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Background

The governor of the Central Bank of Pakistan, as the former chairman, handed over the presidency to the governor of the Iranian central bank, Mohammad Reza Farzin. Jameel Ahmad said the union can come up with new ideas for alternative currencies that would bring more benefits. Farzin, for his part, expressed hope for more cooperation between the ACU members (ACU = Asian Clearing Union).

The Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has underlined the need for the member states of the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) to trade in their national currencies and other not commonly used currencies.

The CBI governor said that the ACU was established in 1974 with the aim of de-dollarization and using local currencies and fostering barter trade among the nine member countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.

The Vice president of Iran and top banking officials of the member states have attended the meeting. The Asian Clearing Union, that has 9 members, was established in 1974 with the aim of reducing dependence on global currencies, especially the US-dollar. The main objective of the union is to facilitate payments among member countries for eligible transactions.

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PressTV: Could you please comment on dedollarization, Iran’s capability of evading US sanctions?

Peter KoenigAlthough in existence since 1974, the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) has hardly been on the radar of the west in at least almost 50 years. Of course, it is not convenient for the west to show the world that an alternative to the western-controlled SWIFT international transfer system is possible.

Definitely – a strengthened and even enlarged ACU would help Iran and all adhering members to dedollarize.

Dedollarization has already made enormous headways. At present international reserves consist only of a mere 45% of US dollar denominated assets.

Some 20 years ago, 90% or more of all reserves were designated in US dollars. Likewise with trading. Once upon a time, still 10-15 years ago, the US dollar was the main trading currency in the world. No more.

There has been a gradual shift away from trading in US dollars, and instead countries adopted trading in their local currencies, or in a currency of common use by the trading partners, for example the Chinese Yuan.

Latin America – especially Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela – are consistently using local currencies or the Chinese Yuan to avoid the dollar.

Avoiding the dollar is foremost for own protection from US sanctions. Increasingly more country will use this new mode of trading – equitable and peaceful.

PressTV: What about the New World Order?

PK: The New World Order as foreseen by the Great Reset and UN Agenda 2030 is a pipe dream of the west.

It will not happen – as too many countries see through the game and will object, and start creating new alliances as we see already emerging in the east, in the form of the enlarged BRICS+ (Iran), as well as in monetary / exchange terms with the Asian Clearing Union.

These may evolve into parallel economies – eventually leaving the west behind.

Let us not forget, the Global South is part of the Eastern Alliance – and most of the natural resources left on the planet are in the East – Russia is a good example – and in Africa and Latin America.

The west will starve without the resources of the Global South.

Important question but we cannot prove it: Are man-made climate change – ENMOD technologies (Environmental Modification) — causing extreme crop and infrastructure damage, by floods and droughts, cold and heat waves, even causing earthquakes?  It all goes under the indoctrinated narrative of “climate change”.

Most people on planet earth have no clue about the truth. They have been brainwashed with a criminal lie for the last at least 30 years. It is now difficult to convince them of the truth.

Eastern Alliances – and a coordination mechanism, or union, like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – will make the East, eastern or alternative economies independent.

After all the East and Global South comprise more than two-thirds of the world population and already now, in its limited form, close to 40% of the world’s GDP.

PressTV: Can you, please, comment on the capacity of Iran’s economy in the region and the world?

PK: Under the new premises of an enhanced ACU, the Iranian economy may expand exponentially – even more so, if the member countries expand and create a common trading / reserve currency like an Asian SDR = ASDR. In this case they would be way ahead of the west.

PressTV: What do you mean by an Asian SDR (Special Drawing Right)?

PK: As mentioned earlier, until recently little was known to the rest of the world about the 1974 created Asian Clearing Union. It is now the moment to activate ACU, expand it, making it a reliable platform for trade and monetary transfers, a force to outmaneuver SWIFT – for eastern alliances, for trading.

In short, ACU should become a fully non-SWIFT trading / money-transfer platform for further dedollarization, as well as for lending eastern economies stability – independence from the western dollar-dominated, sanction-prone SWIFT system.

