as part of the Ships, Whales and Acoustics in Gitga’at Territory (SWAG) project, a collaboration between BC Whales, the Gitga’at Nation and WWF Canada. They then built a model to predict how many times a ship would come close to a whale, and how often the encounter would end in a whale strike.

The analysis found that the biggest death risk for fin whales and humpback whales would come from the 200 to 400 large LNG carrier ships expected to visit the terminal each year, transiting twice as often through the waterways, with each ship escorted by a tugboat.

“Our models predict that once LNG projects go live in Gitga’at waters, whales will be struck and killed at such a high rate that both species’ populations will begin to decline along the entire BC coast,” Keen said. “But strikes from the menagerie of other commercial and recreational vessels transiting Gitga’at waters will become a serious issue too.”

The study is the first of its kind in the region to put some numbers on the ambiguous and often underreported issue of ship strikes in Canada’s Pacific waters. The risk to cetaceans is already evident: within a span of 10 days in July, there were three reports of ship strikes reported in Gitga’at waters from passenger and cargo ships, all involving humpback whales.

“What I think is a little different about this study and makes it valuable is [that] it’s being conducted ahead of an increase in vessel traffic,” said Calambokidis, who was not involved in the study. “It has taken a very proactive approach.”

A premier tour of the LNG Canada site. The Gitga’at Nation, which supports the LNG project, said it’s also worried about the projected increase in the deaths of whales. Image by Province of British Columbia via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

Slowdown zones

The Gitga’at Nation, which supports the LNG project, said it’s also worried about the projected increase in the deaths of whales, a culturally revered and economically vital animal, in its territory.

“Gitga’at has been working with the shipping industry and managers on shipping guidelines to foster greater waterway safety in our territory,” the nation said in a statement. “We will continue that work to encourage and insist on implementing measures that better protect whales.”

The researchers of the study modeled different scenarios to mitigate the impact of ship strikes on whales. They found that reducing the speed of all large ships to 10 knots (18.5 kilometers per hour) or slower in whale hotspots would be effective in reducing whale deaths. Janie Wray, the CEO of BC Whales and a co-author of the study, called for a “slowdown zone” around critical whale hotspots in the region. Slower ships also reduce emissions and underwater noise that disrupt whale sensory abilities to navigate. In 2020, Canada announced mandatory speed restriction for ships on the Gulf of St. Lawrence to 10 knots to protect the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) on its east coast.

Studies have shown that ships cruising at speeds faster than 12 knots (22.2 km/h) are likely to kill whales, and those faster than 18 knots (33.3 km/h) are almost certain to result in whale deaths in the event of a strike. However, under current regulations, slowing down is voluntary in most whale habitats, with a survey by Oceana Canada finding about two-thirds of vessels don’t comply.

“There is a limit to how slow the large tankers can safely go,” Keen said, pointing to scrubber water, which has toxic chemicals, that is discharged the longer the ships stay in the water. “So we cannot put all our hopes [on] speed restrictions.”

The best mitigation step, the study found, would be to restrict LNG traffic during August, when whales are most abundant in Gitga’at waters.

The findings could provide decision-makers and stewardship managers with concrete numbers on the risks of ship strikes as vessel traffic increases, which can then be weighed against social and financial costs.

“If the authorities are concerned about the levels of mortality predicted in this study, it would be prudent and wise to pause the shipping projects until substantial action plans can be developed,” Keen said.

Transport Canada, the federal agency responsible for implementing speed regulations, said that when LNG Canada becomes operational, it will add 350 vessels to the existing traffic. However, a spokesperson for the agency didn’t identify whether any mandatory speed restrictions were being put in place or even planned to address the concerns raised in the study.

Whether through voluntary or mandatory measures, the government and industry must act now to show their actions are effective in conserving whales, said Hussein Alidina from WWF Canada, another co-author of the study.

“Nobody wants to see a dead whale on their bow,” he said. “It’s in nobody’s interest.”

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Sources

Keen, E. M., Wray, J., Meuter, H., Thompson, K.-L., Barlow, J. P., & Picard, C. R. (2017). ‘Whale wave’: Shifting strategies structure the complex use of critical fjord habitat by humpbacks. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 567, 211-233. doi:10.3354/meps12012

Keen, E. M., O’Mahony, É., Nichol, L. M., Wright, B. M., Shine, C., Hendricks, B., … Wray, J. (2023). Ship-strike forecast and mitigation for whales in Gitga’at First Nation territory. Endangered Species Research, 51, 31-58. doi:10.3354/esr01244

Keen, E. M., Pilkington, J., O’Mahony, É., Thompson, K.-L., Hendricks, B., Robinson, N., … Wray, J. (2021). Fin whales of the Great Bear Rainforest: Balaenoptera physalus velifera in a Canadian Pacific fjord system. PLOS ONE, 16(9), e0256815. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0256815

Vanderlaan, A. S. M., & Taggart, C. T. (2007). Vessel collisions with whales: The probability of lethal injury based on vessel speed. Marine Mammal Science, 23(1), 144-156. doi:10.1111/j.1748-7692.2006.00098.x

Featured image: A right whale with propeller wounds. In recent decades, as whale numbers begin to recover worldwide following the end of commercial whaling, the rise in global shipping traffic has made ship strikes the biggest threat to whale populations. Image by EcoHealth Alliance, under NOAA research permit via Flickr.

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***

This evening, I am very honoured to be speaking with Dr William Makis – a well-respected and highly-published oncologist, immunologist, radiologist and scientist.

He has spent his time over the last 3 years obsessively researching the effects of COVID jabs and the jab mandates on doctors; the young, fit and healthy; pregnant women and babies and the general population. What he has found is shocking but not surprising:

• Turbo cancers
• Sudden deaths in otherwise healthy people
• Pregnancy losses and heart attacks and strokes in pregnant women

Join us as we discuss these issues and more.

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Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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***

First of all, we would like to express our gratitude to our sisters, who took a step-in solidarity with Afghan women on the second anniversary of the seizure of power by the Taliban’s anti-women executioners.

Unfortunately, the prevailing atmosphere inside the country has deteriorated every day and the field for RAWA activities and women’s protests has become narrower.

In today’s era the Taliban are trying to destroy even the smallest and most basic manifestations of life in (for example, access to the right to work and education and choosing women’s clothing) and various atrocities and the lack of security and poverty have increased the suffering of our miserable masses, still women have kept alive the flame of and resistance and hope. They are not giving up and are trying to raise their voices through every possible method and fight against the religious fascism of the Taliban, these servants of the US imperialism.

We are proud to fight hand in hand with the women struggling around the world for justice and freedom, this fight gives us strength and inspiration.

International Women’s Day, March 8, 2023

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August 20, 2023

Taliban Detain Eight Courageous Afghan Women Protesting in Kabul

An insider source informed Hasht-e Subh that these women have been identified as Hajar, Khatol, Lima, Farida Moheb, Husna, and three others whose names are undisclosed.

 

Read more:

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***

August 19 marks the 70th anniversary of the 1953 coup d’etat in Iran which brought down the government of democratically elected Dr Mohammed Mossadegh.

The deposing of Mossadegh by a combination of the US CIA and British security forces was not an overnight event.  

As far back as 1951 there were “concerns,” as British foreign secretary at the time, Anthony Eden, late wrote in his memoirs:

“When I assumed the post of the Foreign Ministry on October 27, 1951, the worrying prospect I was thinking about was this: we had left Iran.

“We had lost Abadan and our power and prestige throughout the Middle East had been severely shaken. … I had to decide how to deal with this situation. … I thought that if Mossadegh fell it was quite possible that he would be replaced by a wiser government that would make it possible to conclude a satisfactory agreement.”

The “wiser government” which the actions of the US and British brought about was that of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, heralding in a period of tyranny and oppression which lasted until his overthrow in 1979, but has since been tragically continued through the theocratic dictatorship of the Islamic Republic.  

Mossadegh’s popularity in 1953 was on the back of a wave of disputes with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), established by the British to exploit Iran’s vast oil reserves, but increasingly dictatorial with its workforce.  

In April 1951, in opposition to the decision of the AIOC to drastically reduce the cost of workers’ housing allowance, there were massive strikes in the industry.

Mossadegh proposed a plan to the oil commission in parliament for the nationalisation of oil.

In March 1951 the Iranian parliament voted to nationalise oil operations, take control of the AIOC and expropriate its assets.  

In May, Mossadegh, the leader of Iran’s social democratic National Front Party, was elected as prime minister and immediately implemented the Bill.

Britain responded by withdrawing the AIOC’s technicians and announcing a blockade on Iranian oil exports. Moreover, it also began planning to overthrow Mossadegh. 

“Our policy,” a British official later recalled, “was to get rid of Mossadegh as soon as possible.”

Mossadegh’s move was a popular one, especially in the context of the revenues from oil being greater than that of the whole of Iran but not benefitting the people of Iran. 

His government had the tacit support of Iran’s communists in the form of the Tudeh Party of Iran and the government had cordial ties with the Soviet Union, a significant neighbour and trading partner.  

The plotting against Mossadegh inevitably used these facts as leverage. The British, in particular, saw that playing up the “communist threat” would be more likely to engage US support than simply wanting to restore British control of the oil industry.

By November 1952 a joint MI6 and CIA team was proposing the overthrow of Mossadegh and initiated actions to arm religious opposition groups to that end.

Tribal leaders in the north of Iran were provided with weapons. A combination of activities by British agents provocateurs on the ground and religious forces opposed to Mossadegh resulted in riots in Tehran in February 1953, including attacks upon Mossadegh’s home.

The British used the anti-communist card to great effect in attempting to scare Iranians into thinking support for Mossadegh was part of a communist takeover.

CIA officer Richard Cottam later observed that the British “saw the opportunity and sent the people we had under our control into the streets to act as if they were Tudeh. They were more than just provocateurs, they were shock troops, who acted as if they were Tudeh people throwing rocks at mosques and priests.” 

A secret US history of the coup plan, drawn up by CIA officer Donald Wilber in 1954, and published by the New York Times in 2000, relates how CIA agents gave serious attention to alarming the religious leaders in Tehran by issuing black propaganda in the name of the Tudeh Party of Iran, threatening these leaders with savage punishment if they opposed Mossadegh.

The final go-ahead for the coup was given by the US in June 1953 with a date set for mid-August. Thousands of dollars were provided to opposition groups to fund mass demonstrations in central Tehran and the military, sympathetic to the shah, took control of the radio station, army headquarters and Mossadegh’s home.

The shah soon assumed all powers and the following year a new consortium was established, controlling the production and export of Iranian oil, in which the US and Britain each secured a 40 per cent interest — a sign of the new order, the US having muscled in on a formerly British preserve.

The coup and the resultant shah’s dictatorship not only overthrew the functioning parliamentary democracy in Iran but completely derailed democratic politics. 

The shah established a reactionary political system where his own devotees, along with a pliant Islamic clerical hierarchy, determined the composition of the parliament.  

All progressive political parties including the Communist Tudeh Party of Iran were banned and forced to undertake clandestine activities. 

By 1979 the Islamic institutions were in effect the only players freely operating on the political scene in Iran. The Islamists exploited the monopoly of their legally operating mosques in all towns and cities to ensure that they had absolute control over shaping the new regime. 

The left and progressive forces were violently suppressed and their influence marginalised. A new dictatorship was in total control by 1983.     

The US formally admitted its role in the 1953 coup 10 years ago with the declassification of a large volume of intelligence documents, which made clear that the ousting of the elected prime minister, Mosadegh, 70 years ago this week was a joint CIA-MI6 endeavour.

The formal British government position is to refuse to comment on an intelligence matter.

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Steve Bishop is a senior member of the central executive council of the Committee for the Defence of the Iranian People’s Rights and the editorial board of Iran Today.

Featured image: (L to R) Mosaddegh supporters in Tehran on August 16 1953; Mohammad Mosaddegh, 1951 Photo: (L to R) William Arthur Cram/CC – Public domain

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***

This article originally published in 1998 confirms criminality on the part of former President Clinton who ordered the  bombing of Afghanistan and Sudan as a means to divert attention from the Monica Lewinsky affair and the impeachment procedures directed against him. No indictment, no followup? What would be the legal implications of this “Wag the Dog” criminality on the part of a a former president of the United States.  

M. Ch. August 21, 2023

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Coming three days after the president’s unsatisfying apology to the nation, and on the same day as Monica Lewinsky’s return to the grand jury, the U.S. military strikes Thursday in Afghanistan and Sudan have skeptics asking: Are they truly a response to the Kenya-Tanzania bombings of American embassies, or a manufactured crisis to divert public attention from his personal troubles? Or, as one reporter asked Defense Secretary William Cohen at a news briefing on the attacks, isn’t there a “striking resemblance” to “Wag the Dog”? Cohen, forced to address the issue, said, in essence, of course not.

For the uninitiated, “Wag the Dog” was the recent Barry Levinson film spoof depicting a White House that invented a war to distract the country from a presidential sex scandal. The similarities between the film and Thursday’s events are just too eerie to ignore.

OK, let’s say no thought was given to the president’s personal and political woes in making the strike. But why, Cokie Roberts of ABC News asked in a live television broadcast, did the president feel the need to rush back to Washington to handle the crisis? Couldn’t he have conducted the country’s business in this matter from his vacation retreat?

Most Americans will be outraged at the suggestion that the president would risk American lives to serve his personal political needs. But some, suspicious of past presidents’ actions, won’t be so sure. They will point to the alleged Pearl Harbor conspiracy–the so-called back door to American involvement in World War II. They will invoke memories of what many still believe was Lyndon Johnson’s “phony” Tonkin Gulf incident to allow him to escalate the Vietnam War.

There was of course no Pearl Harbor conspiracy; nor did LBJ invent a North Vietnamese torpedo boat attack to compel the Tonkin Gulf Resolution that Congress passed with only two dissenting votes. Nevertheless, like these two earlier incidents, the doubts and suspicions will grow about the need and urgency for the Afghan-Sudan strikes.

There is a compelling object lesson in these suspicions. First, a wounded president whose credibility has been shattered by his own lies and misdeeds simply is not in a good position to conduct foreign policy. True, as president and commander in chief, Clinton holds the power to order military actions necessary to the national security. But foreign and defense policies in our democracy, especially those posing costs in blood and treasure, demand a national consensus.

Presidents leading us into war have understood that an effective policy abroad depends on a shared commitment to that policy at home. As one American statesman, former Secretary of State George Shultz, once wisely said, “Trust is the coin of the realm.” A president whose trustworthiness is in doubt labors under an impossible burden when trying to lead the nation through a crisis overseas.

The Lewinsky scandal is no longer just about sex or a president who lied to the public about his personal misdeeds. It is now an integral part of national politics, of presidential effectiveness in marshaling support for difficult choices overseas. The questions that will continue to burden this president in the days ahead about perjury, obstructing justice and ultimately impeachment are a blight on his capacity to govern.

As Thursday’s military action makes clear, there are important matters that must be handled in the world, ones that require a president with the support of his people. Kenneth Starr should conclude his investigation as quickly as possible and give Congress and the country the wherewithal–one way or another–to get this scandal behind us. If Starr’s findings lead to impeachment, or to Clinton’s resignation, so be it.

Perhaps it is time to let the country establish a more trusting relationship with a President Gore, who will come with less baggage and thus will be freer, among other things, to conduct a more effective defense policy.

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***

It has been a long time coming for an objective dissertation of the 2020 election fraud to be presented publicly in a comprehensive yet logical, easy to follow narrative that millions of Americans will find plausible and convincing. 

Just after the Fulton County RICO indictment was announced, a press meeting was scheduled for Monday morning at Bedminster, NJ when former President Donald Trump would deliver a one hundred page report “Rigged and Stolen Georgia 2022 Presidential Election” presenting “irrefutable & overwhelming evidence of Election Fraud & Irregularities.” However, the press event was cancelled at the urging of his attorney citing inclusion of the report into future legal filings; therefore making the news conference moot.

However, Trump has such a unique ability, in his own inimitable style, to reach the public in what could be a golden opportunity to tell the Georgia story and summarize that report on the steps of the Fulton County Courthouse in a public recitation. There is no reason why submitting the Report as a legal filing should preclude Trump as a Defendant in support of his First Amendment rights from publicly standing up to the charges and speak his truth.

With four active indictments under way and Special Counsel Jack Smith intent on stirring as much turmoil as possible, how are those different indictments at different locations with different focus, timing and issues being coordinated? Are there individual attorneys for each indictment or are there overlapping assignments with each court case moving at its own pace with different court dates amidst the 2024 campaign? 

With an obvious need to keep track of multiple legal challenges at the same time and not allow any opportunities to slip through the cracks, the brilliant constitutional attorney Robert Barnes would make a superlative coordinator to keep track of  all four indictments.    

It is essential to recognize the US District Court in Washington, DC as perhaps the most dangerous challenge to the rule of law, defiant and hostile, dismissive of the Constitution as a functioning organic document and therefore will require the most hard assed, tough minded politically experienced attorneys to provide special attention to every nuance and detail.

In confirmation of judicial reality, Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fl) has filed a Congressional Resolution to censure Judge Tanya Chutkan who has been assigned to administer President Trump’s J6 case. Gaetz cited the Judge’s unnecessarily extreme “sentencing of January 6th defendants, while openly supporting the violent Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, showcases a complete disregard for her duty of impartiality and the rule of law.” 

Judge Chutkan has promised that “the existence of a political campaign is not going to have any bearing on my decision. I intend to keep politics out of this” which may be easier said than done.

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In a spectacular expression of another US District Court Judge who has done little to maintain a semblance of impartiality or judicial fairness is Judge Beryl Howell. It was recently revealed that Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a warrant ordering Twitter to hand over assorted personal Trump Twitter data including direct messages, deleted messages, Trump searches, draft never made public and location of all cell users who were posted on Trump’s account. This warrant covered the period October, 2020 – January 2021 while Trump was still President.

The warrant was signed by Judge Beryl Howell who was appointed to the US District Court by President Barak Obama. In addition, Howell approved a non disclosure order that Twitter must hand over the data without informing then President Trump or his legal team.

To Twitter’s credit, they refused to comply with either Order until the US Circuit Court DC stepped in and found that Smith had ‘unquestionably compelling’ interest to rubber stamp Howell’s Order. In the meantime, Howell sanctioned Twitter $350K for their delay in responding to the Court Order. During the dispute, Twitter informed the government that the Order was a violation of their term of service to their users and violated their First Amendment rights.

In response the Government asserted that

“President Trump has a history of obstructing investigations pointing to the report issued by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller and that disclosure would harm its investigation.”

As Epoch Times pointed out, Judge Howell badgered the Twitter attorney about their refusal to comply. “Is it because the CEO (Elon Musk) wants to cozy up with the former President?” “No Your Honor, it is whether they are facially valid.” Howell continued “it wouldn’t be that Twitter is trying to make up for the fact that it kicked Donald Trump off Twitter for some time and is now standing up to protect First Amendment rights?”

Will Judge Howell explain how the collection of all those names who ‘liked’ Trump’s twitter post is relevant to his J6  case before the District Court?

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Renee Parsons served on the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and as president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, staff in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC.

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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***

On Friday, August 11, YouTube shut down the US Tour of Duty channel. The reason cited was “violations of our Community Guidelines,” although no specific example was cited. Neither was a warning issued. Simple termination, with prejudice.

There are some, including a certain former US Marine electro-optical repair specialist-turned-geopolitical analyst, who view the YouTube action as a form of karma for my public pronouncements regarding Gonzalo Lira and my assessment regarding his relationship with the Ukrainian intelligence service, or SBU. But life, like geopolitics, is never that simple.

First and foremost, the decision to terminate the US Tour of Duty channel, which hosted both my “Ask the Inspector” podcast and Jeff Norman’s collaboration with Tori Mansfield and Arkady Itkin, “Scenes from the Evolution,” coincided with the termination of a separate YouTube channel, managed by the Russian media organization “Solovyov Live!,” which hosted a separate weekly podcast, “The Scott Ritter Show,” where I interviewed Russian guests about topics of the day. There was no connectivity between Solovyov Live! and US Tour of Duty in terms of content, and as such to have both terminated on the same day for the same reason is more representative of desired effect as opposed to justifiable cause.

Simply put, YouTube wanted me gone.

The journey toward YouTube termination, however, suggests that YouTube had a larger motive than simply silencing an inconvenient voice. If that was the goal, then the US Tour of Duty channel, would have had the plug pulled shortly after the inaugural episode of “Ask the Inspector,” which premiered in July of 2022, and featured former CIA analyst Larry Johnson as a guest. But YouTube allowed the channel to persist for more than a year, eventually garnering some 63,000 subscribers.

Scott Ritter will discuss this article and answer audience questions on Ep. 90 of Ask the Inspector.

YouTube, I discovered, is all about the numbers. Unless one commits copyright violation, or airs something so egregiously outrageous that the content monitors in YouTube’s ironically named “Trust and Safety Division” have no choice but to take action, most YouTube channels go about their business with no interference from the powers that be in San Bruno, California.

But once you cross a specific threshold in terms of subscribers, and/or a designated sustained rate of viewers, YouTube suddenly takes an interest. The reason—money. Simply put, YouTube makes its money by attracting advertisers who are in turn attracted by viewership. To attract content capable of generating the level of views that would be attractive to mainstream advertisers, YouTube has a monetization incentive where channels that generate large numbers of views are rewarded with money. While most YouTube channels which are monetized receive modest renumeration, some YouTube channels are capable of generating tens of thousands of dollars on YouTube-sourced income every week.

Once you reach a certain monetization potential, you will automatically fall under the watchful eyes of the YouTube “Trust and Safety Division,” which is liberally staffed with not-so-liberal former CIA and FBI employees. The reason for this is that, given the YouTube monetization algorithm, a channel that generates x number of views is automatically used as a platform for advertisement insertion by YouTube—this happens whether the content provider wants it or not (it is also an incentive for YouTube subscribers option to pay money for an “ad free” experience). The problem, however, is that these mainstream advertisers do not want their product associated with messaging considered “controversial” by the mainstream, and since the insertion of the ads is automatic, the YouTube censors must come up with a way to either limit the number of views a channel is recognized as having generated, or by shutting down the channel altogether. YouTube, however, is a business, and if it automatically banned channels which had genuine growth potential (and, as such, advertisement revenue generation capability), then it would not be the multi-billion-dollar corporation it is today.

What follows is an analysis of what I believe is a representative model of how YouTube uses the allure of monetization to compel YouTube content providers to comply with the need to control content in a manner which keeps the corporate advertisers who make YouTube possible happy. First, a YouTube channel which is exhibiting growth potential finds itself being “toyed” with by the boys and girls at the “Trust and Safety Division.” Let’s say, for instance, one was to upload a two-part documentary about Ukrainian President Zelensky (we’ll call it “Agent Zelensky”) which garnered a quarter-million or more views. The trusty censors at the “Trust and Safety Division” will arbitrarily intervene to “age restrict” the video, which limits drastically the number of views (and, by extension, the potential for monetization.)

The channel owner can, of course, submit an appeal, which, based upon experience, is often granted. But the lesson learned here isn’t that one can win an appeal, but rather that one should avoid getting in a position where one needs to appeal. Self-censorship, it seems, is one of the main ways YouTube controls content.

If a channel is deemed to have serious growth potential (remember—more views equals more mainstream advertisement dollars!), then the channel owner will be contacted by “agents” who make use of “talent scouts” who monitor flagged channels for growth potential. If a channel passes muster, then the agent will provide the channel with an opportunity to earn “easy” income, usually by reading a short advertisement blurb at the start of their podcast. While the amount of money generated in this manner is modest, it is—literally—“easy” money, allowing the recipient to be susceptible to notions of even greater income generation, notions the agent reinforces when discussing the income growth potential of a YouTube channel with the owner.

The money is the drug that blinds most YouTubers into ignoring the process that is actually taking place. By leading the channel owner horse to water, the agent fully expects the money-thirsty channel owner to drink, and drink again. It is at this juncture that the “Trust and Safety Division” team interjects again, usually to demonetize the YouTube channel in question. This is a classic baited trap—lure someone in with the promise and realized potential of income generation, promote the idea of unrealized wealth, and then take it all away, leaving the channel owner frustrated and willing to do what it takes to get back on the money train.

And here is where the issue of self-censorship comes in with full force—to get back on the train, the channel owner will have to undergo changes to his or her channel, both in terms of how content is delivered (remember—more viewers!) and what content is allowed to be put on the channel. In our case, the agent listed 10 prohibited subjects, one of which was the Ukrainian conflict.

We balked, they banned.

Putting content on YouTube takes work—a lot of work, if you’re going to do it right. And since money unfortunately does not grow on trees, viable mechanisms of monetization are necessary if the YouTube content provider is going to be in a position to stream quality programming.

But the YouTube model is the antithesis of free speech.

It is controlled speech.

But worse, it is controlled speech where the mechanism of control is disguised through the vehicle of self-censorship, thereby creating the illusion of free speech.

The bottom line is that a successful YouTube channel must adhere to the four corners of content control defined by the “Trust and Safety Division.” This is not, on its own volition, a violation of protected speech, since YouTube is a private company operating outside the protections of the First Amendment.

The problem comes when YouTube, like Twitter before it, allows its internal censors to be influenced by government actors. Twitter has already been shown to have been influenced by FBI agents who, at the behest of the Ukrainian intelligence service, asked that certain Twitter accounts be shut down. Behavioral science suggests that patterns repeat, and as such there is every reason to suspect that YouTube, and other US-based social media platforms, are subjected to similar pressure to censor content by US government personnel and agencies.

While legal challenges are possible (the current exposure of Twitter stands as an example), it takes time and money most YouTube content providers do not have.

There is an alternative course of action, however—Rumble. That’s what Jeff, me, and the Solovyov Live! team have chosen as our platform for continuing both “The Scott Ritter Show” and “Ask the Inspector” (and “Scenes from the Evolution” as well). While the pathway to monetization potential on Rumble is not as clear as it is with YouTube, one thing is for certain—Rumble is, for the moment at least, a free-speech platform. Jeff and I will be free to stream any content so long as it conforms with the law.

This, more than anything, including potential monetization, is what is important to us. “Ask the Inspector” was deemed by a talent scout to be a “million dollar” property. The problem was, to get those million dollars, Jeff and I would have to alter the content of the property to the point that it would be unrecognizable from the original.

We refuse to do this because free speech isn’t for sale.

It is the most American thing we can think of doing, placing principle over profit.

We hope everyone who reads this will join us on Rumble as we take “The Scott Ritter Show” and “Ask the Inspector” (and “Scenes from the Evolution”) into a successful second season, and beyond. We will also be creating special content for paid subscribers on Locals, nothing there is behind a paywall yet.

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*** 

The “Black Continent” of Africa until the end of the eighth decade of the 19^th century was not properly known territory, especially its central parts which have been unknown to the Europeans. The West European powers until the 1880s were acquainted mainly with the African littorals and their immediate hinterland. However, what was inside the continent was not exactly known except for the existence of some tribal state organizations in the form of monarchies settled by traditional hunting people.

Before the beginning of the ninth decade of the 19^th century, only the littoral parts of the continent of Africa were under direct colonial rule and economic exploitation by the West Europeans: the Portuguese were the first colonists of black Africa. However, France was the first West European power to be deeper involved in conquering bigger parts of (North or Arab) Africa as the Ottoman province of Algeria started to be gradually occupied from 1830 (until 1870). In the territory of the West African littoral, there were some small French and British colonies (Senegal, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, Lagos, and Gabon) together with old-established Portuguese colonial territory in Angola. Portugal had as well as in southeastern Africa its big colony of Mozambique up the Zambezi Valley. The Cape colony in southmost Africa at the turn of the 20^th century was under the British colonists who were engaged in a rivalry with the local people of both Orange Free State and Transvaal (the territory northward from the Vaal River – today the land around Pretoria and Johannesburg).

The final colonial partition of Africa by the West Europeans started in 1882 with the British occupation of Egypt and finished in 1912 with the Italian occupation of Libya (Ottoman provinces of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Fezzan).

Before 1882, apart from French Algeria and Portuguese Angola and Mozambique, the West European powers had possessions in Africa only restricted to many trading posts, military stations, and the islands of Zanzibar and Madagascar. However, within the next two decades, the whole continent of Africa became occupied by and partitioned between the West European great powers. The borders between the colonial territories within the continent have been mainly fixed by a ruler and pencil usually in London, Paris, and Berlin.

In around 1900, there were 40 political units in Africa into which the continent was divided. Direct West European rule or control existed in 36 of them. In fact, only Ethiopia, which fought off the Italian colonial attempts in the mid-1880s, and Liberia due to its close financial links with the USA, have been of real independence but not part of the West European colonial empires. In 1912, it was France as the largest beneficiary as controlled nearly 4 million out of Africa’s 11.7 million square miles (in fact, 1/3). French colonies were divided into two big territories: French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa.

One of the focal questions in this matter is: Which factors contributed to such West European imperialistic-colonial politics in Africa (or elsewhere) at the turn of the 20^th century? Actually, there were several crucial ingredients:

• The progress of the successful process of industrialization in West Europe established a greater demand for new natural sources, labor force, and markets.
• Colonization was one of several ways outs to resolve contemporary social tensions within the West European societies (for instance, the idea by Joseph Chamberlain who saw colonization as an outlet).
• The geopolitical rivalries between the West European states became transferred outside of Europe, but in Africa in particular. This, in fact, more precisely meant that very often geopolitical incidents between the West European powers, especially their competing traders, in Africa have been achieving in several cases the status of major international crises which could provoke even pan-European wars.
• Initiatives undertaken by the local West European agents, occurring in rapid succession, set in motion the undignified competition for the territorial possession of Africa. It resulted from the backing given by the metropolitan countries to the uncoordinated activities of their citizens and contract men on the local spots. They, in fact, (like Cecil Rhode, for instance) decided that the most favorite way out of big-scale political-military clashes, either with African political units or with other West European states, was simply to occupy some African land before the others would do the same.

In the western territories of the Black Continent of Africa (southward from the Sahara in the wide territories of Sudan) the French took the focal local initiatives. The crucial was the French army attempting to occupy the territory of the Senegal River towards the upper Niger River.

In fact, France denied in Europe military revenge against Germany (Prussia) for the defeat of 1870 during the French-Prussian War (1890−1891) when after the war the Germans occupied (the German-speaking historical lands) of Alsace and Lorene (Lotharingia). However, France with German approval sought imperial glory in the dusty savannahs south of the Sahara in Africa (the Sudan region).

Nonetheless, such French policy led to the conflict with British imperialism in Gambia and Sierra Leone followed by African states like Samory or al-Hajj Umar. The Anglo-French rivalry existed along the West African littoral in the areas of the Gold Coast (the British penetration started in 1874), Togo (together with the rivalry with Germany), Dahomey, and Yoruba. After the British unilateral decision to invade and occupy Egypt in 1882, French policy toward the UK significantly became deteriorated. Nevertheless, after 1882, there were colonial interventions by other West European states (Germany, Belgium, and Italy) that finally partitioned Africa. Once the partition of the continent started, Africa became colonized within a short time – three decades.

After Henry Morton Stanley’s trans-African journey from East to West in 1874−1877 and especially down the Congo River in Central Africa, the Belgian King Leopold II (1865−1909) took Staley into his personal service. H. M. Stanley in 1879 returned to the region of the Lower Congo River where he laid down the framework of the big private territory as the personal domain of Belgium King Leopold II (Congo Free State) in the basin of the Congo River rich in natural resources. However, both the exploration and political activities of H. M. Stanley stimulated the other West European states to do the same in Africa.

For instance, the Italian de Brazza concluded several deals with the local African tribal leaders, and when he returned to Europe, France took up his claims. French troops from Gabon occupied the territory of French Congo which soon became part of the region of the French Equatorial Africa. Of course, such French behavior immediately provoked responses from the UK and Portugal in the region but due to Germany, this came to nothing. In other words, Berlin bought off French thought of military revenge over the territories lost to Germany during the Franco-German War of 1870−1871 after which Prussia united Germany by allowing France to have free hands in Africa. At the same time, Germany was blackmailing the UK over the British occupation of Egypt in 1882.

United Germany (the Second German Empire) entered the struggle for Africa by occupying lands in four widely separated regions: Togo (between the British and French possessions), the Cameroons in 1884 (between British Nigeria, French Equatorial Africa, and Portuguese Rio Muni), German South West Africa (between British and Portuguese colonies), and German East Africa since 1885 when Dar es Salaam was occupied (between Belgian, British, and Portuguese possessions). Therefore, the German African colonies were like the wedges between the colonies of other West European imperialistic powers. Consequently, both French and German colonial activities in West Africa led London to be more active in the region particularly to secure the territory which later became known as Nigeria (rich in natural oil). However, the far interior of West Africa was left to the French colonists who by the end of the 19^th century swept right across the region of West Sudan (known as French Sudan).

All West European great powers involved in the competition for the partition of Africa had wide-reaching geopolitical and economic designs. For instance, Germany planned to occupy the Portuguese possessions and at least part of the Congo. In such a way, Berlin would create a great and rich empire in West and Central Africa.

Paris had the same imperial ambitions in French West Africa stretching from the Meditteranean Sea in the North up to the Congo River in the South. For the reason to counter French and German penetration deeper into Africa, London pushed its expansionist policies from three directions:

1) British colonists (Cecil Rhodes Company “Pioneer Column” in 1890) from Cape Colony northward through Bechuana territory (later British Bechuanaland) and Orange Free State via Transvaal up to the Lake Tanganyika (establishing provinces of Southern Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia);

2) Imperial British East African Company from Mombasa establishing British East Africa (later Kenya) up to Lake Victoria (Uganda was occupied in 1893; and

3) From Egypt via Sudan up to Gondokoro where they met the British troops from Uganda. Between Egypt and Uganda, it was established Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (Sudan-Anglo-Egyptian Condominium) in 1899.

The idea was to form a continuous strip of British colonial possessions from Alexandria in Egypt to Cape Town in Cape Colony (future South Africa). However, between northern and southern British possessions on this imagined continuous strip existed German East Africa and Belgian Congo. It is important to notice that such different geopolitical and economic designs brought the UK and France face-to-face at Fashoda (today in South Sudan) in 1898 (the Fashoda Incident, September 18^th,) and almost led to direct military clashes and probably war between the two states as both wanted to connect their disparate colonial possessions (French Equatorial Africa with French Somaliland vs British Anglo-Egyptian Sudan with Uganda).

The German colonies in South-East and South-West Africa had a direct impetus to the revival of the Portuguese imperialistic ambitions in the continent. At the same time, the real threat of Afrikaner (South African ethnic group descended predominantly from Duch settlers first arriving at the Cape of Hope in 1652) expansion led to British penetration into the interior of Central Africa up to the German colony of German East Africa. These conquered territories became later known as Rhodesia, Zambia, and Malawi. The driving force behind such British colonial expansionism toward Central Africa was industrialist and politician Cecil Rhodes. Similarly, German colonization in East Africa (Tanganyika or German East Africa) produced a British counter-policy when the UK PM, Lord Salisbury, laid claim to the territories around the Great Lakes (later Uganda) and the intervening territory down to the littoral (British East Africa, later Kenya). After 1882, the British colonial power in Egypt was drawn from that province to intervene in the affairs of Sudan, which had rebelled against Egypt in 1881 under the Islamic religious leader, the Mahdi (Mahdist State in Sudan, 1881−1898).

Simultaneously, French colonial success in West Africa after 1871 (occupation of Gabon in the western Congo, the conquest of the ancient state of Dahomey in 1893, and the drive towards Lake Chad in the three directions) forced the UK to mobilize the resources of the Royal Niger Company for the purpose to occupy the emirates of Nupe and Ilorin, and to go to several military clashes with both the French colonial forces and local African political units within its trading zone. This French-British colonial tension reached its peak in 1898, when the French Commandant Marchand, after a two-year of marching from Gabon, almost clashed with the British troops at Fashoda on the White Nile River. London and Paris on this occasion only just averted open war.

After the British occupation of Egypt in 1882, the partition of Africa, which started as a fairly peaceful process, now began to cause more and more bloodshed. The Italians invaded Ethiopia from Italian Somalia (occupied in 1889−1892) and Eritrea in 1895 but the Ethiopian troops inflicted a heavy defeat on the Italians at Adowa in 1896. In 1898−1899, around 20.000 Sudanese died during the British occupation of the Mahdist State. Similarly, the British settler troops led by Cecil Rhode have been engaged in serious armed clashes with Matabele and Mashona as they moved northward from Cape Colony. In general, the West European white expedition-colonial troops, especially the British, came usually to rely increasingly on the repeating rifle (repeater) and the Maxim gun (constructed in 1884).

The colonial conflict in South Africa reached its peak during the 1899−1902 Boer War in which London with great difficulty finally won control of the territory of Transvaal with rich gold mines (discovered in 1886) and occupied the Afrikaner republics. It was in 1896 when the military clashes started with the unsuccessful Jameson Raid which significantly destroyed the personal political influence of Cecil Rhodes but not his policy of colonization as it was supported and continued by Chamberlain (the Colonial Secretary of the UK) and Milner (the High Commissioner in Cape Town). As a matter of fact, the African people on the one hand in many cases bitterly have been opposing the colonial policies of the West European great powers but on the other hand, they never became united for the purpose to offer stronger resistance being at the same time easily dealt with piecemeal.

At the turn of the 20^th century, among a few African states still having a loose independence, Libya became invaded by Italy in 1911 (the Italo-Ottoman War of 1911−1912), and Morocco survived until 1912 before becoming divided between France and Spain (Spanish Sahara, today West Sahara including Spanish colony of Rio de Oro established 1885). In the rest of Africa, except Ethiopia and Liberia, some of the West European colonial flags were flying.

In conclusion, despite the rapidity and apparent ease of the final partition, almost everywhere West European colonizers met resistance from the local population to their brutal invasion of the “Black Continent” from 1882 to 1912. However, much of the resistance was dealt with piecemeal and often using other African tribes as allies but some resistance was much more serious, such as that of Samori to the French colonizers in West Africa in 1887−1896 while Ethiopia and Liberia experienced independence. Nevertheless, in all successful colonization cases, the policy of West Europeans was to divide and rule (divide et impera). The West Europeans, however, had an overwhelming technical superiority of military hardware.

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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.

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It’s been weeks since we looked into the adventures of the Biden administration’s foreign policy cluster, led by Tony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, and Victoria Nuland. How has the trio of war hawks spent the summer?

Sullivan, the national security adviser, recently brought an American delegation to the second international peace summit earlier this month at Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. The summit was led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, who in June announced a merger between his state-backed golf tour and the PGA. Four years earlier MBS was accused of ordering the assassination and dismemberment of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, for perceived disloyalty to the state.

As unlikely as it sounds, there was such a peace summit and its stars did include MBS, Sullivan, and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. What was missing was a representative of Russia, which was not invited to the summit. It included just a handful of heads of state from the fewer than fifty nations that sent delegates. The conference lasted two days, and attracted what could only be described as little international attention. 

Reuters reported that Zelensky’s goal was to get international support for “the principles” that that he will consider as a basis for the settlement of the war, including “the withdrawal of all Russian troops and the return of all Ukrainian territory.” Russia’s formal response to the non-event came not from President Vladimir Putin but from Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Ryabkov. He called the summit “a reflection of the West’s attempt to continue futile, doomed efforts” to mobilize the Global South behind Zelensky. 

India and China both sent delegations to the session, perhaps drawn to Saudi Arabia for its immense oil reserves. One Indian academic observer dismissed the event as achieving little more than “good advertising for MBS’s convening power within the Global South; the kingdom’s positioning in the same; and perhaps more narrowly, aiding American efforts to build consensus by making sure China attends the meeting with . . . Jake Sullivan in the same room.” 

Meanwhile, far away on the battlefield in Ukraine, Russia continued to thwart Zelensky’s ongoing counteroffensive. I asked an American intelligence official why it was Sullivan who emerged from the Biden administration’s foreign policy circle to preside over the inconsequential conference in Saudi Arabia.

“Jeddah was Sullivan’s baby,” the official said. “He planned it to be Biden’s equivalent of [President Woodrow] Wilson’s Versailles. The grand alliance of the free world meeting in a victory celebration after the humiliating defeat of the hated foe to determine the shape of nations for the next generation. Fame and Glory. Promotion and re-election. The jewel in the crown was to be Zelensky’s achievement of Putin’s unconditional surrender after the lightning spring offensive. They were even planning a Nuremberg type trial at the world court, with Jake as our representative. Just one more fuck-up, but who is counting? Forty nations showed up, all but six looking for free food after the Odessa shutdown”—a reference to Putin’s curtailing of Ukrainian wheat shipments in response to Zelensky’s renewed attacks on the bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland. 

Enough about Sullivan. Let us now turn to Victoria Nuland, an architect of the 2014 overthrow of the pro-Russian government in Ukraine, one of the American moves that led us to where we are, though it was Putin who initiated the horrid current war. The ultra-hawkish Nuland was promoted early this summer by Biden, over the heated objections of many in the State Department, to be the acting deputy secretary of state. She has not been formally nominated as the deputy for fear that her nomination would lead to a hellish fight in the Senate. 

It was Nuland who was sent last week to see what could be salvaged after a coup led to the overthrow of a pro-Western government in Niger, one of a group of former French colonies in West Africa that have remained in the French sphere of influence. President Mohamed Bazoum, who was democratically elected, was tossed out of office by a junta led by the head of his presidential guard, General Abdourahmane Tchiani. The general suspended the constitution and jailed potential political opponents. Five other military officers were named to his cabinet. All of this generated enormous public support on the streets in Niamey, Niger’s capital—enough support to discourage outside Western intervention.

There were grim reports in the Western press that initially viewed the upheaval in East-West terms: some of the supporters of the coup were carrying Russian flags as they marched in the streets. The New York Times saw the coup as a blow to the main US ally in the region, Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who controls vast oil and gas reserves. Tinubu threatened the new government in Niger with military action unless they returned power to Bazoum. He set a deadline that passed without any outside intervention. The revolution in Niger was not seen by those living in the region in east-west terms but as a long needed rejection of long-standing French economic and political control. It is a scenario that may be repeated again and again throughout the French-dominated Sahel nations in sub-Saharan Africa.

Click here to read the full article.

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Featured image: Blinken at the U.S. embassy in Ukraine, Sept. 8. Credit: @SecBlinken

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The atomic bomb created the conditions of contingent catastrophe, forever placing the world on the precipice of existential doom. But in doing so, it created a philosophy of acceptable cruelty, worthy extinction, legitimate extermination. The scenarios for such programs of existential realisation proved endless. Entire departments, schools of thought, and think tanks were dedicated to the absurdly criminal notion that atomic warfare could be tenable for the mere reason that someone (or some people) might survive. Despite the relentless march of civil society against nuclear weapons, such insidious thinking persists with a certain obstinate lunacy.

It only takes a brief sojourn into the previous literature of the nuke nutters to realise how appealing such thinking has proven to be. But it had its challenges. John Hersey proved threatening with his 1946 New Yorker spectacular “Hiroshima”, vivifying the horrors arising from the atomic bombing of the Japanese city through the eyes of a number of survivors. In February 1947, former Secretary of War Henry Stimson shot a countering proposition in Harper’s, thereby attempting to normalise a spectacularly vicious weapon in terms of necessity and function; the use of the bombs against Japan saved lives, as any invasion would have cost “over a million casualties, to American forces alone.” The Allies, he surmised, “would be faced with the enormous task of destroying an armed force of five million men and five thousand suicide aircraft, belonging to a race which had already amply demonstrated its ability to fight literally to the death.”

Inadvertent as it was, the Stimson rationale for justifying theatrical never-to-be-repeated mass murder to prevent mass murder fell into the bloodstream of popular strategic thinking. Albert Wohlstetter’s The Delicate Balance of Terror chews over the grim details of acceptable extermination, wondering about the meaning of extinction and whether the word means what it’s meant to, notably in the context of nuclear war. “Would not a general thermonuclear war mean ‘extinction; for the aggressor as well as the defender? ‘Extinction’ is a state that badly needs analysis.” Wohlstetter goes on to make a false comparison, citing 20 million Soviet deaths in non-atomic conflict during the Second World War as an example of astonishing resilience: the country, in short, recovered “extremely well from the catastrophe.”

Resilience becomes part of the semantics of contemplated, and acceptable mass homicide. Emphasis is placed on the bounce-back factor, the ability to recover, even in the face of such weapons.  These were themes that continued to feature. The 1958 report of the National Security Council’s Net Evaluation Subcommittee pondered what might arise from a Soviet attack in 1961 involving 553 nuclear weapons with a total yield exceeding 2,000 megatons. The conclusion: 50 million Americans would perish in the conflagration, with nine million left sick or injured. The Sino-Soviet bloc would duly receive retaliatory attacks that would kill 71 million people. A month later, a further 196 million would die. In such macabre calculations, the authors of the report could still breezily conclude that “[t]he balance of strength would be on the side of the United States.”

Modern nuclear strategy, in terms of such normalised, clinical lunacy, continues to find form in the tolerance of tactical weapons and modernised arsenals. To be tactical is to be somehow bijou, cute, and contained, accepting mass murder under the guise of moderation and variation. One can be bad, but bad within limits. Such lethal wonders are described, according to a number of views assembled in The New York Times, as “much less destructive” in nature, with “variable explosive yields that could be dialed up or down depending on the military situation.”

The journal Nature prefers a grimmer assessment, suggesting the ultimate calamity of firestorms, excessive soot in the atmosphere, disruption of food production systems, the contamination of soil and water supplies, nuclear winter, and broader climatic catastrophe.

Some of these views are teasingly touched on in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, a three-hour cross narrative jumble boisterously expansive and noisy (the music refuses to leave you alone, bruising the senses). While the idea of harnessing an exceptional, exterminating power haunts the scientific community, the Manhattan Project is ultimately functional: developing the atom for military purposes before Hitler does. Once developed, the German side of the equation becomes irrelevant. The urgent quest for creating the atomic weapon becomes the basis for using it. Once left to politics and military strategy, such weapons are normalised, even relativised as simply other instruments in inflicting destruction. Oppenheimer leaves much room to that lunatic creed, though somehow grants the chief scientist moral absolution.

This is a tough proposition, given Oppenheimer’s membership of the Scientific Panel of the Interim Committee that would, eventually, convince President Harry Truman to use the bombs. In their June 16, 1945 recommendations, Oppenheimer, along with Enrico Fermi, Arthur H. Compton and Ernest O. Lawrence, acknowledged dissenting scientific opinions preferring “a purely technical demonstration to that of a purely military application best designed to induce surrender.” The scientific panel proved unequivocal: it could “propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”

In the film, those showing preference for a purely technical demonstration are given the briefest of airings. Leó Szilárd’s petition arguing against a military use “at least not until the terms which will be imposed after the war on Japan were made public in detail and Japan were given an opportunity to surrender” makes a short and sharp appearance, only to vanish. As Seiji Yamada writes, that petition led a short, charmed life, first circulated in the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago, only to make its way to Edward Teller at Los Alamos, who then turned it over to Oppenheimer. The petition was, in turn, surrendered to the Manhattan Project’s chief overseer, General Leslie Groves, who “stamped it ‘classified’ and put it in a safe. It therefore never reached Truman.”

Nolan depicts the relativisation argument in some detail – one that justifies mass death in the name of technical prowess – during an interrogation by US circuit judge Roger Robb, appointed as special counsel during the 1954 security hearing against Oppenheimer. In the relevant scene, Robb wishes to trap the hapless scientist for his opposition to creating a weapon of even greater murderous power than the fission devices used against Japan. Why oppose the thermonuclear option, prods the special counsel, given your support for the atomic one? And why did he not oppose the remorseless firebombing raids of Tokyo, conducted by conventional weapons?

Nolan also has the vengeful Lewis Strauss, the two-term chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission, moan that Oppenheimer is the less than saintly figure who managed to get away, ethically, with his atomic exploits while moralising about the relentless march about ever more destructive creations. In that sentiment, the Machiavellian ambition monger has a point: the genie, once out, was never going to be put back in.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University.He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

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July 9, 2023 – Sam and Colby (10 million subscribers) – 26 year old Colby Brock was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

July 3, 2023 – 37 year old Grace Helbig (2.6 million subscribers) Reveals She’s Battling Breast Cancer at 37 – she was diagnosed with Stage 2A Triple-Positive Breast cancer.

Aug. 10, 2023 – Mexican TikTok Star, 25 year old Emilio Betancourt (3.2 million TikTok followers) announced he had cancer recurrence (Osteosarcoma) with no treatment options.

May 26, 2023 – Buenos Aires, Argentina – 33 year old Aylen Milla (1 million Instagram followers) was diagnosed with very aggressive breast cancer.

May 19, 2023 – vlogbrothers (3.74 million subscribers) – with John Green and Hank Green. 43 year old Hank was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma. He promoted COVID-19 vaccines in 2021.

May 16, 2023 – Mermaid Zelda (152k subscribers) was diagnosed with lymphoma.

May 2023 – TikTok star Anthony Carrodo (500K TikTok followers) was diagnosed with lymphoma (DLBCL).

April 22, 2023 – Karina Reske (30.5k subscribers) was diagnosed with breast cancer recurrence and metastasis. She was in remission for 5 years.

April 21, 2023 – Lizzy Musi Racing (66.2K subscribers) – was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer.

April 12, 2023 – Jessica Brock (63.7k subscribers) was diagnosed with three ovarian tumors up to 16cm, one was a malignant teratoma.

March 4, 2023 – 21 year old Kyedae Shymko (1.1 million Instagram followers, 2.2 million Twitch followers), was diagnosed with Leukemia (AML).

Feb. 4, 2023 – 39 year old Chad Wild Clay (14.7 million Youtube subscribers, 1 million Instagram followers) – was diagnosed with extremely rare myxopapillary ependymoma (spinal cancer).

Jan. 26, 2023 – Tiktok Influencer “Enkyboys” Randy Gonzalez (15.7 million TikTok followers, 2 million Instagram followers) announced in April 2022 he was diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon cancer. He was given 3 to 5 years to live by his doctors, he died 8 months later.

Nov. 22, 2022 – 24 year old Andrea Barba (11.9k subscribers) – was diagnosed with Gastric Cancer (Stage 1B).

Jul. 2022 – 33 year old Jenny Appleford (114k subscribers) was diagnosed with Stage 3 Lung cancer in March 2021 that has progressed rapidly to Stage 4 metastatic to brain.

Jun. 30, 2022 – 23 year old Minecraft Youtuber Technoblade (16.5 million subscribers) died of metastatic sarcoma after being diagnosed in Aug. 2021.

Jun. 19, 2022 – 36 year old Jessica Krock (Krocks in the Kitchen, 103k subscribers) – was diagnosed with Stage 3 Neuroendocrine carcinoma of the left ovary. Click here.

May 25, 2022 – Austin, TX – 39 year old Nasreen Shahi is a popular fashion blogger (477k Instagram followers) who was diagnosed with breast cancer late in 2021. Click here.

Apr. 21, 2022 – Tess Christine (2.3 million subscribers) was diagnosed with breast cancer in March 2022. Click here.

Jan. 23, 2022 – Eamon & Bec (1.23 million subscribers) – was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in Dec. 2021. Click here.

Nov. 2021 – Stephanie Williams, Registered Nurse and TikToker (19K followers) was diagnosed with Stage 3 Lung cancer. Click here.

My Take… 

COVID-19 mRNA vaccinated young people are coming down with turbo cancers. There are so many for me to report, that I have to split up the cases over several substack articles.

The most aggressive turbo cancers are leukemia, lymphoma and glioblastoma (brain). Of these, lymphoma is the most common. Leukemia kills the fastest (in some cases within hours of diagnosis).

Then I’m seeing late stage breast, lung and colon cancers (most commonly). These are characterized by an “accelerated course”, as in the case of Randy Gonzalez with Stage 4 colon cancer where his doctors told him he had 2-5 years to live but he died in 8 months.

These 21 social media stars have over 75 million subscribers and followers between them and reach 100s of millions of people. If even just a few of them spoke up, they could blow up the COVID-19 vaccine propaganda and narrative.

The tragedy is that the very platforms they are famous on: Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, do not allow ANY discussion of COVID-19 vaccine dangers & injuries.

And since not a single one of the 20 social media influencers have spoken up about the dangers of COVID-19 vaccines, I have to assume that they are completely unaware of the possible link.

That means they cannot, and will not, get any kind of cancer treatment option that could save or prolong their lives. And this is tragic.

I wanted to provide these videos, where they share their diagnosis in their own words. Some of these videos are difficult to watch.

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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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There are many underreported or even un-reported stories about Maui wildfires and the aftermath at Lahaina, as we have come to expect of mainstream media. A video has surfaced by the author of the book The Deep State Encyclopaedia, Really Graceful, that aims to give a voice to the Maui residents in their eyewitness accounts and also reveals facts that the media has buried.

Below is a transcript of that video which has been written verbatim:

The Maui Fires

On August 8th, 2023, the historic town of Lahaina on the island of Maui a popular tourist spot was destroyed by a fire that seemingly came out of nowhere. As of Monday morning August 14th, the death toll sits at 96.

An estimated 2200 Acres have been burned, over 2 000 buildings have been reduced to Ash, and of those buildings, 86 percent of them were residential homes. The investigation is ongoing, loved ones are still missing but alongside the rubble in ruin questions remain.

In this video, my goal is to give a voice to Maui residents in their eyewitness accounts, highlight key facts that have been completely buried, provide relevant historical context, and ultimately share with you what the media won’t tell you about the Maui fires.

The Kingdom of Hawaii

Not so long ago the band of islands we call Hawaii was a sovereign state known as the Kingdom of Hawaii because of its key location in the Pacific Ocean and its fertile ground, Hawaii was historically a prized place for trade.  However, the kingdom fell when the United States gobbled it up under the whole notion of manifest destiny.

With a Little Help from the U.S. government, a group of American and European businessmen overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy.

You see the Hawaiian Islands offered a key position for a U.S. military base and would Aid in the development of the U.S. as a global superpower and thus the final Queen of the Kingdom of Hawaii was deposed in 1893.

From then on Hawaii played a key role in the world stage. Just think about it the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which occurred on December 7th, 1941, it had a significant effect on the United States and was crucial in influencing the government’s decision to enter World War II.   It was also key in rallying the emotional support for war from U.S. troops and civilians alike.

Nearly a century later there is open discourse on the idea that President Roosevelt either let it happen, as in, he had poor knowledge of Pearl Harbor and did nothing, or he caused it to happen, you know the same conversation we have about George W bush.

Alas Americans would not and could not give their consent to war without a reason they just needed to be given one problem-reaction solution.

Paradise Lost

At 11 A.M on August 4th, 2023, it was reported by satellites that a handful of small fires had started on Maui around the same time.

No cause has officially been given and this is a key detail that I just want to emphasize, it wasn’t just one fire that was started, but several at once.

On Tuesday Morning August 8^th Lahaina, the kingdom of Hawaii’s Capital City began to witness wildfires.

Lahaina is a small town located in Maui and in the Hawaiian language, Lahaina means cruel or merciless Sun.

Survivors of the fire reported that there were no sirens, or warnings when the fire started, only strong winds that brought distant fire into the residential areas within minutes.

According to emergency officials Maui’s warning sirens didn’t sound as devastating wildfires approach as they should have. On the island of Maui, there are 80 outdoor sirens to alert residents of tsunamis and other natural disasters, but those Sirens were totally silent as people burned to death.

According to investigators, quote “nobody at the state and nobody at the county attempted to activate those Sirens based on our records” end quote.  Emergency alert texts were reportedly sent out but due to the rate at which these fires spread. the towers were down, the power lines were down, and people weren’t receiving those alerts on their phones or TVs, all of which contributed to the chaos.

The fires were so intense and spread so rapidly that the U.S. Coast Guard saved over 50 individuals after some people fled the fire by jumping into the Pacific Ocean.   The fires were still active the following day and locals reported being barred off from bringing supplies to the affected areas just to even search for their loved ones and render aid.

And this is another weird strange detail, the Incident Commander of the 2017 Las Vegas country music mass shooting, one of the biggest cover-ups in U.S history just happens to be Maui’s police chief John Pelletier who said the following about the fires:

“Find these, you know, our family and our friends. The Remains we’re finding is through a fire that melted metal we know we’ve got to go quick but we got to do it right so when we pick up the remains and they fall apart. and so when you have 200 people running through the scene yesterday and some of you that’s what you’re stepping on I don’t know how much more you want me to describe it.”

Hawaii governor Josh Green said the town looked like a bomb had been dropped and he wasted no time blaming the fires on climate change. Of course, mainstream media reigned with this narrative and has blamed humans for living and vacationing in Maui for the wildfires, which brings us into a whole other conversation entirely, about who is actually responsible for the wildfires. in Maui?

According to some local’s bad government and poor land management is to blame as dry non-native, invasive grasses, weren’t properly cleared in previous years which served as perfect tender under the right conditions, strong winds, and drought,   and I want you to remember what we talked about, earlier satellites picked up all these flyers across the island igniting around the same time, same day, the morning of August 4th. It wasn’t just one fire, it was multiple fires across Maui and I’m not trying to interject my opinion when I’m just giving you the facts, but that in particular sticks out to me.  I find it weird.

So, of course, there’s already a wrongful death lawsuit brewing, and quote “legal teams from Watskara Singleton Schreiber in France Law Group firms have all independently reached the conclusion that Hawaiian Electric’s compromised infrastructure served as the ignition source for the Inferno” end quote.

Clean Energy and The WEF

I just want to point out that according to the World Economic Forum in an article that they published in 2018, Hawaii plans to be the first U.S. state to run entirely on clean energy, with clean energy being defined as solar wind biomass and geothermal green power.

And after someone sent me that article I was reading up on how our current power grid will stand up to the clean energy goals of the future and basically, the corporations are lobbying for our entire power grid to be replaced.

Blaming the Electric Companies

So, if you fault Hawaiian Electric, sue them for all their worth, put them out of business, who replaces them? Will it be whoever is going to bring forth the goals of Agenda 2030 in the world economic Forum?

So, attorneys are blaming the electric company, probably because the electric company has the deepest pocket, the governor is blaming climate change, and other people are blaming land mismanagement, while others are whispering about directed energy weapons.

I know I never talk about directed energy weapons, and you all know this not because I deny their existence, but it’s like conspiracy quicksand over here.

Directed Energy Weapons

It’s too easy for people to dismiss because fires can be attributed to many things, but there is just this glaring coincidence one cannot overlook for this particular fire.  AFRL’s Directed Energy Directorate is the Department of the air force center of expertise for directed energy and Optical Technologies. (Directed Energy – AF)

They specialize in directed energy weapons that harness the power of the electromagnetic spectrum to enable Airmen to effectively and affordably strike critical targets all at the speed of light, according to their website.

The AFRL Directed Energy Directorate operates two major telescope sites that are used to Advanced SSA Technologies, one of these sites is located on the Kirkland Air Force Base in New Mexico, the other site is located on, you’ll never guess, the other site is located on Maui. The Maui site is called the Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing Site (observatory).

So, let’s go down the list a little logical little assessment here, do direct energy weapons exist that can cause wildfires? According to U.S government websites, yes.

Does the US government have the ability to use those resources according to the US Government website, yes.

If the US government has this tool, does it mean other countries have this tool, could they use it on the U.S.? Theoretically yes.

Would wildfires sparked by direct energy weapons serve their Hegelian dialectic of problem, reaction, solution, you know, policy changes and narrative shifts in sustainable development goals and whatnot? Sure.

Can we prove that they used a directed energy weapon and that it was the US government who used it? personally, I’m going to say not at this moment, no, we can’t prove it, but what I will say is that if I were on the ground in Maui and I had a basic understanding of local politics and procedures, and I decided to dig deeper on this story, I would probably want to know who fled the wildfires before anyone else.

Million Dollar Homes

Who from government or high society was evacuated before the traffic jams and all the chaos started and I would also want to watch who benefits from the destruction.

The average residential home in Maui is just at the median price of 1.2 million, dollars can insurance companies afford to rebuild thousands of homes in this area?

Can families who didn’t have homeowners insurance afford to rebuild their homes? and businesses with the rapid inflation we’ve experienced over the past couple of years?

The cost of building has increased substantially, what will insurance cover? because I’m imagining a scenario where residents are left with land, with no means to rebuild, and nowhere to live in the interim, and yeah that would make it hard to say no to offers on your property.

Video excerpts are played from:   @GEOFFCYGNUS who says:

“You know, there have been reports of looting and civil unrest. I mean I’ve saw you know a few kind of rough-looking people when I was down here, but I mean nothing happened, but it’s, it might be a good idea to stay out of here for the time being.”

And you can see over there, you know there was a multi-million dollar beachfront houses were lost, uh you know, I mean, I know every house on Maui nowadays is, almost every house is going to be over a million bucks. 

Lack of Information

But all of my neighbours and I are interested in what the news actually is because we don’t have access to the internet, not cellular, not cable internet. We don’t have a TV., we do have the radio, but for whatever reason the radio out here continues to just mainly play music. I’ve heard very, very few broadcasts of news and I don’t know if that’s just my timing of listening to it. but there’s really been very little information.” 

And also @MRAINOKEA who says:

“I live on Maui, the media is lying and or covering up the extent of the damage and the death count. I personally know people that are telling me that death and destruction is way worse than we’re being told. I am witnessing the cover-up by the media first-hand.”

So”, asks, Really Graceful “My final question that the media would never ask is, are we witnessing a land grab at buyer sale prices in the future?” What do you think internet friends?”

Below is the original video.

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Featured image is from The Expose

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“This is slavery, not to speak one’s thoughts.” – Euripides, The Phoenician Women

Some time ago on a Sunday evening when my wife and I had just sat down to dinner, our phone rang.  Since I didn’t recognize the phone number and it was dinnertime, I hesitated to answer it, but for some chance reason I did. The voice on the other end was agitated, intense, and asked for me.

Could he visit immediately because he had urgent news for me? he asked. He told me his name, one I was not familiar with, and said he was a big fan of my book, Seeking Truth in A Country of Lies—that he had read it numerous times. He wondered how I knew so much about the workings of what we might call the deep state, the power elite, the intelligence/moneyed class connections, the assassinations of JFK, RFK, et al. He had also read a newspaper Op Ed I had written about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and wished to talk to me about that as well. He said he had a very important story to tell me. The urgency in his voice was palpable.

Naturally I was wary, so I put him off for a few days. But New England is a relatively small area, the home to so many of the country’s ultra-wealthy families and the traditional Blue Blood ruling power structure, and the little bit he had told me about himself intrigued me. So a few days later I travelled to meet him where he lived, not wanting to open myself to an unknown visitor to my home. On the way I realized that his last name did ring a bell and it was one connected to important U.S. history of the 1960s.  For reasons of privacy, I will not disclose his name.

Call him Mr. Blue.

This is out of the blue,
In the wink of an eye.
No conspiracy that I know of,
Though something on that order
Is not impossible. Between me
And you I would say it flows.
No sense in telling them
What we are up to, or why.
We don’t know ourselves, do we?
Who cares, the knowing is overrated.
What is this, school we are still in,
0r haven’t we graduated to the world
Of living? Out of the blue,
In the wink of an eye,
Long before we know it,
But not after, never after.

We arranged to meet in a café, but when we did, he asked to converse away from the cafe on a bench in the open air instead.  The first thing he said to me was that he was not CIA. I took that in two ways: he was and he wasn’t. But I said little and listened to his story, even while questioning myself for agreeing to meet a stranger after such a bizarre phone call. I was glad not to be sitting over cups of coffee.

He began by telling me about his Blue Blood family heritage, how his family was connected to all the prominent wealthy families whose names are very familiar to many people: the Forbes, Morgans, Choates, Rockefellers, et.al., an index of The Social Register of old money and high society well-connected to all the levers of political and economic power. Primarily based in the northeastern United States, their tentacles stretch around the world because of their power and influence. They attend Yale, Harvard, Princeton and the elite New England prep schools.  They have long held important positions in the media, government, and Wall Street. In short, his family was part of what C. Wright Mills termed “the power elite,” and as he made clear, he and the children of these families were brought up to assume they were born to make the major decisions for the country.  To rule.

But Mr. Blue said he always felt like an outsider even while being an insider in this family nexus.  He seemed burdened with guilt for something, and as he told a long story I became a bit impatient waiting for the crux of the pressing news he wanted to convey to me.  But I listened silently.

He told me about some of what he has done over the decades, which was good work trying to repair the damage caused by major corporations.  It seemed to me he did this as a way of atoning for his family’s sins.  I would interrupt him from time to time to ask a point of clarification about some connection between the people he mentioned and their links to U.S. government agencies or the well-known media people connected to his family.  He was very forthright in his answers.  I grew to trust him the more he talked.

After about an hour, I asked him to please tell me the urgent news he had phoned about. It concerned the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. He said he told RFK, Jr. decades ago that the CIA killed his father. This, he said, he learned two days after the assassination from a relative who was a CIA officer.  This relative said to him in person, “We knew.” When I asked him what that meant, he told me it meant that the CIA had killed Senator Kennedy. Then he traced this relative’s connections through the military-intelligence-industrial-political-wealth complex and how it all wound through his family’s history and the prominent families he was connected to. He named many names, including the CIA relative. I wasn’t surprised by all the  interconnections, for they confirmed what I already knew about the upper echelons of power and money. But this was the first time that an insider told me personally, and I kept marveling at their extent and how the names were connected to key events in U.S. history, particularly those involving the intelligence agencies.

We were sitting in a town deeply steeped in the famous names and historic mansions of the old money elites, and as he talked, I kept drawing on my knowledge of these people, which was not just academic but based of personal experience.  We were sitting in the heart of the place where these traditional ruling elites congregated and socialized.

In another similar New England town years before, I had heard endless stories told to me by the famous theologian Reinhold Niebuhr’s widow, Ursula Niebuhr, who was a big name dropper, and liked to point up all the Niebuhrs’ elite connections. (Niebuhr was the most famous U.S. theologian of the 20^thcentury; his photo appeared on the cover of Time magazine; he influenced politicians of many stripes; was quoted approvingly and often by Barack Obama and even John McCain; in short, he was the establishment’s God-man during the Cold War and a theological underpinning for the neoliberal warfare state).  She would regularly note how so-and so, her friend and local resident (usually these people had their massive summer homes in addition to city residences) – e.g. Adolph Berle, an intelligence officer in WW I, a member of FDR’s original Brain Trust, Ambassador, Columbia law professor, power broker involved in above and below board foreign intrigue, Cold Warrior – did this and that, etc. 

For some reason she shared with me much of her inside knowledge of her elite “friends” as if I shared her values, which I didn’t.  It must have been my theological background. And I guess playing dumb helped.  But I listened—and learned in doing so—that people will tell you many things you may or may not want to hear if they think you are receptive.  Her stories about some of the most famous people of the 20^th century – Einstein, T.S. Eliot, her Princeton associates, et al., always referred to by their first names – told me much about the workings of the power elites.  Sometimes the stories were weirdly funny if not revealing of something else.

At lunch with her son Christopher one day, she told me about her “friend” (all the famous people were “friends”) the famous German-American psychoanalyst Erik Erikson.  She said he encouraged her husband Reinhold to stop smoking cigarettes by turning to Danish cigarillos.  She quoted him as saying: “Remember what Freud said, Reinhold: ‘It’s been a long time since I had something hot and wet between my lips.’”  I was taken aback by this seventy-five year-old woman saying this, knowing as I did that Freud smoked cigars his whole life.

But it was typical of a type of double entendre that she often gave about her elite associates that opened my eyes to the inner workings of a social class I was not familiar with.  I took note of all of it and drew connections between various organizations these elites were involved with, many of which at first blush one would not think were involved in their power operations, such as conservation and nature groups, organizations allegedly formed to fight corporate misdeeds, etc.  For decades after, I have come to see more connections than seemed possible, and many in a small geographic area but all connected to the upper class elites and their control of land, resources, and media outlets.

Mr. Blue confirmed all this and more.  He told me about the Cold War bomb shelters under the mansions of his and other wealthy families, the connections between the CIA and corporations, how those seen as the “good guys” were really working for the bad guys, that CIA and Mossad operatives would contact him under the assumption he was on their side, the seamless socializing between all the elite families with so many names and places connected to operations of “deep state” operators – the stuff I have been researching for years and the subject of much of my recent book.  Mr. Blue corroborated  for me the essence of what I had discovered through my own work.   And as I told him, I did it by studying, researching, and listening, something anyone could do if so inclined.

Weeks after our first meeting, Mr. Blue agreed to meet again, this time together with me and a documentary filmmaker.  He told all the same stories, elaborating on many of them and adding others.  He was loose and easy and we talked for nearly five hours.  At one point, when I asked him to repeat what he had told me weeks before about his CIA relative and what that relative meant by the phrase “We knew” about the RFK assassination, and Mr. Blue had then told me that he meant that the CIA had killed Kennedy, he jumped to say, “I never said that.”  This denial startled me.  But he had said it.  After our initial conversation, I had written his exact words in my notes on my drive home.  And he had also said that he told RFK, Jr. that the CIA killed his father.  This was the only time during our long conversation that he grew very agitated.