If possible, more countries may join with “stronger” currencies – China, Russia, and why not ALL BRICS — perhaps ACU may also partner with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to build up strength.

If I may, let me advance an idea – the currencies of participating ACU countries could be grouped into some kind of Asian SDR  where each currency within the Asian SDR – ASDR – would be weighed according to its own economy, and the ASDR could act as a trading currency – as well as a reserve currency for participating as well as non-participating countries.

This concept, at one point, was behind the IMF established Special Drawing Right (SDR) which today consists of the world’s five major currencies – US-dollar, Chinese Yuan, Euro, British Pound and Japanese Yen. They figure within the IMF-SDR with their weighted average according to their country’s economic strength.

However, the SDR has major flaws. The IMF being dominated by the US, the Chinese Yuan is considerably undervalued. Every discussion and argument China wants to engage in with the IMF / US for adjusting the Yuan’s weight within the SDR is being “avoided”.

Therefore, an Asian SDR (ASDR) – could be named differently, applying the principles of the IMF SDR — would be a tremendous step towards dedollarization, towards independence from the western currencies.

ASDRs might not only be used for trading but also as a reserve currency. The more countries join the ACU / ASDR system, the stronger the ASDR, the more pressure to dedollarize the world.

It would allow escaping the “sanctions regime” of the US and Europe and lead into a new more balanced monetary system.

As this new exchange-trade progresses, more countries – even from the so-called west — may join.

A more balanced monetary / economic system – a better equilibrium of the world economy  — is a natural precursor for PEACE.

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

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

Brasil – Asfixiar al gobierno de Lula

May 26th, 2023 by Jeferson Miola

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First published on May 15, 2023

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This is an URGENT message from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Team about the World Health Organization’s (WHO) impending Power Grab. If we do not intervene and stop it NOW, WHO will take over power and dominion on all matters of health over and above the sovereignty of WHO member states, and over our right to decide over our own body.

Please sign the petition below.

The World Health Assembly (WSHA) in the week of 21 May 2023 is scheduled to voting on a new set of International Health Regulations (IHR), including an intimately related Pandemic Treaty. If these criminal rules were to be approved; they would abolish some of our basic Human Rights.

These made-to-order rules, would be called “laws”, for which there is no legal basis whatsoever. They would allow WHO to impose their health rules over and above every sovereign country, of over their 194 members.

The mega-monsters behind this planned tyranny have the corrupt UN system on their side. WHO and the UN follow the WEF’s Great Reset Agenda, alias UN Agenda 2030 which pursues identical goals – massive population reduction, the introduction of chipped humans to make them transhumans, also called “cyborgs” and full control of the world and its surviving “cyborgs” under a One World Order (OWO).

A cyborg is a human being whose body has been taken over in whole or in part by electromechanical devices.

On population reduction, read and see this (below) which follows the blueprint of the 1972 written “Limits to Growth” by the Club of Rome – which has nothing to do with Rome, and was initiated by Rockefeller — a renown eugenist.

The Club of Rome was created in 1968, by David Rockefeller, Aurelio Peccei, Alexander King, and Co- Presidents: Sandrine Dixson-Declève and Dr. Mamphela Ramphele. The Club of Rome is registered as a tax-free NGO with headquarters in Winterthur, Switzerland.

This article contains a short video by one of the authors of “Limits to Growth”, Dennis Meadows. In this 2017 10-min video, Meadows propagates an inevitable genocide of 86% of the world population, hoping it could be accomplished peacefully under a “benevolent” dictatorship. See video embedded in the article below.

Club of Rome “Limits to Growth” Author Promotes Genocide of 86% of the World’s Population
Dennis Meadows, one of the main authors of the Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth, is a member of the World Economic Forum. (4 May 2023)

Please sign the petition highlighted in the CHD message below. Please circulate this memorandum widely. There is no time to lose.

We, the People, must stand up NOW.