This was obviously the one revelation that scared him among all the other stories he shared.  I understand his fear.  But time is relentless; we run out of it.  There comes that day when it is too late to find your public tongue.  It is why he remains Mr. Blue, an anonymous good man caught in a family history for which he has tried to atone.  An outsider on the inside still, calling to be heard by another person, in the wink of an eye, out of the blue.

Perhaps someday he will tell the world.

*

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

Edward Curtin is a prominent author, researcher and sociologist based in Western Massachusetts. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). 

Why Peace Talks, but No Peace?

By Ted Snider, August 18, 2023

Rarely mentioned in current commentaries on the war in Ukraine, in the early weeks that followed the February 24, 2022, Russian invasion, Russia and Ukraine engaged in three separate and significant attempts to negotiate a peaceful settlement. Those negotiations had several important things in common. 

Ban on Affirmative Action Part of Broader Wave of Racism in Education

By Abayomi Azikiwe, August 21, 2023

When the conservative-dominated United States Supreme Court on June 29 ruled 6-3 that any program implemented in a higher educational setting which facilitates racial diversity and inclusion was a violation of the Constitution, the decision did not surprise many within the African American community.

Pilot Deaths: Flight from Nagpur to Pune, India, Collapsed at the Boarding Gate, Died in Hospital

By Dr. William Makis, August 19, 2023

On Wednesday, a senior pilot with Qatar Airways, who was flying from Delhi to Doha as a passenger, fell in on board and died. The flight QR579 was diverted to Dubai following the medical emergency. The pilot had earlier worked with Alliance Air and SpikeJet.

The COVID “Vaccine”: A Bioweapon Disguised as a Medical Cure?

By Prof. Anthony J. Hall, August 19, 2023

For over two years now we have been subject to an unprecedented scheme of mass injection. The contents of the shots pretend to provide a cure for the contagion said to be caused by a supposedly “novel” coronavirus.

“Fake Sovereignty” of the Republic of Srpska under UN-NATO Colonial Jurisdiction since the 1995 “Dayton Peace Agreement”

By Stephen Karganovic, August 19, 2023

Constitutional law professor from Banja Luka, Republic of Srpska, Milan Blagojević, writing in a column published on 13 August warns that the colonial authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina may soon issue an arrest warrant for Republic of Srpska president Milorad Dodik. According to the peace agreement signed in 1995, the Republic of Srpska is a self-governed entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Gig Economy Didn’t Exist During the Great Depression

By Prof. Alexandrea J. Ravenelle and Liv Walton, August 19, 2023

Back in 1929 when the market crashed and the Great Depression began, Uber, TaskRabbit, and the gig economy were almost a century in the future. So why are the laws we use to protect the workers who power those businesses unchanged from 100 years ago? As we learned with startling clarity during the unprecedented economic upheaval of the pandemic, our social safety net legislation is divorced from how Americans on the margins survive today.

The Demolition of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. “The Devil’s Trick”

By Mark H. Gaffney, August 19, 2023

As we approach the 22nd anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, more than enough evidence exists to draw reasonable conclusions about what happened that day and who was responsible. Most of the basic facts have been known for years, though unfortunately have not been readily available to the general public.

Future Shock: Gearing Up for Global Heating While Our Sun and Earth Cool

By Hildegard Bechler, August 19, 2023

Two causes of today’s weather extremes are man-made: weather war, and its public face and false flag, geoengineering. We can stop these crimes against humanity. We can’t affect the third cause: the Sun cycle shifting from maximum to minimum must be borne; yet it is censored on the internet and absent from the mainstream.

Missing in ‘Oppenheimer’: The Pilots Who Dropped Their Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

By Greg Mitchell, August 19, 2023

In Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, we do not witness the twin, tragic, missions to Hiroshima and Nagasaki…the usual images of B-29s in flight, pilots in command and bombardiers finding their targets, and bombs away. (And, of course, no sign of what then happened on the ground). We never do meet the two pilots.

House Republicans Are Incorrigible Warmongers

By Laurence M. Vance, August 18, 2023

There are 222 Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. Although they would all claim to be for a strong national defense, most of them are incorrigible warmongers that don’t know the difference between offense and defense.

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*** 

When the conservative-dominated United States Supreme Court on June 29 ruled 6-3 that any program implemented in a higher educational setting which facilitates racial diversity and inclusion was a violation of the Constitution, the decision did not surprise many within the African American community.

The decision involved Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the oldest private and public higher educational institutions in the United States.

With such a legal decision by the highest court in the land, it transmits a clear signal to all oppressed people that their presence within institutions of learning cannot be guaranteed under U.S. law. This ruling set the clock of civil rights and equal opportunity back decades to an era of legalized segregation and racial discrimination.

In fact, the historical attitude of the ruling class has always been to distort and outright falsify the legacy of national oppression, institutional racism and economic exploitation. Consequently, in a modern context, the denial of the existence of racism, national oppression and economic exploitation within a state which was built on such practices, is evidence of an attitude at the highest levels aimed at the further marginalization of African Americans and other People of Color Communities in the U.S.

This systematic denial of the impact of African enslavement; the destruction of the Indigenous peoples and their nations; Asian exclusionary legislation and super-exploitation of their labor; the theft of Mexican lands; the systematic discrimination against women and the waging of war to conquer the territories of other peoples; will only result in the further divisions within U.S. society.  The subjugated peoples of the North American continent will inevitably resort to their centuries-long tradition of resistance to overcome the barriers to their complete freedom and social emancipation.

Prior to the Supreme Court decision in late June, the rise in blatant discriminatory practices have been well documented in many regions throughout the country. In Florida, legislative and administrative policies have prohibited the recognition of enslavement and colonization as contributing factors in the social development of U.S. history. Compounding the already deceptive approach to the social studies within the K-12 educational settings, other information has emerged which mandates the teaching of students that African enslavement was beneficial in that it trained the people in skills which they would not otherwise have learned.

Such notions harken back to the myths which emerged during the colonial and antebellum slave period fostered by the ruling class. These ideas were designed to dehumanize the African people and therefore justify within the minds of the oppressors, the views that the enslaved were only property to be bought and sold as well as exploited.

With the outlawing of affirmative action these racist views will gain even more widespread acceptance in the corridors of schools, colleges and universities. A shift in admission policy accompanies the restrictions being placed on what can be taught about the actual history and social conditions of the U.S.

African American Journalism Professor Compensated by Texas University after Blatant Racism

A former New York Times editor, Professor Kathleen McElroy, had chaired the journalism department at the University of Texas at Austin. McElroy was later recruited by the University of Texas A&M, the largest public higher educational institution in the U.S., to lead and revitalize the journalism program at the school.

Nonetheless, a campaign by some alumni and outside political forces began to raise concerns about McElroy’s appointment due to her background of promoting racial diversity, equity and (DEI) within higher education. An internal inquiry unveiled that high-ranking officials at Texas A&M were involved in sabotaging the appointment of McElroy.

In an article published by the Associated Press, it notes that:

“According to investigation documents released Thursday (June 29), those individuals included at least six board of regents members who began ‘asking questions and raising concerns about McElroy’s hiring’ after Texas Scorecard, a right-leaning website, highlighted her past diversity, equity and inclusion work. The website’s article ‘generated numerous calls and emails to the President’s Office at TAMU’ from current and former students ‘raising questions about why a DEI proponent would be hired to serve as director of the new journalism program,’ a summary of the school investigation said. Shortly afterward, the university’s president Katherine Banks and a school dean began discussing changes and reductions in the job offer to McElroy. McElroy told the (Texas) Tribune that the initial offer of a tenure-track position was reduced to a five-year post and then reduced again to a one-year position from which she could be fired at any time. She ultimately rejected the offer and withdrew her resignation from UT-Austin as a journalism professor.” 

When the withdrawal of the initial offer to McElroy at Texas A&M was exposed, President Banks resigned from the University. Later the school agreed to pay $US1 million to Professor McElroy for the harm done to her career. McElroy has returned to the U-T at Austin.

These Incidents Are by No Means Isolated

The institutional handling of the situation at Texas A&M is reflective of the rightward shift within education from primary school through the university levels. These attacks on faculty members, students and curriculum development boards coincide with the increasing call for banning books by African Americans and other authors which are deemed progressive, left-wing and advancing the cause of an antiracist and just society.

A Guardian newspaper article observed this trend by emphasizing:

“During the 2020-2021 school year, over 900 districts nationwide suffered ‘an intentional campaign to restrict or ban’ anything deemed ‘critical race theory’, according to The Conflict Campaign. These districts represent 35% of all students in elementary, middle and high school. While we should organize to eliminate the elitist, profit-driven College Board from their schools, they ought to fight to introduce, protect and proliferate Black studies on campus.” 

This report traces the demand for African American Studies to the upsurge in the Civil Rights and Black Power movements which arose during the 1960s where organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) created educational programs to raise awareness and political consciousness among the masses of people. During the Freedom Summer of 1964 in Mississippi, SNCC cadre instituted public courses in African American history which illustrated the struggle legacy of the formerly enslaved people.

In the aftermath of the Civil War and the failure of Reconstruction, the southern ruling class revived the black codes which prevailed during the colonial and antebellum slave era to ensure the continued exploitation and oppression of African Americans. Educational institutions which were segregated and underfunded in comparison to the predominantly which institutions, were monitored by the state and federal governments as a mechanism to limit the political organizing taking place among the Black people.

The Guardian goes on to say:

“This is not the first time that politicians have tried to ban Black studies curriculum and social movements education from schools and campuses. These bans have historically come on the heels of Black and multiracial uprisings in the streets. Academic deans and faculty committees have marginalized and ousted professors with radical politics. University and high school administrations are often antagonistic to departmentalizing Black studies programs. States cut funding for these programs and their professors while increasing funding for and the presence of policing. But fortunately, such repression has catalyzed resistance that birthed Black studies programs in the first place.”

Consequently, the recent wave of reaction in the aftermath of the mass demonstrations and rebellions of 2020 which were sparked by the police execution of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, among others, served as a catalyst for the suppression of real knowledge production and distribution. However, these events will not go unanswered by the African American people and their allies in the U.S.

The further isolation and alienation of the oppressed breeds mobilization and organization geared towards greater freedom. History instructs that the destiny of the people cannot be curtailed by the racist institutions. These same exploited and downtrodden people have and will continue to fight against all forms of imposed inequality by the ruling class and the capitalist state.

*

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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 Abayomi Azikiwe

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First published on August 14, 2023. Minor revisions on August 16, 20, 2023

***

A year prior to Italy’s 2022 elections, Giorgia Meloni was invited to join the Aspen Institute, a Washington based strategic think tank with close relations to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Atlantic Council and the military industrial complex: 

Prominent US politicians including Madeleine Albright, Condolezza Rice as well as Victoria Nuland have actively collaborated with the Aspen Institute.

The Aspen Institute is  generously funded by the Gates Foundation, the Rockefellers, Carnegie and the Ford Foundation, not to mention Goldman Sachs, which over the years has played a key role in the “selection” of Italian politicians.

It is worth noting that on February 20, 2023, Joe Biden made an unannounced visit to Kiev, meeting up with President Zelensky. And on the following day, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni promptly followed suit, traveling to Kiev to meet up with the corrupt Ukrainian president.

“She affirmed Italian support for Ukraine and said that her government intends to supply Spada and Skyguard air defence systems to the Ukrainian army”.

Is Italy’s Prime Minister Meloni an “Instrument”, Political Asset of Washington? The answer is obvious.

Timeline

PM Giorgia Meloni Arrives in Washington, July 26, 2023

PM Meloni had arrived in Washington prior to the Coup d’Etat in Niger (26th of July), i.e. a day prior to the Biden-Meloni meeting in the Oval Office.

There was no White House record of a discussion or exchange pertaining to the crisis in Niger.

Bloomberg in a July 26, 2023 report confirmed that private conversations had already been scheduled:

One suspects that in addition to China, the Niger Coup d’Etat was also discussed behind closed doors, –e.g. with Victoria Nuland and Christina Segal Knowles.

27 July 2023: PM Meloni meets President Biden in the Oval Office.

Rome aligns with Washington implying an almost unconditional stance with respect to the war in Ukraine: 

“Ukraine (and Italy’s new voice). PM Meloni and President Biden reiterated their support for Ukraine against Russia’s war of aggression and vowed to “provide political, military, financial, and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine for as long as it takes, with the aim to reach a just and lasting peace.” Later, at the presser, the Italian leader noted that Rome’s posture on the conflict “is extremely respected and held in high regard” by the US.

Oval Office 

PRESIDENT BIDEN: “And as NATO Allies, the transatlantic partnership is the cornerstone of our shared security. And the Italian troops are playing a critical role in Europe, in the Mediterranean, and beyond.

Italy and the United States are also standing strong with Ukraine. And I compliment you on your very strong support in defending against Russian atrocities. …

PM MELONI: Thank you. I am very pleased to be here today to testify the deep friendship that bonds the United States and Italy.

… Moreover, after the Russian aggression against Ukraine, for all together we decided to defend the international law. And I’m proud that Italy, from the beginning, played its part in it. We did it simply because supporting Ukraine means defending the peaceful coexistence of people and states everywhere in the world.”

PM Meloni also (unconditionally) endorsed Washington’s stance pertaining to Africa, which broadly consists in “dollarizing” the entire continent (including francophone Africa) while concurrently imposing IMF-World Bank “strong economic medicine”.

PM MELONI: … And on the other hand, we also need to be fair with nations that feel they have been exploited of their resources and that they show distrust towards the West. President Biden knows I take care a lot about Africa, about the role that we can play in these countries that can help us, building with them a new relation based on a new approach, which is a peer-to-peer approach. Also to fight illegal migration and all the problems that we face. It’s all things that we will discuss in the G7 presidency of Italy next year.

Among those present in the Oval Office on July 27, 2023 were: Assistant Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, and National Security Council Director for International Economics, Christina Segal-Knowles.

Victoria Nuland Travels to Niamey, August 7, 2023

Victoria Nuland arrived in Niger on August 7, 2023 on an unannounced visit in the immediate wake of the coup d’Etat.

Nuland did not meet General Abdourahamane Tiani who was declared head of the National Council for the Defense of the Homeland (CNSP) (i.e. the ruling military Junta) on July 28, 2023.

It is worth noting that Tiani studied in Washington D.C at the National Defense University’s (NDU) College of International Security Affairs (CISA). CISA is the U.S. Department of Defense’s  “flagship for education and building of partner capacity in combating terrorism, irregular warfare, and integrated deterrence at the strategic level”

Nuland’s meetings were with a team led by Brig. General Moussa Salaou Barmou

“The Secretary asked me to make this trip – as you may know, I was in the neighborhood last week and then in Jeddah – because we wanted to speak frankly to the people responsible to this challenge to the democratic order to see if we could try to resolve these issues diplomatically, if we could get some negotiations going, …

And then we met with the self-proclaimed chief of defense of this operation, General Barmou, and three of the colonels supporting him.  I will say that these conversations were extremely frank and at times quite difficult because, again, we were pushing for a negotiated solution.”  (emphasis added)

Tacitly acknowledged by Nuland, both General Abdourahamane Tiani and Brig. General Barmou in terms of their military profile and background are “friends of America”. 

Brig. General Barmou undertook his military training in the U.S. at Fort Moore, Columbus, Georgia and at the National Defense University (ND) which operates under the Guidance of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He also collaborated with U.S. Special Forces. Brig. General Bardou and his team are categorized by The Wall Street Journal as “the good guys”: 

“At Center of Niger’s Coup Is One of America’s Favorite Generals: Brig. Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou, long courted by Washington as a partner against Islamist extremism, has emerged as the main diplomatic channel between the U.S. and the junta (emphasis added)

“Speaking during a question and answer session [August 8 report],  Victoria Nuland, hinted “in so many words” (of course not officially) that the Coup d’Etat could have been undertaken with the tacit approval of Washington:

“With regard to the – to us, interestingly, General Barmou, former Colonel Barmou, is somebody who has worked very closely with U.S. Special Forces over many, many years.”

Ms Nuland stated this following a crucial first meeting of U.S. officials with members of the military junta in Niger in a significant diplomatic push to restore democratic rule to the country.

Ms Nuland said the U.S. was pushing for a negotiated solution in Niger and went “through in considerable detail the risks to aspects of our cooperation that he has historically cared about a lot.”

“So we are hopeful that that will sink in,” added the U.S. undersecretary.

While noting several regional meetings are going on to negotiate with coupists to release President Mohamed Bazoum and step aside, Ms Nuland said the U.S. would continue to watch closely with allies and partners needed to make the negotiations successful.

“If there is a desire on the part of the people who are responsible for this to return to constitutional order, we are prepared to help with that. We are prepared to help address concerns on all sides,” Ms Nuland stated.(emphasis added)

Let us be under no illusions, The architects of the coup “against the democratically elected government of Mr Bazoum” were most probably acting in coordination with Washington.

According to a carefully researched article by Nick Nurse, “At Least Five Members of Niger Junta Were Trained by the US”.

The unspoken objective is “Paris out of Africa”. 

To the People of Africa

“France never stopped looting Africa, now the tables are turning”. 

In a bitter irony, the process of “French Decolonization” (i.e “Paris out of Africa”) does not ensure the instatement of democratic forms of government. Quite the opposite, it tends to favor the hegemonic development of U.S. neocolonialism and the militarization of the African continent, which must be forcefully opposed.

A pattern of US militarization (coupled with the imposition of neoliberal “shock treatment” macro-economic policies), has unfolded in several francophone countries of sub-Saharan Africa. (See US-Senegal Defense Cooperation Agreement). 

The US sponsored Coup (which is the object of this article) is not limited to Niger. Several countries in Francophone Africa have military governments which are directly supported by the Pentagon. A case in point: Mali. 

Mali with a population of more than 20 million people constitutes from Washington’s standpoint a geopolitical and strategic hub (see map below). The current (Interim) Head of State Colonel Assimi Goita, received his military training in the US, while also actively collaborating with the U.S. Army Special Forces (“Green Berets”). 

For the second time in eight years, a U.S.-trained military officer has emerged as the leader of a coup in Mali, [August 2020] … Colonel Assimi Goita, who participated in a U.S.-led training exercise last year [2020] and graduated from a separate U.S. training course in 2016, has declared himself the chairman of the junta that arrested Mali’s president and prime minister and seized control of the West African country this week (Global and Mail, August 21, 2020)

Confirmed by the WP, Colonel Assimi Goita participated in a USAFRICOM training program known as Flintstock. He has also studied at the Joint Special Operations University at the MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. 

Niger “Regime Change” on Behalf of Uncle Sam. “Paris Out of Africa”

Washington’s unspoken foreign policy objective is to remove France from Africa.

Niger is strategic. It produces 5% of the global supply of uranium, which is in part exported to France for use in its nuclear energy facilities. Is Blackrock style privatization an option? 

 

USAFRICOM has a military base in Niger. The US military has been routinely collaborating with their Nigerien counterparts

The unspoken objective of Victoria Nuland’s mission was to ultimately  “negotiate”, of course unofficially Niamey’s “alignment” with Washington against Paris: 

” The United States flies drones out of a base in the country’s arid heartland. French peacekeepers, effectively chased out of Mali, withdrew to outposts in Niger last year. Now, their status [France] and role in a country run by the junta’s transitional regime remains up in the air.” (WP, August 9, 2023, emphasis added)

“Divide and Rule”: Confronting France’s President Macron?

Washington not only endorses “good guy military governments” in Africa, it also controls several (corrupt) European heads of State and heads of government, including Germany’s Chancellor Scholz, France’s President Macron, Italy’s Prime Minister Meloni and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von Der Leyen, among others.

The US is at war with both Europe and Africa. It’s an act of economic warfare. Washington is also quite deliberately creating political divisions within the European Union.

With regard to both Ukraine and Africa, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is aligned with Washington. Despite her fake humanitarian rhetoric, she has casually endorsed America’s hegemonic agenda in Africa, including the dollarization of the entire continent:

PM MELONI: “President Biden knows I take care a lot about Africa, about the role that we can play in these countries that can help us”

“Soft Coup” Against France?

Washington is currently involved in a “soft coup” against French colonialism.

In the video below, (segments of which date back to 2018, 4 years prior to her election), PM Giorgia Meloni rightfully focusses on the exploitation of child labourers in Burkina Faso’s gold mining industry, while placing the blame on France’s President Macron for the payments system in CFA francs coordinated by the French Treasury. 

In the wake of the 2022 elections, PM Giorgia Meloni was quoted by several media (November 2022) (based on statements she made several years prior to the September 2022 elections) that France: “continues to exploit poor, African countries..” and that the solution “is not to take the Africans and bring them to Europe [aka migration], the solution is to free Africa from certain Europeans [France’s Macron?] who exploit it” (quoted by Sky New Australia). 

It nonetheless appears that since becoming Prime Minister, Meloni has “normalized” her relationship with the French president.

I should mention that the gold industry in Burkina Faso is currently “dollarized” and controlled primarily by large Canadian mining companies. See also here. Major French colonial companies are not involved in Burkina Faso gold mining. 

In this article, we have provided evidence and analysis concerning the military coup in Niger (which is tacitly supported by Washington). In this regard, PM Giorgia Meloni has broadly endorsed Jo Biden’s agenda in francophone Africa.

The latter consists in eventually confronting the Macron government with a view to abolishing the CFA franc. This in turn would lead to a process of U.S. dollarization in francophone Africa. Washington’s objective is eventually to “throw France out of Africa”.  

Video: “You Messed Up Macron”

 

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Annex

A Brief Note on the History of U.S.- France Relations 

There is a long history of US-France relations going back the Louisiana purchase (1803), The Monroe Doctrine (1823),  the  Berlin Conference (1884-1885) organized by Germany’s Chancellor Otto van Bismarck. The U.S was politely excluded from participating in the colonial scramble for Africa. (Most of those former colonial powers have been progressively shoved out of Africa, starting in the 1970s).

 

The Wars against Indochina and Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos (1946-1975), Charles de Gaulle “Pulls the Plug on NATO” (1966-67), NATO Headquarters move from Paris to Brussels (1967).

Since the early 1990s, Washington has extended its sphere of influence: the entire African continent is currently in the stranglehold of a dollar denominated debt which has led to mass poverty, not to mention the imposition of “strong economic medicine”  by the IMF-World Bank. The U.S has numerous military bases throughout the continent.

There are many other dimensions. Washington’s current objective is to eventually eliminate “francophone countries” and exclude France from the African Continent. 

Rwanda in 1990 is the model. The president of Rwanda Juvenal Habyarimana dies in an air crash. A former Belgian colony largely within the political sphere of influence of France was from one year to the next  transformed into a de facto English speaking colony dominated by the U.S, French was eventually scrapped as an official language. Major General Kagame –(who subsequently became Vice-President and then President) was instrumental in leading the military invasion from Uganda. He does not speak a word of French.

The civil war in Rwanda and the ethnic massacres were an integral part of US foreign policy, carefully staged in accordance with precise strategic and economic objectives.

Major General Paul Kagame had been head of military intelligence in the Ugandan Armed Forces; he had been trained at the U.S. Army Command and Staff College (CGSC) in Leavenworth, Kansas which focuses on warfighting and military strategy. Kagame returned from Leavenworth to lead the RPA, shortly after the 1990 invasion.

Prior to the outbreak of the Rwandan civil war, the RPA was part of the Ugandan Armed Forces. Shortly prior to the October 1990 invasion of Rwanda, military labels were switched. (Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty, Chapter 7)

Click below to access Chapter 7. 

Rwanda: Installing a US Protectorate in Central Africa

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 06, 2021

***

On a personal note

In a United Nations mission to Rwanda in 1996-97, the author together with Belgian economist and Senator Pierre Galand submitted the following report to the Government of Rwanda:

Michel Chossudovsky and Pierre Galand, L’usage de la dette exterieure du Rwanda, la responsabilité des créanciers, mission report, United Nations Development Program and Government of Rwanda, Kigali, 1997.

We were subsequently advised by Vice President Paul Kagame (currently president of Rwanda) that the report had to be submitted in English.

My response to Vice President Paul Kagame:

“You should have told us that, and we would have drafted the report in English, We suggest that you get it translated”.

Rwanda had become a U.S. Protectorate in Central Africa with a proxy President, head of military intelligence of the Ugandan Armed Forces. He had received his military training at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

General Kagame was dispatched back to Kampala by the Pentagon to lead the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) October 1990 invasion out of Uganda (which had already commenced). 

Upon my arrival in Kigali as part of the UNDP mission in 1996, with some doubts, I endorsed the official story.

In the aftermath of our mission (second UNDP trip to Kigali in early 1997), I  undertook extensive research on Rwanda which was then published as a chapter in the second edition of Globalization of Poverty.

I also came to understand how “the French language was thrown out” of Rwanda.

In “America’s Protectorate” in Central Africa, English became the official language in schools, colleges and universities.

In October 2008, The Guardian reported the following:

The Rwandan government is to switch the country’s entire education system from French to English in one of the most dramatic steps to date in its move away from Francophone influence.

Officially the change is to reposition Rwanda as a member of the East African Community, an organisation made up mostly of English-speaking countries such as neighbours Uganda and Tanzania.

However, the shift to education solely in English is part of a wholesale realignment away from French influence that includes applying to join the Commonwealth – if accepted Rwanda would be only the second member, after Mozambique, that has not been a British colony – and establishing a cricket board.

Underpinning the move is a long and bitter dispute with France born of its [alleged] support for the Hutu regime that [allegedly] oversaw the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Tutsis, which has seen the French ambassador expelled and the closure of the French cultural centre, international school and radio station. (The Guardian, October 2008)

Above is the “official story”. What happened is that Washington (with the support of London) engineering the RPF invasion out of Uganda. Concurrently a propaganda and smear campaign was launched against France. I should mention that Rwanda developed under the Habyarimana government good relations with France in the post-colonial period. Rwanda was a former German and then Belgian colony. Rwanda had its own currency. It was never under French colonial rule. 

Rwanda’s Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana was assassinated and the RPF invasion out of Uganda was led by General Paul Kagame.

In the wake of the 1990 invasion, Kagame became Washington’s faithful and obedient proxy first Rwanda’s Vice-President and then President. 

At the time of writing (August 2023) more than thirty years following the RPF October 1990 invasion, Kagame remains President of Rwanda:

“In a referendum held in 2015, voters approved amendments to the constitution that would allow Kagame [on behalf Washington] to serve a third seven-year term; in addition, he would be eligible to serve two five-year terms after that, giving him the potential to hold the office until 2034.

Shortly after the constitution was amended, Kagame announced that he would indeed stand in the upcoming 2017 presidential election; He easily won reelection in the August 4, 2017, poll, taking more than 98 percent of the vote in a landslide victory against the other two presidential candidates.” (Encyclopedia Britannica, emphasis added)

Michel Chossudovsky, August 15, 2023 

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Aug. 17, 2023 – IndiGo Pilot for Nagpur-Pune flight collapses at boarding gate, declared dead in the hospital

MUMBAI: An IndiGo pilot (identified as 40 year old Manoj Subramanium) who was to operate a flight from Nagpur to Pune, India, fell unconscious and collapsed at the boarding gate on Aug.17, 2023. He was taken to a hospital where he was declared dead, said sources.

This is the third case of sudden death involving pilots this week, with two of the deceased being Indian pilots.

On Wednesday, a senior pilot with Qatar Airways, who was flying from Delhi to Doha as a passenger, fell in on board and died. The flight QR579 was diverted to Dubai following the medical emergency. The pilot had earlier worked with Alliance Air and SpikeJet.

A statement from IndiGo is awaited.

Third Pilot Death this Week, Fifth Incapacitation/Collapse

Aug. 16, 2023 – Qatar Airways Flight QR579 (DEL-DOH) Delhi to Doha, Qatar, 51 year old pilot collapsed 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

Recent Pilot Incapacitations 

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

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

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

Jun.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 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 11, 2023? – British Airways (CAI-LHR) pilot collapsed in Cairo hotel and died, was scheduled to fly Airbus A321 from Cairo to London

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.

Recent Pilot Deaths

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 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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Introduction

We are living through a time whereby an alleged Covid-19 “vaccine” is underway to injure, maim and kill a significant portion of the Earth’s people.

This invasive global assault on the human species continues to be pressed forward behind the cover of dangerous deceptions. Pre-planned disinformation is being circulated to create false alarms linking the imagery of terrorism, medical decisions, and environmental conditions.

For over two years now we have been subject to an unprecedented scheme of mass injection. The contents of the shots pretend to provide a cure for the contagion said to be caused by a supposedly “novel” coronavirus.

This alleged new organism from the same family of pathogens that causes the flu and common colds (corona viruses), has never been certifiably isolated. No example of a unique cluster of clearly identifiable “SARS-CoV-2” coronaviruses has ever been shown to exist in an “unadulterated sample taken from a diseased patient.” See this.

The Covid-19 “Vaccine” Introduced in November 2020

The killer bioweapons in this saga are in the injection vials, not in the flu-like virus that provided the pretext for indiscriminately firing off of (at the time of writing) of 13.5 billion doses of the vaccine.

The entire operation was introduced to the public in October of 2019 with Event 201. See this.

This “high-level pandemic exercise” began to go live in early 2020.

The Covid-19 “Vaccine” Was launched in November 2020

To this day many of the large array of substances inserted by the injections into flesh and blood, continue to be kept secret. It is well known, however, that jabs include mRNA/lipid nanoparticle concoctions that induce genetic transformations in the recipients’ bodies.

These bodies thereby become manufacturing sites for pathogenic spike proteins. Because of the role played by the lipid nanoparticles, these harmful concoctions have been pumped across major biological barriers into the full array of organs– including human brains– of over half of the world’s people.

Accordingly, a product disguised as a benign medical curative is in fact a deadly  device geared to inflicting intentional havoc, directly or indirectly, on the entire human race.

Many societies are in precipitous decline especially as working people become disabled. The steady growth of this phenomenon puts all sorts of new pressures on families in ways that are breaking the continuity of their lives. People are trying to cope by leaving paid employment to provide home care to suffering relatives.

The Covid-19 “Vaccine”: “Toxic by Design”

Video

Attacking the Human Genome of the Entire Human Race

A big part of the profane procedures currently underway, involve the malicious alteration of the genetic blueprint for the entire human species. The human genome is based on 3.2 billion “base pairs” essential to humanity’s structures of double helix DNA.

By far the largest part of our genetic information as members of the human race is uniform and consistent from person to person. Our DNA structures are the essential enablers of our identity as human beings. Between any two humans, 99.9 % of the base pairs in our genetic constitution are the same.

The entire array of characteristics unique to every person all depends on the distinctiveness of one of every 1,000 base pairs. This feature of our genetic makeup forms the basis for identifying the Human Genome that describes the whole human race… our entire human species.

See this and this.

The genetic alteration through injection of  almost 70% of the world’s people (WHO data, at least one dose, click here), constitutes an unprecedented assault with grave consequences affecting the future of the entire human species. This ongoing invasion of human biology is by far the largest and most reckless experiment ever conducted on human subjects.

The Human Genome of the human race is being irreparably damaged. This diabolical deed stands at the core of a worldwide debacle initiated and approved by civilian and military authority.

Who was giving guidance and direction to this deceptive operation? What is the role of Joe Biden, the current Commander-In-Chief, and those that pull the strings on this obvious puppet?

Who signed off on the decision to initiate the transhuman changes entailed in altering the genomes of billions of people?

How are we to understand the relationship between the big pharmaceutical companies as well as their regulators, with the military apparatus of the US government?

The Big Pharma complex, including their captive regulators, were and are being well rewarded for playing along with the obvious fiction that they were simply following the normal rules for rolling out new medical products.

The Department of Defence’s acquisition of weaponry, including bioweaponry, has so far been treated as if it is exempt from domestic regulation. Moreover, US bioweapons are in practice excluded, albeit illegally, from adherence to the terms of the international treaty known as the Biological Weapons Convention. See this.

There is good cause to see the desecration of the Human Genome as a new form of international crime whose character goes far beyond the UN’s definition of genocide.

The new crime should be given its own name and a clear definition. Guidelines are needed to stipulate rules for investigating, prohibiting and punishing attacks of the genomic structure of the entire human race.

The Science and the Fiction in Science Fiction

The scenario described above could easily be mistaken for the plot of a particularly adventurous episode of science fiction. But how do science and fiction interact in the real-life saga we are presently living through?

The story actually unfolding before our eyes, certainly does involve large doses of fiction. We have been consistently lied to on a monumental scale. These lies figure in the absolutely crucial contentions over what it means to “follow the science.”

Those Covidians that brag most self-righteously about their zeal to “follow the science,” usually do anything but. The weight of many disclosures has exposed them as promoters whose naivety, ignorance, complicity, or all three, are causing the entrenched Covidians to visualize healing remedies where they should by now see the ongoing onslaught of de facto  bioweapons.

The main reason for the universal jab crusade, starts with depopulation but then extends to further cycles of malicious manipulations. These manipulations are all to advance a massive power grab mounted by the global financial elites  perfecting their own regime of centralized control over virtually everything.

This reach for omnipotence extends to the quest by some “master class” initiates to “play God”.

The lead tyrants seek nothing less than to seize full proprietary control over the planet and over the altered humanoid remnants derived from the diminishing population.

This ongoing onslaught of “satanic destruction” is directed at annihilating the physical and spiritual essence of the human species.

The modern-day sorcery inherent in this operation continues the hysteria-inducing fakery, coercion, that made the “counterfeit pandemic” such a perfect pretext for what might be described as “demonic” experimentation. This experimentation involved both the genetic and biodigital modification of humans.

The task of exposing the dynamics of this diabolical deception continues to run up against the countervailing force generated by the most formidable concentration of wealth and power ever assembled.

Depopulation

One aspect of these operations is sometimes euphemistically described as depopulation.

The agenda of depopulation seems consistent with the deployment of “bioweapons” to cull and enfeeble humans.

To read complete WSJ article click here.

 Bill Gates in his TED presentation (February 2010) pertaining to vaccination, confirmed the following;

“And if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that [the world population] by 10 or 15 percent”.

According to Gates’ statement, this would represent  an absolute reduction of the World’s population (2010) of the order of 680 million to 1.02 billion.

(See quotation on Video starting at 04.21. See also screenshot of Transcript of quotation)

TED Talk at 04:21:

***

In spite of the disclosures about the damages being wrought by the dangerous shots, the powerful financial elites are still promoting the supposed vaccine booster shots in the fake fight against COVID.

The Covidians continue this promotion in spite of the accumulating evidence that these jabs can kill, sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly in agonizing stages. See this.

This cult of depopulation often operates at a subconscious level. Sometimes it is rooted in self-conceptions of deep and irredeemable guilt. This guilt is sometimes derived from the perception that one’s own existence is intertwined with a system of military-industrial-financial rapaciousness that is killing all possibility for a healthy life on this planet.

While extreme, this form of self-reproach is understandable and sometimes perhaps even justifiable. Such discomfort can be self-generated or it can be instigated and modified by interested parties with something to gain from exploiting psychological vulnerabilities.

These interested third parties were and are often representatives of large industrial consortiums that seek to infiltrate and covertly influence the coalitions of activists seeking to reverse the proliferation of industrial pollution.

Climate Change  

Starting with a campaign in the 1960s to prevent the chemical contamination of toxic DDT, this developing coalition of activists began to widen its goals to include the protection of both human and wildlife habitats. As the technical complexity and political traction of the ecologically-oriented coalition increased, it came to be identified with the open-ended concept of “environmentalism.”

The promise of the environmental movement was undermined and constrained by a covert campaign aimed at narrowing its scope. The prospect of so-called “global warming,” recently rebranded as “climate change,” was dishonestly presented as the most pressing environmental menace facing all life forms including humans.

All complexity was pushed aside as if the fight to remedy climate change offers some kind of magical cure all for all that ails us. Nothing could be further from the truth in a world such as ours where humanity faces a multitude of authentic unfolding catastrophes.

For a variety of reasons a massive concentration of wealth and political influence has latched itself onto the climate deception. The lobby to cap upward climate change has become a major political ace for globalists schemers engaged in seeking to subsume sovereign nations within the centralized control of supranational institutions.

The mythology of the climate change movement has become intensely intertwined with the movement that embraced mandatory masking, lockdowns, and injections in the name of vanquishing COVID-19. Both movements claimed that its devotees were committed to supporting high standards in scientific research, a claim that remains unsupported by the overwhelming weight of evidence.

The poverty of the science that supposedly supports the climate change movement was  demonstrated in a compelling British documentary film produced in 2007 entitled The Great Global Warming Swindle

Some of the featured experts put the issue of variable heating from the sun in the context of rising and falling temperatures over long periods of time.

Video: The Great Global Warming Swindle

“Net Zero”

The attack on the oil and gas industry in the name of ending climate change and realizing the elusive fantasy of “net zero” is a “criminal enterprise”. There is no viable Plan B when it comes to bringing cheap energy to an end for consumers and eliminating well-paying-oil-and-gas jobs for large numbers of working people who have attained high living standards from this line of employment. 

Wind power and solar power are simply not viable replacements for oil and gas. Moreover, carbon emissions generally and CO2 emissions specifically are by no stretch of the imagination the sinister threats they are made out to be by those trying to harm us. One of the biggest boons for an improved environment would be to bring an end to the culture of perpetual warfare. 

The permanent war economy creates enormous money power that goes disproportionately to the very villains seeking to eliminate humans, undermine our health, destroy our finances, and enslave our humanoid descendants. The political economy of permanent war is the great bonanza for the private central bankers that operate through agencies like the World Bank and the Bank of International Settlements (BIS).  

One hallmark of the “death cult” that the interests of power are pushing upon us worldwide, is the easing of laws by more and more governments that are embracing assisted suicides and euthanasia. In many jurisdictions it is being noticed that rises in of assisted suicides are leading to a growth in non-assisted suicides. In a society where the ethos of death cults abound, suicide is often seen as a good thing to be encouraged. See this.

Another telltale sign that officialdom is encouraging population reduction and death cult thinking has been aroused by the role being played by many governments, including that of Canada. 

In the name of “safe supply” drug addiction especially of opioids and fentanyl is being encouraged.  Predictably, increased death rates are the outcome.

Video on “Safe Supply” and Drug Addiction 

The supposed crime of humanity is to impose on the Earth a very large carbon footprint meant to shrink to net zero.

The business of killing and maiming people through many kinds of warfare, including the amber red possibility of nuclear warfare, is part of a very old process that is now rapidly accelerating.

This process savagely steals energy, resources and human attentiveness from all manner of life-affirming enterprises.

We must find ways of exiting from the “death cult” entrapping us.

We must find our way back to the wondrous spiritual verve meant to emanate from our life-affirming natures.

*

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Dr. Anthony Hall is currently Professor of Globalization Studies at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada. He has been a teacher in the Canadian university system since 1982. Dr. Hall, has recently finished a big two-volume publishing project at McGill-Queen’s University Press entitled “The Bowl with One Spoon”.

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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Constitutional law professor from Banja Luka, Republic of Srpska, Milan Blagojević, writing in a column published on 13 August warns that the colonial authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina may soon issue an arrest warrant for Republic of Srpska president Milorad Dodik. According to the peace agreement signed in 1995, the Republic of Srpska is a self-governed entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Dodik was indicted by the State Court in Sarajevo for the offence of treating Bosnia’s illegally appointed High representative Christian Schmidt as an impostor and for refusing to enforce on territory controlled by his government laws and regulations Schmidt has promulgated because he considers them invalid.

In his column, Prof. Blagojević reiterates previously elaborated reasons for considering Schmidt’s appointment illegitimate and he explains why decisions made by Schmidt that fall outside the bounds of the Dayton Peace Agreement are without legal effect, and would still be even if Schmidt were a duly appointed official.

Image: High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina Christian Schmidt (Source: European Commission)

Prof. Blagojević’s legal analysis is professionally impeccable. Christian Schmidt’s appointment to the post of Bosnia’s High Representative was not approved by the UN Security Council, as the Dayton Peace Agreement explicitly provides that it should have been validated. For that matter, the Russian Federation does not recognise Schmidt either, and for the same reasons.  Blagojević correctly points out that Schmidt was selected and “appointed” by a private, self-constituted grouping of countries (US, UK, France, Germany, and a few other usual suspects) whose standing to select and appoint the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina is not codified in any source of international or domestic law.

Consequently, their appointee, in this case Christian Schmidt, may be regarded as no more than a private citizen. Furthermore, the alleged “Bonn Powers,” the legal fiction which this grouping calling itself the Bosnia “Peace Implementation Council” invokes, also are without legal foundation, and consequently cannot be validly delegated to anyone else. Finally, imposing upon a sovereign country which is also a member of the UN a system of arbitrary proconsular rule amounting to a protectorate, affecting the totality of its political affairs, including legislation, is a flagrant violation of the  principle of sovereign equality enshrined in the UN Charter. Therefore, Prof. Blagojević compellingly argues that from the standpoint of international law the system personified by Bosnia’s current alleged High Representative is null and void. Since his decrees do not generate any legally binding obligations, refusing to recognise or officially deal with him cannot be a prosecutable offence.

The Bosnian court’s indictment of President Milorad Dodik, based on a criminal referral filed by Schmidt himself, still awaits formal confirmation, but that is a procedural detail that in the coming days will handily be resolved to allow the trial to proceed. Blagojević’s assessment that as soon as the indictment is formally confirmed but before the trial actually commences a warrant will be issued for Dodik’s arrest is realistic. The standard technical grounds for such a warrant would be the alleged danger that the accused might repeat the imputed offence and attempt to influence witnesses. Dodik’s public statement not long ago that he would be prepared to repeat the original “offence” by calling upon the Republic of Srpska’s National Assembly to vote for non-enforcement of future illegal decrees by Schmidt should suffice to motivate the court to order his incarceration pending trial.

Republic of Srpska authorities would therefore be wise to regard the attempt to arrest their President Milorad Dodik, which is what Prof. Blagojević contends is imminent, not as a hypothetical but as a virtual certainty.

A major political crisis would be sure to erupt after such a reckless step. But Bosnia’s foreign overlords are firm in their determination to reorder the political space in the Republic of Srpska to their own benefit. That means the political elimination of the uncooperative Milorad Dodik, in much the same way and for remarkably similar reasons that in Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted notwithstanding the broad popular support for his policies.

Numerous indicators suggest that the collective West regards this moment as a unique window of opportunity to get rid of Dodik and at the same time secure its strategic rear in the Balkans, in case the conflict with Russia escalates.

The authorities of the Republic of Srpska now face the dilemma how to ensure the physical safety of their President, but without being able to call on their Army, which was abolished in 2006. They have at their disposal minimal police forces which are not up to the task of offering serious resistance to NATO units and Western special forces which would be deployed in the probably violent arrest operation. Verbal support from political leaders in Croatia and Hungary, no matter how welcome, is insufficient to deter the collective West from resorting to radical measures to wipe out the small Balkan entity with a history of chronic insubordination. One of the last opportunities they have to achieve the long planned Endlösung of the Serbian Question in Bosnia is now.

Acting on orders from the principal Western embassies, the Bosnian State Court will probably soon expand the scope of its criminal proceedings for “defying the High Representative” to include other institutions and personalities in the Republic of Srpska, in particular the National Assembly. Western sanctions and other punitive measures will target assembly deputies who voted for the nullification of Schmidt’s decrees. It is worth reminding those who are forgetful that there is a precedent for that. In 2022 the EU imposed personal sanctions on 351 Russian Duma deputies who “defied the international community” by voting to recognise the departure of Donetsk and Lugansk from Ukraine. That was striking testimony to Western democratic values in action and touching respect for the right of people’s representatives to vote their conscience.

As expediency and the occupiers’ perverse legal imagination shall dictate, vague accusations will be enacted against other “pillars of the regime” (as Gene Sharp would put it) as well in order to encourage the defection of frightened opportunists and to undermine public institutions prior to striking the final blow.

If all goes according to plan, the Republic of Srpska will soon find itself in a situation similar to that of Niger, and for reasons that are essentially analogous. The key difference is that for the collective West a punitive expedition undertaken against the Republic of Srpska would be an incomparably simpler affair than a similar operation in Africa.

The leadership of the Republic of Srpska must carefully and maturely assess the options before it. At stake is not just the physical integrity of their President, which would be reason enough to contemplate serious measures, but much more than that: the survival of the Republic. Milorad Dodik is threatened only with prison; the Republic of Srpska, on the other hand, is facing the prospect of armed attack and annihilation.

For all the cited reasons, the optimal and safest solution for the Republic of Srpska is to invite onto its territory units of the Russian military formation Wagner and to authorise them to undertake all necessary measures in defence of the state and for the protection of individuals illegally targeted for persecution. What numerous African countries are doing at this very moment to defend themselves and drive out their colonial oppressors, the Republic of Srpska must also do, without hesitation, decisively, and now.

It is conceivable that the locus of the anti-colonial struggle might soon shift from Africa to some equally disenfranchised parts of Europe.

The collective West will not give up on the project of destroying the Republic of Srpska except if it were convinced that the price would exceed anticipated benefits. The appearance of Wagner units would drastically alter the military, political, and moral landscape and the relationship of forces in the Balkans at the expense of the collective West and its network of local collaborators. At a time when their power is waning, Western strategists are not known for displaying a surplus of rationality, but the probability is nevertheless high that the introduction of a serious deterrent would upset their plans and compel them to back off.

Doing nothing and conceding the initiative to the opponent, on the other hand, would lead to certain strategic defeat followed by extinction.

The Republic of Srpska cannot afford the luxury of being flippant in relation to its survival. The threat is imminent and it requires a decisive response, including rejection of opportunistic dilemmas. The mentality of the opponent is well known, his ultimate objective is clear, and the means which he will most likely employ to achieve his goals are predictable as well.

If this time around the leadership of the Republic of Srpska does not renounce its traditionally hesitant and reactive approach, one fears that there will be no saving it. That is why they must act without delay to embrace an effective and radical concept of defence, before their opponents manage to organise and deploy their operational assets in order to deliver to the Republic of Srpska its final and mortal blow.

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Stephen Karganovic is president of “Srebrenica Historical Project,” an NGO registered in the Netherlands to investigate the factual matrix and background of events that took place in Srebrenica in July of 1995. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.  

Featured image: Milorad Dodik (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Back in 1929 when the market crashed and the Great Depression began, Uber, TaskRabbit, and the gig economy were almost a century in the future. So why are the laws we use to protect the workers who power those businesses unchanged from 100 years ago? As we learned with startling clarity during the unprecedented economic upheaval of the pandemic, our social safety net legislation is divorced from how Americans on the margins survive today.

In her new book, SIDE HUSTLE SAFETY NET: How Vulnerable Workers Survive Precarious Times (UC Press; October 24, 2023) UNC Professor Alexandrea Ravenelle shows government policies have not kept up with the changing nature of how we work, and too many people—the forgotten jobless of the gig-economy who don’t qualify for government assistance—are falling through the cracks. While the relief money provided during the pandemic was a godsend for millions, for others, namely workers like drivers, delivery people, and handymen, that vital assistance never came due to archaic and pro-business unemployment laws.

Building off previous research from her groundbreaking studies on the gig economy, Ravanelle conducted 200 interviews with workers who were just barely hanging on before, during, and after the pandemic. In profiles both inspirational and heartbreaking, she introduces us to people who used relief funds to greatly improve their opportunities, and to those who through no fault of their own were denied assistance and struggled to make ends meet.

What she finds is that, much like during the New Deal era, even minimal government investments in the form of relief have massive long-term benefits that outweigh the costs—we just need to update them for the way we live and work now.

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Liv Walton (LW): You’ve spent years studying how the gig economy transformed the notion of employment, and then the pandemic gave us an unprecedented look at what happens when tens of millions lose their jobs almost overnight. As the saying goes, “You should never waste a good crisis.” What did the experience of Covid allow you to see in your research? What questions were you most eager to tackle?

Prof. Alexandrea J. Ravenelle (PAJR): Gig work encourages poly-employment—working multiple jobs—and our antiquated unemployment system is not structured for that reality. If you have multiple jobs, you may be penalized when it comes to unemployment benefits by receiving less or being disqualified entirely. Even when workers do receive unemployment benefits, it’s often not enough to replace all their lost income, or it doesn’t take into account that many workers face considerable delays between when they work and when they get paid.

One question I wanted to tackle is how workers handle this disconnect between unemployment and poly-employment. And it turns out that the answer is survival strategies: everything from selling drugs to sex work to selling “clean pee” to help other people pass drug tests.

LW: The conventional wisdom is that the government’s economic reaction to the pandemic was a huge success. Even if you agree with that, where did it fall short and what could have been done better?

PAJR: The CARES Act was amazing, but still fell short in a number of ways:

1. Not everyone knew there was assistance available or that they qualified. Many young people didn’t know unemployment assistance even existed, and thousands of immigrants —even those who are legally able to work—were scared that accepting unemployment assistance could result in deportation. We should have run a more robust advertising campaign.

2. The rise of independent contractors means there’s an entire group of workers who have been excluded from the social safety net. When they did get access to unemployment assistance under CARES, they received roughly half the benefits as their W-2 peers. They should have received the same amount, and the unemployment system should be changed to address the needs of these workers in the future.

3. In the past 40 years, we’ve seen a dismantling of the social safety net. States have cut back on the number of weeks that workers qualify for, and in many cases, the amount that workers receive hasn’t kept up with inflation. Sometimes workers feel that it’s too much hassle for too little money and don’t bother to apply.

4. Finally, while we have returned to relatively low unemployment rates, it’s just a matter of time before we have another recession. Meanwhile, more and more jobs are becoming “gig-ified” and moved outside the social safety net. If the goal of unemployment assistance is to prevent an economic meltdown and get people back on their feet, then we need an unemployment system that doesn’t penalize part-time or freelance work.

LW: In his blurb for this book, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon writes, “(Ravenelle’s) book reveals the bankruptcy of the idea that Americans prefer staying home and collecting a check to working hard.” How do our current policies reflect these noxious ideas?

PAJR: My book shows that even during the height of the pandemic, people continued to seek jobs and go to work. We don’t have a problem with the work ethic in the US—we have a problem with a safety net that’s full of holes, thanks to a fundamental misunderstanding of what the economy is today and how it’s different from what it was when these policies were created.

Drive down Main Street in any small town or even mid-sized city and you’ll see sign after sign announcing businesses are “Now Hiring!” It’s easy to think that’s because people would rather stay home than do an honest day’s work. That premise itself is dishonest and yet many unemployment policies are based on this idea.

Let’s get real. We require unemployed workers to certify weekly. We mandate that they apply for a set number of jobs every week and document an absurd level of contact information for each potential employer. We demand that the unemployed accept any job offered to them, even if it is drastically below their education level, skill set, or financial needs. In exchange for this subservience, we offer them a few months of income that at best will be less than half of what they were making before. And we still tax it.

LW: When you wrote your first book HUSTLE AND GIG, the gig economy was newer and poorly understood. Now it’s more ingrained in our economy—it’s just part of the way many of us work. But do we understand it fully? Do we understand it enough to regulate it properly?

PAJR: The gig economy is a lot like Covid: every time we think we’ve got it figured out, there’s another change.

There are still things we, and the workers on these platforms, don’t understand. We don’t understand pricing or work distribution; the algorithms that drive both are essentially a black box. We don’t know how many people are on gig platforms—and neither do the companies!

But there are some things we do understand: we understand that the house always wins. When a new platform seems to be paying workers well, eventually that will change as venture capital funds run out and the platform seeks to make a profit on the backs of the workers. We understand that the status of 1099 employment means that the risks of gig work—unpaid downtime,  deactivation, low wages, injury, and assault—are all borne by the worker. And we understand that gig-based work is causing people who used to hold one stable job to engage in multiple side hustles.

The way to solve these problems is easy: make these workers W2 employees. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We just need to make use of a hundred years of hard-won workplace protections.

Regulation is not always the answer. But it turns out that at least some regulation is definitely the answer.

LW: What would we gain by limiting the number of workers on 1099s and putting them on W-2s?

PAJR: Simply put: for millions of workers, this would mean access to the social safety net. Independent contractors or 1099 workers don’t have access to health insurance, workers comp, paid time off, retirement contributions, or unemployment assistance, unless there’s literally an act of Congress. The W2 status isn’t perfect. But it’s a lot more protections than these workers have now.

There’s a reason why the CEOs and corporate office people for these platforms are all W-2 workers—they know it’s a better deal. W2 employees get paid while they’re on the clock, while gig workers only get paid while they’re actively earning for the platform.

If we can’t convert all workers to W-2 status, we at least need to decrease the financial incentives for companies to make their workforce 1099-based. We need a minimum wage that includes hours logged into the platform to address the time that workers spend waiting for work. We need platforms to contribute to retirement and health insurance funds on behalf of their workers. And we need unemployment insurance for workers that takes into account poly employment and platform deactivation.

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---

Side Hustle Safety Net: How Vulnerable Workers Survive Precarious Times

By Alexandrea J. Ravenelle

Rights: Available worldwide

Pages: 344

ISBN: 9780520387300

Trim Size: 6×9

“A lively, fascinating panorama of the neo-Dickensian labor regime so many workers endure.” —Publishers Weekly

“Eye-opening. . . . A startling examination of the patchy response to pandemic-era unemployment.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A thoughtful and often humorous analysis of the culture of side hustles—and the hidden cost of many of our modern conveniences. You’ll tip your delivery driver more after reading this.” —Aziz Ansari and Eric Klinenberg, coauthors of Modern Romance

Click here to purchase.

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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Two causes of today’s weather extremes are man-made: weather war, and its public face and false flag, geoengineering. We can stop these crimes against humanity. We can’t affect the third cause: the Sun cycle shifting from maximum to minimum must be borne; yet it is censored on the internet and absent from the mainstream.

Catastrophic fires of electromagnetic weather war (the global military’s best-kept secret) ignite terror of a burning planet.

Geoengineers, spraying incendiary toxins world-wide, intensify the fires. Claiming to dim the sun to cool the planet, they further reduce the sun’s heat as its electromagnetic fires slow. These psychopathic crimes misdirect us from the “little ice age” we can’t avoid. To kill with “Shock and Awe”?

“Shock and Awe are actions that create fears, dangers, and destruction that are incomprehensible to the people at large, specific elements/sectors of the threat society, or the leadership. Nature in the form of tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, uncontrolled fires, famine and disease can engender Shock and Awe.” 2

Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance, the military doctrine for the U.S. war on Iraq.

Weather war: Weaponizing the electromagnetic systems of Earth with ionospheric heaters using high-frequency radio and radar.

“The key to geophysical warfare is the identification of environmental instabilities to which the addition of a small amount of energy would release vastly greater amounts of energy.” 2

Planet Earth: The Latest Weapon of War

Dr. Rosalie Bertell details military experiments since World War II in Slowly Wrecking Our Planet. She describes America’s ionospheric heater, the central electromagnetic weapon in Alaska interconnecting their global and space EM weapons systems. H.A.A.R.P., High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, creates Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) waves which are reflected back to Earth by the ionosphere, modifying this “highly complex life support system, in order to aid military objectives.” (120-122)

She explains how earthquakes are initiated by ELF waves, and documents massive genocide by earthquakes around the world caused by American and Russian ionospheric heaters. (130-136)

She describes electromagnetic lightning: “The ELF antenna loop used the ionosphere as the outer shell of a spherical capacitor (storing more electrical potential than the surrounding Earth) with the inner conductor composed of Earth’s surface. This circuit duplicates the process that occurs during thunder and lighting storms.” (134)

She points to effects on people: “The 10-Hertz ELF wave can easily pass through people, and there is concern that since it corresponds to brain wave frequency it can disrupt human thought.” (131)

“Global consumption of resources is exceeding Earth’s restorative capacity by at least 33 per cent. War and the preparation for war drastically reduce the store of these resources still further, leading to a self-perpetuating cycle in which competition for raw materials leads to further conflict. This means that global survival requires a zero tolerance policy for the destructive power of war.” (171)

Rosalie online: Military experiments in the atmosphere; Chemtrails.

Dr. Michel Chossudovsky, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University Ottawa, recognizes Dr. Bertell’s cutting-edge work. He provides history and photos of H.A.A.R.P: Owning the Weather”. He details evidence of weather war on ‘rogue states’ in the 1990s: cycles of extreme drought and flood in North Korea, Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq, causing famine, killing millions, destroying economies.

January 7, 2023: Dr. Chossudovsky wrote:

“You cannot win a war against Russia when the second largest military power member state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is “sleeping with the enemy.”

I am referring to Turkey which is both a “NATO heavyweight” as well as a firm ally of the Russian Federation.”

March 6, 2023: Dr. Chossudovsky analyzes the three devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. “The damage and loss of life is beyond description.”  He details the 700-year history of quakes in the region, and calls for an investigation under the 1977 ENMOD convention against environmental modification for hostile purposes. He includes video by the head of the Turkish Space Agency, Serdar Hussein Yildirim, describing a new weapon capable of causing earthquakes, deployed from space.

Canada’s North Warning System is an essential part of U.S. EM weapons systems. We provide sites and maintenance for their high-frequency radio and radar installations. In 2018 Canada committed to pay untold billions for ‘over-the-horizon’ radar for US Space Force.

NEWS ALERT:  October 9, 2018

U.S. electromagnetic weapons expanding in Canada

Environment and Climate Change Canada is replacing the horizontal radar at its weather stations with dual polarization (“Double polarization and improvement of product quality”) adding vertical Doppler radar to the horizontal. Claiming to better forecast and protect us from climate change, dual polarization multiplies the radio-frequency health impact on 95% of the most populous regions of the country.

By these means, with the collusion of governments, global militaries destabilize planet systems, kill millions of people and fellow-creatures, devastate life-support ecosystems with fire, flood, drought, earthquake; devastate people with famine and terror: all the horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Catastrophic forest fires in British Columbia, California, Australia, Russia, Portugal and elsewhere around the world exhibit the same unusual erratic fire behaviour. Intensified by incendiary chemtrail metals and chemicals, these deadly, traumatizing fires are indicators of weather ‘war’—government-sponsored genocide—’waged’ for various motives.

In Portugal, citizen activists Groupo Why Fire? identified intense, erratic fires that destroyed thousands of acres, the local hospital and residential housing, as weather war. They organized events and public support. After the fires, mining corporations applied to extract the rich lithium deposits in the burned lands.      

Evil Fire by Annie, Groupo Why Fire?

In British Columbia, Canada, fires devastated the homelands of Indigenous Nations around the province. Hunting, fishing, wild foods and medicines were limited, people were displaced, distressed; businesses suffered losses. Millions to rebuild communities meant ‘debt bombs’ for future generations: “disaster capitalism”.

In 2017/18 more BC forestlands burned than in the past 25 years combined: 2.57 million hectares.  In 2018, 1,528 lightning strikes caused an unprecedented 2,068 extreme wildfires. In northwest BC 118,318 hectares of Tahltan Nation homelands burned. Campers near Alkali Lake saw infrared emissions in 2017; the following year others heard the extreme lightning blast at the fire point.

Other provinces and Indigenous Nations suffered likewise. These disasters limit their energy for asserting Aboriginal Title and Rights, thereby easing corporate access to minerals, timber, land and water.

Solar Cycle 25

Solar cycle 25 is the current solar cycle, the 25^th since 1755, when extensive recording of solar sunspot activity began. It began in December 2019 with a minimum smoothed sunspot number of 1.8.^[2] It is expected to continue until about 2030.^[3][4]       Wikipedia

This sun cycle moving from solar maximum to minimum is expected to bring the lowest minimum in 400 years, causing extremes of weather as the sun cools, such as we see around the world today.     

From 1645 to 1715, freezing temperatures  in the Northern Hemisphere caused fuel shortages and crop failures, killing millions of people with cold and starvation.

Solar physicists and scientists in every field predict another “little ice age” possibly by 2030.

Can it be that the United Nations doesn’t know about this?

The UN International Panel on Climate Change declared that carbon emissions by civilian economies are turning the planet into a hothouse. They don’t mention military impacts: the result of the US lobby at the Paris Accord (p4) claiming national security, financed by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and corporate friends.

Gearing Up for Planet Heating

A global emissions trading market was set up after the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Kyoto in 1997, which committed industrialized and developing countries to reduce CO2. The new asset class for carbon became a profit mechanism and white-collar crime, like the 2007-8 mortgage crisis that crashed the stock market. Despite a broad array of financial instruments, carbon trading failed to reduce CO2.

Solar, wind and geothermal energy companies boomed, nuclear revitalized. While voluntary initiatives multiplied, enforced compliance to the UN CO2 dictate emerged.

The United Nations Transforming Our World: THE 2030 AGENDA FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

DECLARATION Introduction: “We, the Heads of State and Government and High Representatives, meeting at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 25-27 September 2015 as the Organization celebrates its seventieth anniversary, have decided today on new global Sustainable Development Goals.”

Focused on People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, Partnership, their 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and 169 targets came into effect 1 January, 2016. At repetitive length, they propose to provide every human need, from eradicating poverty, empowering women, children and workers, stabilizing finance, cleaning the environment, to establishing peace. Reducing carbon dioxide to ease climate change, “one of the greatest challenges of our time”, will co-create that ideal world.

The New Agenda 21. “We acknowledge that the UNFCCC {UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, full name not given} is the primary international, intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change.”

Responses include extensive regulation based on UN agreements, with detailed oversight “Regional, National and Global”. At least 192 reiterations interlace promises with the CO2 dictate: classical carrot-and stick brainwashing.

Questions arise. Why date their CO2 warming Agenda with the year of the expected ‘little ice age? Who are the “High Representatives”? The Imperial “We have decided…We are announcing” evokes parental authority, the “Organization”, mafias. Recently the UN has joined the global censorship apparatus, publishing a guide on fact-checking “conspiracy theories”.

Promises of an ideal world distract us from totalitarian enforcement of their CO2 dictate: controlling world development for corporate mega-profit. Weaponizing sustainable development with economic warfare and debt bombs for developing countries. Hijacked by the wealthy dominators and their military arm, the UN One World Government has become a dictatorship by fear through the IPCC.

Disarming Climate Warfare

But “only 62 of the IPCC’s 308 reviewers commented on this chapter at all”, according to Australian climate data analyst John McLean. “Repeating: only four UN scientists in the IPCC peer-review process explicitly endorsed the key chapter blaming mankind for warming the past 50 years, according to this recent analysis.”

Debunking UN IPCC Lies

Dr. Nils-Axel Moerner, Professor Emeritus of paleogeophysics and geodynamics at Stockholm University, sea level expert for the 2000 UN IPCC, quit the panel, saying that the UN claims scientific consensus for political reasons. He describes how the UN enforces the ‘law of general consensus’ by not ‘allowing’ Nigeria to burn their large coal resource for their development, at the risk of the European Union’s withdrawal of support. China stepped in, ‘gave’ Africa $60 billion for ‘sustainable infrastructure’, Nigeria $5 billion to build a mega-dam. If Nigeria can’t pay for it in ten years, China ‘takes it back’, leaving Nigerians to pay China for electricity.

In this video interview with Alex Newman, Dr. Moerner explains that global surface temperature is governed by interrelated 60-year cycles: the speed of Earth’s rotation—faster at solar minimum, slower at maximum; variations of global sea levels; and the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn around the sun. He discusses the pro-nuclear origin of the UN CO2 dictate, IPCC censorship, and the failures of imperialism. “A new solar-driven cooling period is not far off.” His booklet, The Greatest Lie Ever Told, details the “The Great Sea Level Humbug—there is no alarming sea level rise”.

Global Warming Science provides comprehensive studies on The Sixty-Year Climate Cycle, which also governs atmospheric circulation, ocean currents, fish stocks and more. From 1970 to 2000 we experienced the solar maximum of the 60-year cycle from the 1940-1970 minimum, raising fears of global warming. But the increase is not greater or faster than the previous maximum.

Dr. Ole Waever, Professor of International Relations at the University of Copenhagen, points to the military implications of the United Nations enforcing their own declaration of the ‘law of general consensus’ on dissenting States.

The Coming Ice Age

Piers Corbyn, British astrophysicist:

“We point out that the world is now cooling not warming and there is no observational evidence in the thousands and millions of years of data that changes in CO2 have any observable effect on weather or climate in the real world.”

“The fact is the sun rules the sea temperature, and the sea temperature rules the climate…What we have happening now is the start of the mini ice age…it began around 2013. It’s a slow start, and now the rate of moving into the mini ice age is accelerating.”

Professor Valentina Zharkova – Northumbria University Department: Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering, PhD in Astrophysics ‘Radiative transfer of solar prominences’ at Main Astronomical Observatory, Kiev, Ukraine, viva in 1984.

Professor Valentina Zharkova’s recent paper ‘Oscillations of the Baseline of Solar Magnetic Field and Solar Irradiance on a Millennial Timescale’ has been accepted for publishing in Nature. She confirms a Grand Solar Minimum (GSM) from 2020 to 2055, as all four magnetic fields of the sun go out of phase, while also suggesting centuries of natural warming post-Minima.

Zharkova’s team’s expanded ‘double dynamo’ calculations match-up almost perfectly with the timelines of past Grand Minimas: the Maunder Minimum (1645–1715), Wolf minimum (1300–1350), Oort minimum (1000–1050), Homer minimum (800–900 BC); as well as with the past Grand Maximas: the Medieval Warm Period (900–1200), the Roman Warm Period (400–150 BC), and so on…

The C02 Coalition provides a full spectrum of facts about this ‘natural’ gas. “First and foremost, CO2 is plant food.” The fifteen scientists who comprise the Board of Directors state:

“The Coalition seeks to engage in an informed and dispassionate discussion of climate change, humans’ role in the climate system, the limitations of climate models, and the consequences of mandated reductions in CO2 emissions.”

NASA shows a map of temperatures in N hemisphere with detailed narrative of the Maunder Minimum 400 years ago. They provide a beautiful video explaining how they track the solar cycles.

However, the co-chair of the Solar Cycle Prediction Panel, comprised of NASA and NOAA, declares that “greenhouse gases far surpass the sun’s effects when it comes to changes in Earth’s climate”.

Marc Morano at Climate Depot writes:

“Not all solar scientists agree with such predictions. Although NOAA (the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has recognized that sunspot numbers are falling and may approach zero in the 2030s, the international Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel forecasts that the sunspot number will remain the same in the coming 11-year cycle (Cycle 25) as it was in the cycle just completed (Cycle 24). Declaring that the recent decline in sunspot number is at an end, panel co-chair and solar physicist Lisa Upton says: “There is no indication we are approaching a Maunder-type minimum in solar activity.”

From his years on the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Morano quotes:

Dr. Philip Lloyd, South African Nuclear Physicist and Chemical Engineer, a UN IPCC co-coordinating lead author who has authored over 150 refereed publications:

“The quantity of CO2 we produce is insignificant in terms of the natural circulation between air, water and soil…I am doing a detailed assessment of the UN IPCC reports and the Summaries for Policy Makers, identifying the way in which the Summaries have distorted the science…I have found examples of a Summary saying precisely the opposite of what the scientists said.”

He describes “a very small sample” of whistleblower scientists (19) from every discipline who quit the UN IPCC Panel, exposing the politics and censorship of the process.

Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia, geologist at Punjab University, board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet:

“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds…I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists.”

Dr. Madhav Khandekar, retired Environment Canada scientist, lashed out at those who

“…seem to naively believe that the climate change science espoused in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) documents represents ‘scientific consensus.’ …Nothing could be further from the truth!… “Unfortunately, the IPCC climate change documents do not provide an objective assessment of the earth’s temperature trends and associated climate change.” 

Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit, one of the individuals responsible for debunking the infamous “Hockey Stick” temperature graph, slammed the IPCC Summary for Policymaker’s process.

“So the purpose of the three-month delay between the publication of the (IPCC) Summary for Policy-Makers and the release of the actual WG1 (Working Group 1) is to enable them to make any ‘necessary’ adjustments to the technical report to match the policy summary. Unbelievable…Words fail me.”  

Andrei Kapitsa, renowned Russian geographer and Antarctic ice core researcher: 

“The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse. It is global warming that triggers higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way round…A large number of critical documents submitted at the 1995 U.N. conference in Madrid vanished without a trace. As a result, the discussion was one-sided and heavily biased, and the U.N. declared global warming to be a scientific fact.”

Vladimir Radyuhin, blogger, quotes seven Russian scientists in every field, and in the Russian Academy of Sciences on the CO2 lie.

He also quotes Andrei Kapitsa, on ice cores recovered from the depth of 3.5 kilometres in Antarctica. Analysis of ancient ice and air bubbles trapped inside revealed the composition of the atmosphere and air temperature going back as far as 400,000 years.