In case this Power Grab, the new revised International Health Regulation (IHR) and related “Pandemic Treaty” are accepted within the coming two to three weeks – it needs a two thirds majority of the voting WHA members to be ratified – to save our human rights and to save our rights over our bodies, We, the People, and, We, Representatives of our Nations, have no choice but to EXIT WHO; to EXIT the entire compromised, bought UN system.


From Children’s Health Defense

In the last three years, we’ve witnessed the obliteration of our rights under the guise of safety and public health measures.

During the pandemic, countries around the world utilized governing bodies to impose mandates, enact executive orders and coerce compliance with untested, unsafe experimental mRNA shots. The people were ultimately stripped from their fundamental rights, restricting our ability to travel, seek proper healthcare, or choose alternative methods to maintain health.

Sign the Health Freedom Bill of Rights.

All of these tyrannical efforts were orchestrated by the government in concert with Big Tech and Big Pharma and propagated by mainstream media. Now the powers that be want this tyranny to continue — so they’re outsourcing it to a group of unelected bureaucrats to usher in a one-world global government.

Despite catastrophic public health failures during the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) is preparing amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR). These amendments would transfer the management of future pandemics to the WHO Director-General, who can deem a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) at will.

The U.N. is preparing a similar “Emergency Platform” at this very moment to be a part of this power grab.

The proposed changes to the legally binding IHR would give WHO unprecedented power over national governments to dictate how we live our lives and the choices we will be allowed to make for our health, freedom, and families. We must oppose this coup d’etat against our constitutional republic and preserve our national sovereignty and fundamental rights.

The Great Reset vs. The Great Freeset. Which side of history will you stand on? Will you allow the ushering in of a one-world government to undermine the powers of sovereign nations and our individual rights, or will you defend your rights and choose freedom?

Here are three things you can do to take part in #TheGreatFreeset

1. Sign the Health Freedom Bill of Rights to let the WHO and the U.N. know that we are paying attention and will not comply with this consolidation of power at the hands of unelected global leaders.

2. Help us send a simultaneous global message! Share this video on all your social media channels tonight, Friday, May 5, at 7:00 p.m. Eastern.

3. Even though, the date may have past, it is never too late to share this important message. Becoming aware of its contents and standing up against it in unison, may indeed make a difference between life and death.

4. Stay tuned for action alerts and share our campaign to help spread mass awareness of this threat of tyranny that will usher in a one-world government. There is strength in numbers. Please share this campaign far and wide!

It is critical that we act now to protect our nations from these global power grabs. Join us in finding a new way forward!

In solidarity,

The Team at Children’s Health Defense

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

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

Bayer Head Admits COVID-19 Vaccine Is Gene Therapy

May 26th, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

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First published on September 23, 2022

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Stefan Oelrich, head of Bayer’s pharmaceuticals department, admitted at the World Health Summit that the COVID-19 vaccine is gene therapy. He smugly stated that the drug companies knew people would reject the vaccine if they knew it was in fact a gene-altering injectable. They lied to us for profits as the vaccine certainly did not prevent anyone from contracting or transmitting the virus.

“If we had surveyed two years ago if people were willing to take gene or cell therapy and inject it into your body we would have probably had a 95% refusal rate,” Oelrich admits while forgetting many took the “gene therapy” through force.

Twitter has already flagged retweets of this video as “misleading.” The conspiracy theorists who were told they had no place in society were right as Big Pharma and governments worldwide used the public as guinea pigs for the largest gene therapy study in history. We still do not know the long-term health implications but have seen a variety of health issues and lingering side effects in the short-term. Revolutions have occurred over much less.

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Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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First published on March 23, 2023

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Three years ago the Western World came to a standstill. The official Covid-19 narrative depicted a strange suddenly-super-spreading, deadlier-than-flu virus hailing from China that landed in Northern Italy.

On February 20, 2020 the first alleged case of Covid-19 was discovered in the West in the Lombardy town of Codogno, Italy. Later that day the Italian government reported their first “Covid-19 death.”

Dramatic media reports emerging from Northern Italy were hammered into and onto the Western psyche giving the impression there was a mysterious “super spreading” and “super lethal” novel virus galloping across the region infecting and killing scores of people.