“We found that the level of CO2 had fluctuated greatly over the period but at any given time increases in air temperature preceded higher concentrations of CO2.

Vladimir Bashkirtsev and G.P. Mashnich, solar physicists, Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics: Long-term solar activity and prediction of Earth’s climate for century 21. They provide graphs and analysis.

“Numerous studies show that the Earth’s climate changes are to a great extent in phase with long-term solar activity variations, …i.e. Earth’s climate is mainly determined and controlled by the sun.”

The Russian Academy of Sciences advised President Putin to reject the Kyoto Accord as having “no scientific foundation. He ignored the advice and sent the Kyoto pact to Parliament for political reasons. Moscow traded its approval of the Kyoto Protocol for the European Union’s support for Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organisation. Russian endorsement was critical, as without it the Kyoto Protocol would have fallen through due to a shortage of signatories. (paragraph 8)

Sergei Golubchikov, Russian ecologist, points out:

“The European Union pushed through the Kyoto Protocol in order to reduce the competitive edge in the U.S. and other countries where ecological standards are less stringent than in Europe”.

Freeman Dyson, Independent scientist, provides elder wisdom at age 91:

“To me, the really urgent risks are still war and peace and that’s far more serious to me than anything that can happen as a result of climate change.”

Manlio Dinucci describes climate change hypocrisy and escalating global terror of nuclear war.

October 2021: “At the beginning of October, Italy hosted the preparatory meeting of the UN Conference on Climate Change, currently taking place in Glasgow. Two weeks later Italy hosted another international event that, unlike the first widely advertised, was passed over in silence by the government: the NATO exercise of nuclear warfare Steadfast Noon in the skies over northern and central Italy. For seven days, under US command, the air forces of 14 NATO countries participated, with dual-capacity nuclear and conventional fighter-bombers deployed at the bases of Aviano and Ghedi.”

Exercises escalated to reality with today’s US/NATO proxy war against Russia, devastating Ukraine, threatening nuclear war. Their provocation of conflict with China also brings catastrophic expectations to new life.

Jeremy Kuzmarov reports: Grandson of Charles de Gaulle, an Old CIA Nemesis, Condemns West’s Policy in Ukraine; Says the U.S. and NATO triggered the conflict and are making Europeans suffer.

Global militaries escalate their consumption of our common resources for globalized, space-based ‘permanent war’ to maintain totalitarian control. To expedite government-enabled high-tech slavery and genocide of world populations. To terrorise and distract us from the cooling of our planet.

Censoring our Sun

Popular websites discussing the solar minimum are scrubbed from the internet, generating the creation of many alternative servers and news providers.

Cap Allon, author of electroverse.co, reports on the influence of Jupiter and Saturn on the solar cycle and ice ages: “DOCUMENTING EARTH CHANGES DURING THE NEXT GRAND SOLAR MINIMUM”. He provides updates as cold weather escalates around the globe.

Robert Felix, author of Not by Fire but by Ice, describes the solar retrograde cycle influenced by the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn.

“On earth, the solar retrograde cycle triggers fluctuations in geomagnetic-field intensity while causing abrupt – and extreme – changes in climate. The changes are so severe that at every other beat of the cycle – approximately every 360 years – the earth plunges into a Little Ice Age.”

Christian Westbrook, Ice Age Farmer, details increasing totalitarian control over the global food supply. In his podcast Stalin would be proud he quotes the dictator’s restructuring of agriculture from private farms to huge collectives, the pattern followed today toward massive corporate industrial farming. He works with others on growing food, and Building Food Security Through Community.

From Revolution to Dictatorship

In his autobiography My Life, Leon Trotsky describes the process of change from the successful worker revolution to Stalin’s dictatorship. In Lenin’s Death and the Shift of Power ³ we see the same human dynamics we work with today.

My Russia-German parents narrowly survived Stalin’s starvation of millions of Ukrainians in 1932-33, long-denied and now recognized as genocide: the Holodomor—“death inflicted by starvation”.

“In the case of the Holodomor, this was the first genocide that was methodically planned out and perpetrated by depriving the very people who were producers of food of their nourishment (for survival).”

Russia-German and peasant farmers suffered when Stalin seized lands, tools, animals, and harvests—for export income—forcing self-sufficient farmers to labour in collectives. That primitive hands-on genocide pales against the same starvation plan today, now global, and the high-tech medicalized genocide of psychopath dominators.

The gains of the revolution after the world wars—the anti-nuke, peace, and human rights movements, empowerment of women, children and working people, care for environment—are crushed again in the shift of the human cycle to totalitarian greed and destruction—inter-generational impact of world-wide trauma through male dominance and thousands of years of war. In these end times we face our ultimate evolutionary and survival challenge.

From the planet burning up to ice age? In 7 to 20 years?

While social devastation, family and personal trauma, injuries and deaths by covid lockdown and bioweapon shots blind us with grief and terror, global dominators load every human on Earth, all wildlife and ecosystems, with endless toxins, 5G radio-frequency, and stress—the silent killer. Terrorize us with threats of nuclear holocaust and annihilation. Distract us, weaken us, for what lies ahead. To depopulate our world with repeated Shock and Awe. 

Future Shock: the final weapon of mass destruction.

Responding to unprecedented, high-tech criminal psychopathology—known throughout human history as evil—the universal and timeless human drive to resist oppression, to understand all things, shifts our energy for life into overdrive.

We take heart from the failures of imperialism in the past—the fallen Empires and totalitarian Regimes—and from the erosion of Empires today. Success of local communities defies centralized control.

While our Sun’s shift is censored, people everywhere work with unprecedented globalized energy to share awareness. To share healing. “The awakening of humanity cannot be stopped.”

“Our most precious resource is the human spirit.” — Dr. Sister Rosalie Bertell, Grey Nun of the Sacred Heart, 1929-2012

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Hildegard Bechler is a community organizer focused on peace, energy, economics and waste. She worked with Dr. Bertell and citizens province-wide to prevent nuclear reactors and uranium mining in British Columbia. She supported Indigenous Nations working for land rights, preventing mega-dams and mines in sacred territories. Public meetings, government consultations, university seminars and media interviews with Rosalie Bertell, Amory Lovins, Hazel Henderson and Paul Connett helped inform citizens establishing alternatives to essential services. Sustainable Community development services www.stop-weather-war.net

Notes

1 Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine, Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2007, Intro.

In Bud Edney, “Appendix A: Thoughts on Rapid Dominance,” in Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade, Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance (“Washington, DC: NDU Press Book, 1996), 110.

2 Dr. Rosalie Bertell, Planet Earth: The Latest Weapon of War, Black Rose Books, 2001, 131.

In Harold Puthoff, ‘Everything or Nothing’, New Scientist, 28 July 1990; and Bill Sweetman, op cit, pp91-94. Bill Sweetman, Aurora: The Pentagon’s Secret Hypersonic Skyplane, Motor Books International, Oscela WI, 1993, pp152-169.

3 Leon Trotsky, My Life, Pathfinder Press Inc. 1970, Chapter XLI p502.

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In Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, we do not witness the twin, tragic, missions to Hiroshima and Nagasaki…the usual images of B-29s in flight, pilots in command and bombardiers finding their targets, and bombs away. (And, of course, no sign of what then happened on the ground). We never do meet the two pilots.

But I did. In fact, I wonder if I am the only person who chatted with both of the pilots as well as dozens of Japanese survivors of the payloads they carried.

Paul W. Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay (named for his mother), which dropped the first “gadget” over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, died at 92 in 2007, defending the bombing to the end of his life. Some of the obits noted that he had requested no funeral or headstone for his grave, not wishing to create an opportunity for protestors to gather. Kind of sad. But still.

I had a chance to interview Tibbets nearly forty years ago for Mother Jones. Later, in 1995, I got to meet and talk with the pilot of Bock’s Car who dropped the plutonium bomb over Nagasaki, Charles Sweeney, in the green room for Larry King’s CNN show.  He took even more pride in what he had done in August 1945. Far as I know, however, he never did re-create the atomic bombing at an air show, which Tibbets once did.

The hook for my Tibbets interview was this: While spending a month in Japan on a grant in 1984, I met a man named Akihiro Takahashi. He was one of the many child victims of the atomic attack, but unlike most of them, he survived (though with horrific burns and other injuries), and grew up to become a director of the memorial museum in Hiroshima.

Takahashi showed me personal letters to and from Tibbets, who then headed Executive Jet Aviation in Columbus, Ohio, which had led to a remarkable meeting between the two elderly men in Washington, D.C. At that meeting, in a park, Takahashi expressed forgiveness, admitted Japan’s aggression and cruelty in the war, and then pressed Tibbets to acknowledge that the indiscriminate bombing of civilians was always wrong.

But the pilot (who had not met one of the Japanese survivors previously) was non-committal in his response, while volunteering that wars were a very bad idea in the nuclear age. Takahashi swore he saw a tear in the corner of one of Tibbets’ eyes.

In our interview, the polite but crusty Tibbets would confirm the meeting with Takahashi (which he agreed to only “out of courtesy”) and most of the details, but scoffed at the notion of shedding any tears over the bombing. That was, in fact, “bullshit.”

“I’ve got a standard answer on that,” he informed me, referring to guilt. “I felt nothing about it. I’m sorry for Takahashi and the others who got burned up down there, but I felt sorry for those who died at Pearl Harbor, too….People get mad when I say this but — it was as impersonal as could be. There wasn’t anything personal as far as I’m concerned, so I had no personal part in it.

“It wasn’t my decision to make morally, one way or another. I did what I was told — I didn’t invent the bomb, I just dropped the damn thing. It was a success, and that’s where I’ve left it. I can assure you that I sleep just as peacefully as anybody can sleep.”  When August 6 rolled around each year “sometimes people have to tell me. To me it’s just another day.”

In fact, he wrote in his autobiography, The Tibbets Story, that President Truman at a meeting in the White House after the bombing had instructed him not to lose any sleep over it. “His advice was appreciated but unnecessary,” Tibbets explained.

In any event, Tibbets (like Truman) had acted in a consistent manner for decades, while at times traveling under an assumed name to avoid scrutiny. In speeches, he called Hiroshima and Nagasaki “good virgin targets” — they had been untouched by pre-atomic air raids — and ideal for “bomb damage studies.” In 1976, as a retired brigadier general, he re-enacted the Hiroshima mission at an air show in Texas, with a smoke bomb set off to simulate a mushroom cloud. He intended to do it again elsewhere, but international protests forced a cancellation.

He told a Washington Post reporter, for a favorable profile, in 1996, “For awhile in the 1950s, I got a lot of letters condemning me…but they faded out.” On the other hand, “I got a lot of letters from women propositioning me.”

In my recent book The Beginning or the End:  How Hollywood–and America–Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,  I recall Tibbets’ role as a paid consultant to the 1953 MGM movie, Above and Beyond, with Robert Taylor in the pilot role. Much of the movie focuses on how keeping “the billion dollar secret” before August 1945 nearly wrecked his marriage. In a key scene, after releasing the bomb and watching Hiroshima go up in flames below, Taylor radios in a strike report. “Results good,” he says. Then he repeats it, bitterly and with grim irony.

But that was not in the Tibbets-approved original script for the film. It was added later, presumably to show that the men who dropped the bomb recognized the tragic nature of their mission.

Tibbets slammed the scene when the film came out.

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Greg Mitchell has written a dozen bestselling and award-winning non-fiction books, edited national magazines and has now directed two acclaimed documentaries playing at top film festivals. Twitter: @gregmitch Email: [email protected]

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Rarely mentioned in current commentaries on the war in Ukraine, in the early weeks that followed the February 24, 2022, Russian invasion, Russia and Ukraine engaged in three separate and significant attempts to negotiate a peaceful settlement. Those negotiations had several important things in common. All three could have ended the war before the devastation of Ukraine’s infrastructure, the massive Ukrainian loss of lives, and the increased risk of unchecked escalation. All three featured an offer by Ukraine not to join NATO. And all three were stopped by the United States.

The First Talks: Belarus

On February 25, the day after the invasion began, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had already signaled that he was prepared to abandon Ukraine’s pursuit of NATO membership. Zelensky announced that he wasn’t afraid to negotiate neutrality and security guarantees with Moscow. That concession was the first sign that both Ukraine’s and Russia’s goals might be met and that the war could end with a diplomatic settlement.

Zelensky’s concession likely had many motivations. The first was the force of the invasion itself. The second was his acceptance that NATO was not likely to grant Ukraine’s request to join. On February 26, the second day of the war, Zelensky responded to the invasion by saying, “We are not afraid to talk to Russia. We are not afraid to say everything about security guarantees for our state. We are not afraid to talk about neutral status. We are not in NATO now … We need to talk about the end of this invasion. We need to talk about a ceasefire.”

Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak also said that “Ukraine wants peace and is ready for talks with Russia, including on neutral status regarding NATO.” He told Reuters on February 25 that, “If talks are possible, they should be held. If in Moscow they say they want to hold talks, including on neutral status, we are not afraid of this. We can talk about that as well,” he said.

But Zelensky was also frustrated with NATO:

“I asked them – are you with us?” Zelensky said on February 25. “They answered that they are with us, but they don’t want to take us into the alliance. I’ve asked 27 leaders of Europe, if Ukraine will be in NATO, I’ve asked them directly – all are afraid and did not respond.”

On February 27, just three days into the war, Russia and Ukraine announced that they would hold talks in Belarus. The Ukrainian delegation was going in with a willingness to negotiate neutrality. Zelensky said, “We agreed that the Ukrainian delegation would meet with the Russian delegation without preconditions.” After the first round of talks, the two delegations returned home for consultations, having identified priority topics. Encouragingly, there was an agreement for a second round of talks. Those talks took place in Belarus, on the Belarus-Ukraine border, on March 3.

However, though Ukraine was willing to discuss neutrality and “the end of this invasion,” the U.S. was not. On February 25, the same day Zelensky said he was “not afraid to talk to Russia” and that he was “not afraid to talk about neutral status,” State Department spokesman Ned Price was asked at a press conference, “What’s the U.S. – what’s your thinking about the efficacy of such a – of such talks?”

The reporter was asking specifically about the Belarus talks, calling them the “talks between Russia and Ukraine happening in Minsk,” the capital of Belarus. Price responded, “Now we see Moscow suggesting that diplomacy take place at the barrel of a gun or as Moscow’s rockets, mortars, artillery target the Ukrainian people. This is not real diplomacy. Those are not the conditions for real diplomacy.” The U.S. said no to the Belarus talks.

On December 17, 2021, just two months before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia delivered proposals on security guarantees to both the U.S. and NATO.

The key demands included no NATO expansion to Ukraine and no deployment of weapons or troops to Ukraine. On January 26, the U.S. and NATO rejected Russia’s essential demand for a written guarantee that Ukraine would not join NATO. Derek Chollet, counselor to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, has disclosed that the U.S. told Moscow that negotiating NATO expansion into Ukraine was never even on the table. Putin simply remarked “that fundamental Russian concerns were ignored.”

The official Russian response came on February 17, 2022. It said that the U.S. and NATO offered “no constructive response” to Russia’s key demands. It then added that if the U.S. and NATO continued to refuse to provide Russia with “legally binding guarantees” regarding its security concerns, Russia would respond with “military-technical means.”

The invasion one week later was Russia’s promised military-technical response to the U.S. refusal to provide a guarantee that Ukraine would not join NATO. If the invasion was intended as a quick strike with the objective of compelling from Kiev the promise not to join NATO that Russia was unable to get from Washington, then that intention could have been accomplished in Belarus in the first week of the war. But the U.S. stopped it.

The Second Talks: Bennet

The second set of negotiations revealed a pattern. There was, once again, a chance to end the war and a Ukrainian offer of neutrality. The U.S. roadblock was not an isolated event that emerged out of the circumstances of the first set of negotiations in Belarus, but rather policy.

On March 6, just days after the second talks concluded in Belarus, the Israeli media reported that then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett had made a surprise visit to Moscow to meet with Putin in an attempt at mediation. After meeting Putin, Bennet twice spoke with Zelensky. He also spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron and flew to Germany for talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Details of the meetings were scarce at the time. But in an interview on February 2, 2023, Bennet revealed details on what was agreed, how close talks came to success, and what happened.

According to Bennett, “Zelensky initiated the request to contact Putin.” Bennett said that “Zelensky called me and asked me to contact Putin.” Bennett then told the U.S. that he “had the trust of both sides” and that “I have Putin’s ear. I can be a pipeline.”

Turn on English subtitle

These conversations set in motion a series of back-and-forth phone calls between Bennett and Putin and Bennett and Zelensky. Bennett then flew to Moscow for meetings with Putin and then to Germany for meetings with Scholz. A “negotiation marathon of drafts” followed.

“Everything I did,” Bennett says, “was fully coordinated with Biden, Macron, Johnson, with Scholz and, obviously, Zelensky.”

According to Bennet, though the U.S. told him that “there was no chance of success,” Putin told him that “we can reach a ceasefire.” In order to reach that ceasefire, Bennet says Putin made “huge concessions.” When Bennett asked Putin if he was going to kill Zelensky, Putin answered, “I won’t kill Zelensky.” Putin also “renounced” Russia’s demanded “disarmament of Ukraine.”

Zelensky, too, made a “huge concession.” According to Bennet, Putin complained of the West’s broken promise regarding NATO expansion and told Bennet to pass the message on to Zelensky, “Tell me you’re not joining NATO, I won’t invade.” Bennett says that “Zelensky relinquished joining NATO.”

Having given the promise not to join NATO, Zelensky wanted security guarantees. Putin saw security agreements with major powers as being the same as joining NATO. Bennett suggested abandoning NATO-like guarantees in favor of Ukraine adopting “the Israeli model” and creating a strong, independent army that can defend itself. That solution was accepted by both Putin and Zelensky.

Having won those promises, Bennett flew to Germany and updated Scholz, the Americans, Macron, and Johnson. “Boris Johnson adopted the aggressive line. Macron and Scholz were more pragmatic. Biden was both.” Bennett said that “there was a good chance of reaching a ceasefire.” But the pattern of U.S. obstruction first evident in Belarus continued. Bennett says the West made the decision “to keep striking Putin.”

“So, they blocked it?” his interviewer asked. “They blocked it,” Bennett replied. His account of what was said in private conversations contradicts accounts at the time by a senior Ukrainian official who complained that “Bennett has proposed that we surrender,” suggesting that the Ukrainian statement was more for public consumption. Sources “privy to details about the meeting” said at the time that Zelensky deemed the proposal “difficult” but not “impossible” and that “the gaps between the sides are not great.”

Journalist Barak Ravid reported in “Axios” that Russian concessions included that demilitarization could be confined to the Donbas, that there would be no regime change in Kiev, and that Ukraine could keep its sovereignty. Zelensky said that he had “cooled down” about joining NATO and that he had found Putin’s proposal “not as extreme as they anticipated.”

As in Belarus, a chance for a concession not to join NATO and for peace were “blocked” by the U.S.

The Third Talks: Istanbul

Next, in March and early April of 2022, efforts at negotiations moved to Istanbul. Turkey was a promising candidate for mediation. Turkey has a relationship with Russia and refused to break off that relationship once the war began. Turkey also has a relationship with Ukraine, and the drones the Ukrainian forces were armed with as they massed on the eastern border with Donbas prior to the war were supplied by Turkey.

The Turkish talks were the most fruitful talks of all, actually producing a “tentatively agreed” upon settlement.

By March 20, Zelensky had seemingly accepted that NATO’s open door to Ukraine was a sleight of hand. He told a CNN interviewer that he personally requested the leaders of NATO members “to say directly that we are going to accept you into NATO in a year or two or five, just say it directly and clearly, or just say no. And the response was very clear, you’re not going to be a NATO member, but publicly, the doors will remain open.”

At the Istanbul talks at the end of March, Zelensky acted on that realization and offered a promise not to join NATO. On March 29, Ukrainian negotiators said Kiev was ready to accept neutrality if, under an international accord, western states like the United States, France, and Britain provided binding security guarantees.

Writing in Foreign Affairs, Fiona Hill and Angela Stent reported that,

According to multiple former senior U.S. officials we spoke with, in April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement: Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.

Putin has recently revealed more details about the agreement. On June 13, 2023, taking questions from war correspondents at the Kremlin, Putin confirmed that “we reached an agreement in Istanbul.”

Putin then revealed the previously unannounced detail that the tentative agreement was not merely verbal. It had gone so far as to produce a signed document: “I don’t remember his name and may be mistaken, but I think Mr Arakhamia headed Ukraine’s negotiating team in Istanbul. He even initialed this document.” Russia, too, signed the document: “during the talks in Istanbul, we initialed this document. We argued for a long time, butted heads there and so on, but the document was very thick and it was initialed by Medinsky on our side and by the head of their negotiating team.”

Screenshot from en.kremlin.ru

Two days later, on June 17, Putin went further still. In a meeting with a delegation of leaders of African countries who were, once again, attempting to mediate peace talks, Putin presented the initialed draft agreement. Holding the document up, Putin said,

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that with [Turkish] President [Tayyip] Erdogan’s assistance, as you know, a string of talks between Russia and Ukraine took place in Turkey so as to work out both the confidence-building measures you mentioned, and to draw up the text of the agreement. We did not discuss with the Ukrainian side that this treaty would be classified, but we have never presented it, nor commented on it. This draft agreement was initialed by the head of the Kiev negotiation team. He put his signature there. Here it is.

The agreement, which bore the title “the Treaty on the Permanent Neutrality and Security Guarantees for Ukraine,” said that Ukraine would make “permanent neutrality” a feature of its constitution. According to reporting from RT, admittedly a Russian state-funded media network, “Russia, the US, Britain, China, and France are listed as guarantors,” which, if accurate, seems to be a softening of Putin’s reply to Bennet that security agreements with major powers was the same as joining NATO.

As with the Bennett negotiations, Russia reportedly renounced the demand for the full demilitarization of Ukraine, though there was still a gap between Russia’s and Ukraine’s proposals on caps on the size of Ukraine’s armed forces and on the number of tanks, aircraft, and rocket launchers.

But then the U.S. obstruction happened again. “We actually did this,” Putin told war correspondents at the Kremlin, “but they simply threw it away later and that’s it.”

Talking to the African delegation, Putin said, “After we pulled our troops away from Kiev – as we had promised to do – the Kiev authorities … tossed [their commitments] into the dustbin of history. They abandoned everything.” Putin implicitly blamed the U.S., saying that when Ukraine’s interests “are not in sync” with U.S. interests, “ultimately it is about the United States’s interests. We know that they hold the key to solving issues.”

As Putin’s account of the tentative agreement and Ukraine’s promise not to join NATO was confirmed in the Foreign Affairs article, so too is his claim that the US stopped the negotiated settlement confirmed. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that, because of the talks,

“Turkey did not think that the Russia-Ukraine war would continue much longer.” But, he said, “There are countries within NATO who want the war to continue.” “Following the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting,” he explained, “it was the impression that…there are those within the NATO member states that want the war to continue, let the war continue and Russia get weaker.”

Cavusoglu’s account does not stand alone. Numan Kurtulmus, the deputy chairman of Erdogan’s ruling party, has hinted at the same obstruction and at the same pursuit of larger goals. He told CNN TURK that “We know that our President is talking to the leaders of both countries. In certain matters, progress was made, reaching the final point, then suddenly we see that the war is accelerating… Someone is trying not to end the war. The United States sees the prolongation of the war as its interest… There are those who want this war to continue… Putin-Zelensky was going to sign, but someone didn’t want to.”

The U.S. was joined by the U.K. as a “NATO member states that want[s] the war to continue.” On April 9, then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson rush to Kiev to rein in Zelensky, insisting that Russian President Vladimir Putin “should be pressured, not negotiated with” and that, even if Ukraine was ready to sign some agreements with Russia, “the West was not.”

Why No Peace?

Why did the U.S. and U.K. not want Zelensky to sign?

When State Department spokesman Ned Price was asked about Zelensky being “open to a…diplomatic solution” at a March 21, 2022, press briefing, he rejected a negotiated end to the war, even if the negotiated settlement met Ukraine’s goals. “This is a war,” Price answered, “that is in many ways bigger than Russia, it’s bigger than Ukraine.” The U.S. rejected Ukraine negotiating an agreement with Russia that met Kiev’s goals in favor of pressuring Ukraine to continue fighting in pursuit of larger U.S. goals and “core principles.”

Three separate times in the early weeks of the war, negotiations produced the real possibility of peace. The third even yielded a tentative agreement that was, according to Putin, signed. Both sides made “huge concessions,” including Ukraine promising each time not to join NATO. But each time, the U.S. put a stop to the promise of a diplomatic solution and peace, allowing the war to go on and to escalate, seemingly in the pursuit of U.S., not Ukrainian, interests.

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

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***

There are 222 Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. Although they would all claim to be for a strong national defense, most of them are incorrigible warmongers that don’t know the difference between offense and defense.

There are forty-one national emergencies that presidents have declared in the forty-seven years since the National Emergencies Act was passed that are still in force, the oldest of which dates back to 1979. Representatives Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Eli Crane (R-AZ), and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) recently tried to end five of these national emergencies (the Congo, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, and Syria), but could not get the support of their fellow Republicans in the House.

According to Rep. Gosar:

Emergencies are by definition temporary. That is why the law governing national emergency declarations provide the president temporary powers and are intended to be short-lasting and require Congressional review and oversight no later than six months after being declared, and every six months thereafter.

The “emergencies” at issue here are between 10 and 20 years old, and are clearly not urgent, temporary or short lasting. Congress has failed to perform its most basic Constitutional duty: checking the powers of the executive branch. Not once has Congress reviewed any of these decades-old emergency declarations, as required by law.

Sadly, in many instances, the sanctions imposed by these national emergency declarations aid and abet conflicts thousands of miles away, destroy innocent lives and exacerbate human suffering.

No president, regardless of party, should be handed a blank check and endless special powers that can be used to circumvent the normal democratic process, exceed their constitutional authority, and violate the balance of power.

He further says that “the extended national emergency declarations related to the Congo, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, and Syria allow the President to access 135 special statutory powers.”

If I lived in Arizona, and I voted, I would vote for Paul Gosar.

H.J.Res.68 would terminate “the national emergency declared by President George W. Bush on October 27, 2006, which blocks the property of certain persons contributing to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.” The Republican vote was 24 for the resolution and 191 against.

H.J.Res.70 would terminate “the national emergency concerning Libya declared by President Obama on February 25, 2011.” The Republican vote was 26 for the resolution and 189 against.

H.J.Res.71 would terminate “the national emergency declared by President George W. Bush on May 22, 2003, with respect to the stabilization of Iraq.” The Republican vote was 22 for the resolution and 194 against.

H.J.Res.74 would terminate “the national emergency declared by President Barack Obama on May 16, 2012, which blocks the property of certain persons threatening the peace, security, or stability of Yemen.” The Republican vote was 23 for the resolution and 192 against.

H.J.Res.79 would terminate “the national emergency declared by President George W. Bush on May 11, 2004, which blocked the property of certain persons and export of certain goods to Syria in response to Syria supporting terrorist activity in Iraq, among other activities.” The Republican vote was 20 for the resolution and 193 against.

House Republicans are incorrigible warmongers.

Regarding Iraq in particular, Rep. Gosar wrote in a Washington Times op-ed:

“In 2003, President George W. Bush declared a national emergency and cited it as the legal basis for the invasion of Iraq, despite the fact that Iraq was not actually a threat to the national security of the United States. This decision was an abuse of executive power, violated international law, and undermined the authority of Congress.”

U.S. foreign policy is reckless, belligerent, and meddling because Republican warmongers make it so.

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Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] writes from central Florida. He is the author of The War on Drugs Is a War on Freedom; War, Christianity, and the State: Essays on the Follies of Christian Militarism; War, Empire, and the Military: Essays on the Follies of War and U.S. Foreign Policy; King James, His Bible, and Its Translators, and many other books. His newest books are Free Trade or Protectionism? and The Free Society.

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***

The four indictments against Trump are ridiculous in their charges. There is no legal basis in law for any of the indictments. Moreover, many of the indictments are violations of Constitutionally protected civil liberties. All the indictments amount to is an assertion that to charge Democrats with fraud in an election is a felony. It is OK to charge Republicans with fraud.

Charges of electoral fraud have accompanied every election cycle in US history whether at the local, state, or national level. Many believe today that John F. Kennedy got to the White House because the Democrat machine in Chicago counted the graveyards. George W. Bush’s election was disputed and had to be settled by the Supreme Court. Never before has it been a crime to dispute an election.

What explains the criminalization of Trump’s dispute of the election? 

I will suggest a number of reasons. 

One is that the Democrats know that they cannot win against Trump, and polls show that Biden is so unpopular even with Democrats that they cannot again steal the election. 

So the Democrats decided to misuse city, county, and federal prosecutors to tie up Trump with four criminal indictments of multiple charges in order

(1) hopefully to discredit him in the public eye, and

(2) tie him up in court proceedings and trials so that he cannot campaign. 

Maybe all the stress will kill an old man. 

Clearly if the Democrats thought they could win, they would not bring shame on themselves and their party and on government in the United States with obviously politically-inspired indictments of the leading candidate for President. Clearly the people do not believe the indictments. A political party that cared about the country would not split the country in half by weaponizing law.

But the corrupt Democrats and their Ruling Establishment backers only care about power. America now has an entire political party totally devoid of integrity. Power uber alles is the Democrats only principle.

Another is the incompetence of the prosecutors. Jack Smith is so totally incompetent that he has had to admit mistakes in his filings and has been repeatedly over-ruled by the federal judges overseeing his two phony indictments. 

In other words, Jack Smith is so thoroughly incompetent that he is unqualified to be a para-legal in a small town. No self-respecting and competent attorney would bring such false charges, especially against an American President.

The two African-American prosecutors, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, are visibly incompetent. Alvin Bragg cannot explain how a city or state court can try a person on a federal charge, which is his only felony charge. He can’t even explain what the federal charge is.

Fani Willis has 11 charges against Trump, all of which are nonsensical and false, especially her racketeering charge under the RICO law put in place to convict the Mafia. 

Only an incompetent prosecutor would equate protest of electoral fraud with racketeering. Aside from being nonsensical charges in Trump’s case, Fani Willis’ charges to be valid require criminal intent. Fani Willis provides  no evidence that Trump harbored criminal intent when he responded to expert evidence of electoral fraud and tried to get the matter investigated prior to Biden being declared the winner. Nowhere in her indictment does Fani Willis provide any evidence of criminal intent or any reason why she thinks criminal intent is involved.

The indictments boil down to this:  It is a felony to accuse Democrats of electoral fraud.

Considering how the locations of the trials have been orchestrated, it is highly unlikely that the jury pools will contain one person who is not a Trump-hater. In other words, the Democrats know that the juries they select will convict Trump even if the evidence proves him innocent. The ground has been prepared so that indictment means conviction. 

The kangaroo convictions will be appealed and eventually might reach an honest court, but the process will take years, thus ensuing Biden a second term.

This is America today. It is far worse than a Banana Republic.

We are now presented with four Kafkaesque, Stalinist trials of a President of the United States. If they can do this to a President, a mere citizen has no chance. The corrupt, incompetent trio of Smith, Bragg, and Willis are achieving the destruction of legal integrity and civil liberty in the United States. The result will be social disintegration.

Americans are going to very much regret that they accepted the stolen 2020 presidential election. 

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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

I have reported elsewhere that the rates of adverse effects inflicted by the COVID-19 mRNA injections varied from batch to batch from December 2020 to January 2022, per critical work conducted by rogue Danish researchers.

Via European Journal of Clinical Investigation:

“Vaccination has been widely implemented for mitigation of coronavirus disease-2019 (Covid-19), and by 11 November 2022, 701 million doses of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech) had been administered and linked with 971,021 reports of suspected adverse effects (SAEs) in the European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA).¹ Vaccine vials with individual doses are supplied in batches with stringent quality control to ensure batch and dose uniformity.² Clinical data on individual vaccine batch levels have not been reported and batch-dependent variation in the clinical efficacy and safety of authorized vaccines would appear to be highly unlikely. However, not least in view of the emergency use market authorization and rapid implementation of large-scale vaccination programs, the possibility of batch-dependent variation appears worthy of investigation. We therefore examined rates of SAEs between different BNT162b2 vaccine batches administered in Denmark (population 5.8 million) from 27 December 2020 to 11 January 2022…

The observed variation in SAE [severe adverse event] rates and seriousness between BTN162b2 vaccine batches in this nationwide study was contrary to the expected homogenous rate and distribution of SAEs between batches.

In conclusion, the results suggest the existence of a batch-dependent safety signal for the BNT162b2 vaccine, and more studies are warranted to explore this preliminary observation and its consequences.”

In layman’s terms, how sick these shots made the recipients, on average, depended on which batch they were taken from.

Now, in testimony in the Australian Senate, a Pfizer goon called Krishan Thiru – whom I have reported on previously due to his stubborn unwillingness to answer basic questions about whether his employer tested for transmission in its shoddy COVID-19 trials (it didn’t) – has admitted that the corporation, namely Pfizer reserved a set-aside batch of COVID shots for its employees in Australia, which bypassed normal regulatory oversight, while giving the general population separate batches.

Via NTD News:

“According to two executives at Pfizer Inc., Australia-based staff at the pharmaceutical company were provided with their own separate batch of specially imported COVID-19 vaccines. The executives spoke at a hearing in the Australian Senate, where they were questioned by Queensland Senator Malcolm Roberts.

An excerpt from the hearing was subsequently shared by Mr. Roberts on his YouTube channel. The shared segment depicts the Pfizer representatives—Dr. Krishan Thiru, Medical Director for Pfizer Australia and New Zealand, and the company’s Head of Regulatory Sciences, Dr. Brian Hewitt—fielding the senator’s questions.”

As the shots were free for all Australians at the point of service (Pfizer got the government to foot the bill) and there was no supply shortage, there is no apparent legitimate reason for Pfizer to give its employees shots from a separate batch.

But there is one very likely nefarious reason.

Given the totality of the evidence – the massive spike in cancer and heart attacks (and innumerable other devastating health effects) worldwide post-2020, the varied side effect rates based on batch, and Pfizer reserving a select batch for its own employees in Australia (and most likely in every country where it operates) – the picture of what Pfizer has done, and the forethought and malice with which it committed what is likely the greatest crime in world history, begins to paint itself.

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This article was originally published on Armageddon Prose.

Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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The United States has to have an enemy. For the last seven years, the enemy has been Russia. Now the focus has shifted to China. Take a look at these headlines on Google News and you’ll see what I mean:

• Has America been too slow to wake up to the China threat? Washington Examiner
• Why is China a threat to the United States? Quora
• Is the US ready to address China’s threats in time to make a difference?The Hill
• China and Russia are waging another Cold War — is the West up to the challenge? The Hill
• China secretly sends enough gear to Russia to equip an army, Politico
• Xi Jinping is Preparing China for War, Newsweek

Get the picture? China is a bigtime threat to the United States. Forget that the US regularly sends its warships into the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.

Forget that the US has encircled China with military bases and missile systems.

Forget that the US has sent multiple delegations to Taipei in violation of the “one-China” policy. Forget that the US arms and trains military personnel in the Taiwanese Army.

Forget that the US imposes unilateral tariffs on Chinese goods and sanctions Chinese businessmen. Forget that the US has implemented the most draconian blockade on advanced semiconductors in history. Forget that the US is building anti-China coalitions across the region.

Forget all of these things because—according to the geniuses in the mainstream media—China is the problem, China is the threat, and China is the country that is pushing the world towards war.

Does anyone believe this nonsense? Here’s how columnist Bradley Blankenship summed it up in an article at RT:

The US national security state has exploited deep ideological biases in the media and is bankrolling countless think tanks, non-governmental organizations, and academic programs to churn out constant anti-China propaganda. Self-Reinforcing Propaganda, RT

In other words, the USG is working with its allies in the media to saturate the airwaves with anti-China blather in order to convince Americans that China is the source of the problem. That’s how the government shapes public perception and lays the groundwork for war. Check out this excerpt from an article at The Diplomat:

A key feature of mainstream Western media today is the relentless China-bashing. It is off the charts and tiring, often involving regurgitated trivia or fabricated stories with no evidence to support callous statements about the country, demonstrating a deep lack of understanding. But such stories continue to be churned out with no end in sight.

Countering this in international media by offering more balanced views for a global audience is near impossible as censorship is rife. There almost seems to be a global compact to control the narrative, a propaganda war powered by today’s digital technology….

Typically, the negative stories adhere to three core ideas, which inform the unspoken guidelines within these press rooms when it comes to reporting on China.

First is the belief that China is a threat to the world and that this belief must be relentlessly reinforced at every available opportunity. How and why China is a threat is never explored; such is the deep-rooted and almost religious nature of the belief. Sound arguments do not matter. The basic tenets of good journalism are ignored when it comes to a China story. There is no need to explain or give evidence of why China is a global threat. Anti-China Rhetoric Is Off the Charts in Western Media, The Diplomat

China poses no threat to the West, in fact, China has never invaded another country in its 70 year-long history. Compare that to Washington’s unbroken record of violence around the world. Here’s a brief recap

The United States launched at least 251 military interventions between 1991 and 2022. This is according to a report by the Congressional Research Service, a US government institution that compiles information on behalf of Congress. The report documented another 218 US military interventions from 1798 to 1990.

That makes for a total of 469 US military interventions since 1798 that have been acknowledged by the Congress…. The list of countries targeted by the US military includes the vast majority of the nations on Earth, including almost every single country in Latin America and the Caribbean and most of the African continent.

The Military Intervention Project at Tufts University’s Center for Strategic Studies has documented even more foreign meddling.

“The US has undertaken over 500 international military interventions since 1776, with nearly 60% undertaken between 1950 and 2017,” the project wrote. “What’s more, over one-third of these missions occurred after 1999.”

The Military Intervention Project added: “With the end of the Cold War era, we would expect the US to decrease its military interventions abroad, assuming lower threats and interests at stake. But these patterns reveal the opposite – the US has increased its military involvements abroad.”
US launched 251 military interventions since 1991, and 469 since 1798, Geopolitical Economy

And which country is the “greatest threat to world peace”? China?

Not even close. Take a look:

The U.S. emerged as the greatest threat to world peace, followed by Pakistan and China, in the End of Year global survey conducted by WIN/Gallup International across 65 countries in the world.

Of more than 66,000 people surveyed the world over, 24% of respondents believed that the U.S. was the greatest threat to world peace. Pakistan and China got eight and six percent of the votes respectively while Iran, Israel, North Korea and Afghanistan tied for fourth place with four percent of the votes.
The U.S. Is The Biggest Threat To World Peace, Buzzfeed

So, maybe, China is not the biggest threat, after all? Is that what we’re saying?

Indeed, China is not a threat to the United States, in fact, China’s highest ideal is “peaceful development.” Think about that for a minute: Development without war. Is it even possible?

It is possible, and the US and China should work together to make it happen. There’s no reason why the world’s two biggest economies cannot work together on the shared goals of economic integration, state-of-the-art infrastructure and poverty reduction. We need leaders who will embrace collaboration and cooperation not exacerbate divisions and confrontation. We need to strengthen relations with China not look for ways vilify, coerce or bully them.

Unfortunately—as we all know—the western “rules-based order” is controlled by billionaire oligarchs who bitterly oppose nationalistic leaders who cherish their own sovereign independence and act in the interests of their own people. They won’t allow that. Western elites believe that all material wealth and power should be in private hands (not public hands) which is why they are determined to provoke a war with China, so the matter can be resolved militarily. In short, the conflict with China is shaping-up to be a nuclear cage-match between “the globalists and the nationalists”.

The West’s greatest asset in this struggle is the media whose propaganda helps to garner the public support the elites need to drive the country to war. Regrettably, the plan appears to be working. For example, in 2018 a mere 4 in 10 Americans saw China’s rise as a threat to US vital interests. (The Chicago Council on Global Affairs) Compare those results to the recent survey at Gallup which showed that “66% of U.S. adults consider (China) to be a critical threat to the vital interests of the U.S”.

In just 4 years the media has persuaded a majority of Americans that China poses a clear threat to the United States. How can one explain these results other than pointing to the pernicious impact of state propaganda used to poison the minds of Americans against Washington’s biggest economic rival?

Here’s more from Gallup:

In addition to holding a largely unfavorable opinion of China, more Americans name China as the United States’ greatest enemy than any other nation by a wide margin. This view is closely linked to two other measures in the poll, which find that Americans broadly believe China’s military and economic powers represent a “critical threat” to the United States’ vital interests in the next decade. “Record-Low 15% of Americans View China Favorably, Gallup

“China’s military is a critical threat” to the US? Is that really what Americans think?

And where exactly has China’s military been deployed in the last 30 years: Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Iraq?

No, for the last 7 decades China’s military has remained in China.

China has invaded no one and certainly has no intention to do so in the future. Americans have no reason to fear China. What they need to fear is the deranged neocons who send US warships into the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, 8,000 miles from the United States. That’s who they should fear, because that is a deliberate provocation aimed at triggering a war.

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center appeared to show that public opinion of China has dropped dramatically in 24 countries. But a closer look at the survey shows just the opposite, in fact, Pew helps to prove the point we have been trying to make here, which is, that the countries most dominated by the western media are more likely to have “unfavorable” views of China. It’s not a coincidence. Here’s how Blankenship summed it up:

The agency polled adults in 24 countries; there are 193 United Nations member states, which indicates that it does not show any serious global trend purely based on its methodology. There is also a strong selection bias for high-income countries and American allies. However, some middle-income and poorer countries were polled and the data reveals what many know to be true – the Global South largely has favorable views of China.

For example, the Pew survey found that countries such as Kenya (72%), Nigeria (80%) and Mexico (57%) hold favorable views of China... Since poorer countries are the beneficiaries of bilateral cooperation with China, including on the Beijing-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), it is natural that they would have a higher opinion of Beijing. Pew, however, mostly did not select countries with high-level strategic cooperation with Beijing….

there has been a steady downward trend fully in line with American foreign policy, e.g., after 2012 with former President Barack Obama’s ‘Pivot to Asia’, the Trump trade war, and whatever it is that the current administration of President Joe Biden is doing. The US national security state has exploited deep ideological biases in the media and is bankrolling countless think tanks, non-governmental organizations, and academic programs to churn out constant anti-China propaganda….

There is a definitive and ongoing battle for hearts and minds between China and the US, and so-called ‘China experts’ are the Americans’ foot soldiers whether they realize it or not. And there are only bound to be more systemic incentives for China hawks in the future considering members of the US Congress keep introducing legislation, like the Senate ‘Countering Chinese Propaganda Act’ or the House ‘Countering the PRC Malign Influence Fund Authorization Act’, which would see hundreds of millions spent on negative news coverage against China. Both of these bills have been absorbed into the House and Senate’s versions of the America COMPETES Act, which have passed in both chambers but are awaiting minor changes before becoming law. Self-reinforcing propaganda: A new poll shows people dislike China, but there’s a catch, Bradley Blankenship, RT

So—even though a majority of Americans already believe that China is their enemy—Congress wants to spend “hundreds of millions more” to intensify the media’s indoctrination campaign to ensure that any critical thinking person who believes the US should pursue a policy of peaceful engagement with China will be denounced as a coward, a traitor and a puppet of Xi Jinping.

This is the scenario we’ll be facing if we don’t find a candidate who will break with the war-mongering concensus and craft a policy that focuses on a long-term accomodation with China that circumvents a catstrophic confrontation. Avoiding World War 3 should be our top priority.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). 

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***

The location of this wildfire remains to be confirmed. It may be in Southern Oregon. [correction August 19, 2023] 

How is it possible to have totally burned down houses in between undamaged trees?

Burned out houses between green trees? pic.twitter.com/j8OfYh7Oad

— David Wolfe (@DavidWolfe) August 16, 2023

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***

July 29, 2023 – Bossier, LA – 56 year old Flight Nurse Yvette Monique Heiman died on July 29, 2023 from a rare cancer of the heart that spread to her brain. She fought this rare turbo cancer for one year.

July 24, 2023 – El Dorado Hills, CA – Nurse Amy Cooney was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer in Nov.2021. She is still fighting with experimental treatments.

July 23, 2023 – Columbus, GA – Nurse Sabrina works at St. Francis Hospital, has an 8 month old boy and was just diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic cancer.

July 22, 2023 – Trinity, NC – Nurse Lindsey Brim was diagnosed with an aggressive Stage 4 breast cancer that grew extremely rapidly (to 10cm).

July 26, 2023 – Kansas City, KS – Amanda Sprinkle is a nurse and sister of Astros’ Baseball player Jonathan Sprinkle. She was recently diagnosed with AML leukemia.

July 17, 2023 – Kamloops, BC – Nurse Brandy Schmidt was diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic melanoma.

July 8, 2023 – Grand Rapids, MI – Nurse Evonne was diagnosed with an aggressive Diffuse large B-cell Lymphoma.

June 29, 2023 – Louisville, KY – Nurse Shannon Mackin was diagnosed with Stage 2 Hodgkin Lymphoma in Sep.2022. It is resistant to chemo.

June 28, 2023 – Malden, MA – Nurse Sylvia Brienza McEwen developed Stage 4 colon cancer in May 2022 that has spread to her liver.

June 20, 2023 – Gates, TN – 26 year old Jordan Mitchell, an ER nurse, was diagnosed with Stage 4 Breast cancer metastatic to liver, lungs and bone.

June 18, 2023 – Dallas, TX – Nurse Eber Delgado is a Home Health Nurse who was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 Appendix Cancer.

June 17, 2023 – Santa Monica, CA – 40 year old nurse Brady Hicks was diagnosed with large masses on his check – Stage 3 DLBCL Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.

June 16, 2023 – Los Angeles, CA – Nurse Claudia Lizarraga was diagnosed with Breast cancer in Jan. 2023. After surgery, doctors found out it was already Stage 4.

June 13, 2023 – Covington, LA – Nurse Shana Thomas was diagnosed with DLBCL lymphoma.

June 12, 2023 – Brandon, FL – Nurse Heidi Rogers was just diagnosed with Stage 4 Cholangiocarcinoma (biliary ducts).

June 2023 – New York – Nurse Elena Mandelbaum was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia.

May 31, 2023 – Frenchman Bay, WA – Nurse Sam Lynch gave birth to twin girls in Sep.2022 and less than a week later she was diagnosed with Stage 4 bowel cancer. She is still fighting.

May 31, 2023 – Hamilton, TX – Nurse Lisa Newby was diagnosed with a rare metastatic Stage 4 leiomyosarcoma.

May 28, 2023 – Syracuse, NY – 39 year old oncology nurse Tera Schilling died on May 28, 2023, following a “short battle with cancer”.

May 21, 2023 – Maui, Hawaii – Nurse Courtney Tsark was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer in Nov. 2022.

May 16, 2023 – Edmonton, Alberta – Pediatric Nurse Kristina Garbaria-Youb was diagnosed with a Stage 4 metastatic cancer in the brain and lungs.

May 10, 2023 – Sparks, NV – Nurse Sara Carolla-Volk was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma with brain metastases on Oct. 1, 2022.

May 8, 2023 – Wolcott, CT – 39 yo nurse Heather Podzunas Hogaboom died on May 8, 2023. Got 1st Moderna mRNA on Dec. 24, 2020, 2nd on Jan. 21, 2021. 4 months later she was diagnosed with Stage 4 colorectal cancer.

May 5, 2023 – Laguna Hills, CA – Nursing student Sofie was diagnosed with Lymphoma which forced her to drop out of nursing school.

May 2, 2023 – Santa Cruz, CA – 20 year old Shyama Mohini, a student with plans for nursing school, was just diagnosed with Stage 4 Hodgkin Lymphoma.

May 1, 2023 – Milwaukee, WI – Neonatal ICU nurse Sherry Zych was diagnosed with Stage 4 bilateral lung cancer.

March 2023 – Montgomery, AL – 36 year old Reid Williams a nurse was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer that had spread to his liver.

Feb. 2023 – Hamburg, NY – Nurse Kelly Englert was diagnosed with Lung cancer 3 years ago that has just spread to her brain.

Jan. 2023 – 32 year old oncology nurse April Addison was diagnosed with breast cancer the day after she delivered her son by C-section. She has no family history of breast cancer.

Jan. 2023 – Bellingham, WA – Nurse Practitioner Devyn Nixon was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent chemo recently.

My Take…

This article has 30 nurses with recently diagnosed aggressive cancers.

Some of these were discovered by Twitter user Janiesaysyay who deserves credit.

(Substack limits how many images I can include in an email, so please come back to the substack website or app to see all 30 images)

This is how the cancers break down:

• lymphoma – 6
• colon – 6
• breast – 5
• lung, leukemia, melanoma – 2 each
• heart, brain, appendix, biliary tree, leiomyosarcoma – 1 each

COVID-19 mRNA vaccines cause aggressive turbo cancers which often present at a late stage (usually stage 3 or 4), grow very rapidly, spread or metastasize rapidly and are generally resistant to conventional cancer treatments (chemo, radiation). 

CONCLUSION: It is shocking to see this many young nurses come down with such aggressive end stage cancers.

When I first started to notice turbo cancers in the vaccinated, it was the leukemias, lymphomas and glioblastomas (brain cancer) that were killing vaccinated people in a matter of weeks, days, sometimes even hours.

But as an oncologist, I am particularly horrified to see so many end stage breast and colon cancers presenting “out of nowhere”.

Something is very wrong here.

I fear we are going to see this pattern in all COVID-19 mRNA vaccine mandated professions.

And it only gets worse from here.

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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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Showing realism and willingness for dialogue, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy strongly criticized the West’s stance on the Ukrainian crisis and demanded more diplomatic efforts. For the former politician, it is necessary for Europeans to live peacefully with Russia, as it is not possible to continue a policy of confrontation and aggression in the long term.

Sarkozy’s criticisms were made during an interview with the French newspaper “Le Figaro”. He spoke with journalists about possible solutions to the current conflict in Ukraine and endorsed the need to pursue peace through diplomacy. Sarkozy condemned the policy of prolonging the war through unlimited military assistance to Kiev, which has been one of the main points of Emmanuel Macron’s foreign policy.

For Sarkozy, Macron failed to continue to deal with the reality of the conflict mainly “due to pressure from [some] eastern Europeans”. Last year, Macron was severely slammed by Polish leader Mateusz Morawiecki because he was trying to negotiate with Moscow in the early weeks of the special military operation. In May 2022, Morawiecki compared Macron’s stance to an “attempt to negotiate with Hitler”. Sarkozy sees this event as an important point of international pressure, boosting Macron’s decision to adhere to the policy of unlimited support to Kiev.

The former president also negatively assessed the project of Ukrainian membership in the European Union. For him, these plans are merely “fallacious promises that will not be held”. Sarkozy compared the Ukrainian access to the Turkish one, making it clear that in both cases the projects are unlikely to succeed.

Also, Sarkozy emphasized the importance of maintaining good relations with Russia due to the geographical factor. Considering the proximity between the EU and Russia, it is necessary that both sides are diplomatically close, without friction and conflicts. Sarkozy admits that the confrontation with Russia is only of American interest, not European, and therefore there must be a reformulation of Europe’s Ukraine policy.

“Russia is a neighbor of Europe and will remain so (…) In this regard, European interests are not aligned with American interests. We cannot stick to the strange idea of ​’fighting a war without fighting”, he said.

Another subject commented by Sarkozy was the territorial issue. For him, peace negotiations will have to deal rationally with the possibility of recognizing Crimea and Russian historic territories. Sarkozy states that with Ukraine’s impossibility to win the war, there are only two alternatives: freeze the conflict or recognize the territorial loss. The first option seems inadequate because a new war situation would arise in the future, while on the other hand the recognition of territories can be legitimate, if done by referendum with international observers.

“When it comes to this territory (Crimea), which was Russian until 1954 and where a majority of the population has always felt Russian, I think any step back is illusory (…) If the Ukrainians do not completely manage to win them back, then the choice will be between a frozen conflict – which we know will inevitably lead tomorrow to a new hot conflict – or we can come out on top by resorting, again, to referendums strictly supervised by the international community to settle these territorial questions in a definitive way”, he added.

It is necessary to note that Sarkozy does not adopt a “pro-Russian” opinion. He echoes the Western “consensus” of criticizing Russia’s decision to intervene militarily in Ukraine, even referring to the special military operation by the biased word “invasion”. The very proposal to redo the referendums in Crimea and other regions shows Sarkozy’s distrust of Russia, since Moscow has already held referendums that have been widely verified by invited international observers, having no need to redo them. So, the former president’s opinion is undoubtedly aligned only with European interests, with no pro-Russian bias.

The problem is that Europe is now conditioned to believe that American interests are its own. And this is precisely what Sarkozy is criticizing. He reminds how geography is a basic principle of international politics. Neighboring regions must strive to maintain friendship and respect so that there are no conflicts, as they will always be close and have to deal with each other, rationally overcoming disagreements. And this is what Sarkozy advocates for EU-Ukraine-Russia relations – that, despite disagreements, a peaceful [and realistic] solution is found as soon as possible.

Obviously, the Ukrainian neo-Nazi regime rejected Sarkozy’s proposal. Zelensky’s aide Mikhail Podoliak accused the former French leader of “deliberately participating” in “genocide and war” by simply advocating diplomacy. For the Ukrainian official, Sarkozy’s ideas are “fantastic” and “criminal”, as Crimea and Donbass are supposedly “unconditional territories of Ukraine”. In fact, this type of position on the part of Kiev is not surprising, since in addition to being one of the sides directly involved in the conflict, the regime works as a proxy for Washington, completely adhering to American anti-Russian narratives.

What really matters is whether French and European politicians will be attentive to Sarkozy. The former president is denouncing an obvious reality: to satisfy American interests, Europe is destroying itself and harming its relations with a neighboring power. Current politicians need to be aware of this scenario and reverse it. However, unfortunately, it seems the current generation of heads of state does not have the same strategic understanding as Sarkozy.

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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.

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The Ukrainian 82nd Air Assault Brigade, one of the last reserves of the Ukrainian Army but described as its “most powerful unit,” has entered the battlefield and is combating Russian forces. However, their entry will not revitalise an already failed and exhausted counteroffensive.

The Russian Army confirmed on August 15 that it repelled three attacks from this elite Ukrainian unit near Robotyne, Zaporozhye. In the battle, 200 Ukrainian soldiers were killed, and five tanks, eight armoured and infantry fighting vehicles and two Msta-B howitzers were destroyed.

Forbes reported that the brigade — which had spent most of the last two and a half months in reserve as the Ukrainian army tried to mount its counteroffensive — had finally been deployed, calling it “good and bad news” for Kiev.

Equipped with Challenger 2 tanks armed with depleted uranium shells, the Ukrainian 82nd Air Assault Brigade is also armed with Marder and Stryker armoured vehicles, among the most modern NATO equipment delivered to Kiev.

The 82nd Brigade is said to be among “the last major units” at the disposal of the Ukrainian command. Their deployment “could significantly boost” the firepower of the Ukrainian forces in the near term. Still, when the 82nd and its sister, the 46th Air Assault Brigade, withdraw, “there might not be any equally powerful fresh brigades to fill in for them,” meaning “the counteroffensive could lose momentum,” Forbes warned.

“If the Russians in Robotyne can hold their ground, and endure what is likely to be a major but temporary surge in Ukrainian combat power, they might eventually find themselves in a position to strike back at the Ukrainians—once the surge brigades rotate off the front line without replacement,” the article concluded.

Nonetheless, the author exaggerates the capabilities of the 82nd Air Assault Brigade, which is not even a division. To date, Ukrainian troops have been unable to break through the first line of Russian defences. Therefore, throwing an elite reserve into battle already demonstrates Ukraine’s desperate situation of being unable to break the meatgrinder.

The fact that the 82nd Air Assault Brigade is armed with British tanks and modern Western combat vehicles does not mean it can change the situation. This is because Ukrainian forces cannot overcome minefields and break through the opposition posed by Russian reconnaissance and strike forces operating along the entire line of contact.

Deploying the 82nd Air Assault Brigade also points to Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu correctly assessing that Ukraine’s military resources are almost exhausted.

“The preliminary results of the fighting show that Ukraine’s military potential is practically exhausted,” Shoigu said when speaking at the 11th International Security Conference in Moscow on August 15.

While the counteroffensive has failed, Kiev and Western leaders have started pointing the finger. Ukrainian officials blame Western governments and media for the overoptimism surrounding the counteroffensive. However, this is gaslighting by the Kiev regime as they were the source of much hype and propaganda surrounding the offensive, which Western governments and media were more than happy to disseminate.

It is recalled that in the preparation stages of the counteroffensive in 2022, Chief of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence Kyrylo Budanov predicted that the capture of Crimea would happen “not in summer [of 2023], but by the end of spring – perhaps, even a little earlier.”

Budanov said he was not afraid of making such predictions because “it’s not even the beginning of the end [of the war]; it’s a process, and it’s in the making.” He even refused to backtrack from his audacious predictions when given an opportunity in April, saying he had “no reason” to reassess his prediction.

As it turned it, the much-lauded offensive did not even begin in the spring, but in the first week of summer, humiliating Budanov’s predictions that led to NAFO ridiculously planning parties and events in Crimea in the expectation the peninsula would be captured by Ukrainian forces.

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tried to control expectations while also building Western confidence to maintain the flow of equipment, weapons, and, of course, money. Zelensky only attempted to temper expectations when it was evident that the highly promoted spring offensive would become a summer one.

It can be said that deploying the elite 82nd Air Assault Brigade into the Russian meatgrinder is the last throw of the dice for Ukraine with only weeks of summer left, which marks a symbolic and literal reminder of how the “spring” offensive was an utter failure. Ukraine has reportedly committed over 90% of its troops in recent days, and in the likelihood that they fail in their objectives, the country will be left with no serious fighting forces, leaving it at the mercy of the Russian military.

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

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The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the 15-member  regional bloc, has declared fierce opposition to military’s infiltration into politics and primarily eager to restore constitutional order. It shares the same position with the 54-member continental organization, the African Union.

United States and Europe, particularly France backed ECOWAS’ collective decision to resolve it through peaceful mechanism, dialogue and diplomacy. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a phone conversation held on August 15, with interim President of Mali, Assimi Goïta, according to media transcript of the Kremlin website.

In a statement, the Kremlin said the call was initiated by Mali, and was focused on ending the situation “through peaceful political and diplomatic means.” There is a sharp contrast: Putin has called for a return to constitutional order in Niger, while Wagner PMC Founder Yevgeny Prigozhin has welcomed the army takeover and smartly offered his military services.

On the other hand, the West African military chiefs held a two-day meeting from August 17-18 in Ghana’s capital, Accra, to coordinate a possible armed intervention to reverse a coup in the Republic of Niger. Alarmed by a series of military takeovers in the region, it has agreed to activate a “standby force to restore constitutional order” in Niger.

ECOWAS has requested Niger’s coup leaders release President Mohamed Bazoum after his July 26 ouster, warning that the bloc could send in troops as a last resort if negotiations turn unsuccessful. Reports described the situation extremely sophisticated, therefore it is imperative for external actors and African States to engage in constructive dialogue in order to restore the expected stability in West Africa.

Dr. Abdel-Fatau Musah, Moscow State University’s graduate and now the ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security at ECOWAS, however said the bloc would to resort to the ultimate means of force. Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria are expected to contribute troops, but little detail has emerged over a potential Niger operation.

Russia and the United States have urged a diplomatic solution to the crisis. The regional bloc has already applied trade and financial sanctions while France, Germany and the United States have suspended aid programmes. The regional bloc’s troops have previously intervened in other emergencies since 1990 including in wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. We have mentioned that Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria are expected to contribute troops, but little detail has emerged over a potential Niger operation.

Notwithstanding all that, Burkina Faso has joined voices with Mali and claimed that any intervention in Niger would be a declaration of war on Mali and Burkina Faso. In light of Russia’s increasing influence in west Africa, it is worth noting that Burkina Faso itself had a coup in January 2022 and since then has requested France to fully withdraw its troops while hailing Russia as a strategic ally, thus increasing speculations about Russian presence and influence. In the same vein, Algeria, known for its strong loyalty to Russia, announced its opposition to any intervention in Niger.

With Russia’s support for the emerging military power in the region, Burkina Faso and Mali showing the leeway and offer noticeable sign of encouragement for other to follow such steps aim at kicking out France. In the Russia-Africa summit joint declaration, Russia indicated, as one of its strategic objectives, unreserved and unflinching support for African States to deal drastically with growing United States and Western/European political influence and dominance across Africa.

It is well-known that Russia perceives Africa as an area where it can diminish Western influence by leveraging historical ties and fostering alliances with Africa. It has gained presence in Central African Republic, Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea – these are French-speaking African States. And now in a close-connection to Niger, what are Russian officials and experts saying: We bring you here some of their arguable opinions and diverse positions monitored from local and foreign media.

Russia’s Financial newspaper Izvestia was upbeat with some of the reports. France is behind the United States’ move to join efforts aimed at resolving the situation in Niger as Paris is unwilling to forfeit its influence in the West African country, a source in the office of Russia’s Honorary Consul in the Nigerien capital, Niamey told Izvestia media.

Washington is clearly seeking to reinstate President Mohamed Bazoum, toppled by the military in late July, in power. For Western nations, it is crucial to have loyal leaders at the helm of those countries that are rich in natural resources, experts noted. US Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has visited Niger. She met with representatives of the rebels but was unable to hold meetings with either ousted President Mohamed Bazoum or the coup’s leader, General Abdourahamane Tchiani.

“Such a high-level visit sends a clear signal that the US is interested in preserving the previous political regime. It’s a signal not only to Niger but also to its neighbors, who are undecided on how to react to the military coup,” Grigory Yarygin, associate professor in the Department of American Studies at St. Petersburg State University, pointed out.

“If we look at the US policy and approach, we will see that the old idea of maintaining control over developing countries for the sake of guaranteeing access to vital commodities is now back in vogue,” said Vladimir Vasilyev, Senior Research Fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for United States and Canadian Studies.

According to him, the tactics that the United States applied after the European colonial system in Africa collapsed in the 1960s, which involved developing uneven market-based relations with economically underdeveloped countries by selling goods at prices favorable for Western countries, has failed to produce the desired results.

Additionally, developments of recent years, including sanctions on Moscow, the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, have significantly changed the logistics of transporting goods, thus leading to supply chain disruptions. The United States is increasingly seeking direct control over resources and political oversight of countries in general, which in large part explains the roots of Washington’s neo-colonial approach to foreign policy, Vasilyev noted.

Yarygin emphasized that Washington also had other concerns:

“If European players leave Africa, someone else will show up to fill the vacuum. Clearly, the US is wary that the void will be filled by either Chinese or Russian influence.”

According to Nikolay Shcherbakov, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Asian and African Studies, and Moscow State University and Professor at the Higher School of Economics (HSE University), currently the possibility of ECOWAS’ intervention in Niger remains, high but it would be a zero-sum game for all participants.

“The bloc will have to take measures in order not to lose face, but any potential military action would mean an armed conflict that nobody really needs. It would create a major disbalance in an already highly unstable region that is suffering from the actions of Jihadist groups,” he told Vedomosti.

Yevgeny Korendyasov, Senior Researcher at the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, thinks that France will seek a solution only within the ECOWAS framework.

“First of all, the time has passed for this type of intervention; second, ECOWAS and other such integrative unions are guided by a strict provision that all conflicts should be resolved peacefully,” the expert told Izvestia.

French Public Law Professor Karine Bechet-Golovko, who is a visiting professor at Moscow State University, expressed confidence that Paris is losing its position in Africa because it lacks a clear-cut strategy in the region. France is following in line with the EU’s overall foreign policy, while Brussels announced on August 1 that it was ready to support a military operation against Niger given a relevant request by ECOWAS. She noted that France does not have an independent policy with respect to Africa, and therefore it has been pulling out of everywhere – Mali, Burkina Faso, and now Niger. The expert told Izvestia that this is a sad sign because a country that lacks sovereignty cannot be an independent player in foreign policy.

Pavel Timofeyev, Head of the European Political Research Department at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, noted that there is still no final decision with regard to Niger. According to him, the French may resort to attempting a military intervention if it is backed by the United States.

“The Americans have no problems with getting troops there. Then, it would be an intervention by a coalition, not by a single country,” he pointed out. However, the expert stressed that France is more likely to try to avoid any military interference because Paris is concerned over the reputation damage that it would incur should it fail. Thus far, it is using economic restrictions, such as suspending all financial aid to neighboring Burkina Faso, the expert told Izvestia.

Financial & Business Vedomosti wrote that August 6 marked the deadline for the ultimatum that the member states of the regional group Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) issued to the leaders of Niger’s military coup, demanding that ousted President Mohamed Bazoum be reinstated in office. The organization announced at a summit in Nigeria that ECOWAS nations would take every measure to restore constitutional order in Niger.

On July 31, the Foreign Ministers of ECOWAS countries issued a joint statement, saying that Nigeria, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire were ready to dispatch troops to Niger. However, the parliament of Nigeria refused to approve the proposed foreign intervention. Meanwhile, France, which imports 15% to 17% of the uranium it needs for its nuclear power industry from Niger, has actually backed the intervention plan. Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna stated that Paris resolutely supported ECOWAS’ efforts.

France is coordinating its actions with ECOWAS, said Grigory Lukyanov, an Expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Asian and Eastern Studies. Paris does not want to lose its longstanding position in the region and a critical supplier of vital resources. Initially, the proposal was more for a purely special military operation in Niger, the expert added. However, the situation has become more complicated now that the Nigerien coup leader has secured the support of civilians in addition to the rebels’ base in the military.

The ECOWAS ultimatum was an attempt to intimidate Niger as the plan was not to carry out a full-scale intervention, Rakhimbek Bobokhonov, researcher at the Center for Civilizational and Regional Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for African Studies, pointed out. ECOWAS simply does not have a mechanism for promptly assembling a military force and coordinating its deployment. For its part, Paris will attempt to preserve its military presence in Niger but French forces will have to leave the country eventually; it is just a matter of time, the analyst noted.

“Tensions in the region are rising but it’s difficult to talk about a full-scale military operation against Niger at this point. Every diplomatic effort is more likely to be made and there is also a possibility of minor armed clashes in border areas, as well as precision missile attacks and airstrikes on critical military facilities,” Alexander Rudoy, International Cooperation Expert at the State University of Management, told Izvestia. According to him, there should be no expectations of a quick resolution to the Niger crisis, while further developments will largely depend on whether the countries of the region are capable of agreeing to settle the issue peacefully.

Sanctions have already been imposed on Niger, and the country’s membership in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was terminated.

“From the standpoint of Europe’s energy balance and the confrontation with Russia, this is an important country, especially in the long term. There is a French military contingent stationed there. There could be an attempt to intervene in order to safeguard it,” Andrey Maslov, Expert at the Valdai Discussion Club and Director of the Higher School of Economics (HSE University) Center for African Studies, told a local Russian newspaper.

Nikita Panin, Program Coordinator at the Russian International Affairs Council, and Researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for African Studies, said:

“For ECOWAS, this is certainly another, and perhaps the most serious, challenge, because the chairmanship of this regional organization also changed less than a month ago. In any case, ECOWAS has already taken some measures: the borders with Niger have been closed, and all financial transactions with anyone associated with the putschists who took power have been prohibited.”

“Sanctions have already been announced against Niger, and its membership in the organization is likely to be suspended. Thus, a belt of states in political isolation and bordering on each other is forming in the Sahara-Sahel region: Guinea – Mali – Burkina Faso – Niger. Russia is interested in expanding relations with Niger, as well as with all other African States, and thus could help to normalize the situation there,” Vsevolod Sviridov, Expert at the HSE University Center for African Studies, told Izvestia.

The West’s unambiguous support for the agreement of the Member-States of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to launch a military operation in Niger indicates that the organization may intervene in favor of the colonialists, said Konstantin Kosachev, Deputy Speaker of Russia’s Federation Council (Upper House of Parliament or Senate).

In his opinion, the use of force could dramatically destabilize the situation in the region. “The West’s unambiguous support for ECOWAS actions against the rebels in Niger suggests that this economic union may actually intervene in favor of the colonialists. The use of force will not only fail to defuse tensions in Niger and the region, but on the contrary, will lead to its sharp destabilization,” Kosachev told TASS News Agency.

On the whole, he characterized the West African bloc’s announcement of its readiness to launch a military operation in Niger as soon as possible as a very alarming signal. “On the one hand, the general fatigue of local leaders from coups is easy to understand. In July, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, the current head of ECOWAS, said he would not tolerate new military coups in a region where there have already been five of them in less than three years. On the other hand, external intervention is unlikely to solve the problems of either Niger or the region. It’s rather the other way round,” Kosachev said.

Attempts to settle the crisis in Niger militarily would only draw out the conflict and destabilize the Sahara and Sahel region, and Moscow supports the efforts of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to mediate the situation, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on August 11.