Harrowing reports out of Bergamo, a city in the alpine Lombardy region of Northern Italy, spoke   of coffins stacked high, “covid-related deaths growing relentlessly” and the alarming need for military assistance to remove the grim volume of dead bodies piling up.

In early March 2020 hospitals in Northern Italy were reporting a “tsunami of deaths” due to the Covid crisis and overcrowded conditions due to “fighting the coronavirus outbreak”, which were pushing hospitals and staff to the breaking point as doctors were “taking the dead from morning until night.”

Using the entire machinery of the state, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte began issuing a rolling set of government decrees culminating in Italy becoming the first country in the world to implement a national lockdown. These mandates would set the stage for lockdowns throughout the Western world.

Three years later a comprehensive evaluation of the story about the alleged Italian medical emergency in Spring 2020, reveals a tale of the disturbing epidemiological history of Northern Italy, mass media manipulation and deceptive reporting utilized to create the illusion of a new epidemic.

A multitude of questions and inconsistencies surrounding the Italian story soon surfaced. Ascribing this strange set of convergent circumstances to a viral event strained credulity.

Were these overcrowded conditions in Italian hospitals genuinely the result of a unique viral pathogen or were there other causal factors?

Were these anomalous spikes in excess deaths in Northern Italy verifiably caused by the arrival and spread of a novel deadly virus?

How was it that this virus spread across thousands of kilometers within days and peaked synchronously in selected locations?

How was it that this virus was able to spread so fast across thousands of kilometers, peaking at the same time in those selected locations, yet wasn’t contagious enough to spread to nearby locations?

How was it that this virus waited for a government decree and only then began to create excess death?

How was it possible that all countries in the West and beyond adopted similar “health” measures as carried out in Italy, virtually “overnight”, measures that resembled a de facto police state rather than medical initiatives?

Why Italy?

Image: At the entrance to the hospital, a sign reads: “You are the real heroes”, Bergamo, Italy, March, 2020. | Photo: Twitter/ @orlandoQva

A brief timeline of the series of events as they unfolded in Northern Italy in Spring 2020:

January 31,  2020 –  The Italian Council of Ministers declares a 6-month national emergency handing the coordination of the COVID-19 emergency responses to the Head the Civil Protection Department, following the detection of the first two COVID-19 positive people in Rome – two Chinese tourists traveling from Wuhan;

February 20, 2020 – First Covid-19 case of Italian citizen diagnosed in Codogno.

78-year-old Adriano Trevisan, a retired bricklayer from the village of Vo’ Euganeo near Padua in the Veneto region became the first Covid death of a European recorded. The deceased tested positive for the virus and died in the hospital while being treated for pneumonia.

February 23, 2020 – The Italian government introduces the first movement and access/exit restrictions around hotspots, known as ‘lockdown red zones.’

On this same day the Italian Ministry of Health issued PCR testing guidance to 31 labs across Italy. Cases surge.

February 25, 2020Further restrictive measures introduced across Italy.

February 27, 2020 A National Surveillance system, coordinated by the ISS (National Institute of Health) is set up to oversee the collection and collation of daily data.

March 1, 2020 – Creation of ‘lockdown red zones’ expands.

March 4, 2020 –  Nationwide closure of schools and universities are declared in Italy.

March 8, 2020 – Decree Of The President Of The Council Of Ministers expands restrictions to all Lombardy and large areas of Northern Italy.

March 9, 2020 – The government of Italy under Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte extends the lockdown to the whole of Italy restricting the movement of the population except for necessity, work, and health circumstances.

March 11, 2020 – The World Health Organization declares the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak a global pandemic. Italy declares closure of all restaurants, pubs, theaters and social activities.

March 18, 2020European Central Bank announces huge money printing program to keep the financial system functioning. 750 billion euro bailout given to financial sector to fight the “coronavirus crash.”

March 22, 2020Cessation of all non-essential productive activities complete lockdown factories are closed and all nonessential production is halted across Italy.