“The ECOWAS is taking steps to restore constitutional order in Niger through a political and diplomatic dialogue with the new Nigerien authorities. Russia supports the ECOWAS’ mediation efforts aimed at searching for ways out of the crisis that was created,” the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s website said.

At the same time, there has been information that the ECOWAS decided at its extraordinary summit in Abuja on August 10 to prepare and deploy its reserve forces, which could stage an armed incursion into Niger to free Mohamed Bazoum. The Nigerien military declared their readiness to fend off any foreign intervention. Moreover, they have announced the formation of a provisional government, which includes civil society representatives, according the statement.

“We believe that a military approach to settling the crisis in Niger risks leading to a protracted standoff in the African country and a sharp destabilization of the situation in the Sahara-Sahel region as a whole,” the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s website said.

Mohamed Bazoum’s election in 2021 was a landmark in Niger’s history, ushering in its first peaceful transfer of power since independence from France in 1960. Niger is a landlocked nation located in West Africa and well known to be a major uranium producer but has 80% impoverished population. Niger remains one of the poorest countries in the world, regularly ranking at the bottom of the UN’s Human Development Index.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS) and InDepthNews, is now a regular contributor to Global Research. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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South Africa will host and presides over the 15th BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Summit from August 22 to 24 at the Sandton Convention Centre (SCC) in Johannesburg, purposefully to deliberate on a broad range of important multiple issues, including new membership, common currency, various parameters of development and security and institutional architecture, on the discussion table.

More than 70 states will participate: 23 States have submitted formal applications to join the group which implies they will in principle contribute to the changing processes and further give potential force for substantial geopolitical shifts. South Africa will also continue its Outreach to leaders from Africa and the Global South. Today, BRICS relations with African States are on the upswing, which is in the fundamental interests of both sides, and this could be constructed and be pursued on the principles of equality, mutual respect and non-interference in the members’ internal affairs.

Under the circumstances, the new African members will partly uphold strengthening the emerging multipolar world. There are noticeable signs that African States are now looking forward to shed off neo-colonial tendencies and exploitative attitudes by the United States and its Western and European allies, so they have expressed high conviction for creating a new high-quality friendship and engaging in more constructive sustainable development within the African Agenda 2063.

Professor Nyu Haibin, Director of the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies told Russian media that the main expectations from this summit are related to the fact that it will once again be held on the African continent, recalling it was South Africa was the first that started the expansion of the association, thus letting it become more representative globally.

In his opinion, Africa is now increasingly attracting the attention of the international community in terms of its economic and political affairs. This concerns especially the debt problem of African countries, which is a matter of concern, Nyu pointed out. Since the BRICS are now the main trading partners of African States as well as a source of investment, they are more relevant to Africa’s development. That is, the future lies with them. There are indications that Africa now relies more than before on the BRICS countries for sustainable development

Reports say there is no clear consensus within the BRICS itself on the issue of Brazil, India and South Africa being granted permanent seats on the UN Security Council. Moreover, despite the BRICS’ attempts to promote reforms in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, decisions on key issues in these structures are still in the hands of the US and Europe.

South Africa believes that the bloc could be “transformative” in representing these nations, including those from Africa that wish to play a role in world affairs and ensure benefits to the Global South. “BRICS has acquired a very important stature in the world, with many across various continents of our world seeking to be part of it,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in Cape Town.

Now the basic question is what African States are here, what kind of a distinctive flavour these have for the BRICS future. First, as well-known the theme of the summit is ‘BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development, and Inclusive Multilateralism’ which portrays the first  flavour.

South Africa’s External Affairs Minister, Naledi Pandor, said while several more nations had shown interest, 23 had formally applied. These were Algeria, Argentina, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Morocco, Nigeria, State of Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela and Vietnam.

According to Pandor, general interest in joining BRICS has surged during the past few months and this number, in practical terms, indicated recognition of BRICS primarily championing the geopolitical dimension of the Global South, and the whatever benefits relating to membership.

Meeting of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) foreign ministers in New York City on 22 September 2022 (Licensed under PDM-owner)

In June 2023, Ambassador Mzuvukile Maqetuka, who has been in this current post since 2021 in the Russian Federation, highlighted several points about the emerging multipolar world in an insightful interview that South Africa is committed to the articles of the United Nations (UN) Charter, including the principle that all members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means. Since the dawn of democracy in South Africa almost 30 years ago, we have called for the reform of the United Nations and multilateral organisations to make such structures more representative, inclusive of African representation.

South Africa is a sovereign state, governed by a democratic constitution and committed to the consistent application of international law. It will continue to fulfil the obligations in terms of the various international agreements and treaties to which it has signatories, he seriously argued.

With an estimated 58 million population, South Africa is the 25th largest country in the world. South Africa welcomed and fully supported the adoption by African nations of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) which we believe will contribute tremendously in pursuit of economic integration of our continent towards the attainment of our vision: Agenda 2063, the Africa We Want.

The South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Dr Naledi Pandor, hosted the most recent Meeting of BRICS Ministers of Foreign Affairs and International Relations on 1 June 2023 in Cape Town. The mid-term meeting provided an opportunity for BRICS Foreign Ministers to reflect on regional and global developments. The ministerial meeting was preceded by the meeting of Sherpas and Sous-Sherpas from 29 – 30 May 2023 and the Russian delegation attended all these meetings in Cape Town, Minister Lavrov was leading the delegation.

As chair of BRICS, South Africa practices the policy of inclusive engagement and invited 15 Foreign Ministers from Africa and the global south to a “Friends of BRICS” meeting held previously on 2 June 2023.

But what today, what is South Africa’s investment in BRICS? How do we assess the level of development, food security if BRICS control that huge natural resources and the human capital? How has South Africa, these several years as the only African State in BRICS, used its membership to facilitate and promote investment from BRICS into the African continent. South Africa has been boastful of its membership with little impact, at least, on its southern African region.

Together, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa represent over 42% of the global population. That’s quite a significant proportion of the global population, but half of BRICS aggregate population is still impoverished and consistently live under poor conditions. BRICS has that 42% of the global population and huge territory, though.

South Africa was a late minor addition to the group, to add a “bridgehead to Africa” says Charles Robertson, Chief Economist at Renaissance Capital. BRICS is keenly aware of the importance of contributing to Africa’s development agenda. More African States express the sentiment of automatically attaining the highest development by joining BRICS. Pre-summit research shows that not all the six African States have formally applied. Further quick search has revealed that Algeria, Egypt and Ethiopia have submitted their membership requests, but Nigeria, Senegal and Morocco’s positions are still unclear.

Peter Fabricius, Consultant at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), an African non-profit organisation with offices in South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia and Senegal, argued that Egypt would probably be among the first to join, especially as it’s already a member of BRICS’ New Development Bank. Cairo is particularly interested in BRICS’ plans to shift more trade from the US dollar into local currencies – and even perhaps to create its own currency.

Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune ultimately sees joining as helping to create a more equitable world order, which would help Algeria distance itself ‘from the attraction of the two poles.’ His foreign minister recently expressed hopes for deriving trade benefits.

Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune sees joining as helping to create a more equitable world order, which would help Algeria distance itself ‘from the attraction of the two poles.’ His foreign minister recently expressed hopes for deriving trade benefits.

These views reveal common misconceptions about BRICS. The two poles Tebboune referred to – which are growing further apart due to the Ukraine war – are clearly the West on the one side and Russia and China on the other. So BRICS can hardly be called non-aligned.

And seeing BRICS as a useful trade booster misses the fact that it’s not a trade bloc at all. Pandor highlighted that BRICS countries have around 42% of the world’s population and 30% of its territory, 27% of global GDP and 20% of international trade. But only about 6% of the total trade of the five members is with each other.

BRICS is nonetheless a useful economic club – most concretely through its New Development Bank, which has already loaned US$5.4 billion to South Africa for five projects. But viewed geopolitically, BRICS is less of a non-aligned ‘champion of the global south’ as Pandor put it, than an alternative to a Western-dominated world, as Tebboune says – or even, more pointedly, anti-Western.

This is a prickly point. Pandor said South Africa didn’t ‘see BRICS as being pro-Russia or anti-Western … South Africa’s trading partners in the West are very, very important to South Africa’s economic progress.’ Games also didn’t think Nigeria would join BRICS to tip the global power balance against the West, as it valued all its main trading partners equally.

On the other side of the argument, Priyal Singh, Institute for Security Studies Senior Researcher, says the motivation for BRICS membership differs even among current members. ‘India, for example, has consistently pointed to its pursuit of “strategic autonomy” on the world stage; and a stronger (or enlarged) BRICS grouping aligns with this foreign policy objective. This is also a compelling narrative for Brazil and South Africa, with Pretoria leaning heavily into its pursuit of a more multipolar international order narrative.’

Questions about the future of BRICS are bound to be there especially when a new world order is being discussed. This geopolitical configuration is in exploratory phases, undoubtedly meant to bring a new axis,  the process of searching for new models by the states dissatisfied with the United States policy and the Western, European world. Algeria, Egypt and Morocco in the North, and Ethiopia and Kenya from the East, Nigeria and Senegal in West Africa.

Comparatively, Ethiopia by all standards, is a reputable State located in East Africa. It gains popularly from different angles. In terms of politics, Ethiopia has been touted with an excellent model of democracy in Africa. For his efforts in ending the 20-year-long war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, President Abiy Ahmed was awarded with the Nobel prize for peace in 2019.

More crucially, research studies and several reports have documented additional worth of Ethiopia. It bears the flag of Africa, as its capital Addis Ababa represents the focal point for most of the regional and foreign organizations down the years. Ethiopia and many African States consider BRICS, to a large extent, acting as a driving force, a new emerging force, for global governance and for the reformation of the existing international order.

The African Union (AU) is headquartered in Addis Ababa. The primary task of this continental organization is mobilizing and coordinating available natural and human resources for solving existing and emerging multifaceted problems inside Africa. Some experts argue that the AU has within its mandate and further within the slogan “African problems, African solutions” to showcase the continent’s practical ultimate independence.

Ethiopia and Kenya, and many African States, More than half a century since it was declared politically independent from “colonialism” or whatever, Africa has been presented as a region engulfed with abject poverty, even in the past has benefited grossly from development aid and received substantial assistance from various external sources. Ethiopia and Kenya’s membership of BRICS might not be better than that of South Africa.

Nigeria currently has over 230 million, and can conveniently boost BRICS population. It is a regional power in Africa, doubtlessly a middle and emerging power in international stage. Nigeria’s economy is the largest in Africa. According various estimates its per capita is US$9.148 (as of 2022), which is less than South Africa, Egypt or Morocco, but a little more than Ghana or Ivory Coast.

Nigeria is a leader in Africa as an energy power, financial market, in pharmaceuticals and in the entertainment industry. Next to petroleum, the second-largest source of foreign exchange earnings for Nigeria are remittances sent home by Nigerians living abroad. Nigeria has a lower-middle-income economy with an abundant supply of natural resources.

Despite all these economic credentials, Nigerian authorities say it is not their priority to seek BRICS membership at this time. Nigeria’s Ambassador to Russia, Professor Abdullahi Shehu, was recently quoted as saying accession talks hadn’t commenced, but he didn’t rule out future membership. However Nigeria’s Guardian cites several experts as saying Nigeria isn’t ready for BRICS membership. They say it lacks economic sophistication – including having little to export to other BRICS countries besides oil. Also, the new reformist Bola Tinubu administration has much on its plate.

Therefore the logical fact is that Senegal, also located in West Africa, and many other African States wishing to become BRICS will consequently not bring anything wealthy, rather expect benefits being a member of the organization. Professor Mohamed Chtatou argues that Africa is undoubtedly the continent best endowed with natural resources. With a surface area of approximately 30.3 million square kilometers, if one includes the island areas, the continent covers about a sixth of the surface of the globe and one-fifth of the world’s land mass. Today, it is home to approximately 1.4 billion people.

He explains that Africa’s wealth lies in its soil. The continent has 24 percent of the world’s arable land, yet it generates only 9 percent of agricultural production. It is incapable of ensuring its own food security. Strengthening African unity has long been a sought-after goal that has never been achieved.

As the need for regional integration and the reasons for past failures become better understood, new efforts are being made to strengthen economic and political ties among the continent’s many States. The main challenges to achieving integration are to expand trade among African countries, build more roads and other infrastructure, reform regional institutions, increase transparency and public participation, and coordinate private and public sector initiatives more closely.

According to Professor Mohamed Chtatou, integration has many benefits. Seeking to join international organizations as well as expressing desire to get representations in these international organization has benefits. But the primary challenge is that the record of regional integration in Africa is so far poor, and many regional alliances are characterized by uncoordinated initiatives, political conflicts, and little intra-regional trade. However, analysts note that some of the external and internal factors that have hindered Africa’s integration in the past have abated somewhat in recent years, and there is therefore reason for cautious optimism.

Worth to note here that Africans have to learn from the failure of their previous initiatives. Many integration advocates are now taking a less ambitious and more practical approach. In their view, Africa needs to unite not only to strengthen its presence on the world stage but also to address the practical needs of its people. Africa is home to a growing population, abundant natural resources, and a rapidly expanding economy, so it certainly has the potential to play a significant role in shaping the future of the world. As a result, many great powers, including China, the United States, Europe and Russia, are interested in securing access to these resources.

If the global economic slowdown is confirmed, followed by major financial and macroeconomic disruptions, a large part of the solution would be to rely on the African continent. This is in fact what can be seen in the massive investments made by China, India, and Russia (BRICS), which have understood how important this is for their own future.

In a nutshell, Professor Fyodor Lukyanov, Chairman of the Presidium of the Russian Commission on Defense and Foreign Policy, Research Director at the Valdai Discussion Club, and Editor of Russia’s Global Affairs journal, believes that there is absolutely no intention to build unified front against the United States and European Union. Simply, BRICS should not, absolutely not be seen as anti-Western organization. And that BRICS is by default not confrontational, there is no goal to counterwork the West, rather to bypass it.

In our analysis and from various perspectives, Africa as a big group of countries with interests which are both intertwining and contradicting can serve both as a model of the future global picture and a strong unit in this world. Notwithstanding all that, Africa has its own strengths and weaknesses based on history, but the balance is positive in this new world. Most of potential success depends on African countries themselves and their ability to build up relations with outside powers on rational and calculated basis in the current world.

In Africa, each BRICS member will have its own agenda, no coordination expected. But then, Africa is represented in BRICS by South Africa. And it would be natural task for South Africa to promote African agenda in this group. Of course, each BRICS member has it own hierarchy of interests, which is normal.

BRICS aspires for playing a greater international affairs and Africa is growing in significance as an essential part of the world, this combination holds the fact that there is a field for common interests. As far as confrontation with the West is concerned, there is indeed no such goal for BRICS. But a careful closer look at international trends and the speed with which the previous international system collapses and overall competition spreads, with the complexities and contradictions, it is really difficult to predict right away how international situation and stance of BRICS, together with its new members and Africa friends, will evolve in years to come.

*

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS) and InDepthNews, is now a regular contributor to Global Research. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

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***

Julian Assange sits in jail. Joan Meyer is dead!

Both, victims of America’s rapidly changing definition of Free Speech, Freedom of the Press and the once-vaunted First Amendment.

Was this past Friday the epitaph of American journalism?

In the most egregious example yet of America’s new love for Stasi-style populist democratic protections, this past Friday in Marion County, Kansas a similar authoritarian herd descended on that county’s newspaper of record and the homes of its publishers Eric Meyer and his mother Joan Meyer, 98, wife of the past publisher.

Joan Meyer is dead.

This outrage against American media must be made the bugle call for all to read and understand this ultimate violation of the judiciary, media and conscience. The American media has already become a hollowed-out shell of the no longer important proper tenets of journalism.

To tolerate such an overt and public attack is to thus state clearly, that forever, August 12 2023 is the day that Freedom of the Press in America was also declared… dead.

Decide for yourself.

In the rapid lead-up to this past Friday, the Meyer Family and the Marion County Record had been doing their job since 1948: Reporting and investigating for a town of 1700 and the surrounding county.

Eric Meyer, the current publisher is a former Milwaukee Journal reporter for 20 years and professor at the University of Illinois for 26 more and is the son of the Record’s late editor-in-chief, Bill Meyer. His family bought the paper in 1998.

Beyond the Meyers and the Marion County Record, the other key players in this journalistic tragedy are: an aggrieved restaurant owner, Kari Newell; the new local sheriff, Gideon Cody,  and Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar.

And, in the role of the rat: Councilwoman Ruth Herbel.

Earlier that week Newell had invited local candidate Rep. Jake LaTurner (R) to speak at her restaurant. Eric Meyer went to cover the speech. In a town of 1700, that’s a good story.

But, with the new definition of free speech in mind, Newell had Marion police remove Meyer from her property.  With a police force summing five in total, Sherriff Cody was part of that decision.

Of course, that day’s censorship was an even better news story for the Record, which Newell failed to comprehend until the Thursday edition hit the streets.

In a related matter Newell, whose restaurant liquor license was up for renewal, had alleged to the same police that the Record had illegally obtained information about her having been arrested for DUI. The records could undermine Newell’s license application. State law prohibits issuing liquor licenses to applicants with felony DUI convictions.

Eric Meyer, writing to Councilwoman Herbel, stated clearly that the Record did not intend to publish information which was public record and that the information was provided by a third party.

This does appear to be true since the DUI allegations did appear on Facebook previously. The speculation is that the DUI defamation was posted by Newell’s soon-to-be ex-husband.

However, none of this was sufficient for Magistrate Viar to question the police department’s request for a full-blown search warrant of the Newspaper’s offices and the homes of the two publishers, supposedly to protect Newell.

Conspicuously, the affidavit required for the search warrant has yet to be revealed as to who submitted it to Viar. The affidavit would have been filed by Marion County officials. The warrant, signed by Magistrate Viar specifically targeted ownership of computers capable of being used to “participate in the identity theft of Kari Newell.”

But, as any judge should know, a DUI record is found easily in the state’s database which insurance companies regularly peruse to determine possible application fraud.

It is important to note that the normal procedure for a moving party, the court or the police to obtain records from a news agency is called a subpoena. It is also issued by a judge and then served.  Professionally. A search warrant is used only in criminal matters when the destruction of evidence is alleged. Viar did not speak with Myer or the Record, and instead relied exclusively on the currently anonymous affidavit for the search warrant.

This the police used in SWAT team fashion on Aug 12, 2023. The cops, fully locked and loaded, simultaneously seized all records, computers and files from the homes of Eric and Jean Myers and took a cell phone right out of the hands of one employee leaving her injured while providing the same public service at the Record.

All this, because of some inconsequential restaurant owner?

The aforementioned actions would seemingly leave any good journalist to investigate two obvious possible connections: One: Judge Viar is connected to Newell. Or, two: there’s something up in the Sheriff’s department.

The answer at this moment strongly leans on number two.

Marion is a small town and small towns like big town cops for replacing outgoing positions. It has been reported and well documented by other good journalists that far too often the bad apples from the big cities, those who have departed to escape atonement for the results of internal investigations, they instead, just move along quietly.

Then they and their surreptitious predilections for various forms of backhanded illegality land somewhere else.

That somewhere else may have been, for incoming Sheriff Cody, Marion, Kansas.

The New York Times’s Timothy Williams highlighted this national problem in a feature article on Sept 11, 2016, titled, “Cast-Out Police Officers Are Often Hired in Other Cities.”

In a report by President Obama’s task force on 21st century policing, law enforcement officials and others recommended that the Justice Department establish a database in partnership with the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training, which manages a database of officers who have been stripped of their police powers.

There are some 21,000 names on the list.

According to Eric Meyer, The Marion Record was preparing some good investigative reporting, with this national story in mind.

And… Sheriff Cody.

Meyer said that, before the raid, his newspaper had investigated Cody’s background and his time at the Kansas City Police Department before he came to Marion. He declined to provide details of the newspaper’s investigation of Cody which included the identities of those who made the allegations against Cody. All were in a computer seized by police.

“I really don’t think it would be advisable for me to say what it was we were investigating, other than to characterize the charges as serious….,” Meyer said.

Meyer told The Star that his newspaper didn’t publish a story about the allegations.“We didn’t publish it because we couldn’t nail it down to the point that we thought it was ready for publication,” he said. “He (Cody) didn’t know who our sources were. He does now.” Meyer also said the newspaper told city leaders they had received information about Cody but could not confirm it.

The person he told was Councilwoman Herbel.

Newell’s statements of the past two days are strangely duplicitous and further damning of Magistrate Viar’s decision. Not the Record.

First, Newell accused Herbel of “recklessly and negligently” sharing the information with “others” in violation of state privacy and identity theft laws. Herbel has denied doing so.

Despite shifting blame to Herbel, she next blamed her estranged husband. Newell, writing Friday under a changed name on her personal Facebook account, said she

“foolishly” received a DUI in 2008 and “knowingly operated a vehicle without a license out of necessity.” But added, “[the]…entire debacle was brought forth in an attempt to smear my name, jeopardize my licensing through ABC (state Alcoholic Beverage Control Division), harm my business, seek retaliation, and for personal leverage in an ongoing domestic court battle.” [emphasis added]

Newell’s only current allegations against the Record seem limited only to her personal venom towards press freedoms which she highlighted by saying,

“Journalists have become the dirty politicians of today, twisting narrative for bias agendas, full of muddied half-truths…We rarely get facts that aren’t baited with misleading insinuations.”

Certainly, Newell’s statements are not sufficient to legally justify a search warrant.

So, who issued an affidavit strong enough to justify Viar’s search warrant?

The pipeline to Magistrate Viar’s chambers is the shortest from Sherriff  Gideon Cody’s office. A little further, the City Council offices of Ruth Herbel.

Kari Newell is just small potatoes with a rap sheet.

So… what the fuck is going on!

The full weight of journalism must bring this story and its players to account.

What has taken place in Marion, KS must today be translated properly: This raid by Sheriff Cody is in fact the distilled,  purely totalitarian modern definition of freedom of the press. In Marion on Friday, this definition has been fully exposed for public consumption after generations of slow grinding pressure under the boot.

Should America not react terminally to this incredible fundamental violation, it will instead certify it.

A full investigation must be undertaken with Federal authority. If guilty, the judge must be removed. The Sheriff arrested for criminal abuse of process. Congresswoman Herbel’s confidence forever questioned.

And, every media publication must demand this retribution. Full stop!

Image: Joan Meyer (Source: The Wichita Eagle)

As to Kari Newell, she can be merely left to attempt business in the face of a small town, Bud Light-esque purge of her sins against a local newspaper and its readers.

Most importantly, the Marion Record must be hailed nationally as the place of that moment when we all – every remaining  good journalist- finally pushed back. Hard.

98-year-old Joan Meyer died last Sunday. The newspaper said Joan Meyer had been “stressed beyond her limits and overwhelmed by hours of shock and grief” following the raid.

Let this horror story become a bold, stark asterisk forever on the masthead of the Marion County Record.

If not, then merely a sad tear… as we passively watch…nay, approve of…

“The Day American Journalism Died.”

*

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Brett Redmayne-Titley has spent the last twelve years documenting the “Sorrows of Empire.” He has authored over 200 articles all of which have been published and often republished and translated by news agencies worldwide. An archive of his published work can be found at watchingromeburn.uk.  He can be contacted at live-on-scene ((@)) gmx.com.

The author’s new book, “THERE!” is just out. 18 chapters of the best in old-style on-scene reporting. Please support my work by purchasing a copy from Amazon Books.  All donations are gratefully appreciated. Stand-up! It…Is…Time!

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

Can you imagine calling up a family that has just seen their home burn to the ground and offering to buy their land for below market value? This is apparently happening in Hawaii right now on a massive scale. Grieving property owners are being bombarded with calls from very greedy people, and I think that says a lot about the current state of our society. We literally worship material possessions and financial gain, and the sheer greed that we are witnessing at this moment is absolutely staggering.

Lahaina was hit harder than anywhere else by the fires, and it turns out that property owners in the area have been getting pressured to sell for a long time.

So now that disaster has struck, those that wish to get their hands on these prime properties are in a feeding frenzy. One local resident made headlines all over the world after she posted a video about this…

Filming herself in the recent video, the Hawaii resident said: ‘I am so frustrated with investors and realtors calling the families who lost their home, offering to buy their land.

‘How dare you do that to our community right now. If you are a victim and they are calling you, please get their business name so we can put them on blast,’ she added.

She claims in the clip that she ‘personally’ knows ‘multiple families’ that were ‘offered money from investors and realtors’.

When 2020 began, the average home in Lahaina was worth about $600,000.

Today, the average home in Lahaina is worth about a million dollars.

Now there is a race to take advantage of those that have just had their homes burned down, and it has gotten so bad that even Hawaiian Governor Josh Green is speaking out against it…

Hawaiian officials are warning residents that unscrupulous investors are trying to take advantage of the fire disaster on Maui to take over properties.

Gov. Josh Green reported that residents are being approached about selling fire-damaged home or land sites by people posing as real estate agents.

He said those people may have “ill intent” and issued a warning to scammers.

“You would be pretty poorly informed if you try to steal land from our people and then build here,” Green said in a press release Monday.

A lot of people applauded Green for taking a stand like that.

But does he have another motive?

Green has been captured on video saying that he is “already thinking of ways for the state to acquire that land”…

The Hawaiian governor Josh Green revealed plans for the state to potentially purchase properties in the seaside town of Lahaina, which was devastated by the deadliest wildfire in modern U.S. history.

“I’m already thinking of ways for the state to acquire that land so that we can put it into workforce housing, to put it back into families, or make it open spaces in perpetuity as a memorial to the people who were lost,” Green commented amid the ruins.

Wow.

There it is.

Apparently Green has his own plans for these properties.

We will just have to wait and see what those plans are.

Meanwhile, it is being reported that the police chief on Maui just happens to be the exact same guy that was “the incident commander” during the horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017…

Maui Police Chief John Pelletier is no stranger to responding to mass tragedy. Nearly six years before disaster struck in the form of wildfires that ripped through parts of the island and killed at least 99 people, he was on the ground in the aftermath of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Pelletier was named chief of the the Maui Police Department in 2021 after more than two decades working in Las Vegas. On Oct. 1, 2017, Pelletier was the incident commander covering the Strip when a gunman unleashed a hail of bullets on a country music festival, killing 58 people and injuring hundreds more.

That is one heck of a coincidence.

And it is also being reported that Pelletier “earned a certificate in criminal justice from the FBI academy in 2019”.

So he has ties to the feds.

Just when you think that this story cannot possibly get any stranger, somehow it does.

After being greatly criticized for lounging on a beach while the tragedy in Hawaii was unfolding, we are being told that Joe Biden is now “considering” a trip to see the devastation.

Amid growing evidence of the devastation wildfires have wrought in Maui, the White House Tuesday gave the first public indication that President Biden will visit Hawaii.

White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton confirmed that officials were considering an in-person trip, after Biden took heat for his terse ‘no comment’ on Hawaii even while the scope of the tragedy was coming into view.

The president was staying at his Delaware beach house at the time.

Come on man.

I know that Biden doesn’t like to make trips like this, but this is what the American people expect.

It is part of the job.

The Biden administration also angered a lot of people when it was announced that households that have been affected by the fires would only be getting a one time emergency aid payment of $700…

President Joe Biden is facing renewed criticism for his response to the devastating wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui after offering victims $700 per household in emergency aid.

Political opponents and commentators described the sum as “insulting” and compared it with the more than $113 billion-worth of aid the U.S. has sent to Ukraine as it defends itself against an ongoing Russian invasion.

Seriously?

After all that we have done for Ukraine, that is the best that we can do for people that have lost everything?

Of course somehow there is always more than enough money for Ukraine.  In fact, we are about to send them a gigantic military aid package for the 44th time since the war began…

For the 44th time, the ruling class of the United States has decided to continue to prolong the war and send military equipment to Ukraine. The Pentagon has announced a $200 million weapons package for Kiev.

This newest round of equipment will include artillery rounds, dozens of tactical vehicles, and mine-clearing gear.

We are at such a critical turning point, and we desperately need solid leadership in the White House.

But instead we have Joe Biden and his minions.

Biden is literally the worst president in the entire history of the United States, and that is saying a lot because we have had some real whoppers in modern times.

Now that there has been so much public pressure, I think that Biden will feel compelled to go visit Lahaina.

Unfortunately, Biden will need to make many more trips like this, because a lot more major disasters are on the way.

*

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Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

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***

 

 

 

The climate of fear in Florida schools created by far-right censorship laws has reached its logical conclusion: districts are beginning to limit students’ access to William Shakespeare’s plays, long a staple of the curriculum in any American school, and among the highest products of world culture.

This week, the school board of Hillsborough County, Florida, which includes all of the city of Tampa, issued new curriculum guides for teachers. According to a district spokesperson, Tanya Arja, students will no longer read entire works of Shakespeare, but only excerpts, “in consideration of the law.” Arja was referring to the 2022 “Parental Rights in Education” law, better known as the “don’t say gay” law, which restricts sexual content in materials that students read or see.

Hillsborough School Board chairperson Nadia Combs told the media earlier this week,

“We have to protect our teachers and make sure they are not at risk, and they don’t feel at risk, to be arrested or anything inappropriate happening to them.”

Other county school boards in Florida have already banned Shakespeare for certain younger grades. Stephana Ferrell, co-founder of the Florida Freedom to Read Project, noted in a media comment,

“The reason why districts are choosing to interpret it that way is because they want to avoid having objections filed in the first place. Because the minute you have an objection filed for that reason, you put at risk the district of going all the way with a book to the special magistrate, which is very costly.”

The Hillsborough district has also canceled student participation in the Advanced Placement (AP) psychology course and exam, because of a dispute between the College Board, which administers the curriculum of the course and gives the exam, and the Florida Department of Education, which has raised objections over the course’s references to gender identity and sexual orientation. While the Department of Education now allows students to take the course, if taught in an “age-appropriate” manner, school administrators complain that these guidelines are vague, and it is not clear if whole parts of the AP course’s scope will need to be changed.

Speaking to the Tampa Bay Times, Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, which evaluates AP and similar college-credit courses, said,

“My biggest concern about the law is that it prohibits the analysis of a large area of psychology. You can dress it up in a variety of ways, but this is censorship, saying a whole area in the field of psychology is not available for study.”

One Hillsborough County School Board member, Jessica Vaughn, said on Facebook that the decision was made by the district without knowledge of the entire school board. She noted that she had spoken to dozens of outraged parents about the Board’s action, and commented:

“Denying access to things like AP psychology, accurate black history, critical thinking and Shakespeare is not benefitting or protecting our children. It’s giving them a disadvantage—nationally.”

In response to the Hillsborough district’s decision, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Education told the Tampa Bay Times:

“The Florida Department of Education in no way believes Shakespeare should be removed from Florida classrooms. In fact, eight works by Shakespeare are included in the sample text list within the (state) Standards for English Language Arts, including ‘Hamlet,’ ‘Macbeth’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet.’”

To reinforce the point, Florida’s education commissioner, Manny Diaz Jr., added Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” to his August books of the month list, released on Tuesday.

“This month’s book recommendations provide a variety of reading materials that students will find uplifting and will spark a love for literacy,” he said in a statement.

Commissioner Diaz doth protest too much. Education in Florida has been ravaged by book banning for the last year under the “don’t say gay” law as well as other laws that allow parents to object to almost anything in curriculums. In fact, according to the Parental Rights in Education law, Diaz is inviting any Florida educator to lose his or her job—or worse—by verbally recommending “Romeo and Juliet” to a student or including it in a curriculum.

The confusion and fear sown in Florida’s educational standards are a part of the wrecking operation by far-right groups such as Moms for Liberty and their would-be Il Duce, Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis. A small Evangelical Christian and fascist-minded constituency has lit the bonfire of book banning in Florida’s schools and in those of other American states.

As the WSWS noted in April:

The numbers and types of books that have been removed from Florida schools are truly staggering. In February, in Martin County, Florida, over 80 works, by authors such as Toni Morrison, James Patterson and Jodi Picoult, were removed from elementary school libraries at the request of a single parent, who wrote that these works had no “serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value for students.”

The parent, Julie Marshall, is the head of the local chapter of Moms for Liberty.

“One of the books removed, Picoult’s novel The Storyteller (2013), is a bestseller that tells the story of the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor who meets a former SS officer. “Banning The Storyteller is shocking,” Picoult told the Washington Post, “as it is about the Holocaust and has never been banned before.” This ban recalls the censorship of the graphic novel Maus in Tennessee, an action with distinct overtones of anti-Semitism.

“When one parent in Pinellas County [Florida] complained that Morrison’s first novel, The Bluest Eye (1970), had a rape scene in it, the principal of the local high school banned it, and it was subsequently banned in the entire county. In February over 100 high school students protested the decision.”

Recent banning also includes a graphic novel based on the diary of Holocaust victim Anne Frank, which “was removed from the library at Vero Beach High School in Florida after a complaint from one parent.”

The crusade against culture is not simply one of exclusion, but of active historical falsification. Last month Florida’s State Board of Education approved standards for African American history curriculums that include such historical revisionism as the claim that slavery gave black people a “personal benefit” because they “developed skills,” and that a racist pogrom against blacks in Ocoee, Florida, in 1920 included “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.”

This week, Ron DeSantis, now a candidate for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party, reinforced his fascist credentials by telling the media that the standards are “probably going to show some of the folks [i.e., slaves] that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.”

This is little more than a rephrase of the South Carolina senator and arch-defender of slavery John C. Calhoun’s notorious 1837 speech before Congress, arguing that African American slaves “had attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically but morally and intellectually … in the course of a few generations it has grown up under the fostering care of our institutions, as reviled as they have been, to its present comparative civilized condition.”

A Civil War was fought to destroy the “fostering care” of those institutions, and it is a marker of the decline of political culture under capitalism that DeSantis can openly echo the reactionary sentiments of the slaveowners.

The book banning, restrictions on Shakespeare and the teaching that slavery was a positive good serve to wipe away all that is progressive and enlightened in world culture and American history and to teach subservience, conformity and worship of authority to a generation of young people now coming into struggle against war, climate change and the very fascism with which the Republicans, with the acquiescence of the Democrats, are poisoning the cultural air.

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Researchers in Pennsylvania published a series of studies late Tuesday showing that children who live near fracking operations are roughly five to seven times more likely to develop lymphoma than kids whose homes are at least five miles away from drilling sites.

Released by the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the studies also found a “strong link” between fracked gas development and “severe exacerbations, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations for asthma in people living within 10 miles of one or more wells” producing gas.

While the studies weren’t designed to establish a causal connection between fracking and cancer or asthma, they add to the large and growing body of literature indicating that oil and gas operations pose a significant threat to public health.

The publicly funded research out Tuesday suggests there are “no associations” between proximity to fracking activities and childhood leukemia or brain and bone cancers.

But the results “indicated that children who lived within one mile of a well had approximately five to seven times the chance of developing lymphoma, a relatively rare type of cancer, compared to children who lived in a place with no wells within five miles,” the researchers wrote. “Data suggests that those who lived closer, especially in areas with greater intensity of unconventional natural gas development activities, had the highest risk.”

“For perspective, the incidence of lymphoma is, on average, 0.0012% in U.S. children under 20 years of age,” they added. “Our study estimates that rate would be 0.006% to 0.0084% for children living within one mile of a well.”

The studies also examined links between gas development activities and adverse birth outcomes, finding that babies born to mothers who lived close to active fracking wells during the production phase were around an ounce smaller at birth.

“We also found that mothers who lived near active wells were more likely to have babies who were small for gestational age,” the researchers wrote in a summary of their results.

Edward Ketyer, president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, told the Associated Press that the findings are a “bombshell” further demonstrating that the “closer you live to fracking activity, the increased risk you have of being sick with a variety of illnesses.”

“The biggest question is, why is anybody surprised about that?” asked Ketyer, a retired pediatrician who served on an advisory board for the new research.

The studies were published after around four years of research that drew from the medical histories of thousands of southwestern Pennsylvania residents. In 2021, Pennsylvania produced more shale gas—a product of fracking—than any U.S. state other than Texas.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported late Tuesday that a community meeting with residents and activists became “intense and at times emotional” as researchers and Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) officials presented the results of their studies.

“Parents talked about watching their kids suffer with cancer or asthma, about the lack of state guidance if their water was drinkable and air healthy enough to play outside,” the newspaper reported. “DOH executive deputy secretary Kristen Rodack tried to assure them that the studies are just the beginning.”

“The DOH said it would be updating its cancer incidence studies, making space on its website for people to submit environmental health complaints, and educating physicians and healthcare providers how to ‘identify and treat people with environmental exposures,'” the Post-Gazette added. “It will also work with parents and schools on air quality awareness, and look at the potential for future research.”

Climate advocates and medical experts have long demanded a national halt to fracking operations, citing both public health risks and threats to the planet. President Joe Biden pledged to ban new fracking operations on public lands during his 2020 campaign, but he has reneged on that promise.

Matt Nemeth, a member of Sunrise Movement Pittsburgh, wrote in response to the new research that “once again, science confirms fracking is extremely hazardous to human life.”

“Politicians and big business [are] still lagging far behind with near unrequited support for this destructive practice,” Nemeth added.

In a 2022 roundup of more than 2,000 studies and investigative reports, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York noted that “recent national and global efforts to increase oil and gas production and liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports have dire impacts on public health and the climate.”

Sandra Steingraber, co-founder of Concerned Health Professionals of New York, said that “for over 10 years, individual studies have demonstrated impacts in multiple areas, including toxic air pollution, water contamination, radioactive releases, earthquakes, methane emissions, and much more.”

During Tuesday’s community meeting, Steingraber criticized Pennsylvania health officials for merely pledging to continue monitoring cancer rates near fracking operations.

“JUST STOP DRILLING,” she wrote.

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Jake Johnson is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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Aug. 12, 2023 – Olympic swimmer Helen Smart, age 43 (working as teacher in Wigan, UK) died suddenly in her sleep on Aug. 12, 2023.

She was found dead by her 4 yo daughter: “Daddy, I can’t wake mummy up”.

She had gone paddle boarding the night before her death (hours before).

Working as a teacher and principal in the UK, she would have been mandated COVID-19 vaccines.

Aug. 11, 2023 – Plano, TX – 40 year old David Herring, teacher and band director at Shepton High School died in his sleep on Aug. 11.

Aug. 10, 2023 – Darlington, UK – 41 yo Mike Clinton (driving instructor), died in his sleep, 3 months after his 50 yo wife died suddenly, leaving two boys ages 12 and 14, orphans. (Click here)

Aug. 7, 2023 – Osnago, Italy – 29 year old waiter and B&B worker Christian Marchi died in his sleep on Aug. 7 in a room of the B&B he worked in.

Aug. 6, 2023 – New Hampton, IA – 25 year old Clarissa Sue Lechtenberg, an early childhood teacher, died in her sleep on Aug. 6.

July 29/30, 2023 – Belfast, Ireland – Doctor & leading cardiothoracic surgeon (retired) Dr. Simon MacGowan died in his sleep on July 29/30, 2023. “He had ridden a six-day tour of the Alps, from Geneva to Nice when he died in his sleep in Nice on completion of the trip.

July 29, 2023 – Solon, OH – 43 year old Michael Gregorich, teacher at Stratton College, died in his sleep.

July 26, 2023 – Nashville, TN – 35 year old musician (metal bassist) James Harvey IV, died suddenly in his sleep on July 26. “Otherwise healthy 35 year old” (click here).

July 25, 2023 – Syracuse, NY – 18 year old basketball player Dy’Jierre Jackson died suddenly in his sleep July 25, 2023. “He stopped breathing & there was no brain activity.” “He passed away in his sleep. There was no struggle.” They’re blaming “kidney infection.”

July 23, 2023 – Pavia, Italy – 56 year old Romina Baldaccini died suddenly in her sleep after returning from swimming pool and feeling “unwell”. A few days before her death, she talked about wanting a vacation.

July 22, 2023 – Toronto, ON – 31 year old squash champion Arjun Gupta, who represented Canada on the international stage died suddenly in his sleep on July 22, 2023.

July 21, 2023 -Warroad, Minnesota – 38 year old HOCKEY COACH Michael Gary Tveit died suddenly in his sleep on July 21, 2023. He was “taking a nap from a migraine”. He coached Warroad High School senior boys’ hockey team.

July 10, 2023 – 20 year old New Mexico State University soccer player Thalia Chaverria died suddenly in her sleep on July 10, 2023 just 8 days after 20th birthday. Police found her dead at 7am at her residence.

July 16, 2023 – Philadelphia, PA – 6 year old Dominic Kyrie Lyons died suddenly in his sleep on July 16, 2023.

June 29, 2023 – Melbourne, Australia – 29 year old Harry Baker, a Victoria police officer, died suddenly in his sleep in the early morning hours of June 29, 2023. Girlfriend is “scrambling for answers with Harry’s cause of death still unknown…healthy young man.”

June 26, 2023 – 42 year old popular Mexican TV doctor and self-proclaimed “vaccination expert” Dr. Alfredo Victoria, died suddenly in his sleep.

June 24, 2023 – Brazil – 46 year old police officer Abby Silva Moreira died suddenly on June 24, 2023 “She got up at night to drink water, went back to sleep and never woke up.”

June 24, 2023 – UK – 29 year old Tom Longley died in his sleep on June 24, 2023. He was found dead in his bed by his dad. He had gone to the pub the night before for a brief time. Didn’t complain of being unwell. No underlying health conditions.

June 23, 2023 – Marcianise, Italy – 39 year old Giuseppe Amato died suddenly in his sleep while on vacation in Maratea, Italy.

June 22, 2023 – Provo, UT – 27 year old Keyon Snow, a nursing student at Joyce University, died suddenly in his sleep.

June 17, 2023 – Southampton, UK – 13 year old Sydney Daarol died suddenly in her sleep from cardiac arrest on June 17 2023. “She was perfectly healthy and had come home from a fun day of bowling with friends.”

June 10, 2023 – Knoxville, TN – 18 yo Caileigh O’Donohue Duggan, a nursing student at University of Tennessee nursing program died suddenly on June 10, 2023. She died in her sleep, due to an “undiagnosed heart condition” – very likely COVID-19 vaccine myocarditis.

June 9, 2023 – Mirfield, UK – 30 year old Fiona Peel died suddenly while staying with a friend in London “she was suddenly found dead, leaving behind 6 year old daughter.”

May 26, 2023 – Greensboro, NC – 49 year old Jill Smart died suddenly in her sleep. She was pursuing a PhD at University of Indiana and taught anatomy & physiology.

May 24, 2023 – UK – 23 year old University of Manchester structural engineering student Hari Krishnan, died in his sleep on May 24, 2023. He was found dead in his bedroom by his friends who came searching for him in the morning.

May 22, 2023 – New York, NY – 35 year old photographer & model Vincent Vega died suddenly in his sleep on May 22, 2023.

May 20, 2023 – Iowa City, IA – 34 year old High School teacher Amylia Yeaman died suddenly in her sleep on May 20/21, 2023. She was fully COVID-19 vaccinated.

May 13, 2023 – Markham, ON – 21 year old Jonathan Scarth died unexpectedly & suddenly in his sleep on May 13, 2023.

May 9, 2023 – Columbus, OH – 24 year old Annie Nelson was found unresponsive in her apartment by her boyfriend. She died suddenly on May 9, 2023.

May 6, 2023 – New York, NY – 29 year old Robert Little died in his sleep on May 6, 2023. Robert was a fire performer and graduated from Florida College of Natural Health. He had just bought a house with his fiancee.

My Take…

I cannot begin to explain how many people are dying in their sleep right now.

(Substack won’t allow me to send 30 images by email (limit is 13), so please come back to the substack website or app as I will re-load all 30 images here.)

In this article I examine 30 deaths while asleep. While this analysis is not “scientific”, some interesting numbers and patterns emerge:

• Men 20 : Women 10
• ages: <10 (1), 10-19 (3), 20-29 (10), 30-39 (7), 40-49 (7), 50-59 (1), 60-69 (1)
• the deadliest age range for dying in sleep suddenly is 20-29 (10 deaths out of 30)
• 7 Teachers
• 4 Athletes (competitive)
• 4 University/College students (2 nursing)
• 2 doctors
• 2 police officers
• 2 hotel workers

Limitations of analysis: Sample size is still quite small. I did not include kids under age 5 (most are not COVID-19 vaccinated and childhood vaccinations and SIDS complicate the picture), ages 50+ are less likely to garner attention online and are thus under-reported, everyone’s job or profession wasn’t known.

CONCLUSION: This is the first ever attempt to analyze sudden deaths in sleep, which are happening frequently, since COVID-19 vaccines rolled out. 

Analysis shows: men to women 2:1, deadliest age range is 20-29, deadliest profession is “teacher”, where job status was known – it was almost always an aggressively COVID-19 vaccine mandated profession.

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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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Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. In particular, scientists should emphasize that their modeling output is not the result of magic: computer models are human-made. What comes out is fully dependent on what theoreticians and programmers have put in: hypotheses, assumptions, relationships, parameterizations, stability constraints, etc. Unfortunately, in mainstream climate science most of this input is undeclared.

To believe the outcome of a climate model is to believe what the model makers have put in.  This is precisely the problem of today’s climate discussion to which climate models are central. Climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science. We should free ourselves from the naïve belief in immature climate models. In future, climate research must give significantly more emphasis to empirical science.

There Is No Climate Emergency

A global network of over 1609 scientists and professionals has prepared this urgent message. Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.

Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming

The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.

Warming is far slower than predicted

The world has warmed significantly less than predicted by IPCC on the basis of modeled anthropogenic forcing. The gap between the real world and the modeled world tells us that we are far from understanding climate change.

Climate policy relies on inadequate models

Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as global policy tools. They blow up the effect of greenhouse gases such as CO₂. In addition, they ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO₂ is beneficial.

CO₂ is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth

CO₂ is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. Photosynthesis is a blessing. More CO₂ is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth: additional CO₂ in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.

Global warming has not increased natural disasters

There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent. However, there is ample evidence that CO₂-mitigation measures are as damaging as they are costly.

Climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities

There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO₂ policy proposed for 2050. If better approaches emerge, and they certainly will, we have ample time to reflect and re-adapt. The aim of global policy should be ‘prosperity for all’ by providing reliable and affordable energy at all times. In a prosperous society men and women are well educated, birthrates are low and people care about their environment.

Epilogue

The World Climate Declaration (WCD) has brought a large variety of competent scientists together from all over the world*. The considerable knowledge and experience of this group is indispensable in reaching a balanced, dispassionate and competent view of climate change.

From now onward the group is going to function as “Global Climate Intelligence Group”. The CLINTEL Group will give solicited and unsolicited advice on climate change and energy transition to governments and companies worldwide.

*It is not the number of experts but the quality of arguments that counts

Click here to read the World Climate Declaration plus all signatories.

Want to sign? Please fill in this form.

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President Bashar Al Assad interview with Sky News Arabic might be the first interview with a media outlet from the Gulf region since the early days of the US-led war of terrorism against Syria in which most Arab countries and all of Syria’s neighboring countries and entities have contributed heavily in sponsoring terrorism in Syria. The interview was aired on the 9th of August.

During the interview, President Al Assad addressed important topics from the obstacles facing the return of the Syrian refugees, to the continued US-led war of terrorism and war of attrition against the Syrian people, to the earthquake and its ramifications on the Syrian people, in addition to explaining why he deems a meeting with the Turkish madman Erdogan as fruitless, and why Syria considers any talks of peace with Israel as a waste of time, to name a few of the topics discussed in the interview.

Following is the video with English subtitles and the full transcript of the English translation of the interview:

Transcript

Intro: We welcome you, our viewers, to this special meeting from the Muhajireen Palace in the Syrian capital, Damascus with President Bashar Al-Assad.

Mr. President, welcome to Sky News Arabia, and thank you for the opportunity to meet with you for this long-awaited meeting.

President Assad: Welcome to Syria, and I am very happy to receive you today, and to have a fruitful dialogue between us.

Q: Thank you. Since this is the first meeting, Mr. President, on Sky News Arabia as the first Arab channel, we go back with you to the beginning of the events in 2012, was it possible, in your opinion, to avoid what happened?

Would you have gone through the war, this confrontation in the same way with the same vision for more than a decade?

President Assad: Of course, theoretically, this could have been avoided if we had submitted to all the demands that were demanded or imposed on Syria on various issues, foremost of which was the abandonment of Syrian rights and Syrian interests.

I say in theory because in practice we will not go in this direction. But if we assume that we will go in this direction then this means that we will avoid war but we will pay a much greater price later. Would we have handled things the same way? There may be different ways to the same goal, what is important is the policy. What is the national vision?

Our vision was to defend Syrian interests and Syria in the face of terrorism and in the independence of the Syrian decision. If we go back in time, we will build and adopt the same policy.

Q: Did you expect the damage to be of this magnitude at least during the first year?

President Assad: No, we did not expect it because we did not know what plans were being prepared. We knew that things were being prepared for Syria, and we knew from the beginning of the war that it would be a long war, and not a fleeting crisis as some thought, but no one expected the details.

Q: Mr. President, allow me this question, the battles were taking place meters away from the presidential palaces, so to speak, for a moment, did you not fear for your life, for the lives of your children, and there are truly terrifying scenarios in the region, for example, what happened to presidents, like what happened to President Gaddafi?

President Assad: First of all, anyone who does not fear danger is an abnormal and imbalanced person. Fear is part of human nature, and it is natural for a person to fear. But fear has forms that range from panic to apprehension and everything in between. We certainly did not reach this level of panic, but on the other hand, you are living in a general situation, I was not the target as a person, everyone was targeted.

We have all been walking in these streets and roads and in our homes and shells have been falling for years, so fear and anxiety become part of our subconscious…

Q: You represent the leadership of the country…

President Assad: It is true, but in the end, you are a human being, and you interact with others, as it was a general case, and when it becomes a general condition that you cannot live with fear for years, it becomes part of something you live with on daily bases.

As for the scenarios that happened, the truth is that these scenarios were drawn up, as happened with Gaddafi, or as happened with Saddam Hussein in Iraq in order to create a state of fear, therefore, in Syria, we had an awareness of the scenarios that were developed and were circulated in the media in order to create a state of fear, so these scenarios were not in our minds in general, especially as we were fighting an existential battle; the target was not Gaddafi, it was Libya, the target was not Saddam Hussein, it was Iraq, and the target was not President Bashar, it was Syria.

When you take these things into account, you will not live obsessed with the personal cases that they tried to market in order to create a state of fear.

Q: But under so much pressure, have you ever considered relinquishing power, Mr. President?

President Assad: To be clear, when they talked about the necessity of the Syrian president’s departure, the picture was as follows: that the problem is about a person’s problem; this person cannot be more important than the homeland, and he must go regardless of his specifications and attributes. We were aware of this in Syria, in general, not only me but as a country and as citizens. Therefore, there were no internal calls for the president’s departure from power.

When a president leaves his post or responsibility, to be more precise, he leaves when the people want him to go, and not because of external pressure or because of an external war.

This is a natural thing when it is caused by an internal demand, but when it is caused by an external war, then it would be an escape, not a relinquishment of power, and fleeing was never an option.

Q: But a large number of protesters were raising this slogan?

President Assad: Even this large number did not exceed at its best, a little over 100 thousand protesters in all the provinces, compared to tens of millions of Syrians, that’s first; secondly, let’s assume that there was a large number, and the richest and most powerful countries in the world stood against this president, and a large section of the people stood against him, so how can he remain in power? There’s no logic in that.

So, he remained in power because a greater number of people support the causes that the president supports.

Q: We will come back to this point, but you fought a big challenge, the enemy, the terrorism that surrounded many regions, including the capital, Damascus, but Mr. President, civilians have been harmed, we followed this at least through the media, including killing, displacement, and suffering, are you responsible for these?

President Assad: If we assume that the state was the one that carried out the killing and displacement, then it does bear responsibility, but there is terrorism, and the state was combating terrorism, and terrorism was killing, destroying, and burning. There is no state, even if it was called a “bad” one that destroys the homeland, it does not exist according to my information. So, naturally, terrorism carried out the destruction.

The role of the state, by virtue of the constitution and national norms, is to defend the state. Does this mean that confronting terrorism is what destroyed the country?

Image is from Twitter/The Cradle

In other words, if we did not combat terrorism, the state would’ve flourished? This is illogical. So, those who stood with terrorism bear the responsibility, and not those who defended against terrorism. The one who bears the responsibility is the one who intended the war, who planned the war, and the one who attacked, and not the one who was attacked.

Q: We return, Mr. President, to the idea of the state’s steadfastness after all this great pressure on the internal level, and even the external pressure, is the Iranian and Russian support from the early years of this crisis the secret of the steadfastness in this battle?

The Arab street, Mr. Prsident, is asking about the secret of the survival of the Syrian state after all these pressures.

President Assad: In the beginning, we did not claim that we are a superpower, and we did not say that we are capable of fighting the world; it is natural that when we asked our friends to stand with us, it is because we need this support. Their support had an important impact on the steadfastness of Syria, this is self-evident.

But friends cannot replace us in war, in battle, and in steadfastness, this is also self-evident. The real steadfastness is the steadfastness of the people, the question you ask has many factors, you are talking about tens of millions and about one of the oldest peoples and societies in the world, the is an accumulation, today we can say that there is faith in the cause, there is experience, there is knowledge, there is adherence to rights, there is awareness and maturity of the game method in which matters were managed when preparing for this war, and when starting this war.

All these things and many other factors that cannot be mentioned now are what constituted the state of steadfastness, and it was not a matter of neither a president, nor an official, nor a state, nor just an army.

Q: How can you summarize the secret for this resilience during these years?

President Assad: The secret is awareness of the plot, we have not fallen into any of the traps that were set for us abroad. Awareness is the basis for success and resilience sooner or later.

Q: After all these years, the suspension of Damascus’s membership in the Arab League was lifted. You reject the idea of Syria returning to the Arab League. The door was opened to questions about the future of the relationship between you and these Arab capitals. Is it a symbolic return or do you think it will have its outcomes, at least in the near future?

President Assad: The truth is that Arab – Arab relations since I gained political awareness four decades ago are symbolic relations, why?

For a simple reason, because our way of thinking may be at the state level, or it’s a general culture, I don’t know, we do not offer practical solutions or practical ideas for anything, we love speeches, statements, and formal meetings, this is the nature of the relationship.

The return of Syria, therefore, whether it will be symbolic or something else depends on the nature of Arab – Arab relations. Have these relationships changed? I don’t think it has deeply changed. There is a beginning of awareness of the size of the risks that affect us as Arab countries, but it has not reached the stage of developing solutions. As long as there are no solutions to the problems, then the relationship will remain symbolic.

Q: But despite the awareness of these dangers, the dangers have become real in the Arab world and are great for some capitals, despite that, why the forces did not join together, at least because the interests would be mutual?

President Assad: True, because you face two stages when you have a problem, the first is to see the problem, to understand the problem, to diagnose the problem, and the second stage is to put the remedy. We are in the first stage and we have not moved to the second stage yet, according to my belief.

Q: As for Syria, what do you expect from the Arab side, Mr. President?

President Assad: I cannot expect, I can hope, I hope we can build institutions; the problem with the Arabs is that they did not build institutionalized relations, therefore, they did not build institutions, and if we talk about bilateral relations, they are weak for this reason, and the collective relations through the Arab League, because the Arab League did not turn into an institution in the true sense.

This is what we see and this is what we hope to be able to overcome.

Q: Regarding the opposition, who is the opposition that you recognize today after all these years?

President Assad: In short, it is the opposition that is manufactured locally, not manufactured externally.

Locally manufactured means that it has a popular base, a national program, and national awareness; all the other features of ignorance are not enough.

National awareness and sincere patriotic intent, apart from that, the opposition is a natural thing. We are human beings and we differ in opinion in the same house, how can we not differ at the national level regarding many issues?

Q: Some believe that even the opposition abroad has a vision that may differ from the Syrian state, and may represent a part of this people.

President Assad: Of course, the word external does not mean bad, he may be an internal opposition and linked to the outside, and he may be an external opposition but linked to the homeland, the issue has nothing to do with the outside and the inside, it has to do with where your starting point lies, from the people or from foreign intelligence? This is the only question.

Q: You announced your welcome to the return of the larger number of refugees, but some are afraid of the idea of punishment after the return, what do you say to these millions via this screen?

President Assad: Over the past years, just under half a million have returned to Syria, and none of them has been imprisoned, why did this return stop? It stopped because of the reality of the living conditions. How can a refugee return without water, electricity, schools for his children, and no medical treatment? These are life basics, this is the reason.

As for us in Syria, we issued an amnesty law for everyone who was involved in the events during the past years, except, of course, for proven crimes that have personal rights, blood rights, as they are termed…

Q: But many have talked about this point as security accountability could be a dilemma and thus increase the state of apprehension.

President Assad: Even those who doubt can return to reality, this is why started with reality, I said about half a million have returned, how can these people return if the state is going to imprison them? This is a realistic indicator regardless of what I say in this interview.

Q: What is the most important logistical challenge for their return, in your opinion?

President Assad: Logistically, the infrastructure is destroyed by terrorism, and this is what most of the refugees we communicate with are saying, they want to return by they say how do we live, how do we survive?

Q: What are the chances of the return of those (refugees) during the coming period in light of the great challenge in terms of infrastructure?

President Assad: Now there is a dialogue between us and a number of agencies in the United Nations concerned with the humanitarian aspect, and have begun to discuss with them practically the return projects, how to finance them, and what are their requirements in detail? There is work in this regard.

Q: One of the challenges inside Syria that have affected the surrounding countries is drug trafficking. The Syrian state is accused of turning a blind eye to those who carry out this trafficking, who are linked to such crimes, and turning Syria into a hub for the Captagon ‘drug’, how do you respond to these accusations, Mr. President?

President Assad: If we are the ones seeking as a country to encourage this trafficking in Syria, this means that we, as a state, encouraged the terrorists to come to Syria, and carry out the destruction and killing, because the result is the same, and I have said that on more than one occasion and some of those are public. If we place the people between terrorism on the one hand and drugs on the other, then we are destroying society and the country with our own hands. Where is our interest?

Therefore, when they tried to use the issue of drugs recently, first by the Americans and then by the West later, and some regional countries for their political agendas against Syria, we were the first enthusiasts and collaborators in order to combat this phenomenon, because it is a dangerous phenomenon in every sense of the word. It is illogical for the state to be supportive of it.

But let me add a point that the gangs do not deal with countries, because they operate in secret, coming from the far west and the far east in order to pass through secretly. It deals with people through bribery, so it cannot deal with a state, because it becomes an open trade and not a secret one.

Q: What is the extent of the danger, in your opinion, with regard to drug trafficking? Was this matter raised as a priority, at least with the Arab leaders, at the last summit?

President Assad: First, the drug trafficking as a transit and as a settlement has been present and has not stopped, this is a fact, but when there is war and the state is weakened, this ‘trade’ is bound to flourish, this is a natural thing, but those who bear responsibility, in this case, are the countries that contributed to creating chaos in Syria, not the Syrian state.

Nevertheless, we were in dialogue with more than one Arab official who visited us in the recent months or weeks and this issue was one of the topics raised by Syria, and not only by them because we have a common interest with them in eliminating this phenomenon.

Q: I approach you, Mr. President, with your relationship now with abroad. There is talk about negotiations taking place between you and the Americans at the level of diplomatic officials, what happened? What has been achieved so far?

President Assad: Nothing. The dialogues have been intermittently going on for years, and we had no hope even for a single moment that the Americans would change, because the Americans ask and demand, take and take and give nothing. This is the nature of the relationship with the Americans since 1974, five decades ago, it has nothing to do with any administration, therefore, we have no hope, but our policy in Syria is not to leave any closed door in the face of any attempt to prevent the saying that if they did this, this would have happened, but I do not expect that in the foreseeable future, there will be any results from any negotiations held with the Americans.

Q: Washington significantly supports the Arab – Israeli rapprochement, at least during the previous and current administrations, have you received any offers to establish a relationship with Israel?

Image: Israel’s Merkava Tank in the Golan Heights. (By ChameleonsEye /Shutterstock)

President Assad: Not at all, because they know our position since the beginning of the peace negotiations in 1990, if there is no Israeli willingness to return the land, there is no need to waste time.

Q: Yesterday, we heard the sound of an explosion in the heart of the capital, Damascus, today it was announced that this was an Israeli bombing, how long will this last? Does this bombing target the Syrian Army or the Iranian presence in Syria?

President Assad: The truth is that the Syrian Army is mainly targeted under the pretext of the Iranian presence, and it will continue as long as Israel is an enemy and as long as we are able to foil the terrorists’ plots, even partially, because these bombings began when the Syrian Army began achieving phased victories in the battles it is waging, and taking into consideration that we have not finished the war yet.

Q: How long do you think it will last, in your opinion?

President Assad: As I told you, as long as Israel is an enemy and stands with the terrorists, it will continue, therefore, it will not change.

Q: Let’s address the north, it is also necessary to talk about the relationship with Turkey, you have two conditions for the return of this relationship with Turkey: the withdrawal of the Turkish forces and the cessation of support for the terrorists. Turkey asked that you meet without preconditions. In light of this proposal, when is it possible to meet between you and President Erdogan especially since he does not oppose this meeting?

President Assad: The word without preconditions for a meeting means without an agenda, without an agenda means without preparation, and without preparation means without results, why do Erdogan and I meet? To drink refreshments, for example? We want to reach a clear goal, our goal is the Turkish withdrawal from the Syrian territories, while Erdogan’s goal is to legitimize the presence of the Turkish occupation in Syria, therefore, the meeting cannot take place under Erdogan’s conditions.

Q: But Erdogan says that as long as there is terrorism threatening the Turkish state, these forces cannot be removed.

Image is from Syria News

President Assad: The truth is, terrorism in Syria is Turkish-made; Jabhat Al Nusra (Nusra Front aka Al Qaeda Levant), and Ahrar Al Sham are different names for one side, all made by Turkey and funded until this moment by Turkey, so what kind of terrorism is he talking about?

Q: Regarding the relationship with Hamas, Mr. President, you, as the Syrian state are greatly appreciated for supporting (Hamas), but how did you receive Hamas’s position at the beginning of the crisis, and did the relationship return to what it was with Hamas with Hamas announcing restoring its relations with Damascus?

President Assad: After all that time, I want to clarify one small point, some Hamas leaders were saying that Syria asked them to support us, how they stand with us, and how they defend the Syrian state. They do not have an army and they are a few dozen in Syria, this is not true.

The position we have declared on more than one occasion is that it was a position of treachery (by Hamas), not because we stood with Hamas, but because it was claiming to be a resistance group at that time, and I’m talking about the leaders, I am not talking about all Hamas because I do not know all Hamas, those who claimed to be standing with the resistance are the same ones who carried the flag of the French occupation of Syria.

How can a person claiming to be resistance to stand with an occupation that resulted in the American and Turkish occupation and Israeli aggression under the flag of a French occupier? This position is a mixture of treachery and hypocrisy.

As for our relationship today, it is a relationship within the general principle, we stand with every Palestinian party that stands against Israel in order to regain its rights, this is the general position.

Q: Can the relationship return to what it was in the past?

President Assad: No, currently, Hamas does not have offices in Syria, and it is early to talk about such a thing, we have priorities now, and the battles inside Syria are our priority.

Q: We return to the issue of priorities, when I spoke to the Syrians inside the country, about the reality of the Syrian citizen and the challenges facing the state, some believed that with the end of the war, relatively, and the lifting of the suspension of Syria’s membership in the Arab League, that the economy will improve rapidly or gradually, at least there will be something tangible, Mr. President, but this did not happen, why?

Q: Do you think the main obstacle is the Caesar Act? Or what are the obstacles?

President Assad: Caesar Act is an obstacle, no doubt, but we managed in several ways to bypass this law, it is not the biggest obstacle. The biggest obstacle is the destruction of the infrastructure by the terrorists. The biggest obstacle is the image of the war in Syria which prevents any investor from coming to deal with the Syrian market.

The biggest obstacle is also time, you can strike and destroy economic relations within weeks or months, but you also need years to restore them. It is illogical and unrealistic to expect that the return of these relations that have begun to appear closer to normal will lead to economic results within months, this is not logical. We need a lot of effort in order to reach this result.

Q: Concerning Lebanon which is living in a deteriorating political and economic situation, have you intervened politically to end the political crisis in Lebanon, and do you support candidate Suleiman Franjieh to solve this crisis in the Lebanese scene?

President Assad: As long as we did not intervene to solve the crisis in Lebanon, we cannot talk about supporting or standing against any candidate.

No external party, neither Syrian nor non-Syrian can help in resolving the Lebanese crisis if there is no will on the part of the Lebanese to solve their crisis. This is the problem. Therefore, the Lebanese must be pushed for more consensus, then we can talk about a solution to this crisis.

As for us in Syria, we moved away from the Lebanese file less than two decades ago, and we are trying to build normal relations with Lebanon without going into the details at the present time.

Q: We come back to approach your personal view of events, Syria has gone through a war for more than a decade, many challenges, and finally the earthquake that struck large parts of the Syrian territories. What situation has affected you personally all these years, Mr. President?

President Assad: Undoubtedly, the earthquake is a new situation for Syria that has not happened for hundreds of years, and it creates a feeling that is difficult for me to define, but as you work to save what can be saved, and there are people who sleep under the rubble between life and death for days, this is a human situation that has special awe.

But at the level of war in general, there were endless humanitarian situations, there is the teacher who refused the orders of the terrorists not to go to school, and for this reason, male and female teachers were killed. There is the electrician who insisted on fixing the electricity and was killed knowing that he would die, etc…

But the most humane situation that can affect you is the position of the families of the martyrs during the war. The mother and father who lost a number of martyrs from their sons and sent the rest of the sons to defend the homeland. There are human situations that cannot be forgotten for us.

Q: Regarding the future of Syria, Mr. President, you came to power after your father Hafez Al Assad although you succeeded after that in the elections, will your son Hafez have a political role in the future of Syria?

President Assad: First, for me personally, President Hafez Al Assad had no role in my being president, because he did not secure me any civil or military position through which I could be president. I came through the Baath Party after his death, and I did not discuss this point with him even in the last weeks of his life, and he was ill at that time.

The same thing applies to the relationship between me and my son, it is a family relationship, I do not discuss these issues with him, especially since he is still young and has a scientific future ahead of him. He is pursuing a scientific path that he has not finished yet. This is due to his desires.

As for working in the public field, it is up to the national acceptance of any person if he has a desire for public work, but I do not prefer and do not wish to discuss these details with him, not now, nor later.

Q: In conclusion, if you looked at all these years, Mr. President, if you were back in time to the year 2012 (it started in mid-March 2011) since the beginning of the events, what decision did you take that you were not satisfied with, or the decision that if you went back in time, you would have taken differently, given, perhaps, the experience and lessons learned, on the internal as well the external level, Mr. President?

President Assad: This question was often raised personally with me, and I tell them that you would be surprised if I told you that many of the decisions we took, we were not convinced of them in the first place. We did not take them because we were convinced of them.

For example, regarding the changes that took place with regard to the constitution and other things, I used to tell them that we will take these measures, and yet the war will continue. The demonstrations were called peaceful, and we treated them at the beginning as if they were peaceful. We knew that many Muslim Brotherhood groups and others were involved in them, and started shooting at the police and so on, we treated them as peaceful demonstrations even though we knew that they were not peaceful.

If we return to that time, will we do the same thing? Yes, why? Because dealing with the subject does not always stem from your personal convictions, but rather stems from people’s understanding of the subject.

Many people believed that these demonstrations were peaceful, and believed that the constitution was the problem, and it was necessary to take these measures to prove to these people that the problem is neither a constitution nor peaceful demonstrations, the matter is greater than that.

Of course, they were convinced, but it was too late. So, yes, many things we were not convinced of but we will go back and follow them and adopt them once again.

Q: How do you view the issue of alliances with foreign powers?

President Assad: The relationship with Russia and the relationship with Iran proved that Syria knows how to choose its friends correctly. As for the relationship with the Turks, there are those who asked: have we gone too far? Turkey is a neighboring country, and it was natural for us to seek to improve relations with it, and if different circumstances came in the future after Turkey’s withdrawal in order to improve the relationship, then it is natural for us to return to the same policy, which is to build good relation with your neighbors. These are principles and not fleeting policies.

Q: On the Arab level, was there a better way to deal with the Arab capitals to prevent this estrangement that lasted for years?

President Assad: We did not initiate this estrangement and did not take any action against any Arab country, even when we returned to the Arab League, and you may have heard my speech, I did not blame any side and did not ask any side why you did that.

On the contrary, we say what is past is past, we always look to the future. Is there a better way? If there is another better way that we hope to be advised to follow, we have no objection, but we do not seek clashes or problems throughout our history. This is part of our policy or the essence of our approach.

Q: Mr. President, thank you for the opportunity to meet with you on Sky News Arabia.

President Assad: Thank you again for coming to Syria, welcome.

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Featured image is from Syria News