March 25, 2020Further restrictions imposed to people’s movements except for essential reasons (e.g. work, health and getting supplies).

March 27, 2020 – Peak in number of daily Covid deaths in Italy.

April 9, 2020‘Liquidità’ Decree goes into full effect, including temporary measures to facilitate access to loans, support business continuity and corporate liquidity and measures to support export, internationalization and business investment.

May 4, 2020Reopening of most factories and various wholesale businesses, within pre-set health safety protocols.

While such a chronology can serve to refresh our memory and provide a coherent understanding of the sequence of events, it is not a substitute for real history.

As they say– the devil is in the details.

The details in Northern Italy start with massive pollution problems and the accompanying long-standing chronic health conditions which have afflicted the region for years.

Pollution and Chronic Illness

Everyday life in the Lombardy region is bedeviled with dangerous living conditions and health challenges– numerous acute health problems facing an aging population have been documented for a long period of time.

The Po River Valley in Northern Italy is cited as having the worst air quality in all of Europe. The air quality in the region has been deteriorating for many years. The cities in the Po River Valley are cited as having the highest mortality burdens associated with air pollution in all of Europe.

Along with the sheer volume of pollutants, the Po River Valley is known for its unique characteristics of low winds and prolonged episodes of climatic inversions turning it into a holding tank for atmospheric pollution.

The Lancet Planetary Health report from January 2021 estimated death rates associated with fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide pollution in 1000 European cities. Brescia and Bergamo in the Lombardy region held the morbid distinction of having the highest death rate from fine particulate matter in Europe. Two other Northern Italian cities, Vicenza and Saronno placed fourth and eighth respectively, in the list of top ten cities in this category. These locations correspond precisely with the highest incidents of upper respiratory infections occurring in Northern Italy as reported in the official pandemic narrative.

Ongoing and accelerating “epidemics” of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, (a severe and progressive lung disease), interstitial lung disease and high rates of bronchial and lung cancer were signature epidemiological features of Northern Italy long before an alleged virus ventured onto the scene.

In the Lombardy region there is also an ongoing asbestos problem from occupational asbestos exposure in the 1960s and 1970s.  A 2016 study, “Incidence of mesothelioma in Lombardy, Italy: exposure to asbestos, time patterns and future projections, predicted a rise of malignant mesothelioma (MM), an aggressive and deadly form of cancer primarily impacting the linings of the chest and abdomen. “This study documented a high burden of MM in both genders in the Lombardy Region, reflecting extensive occupational (mainly in men) and non-occupational (mainly in women) exposure to asbestos in the past. Incidence rates are still increasing; a downturn in occurrence of MM is expected to occur after 2019.”

A further study, “Investigating the impact of influenza on excess mortality in all ages in Italy during recent seasons (2013/14–2016/17 seasons)”, reveals that rates of death due to the common flu have increased markedly over the past decade. This study described a nearly fourfold increase in flu mortality during the covered time period. By the 2016/17 season the totals skyrocketed to 24,981 excess deaths attributable to flu epidemics.

Adding to the ongoing problems of air pollution, residents in the Po River Valley are plagued by high levels of industrial livestock runoff in rivers and tributaries.

The Lombardy region creates vast amounts of animal waste as it produces more than 40 percent of Italy’s milk production while over half of Italy’s pig production is located in the Po River Valley.

Throughout Italy issues with poisoned soil caused by past and present industrial activities and accidents have beset the land and its people.

Heavy industrial activity and past industrial poisoning in northern Italy afflict the region with yet another mass of toxic exposures. 

In 1976 Seveso, Italy experienced “one of the worst industrial accidents in the past century. The Seveso disaster occurred in a chemical manufacturing plant 12 miles north of Milan in the Lombardy region of Italy. It resulted in the highest known exposure to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) in residential populations in history and became a “testament to the lasting effects of dioxin.”

Dioxin is a known cancer-causing agent and many people who were living in and around Seveso at the time would be at increased risk of  cancers later in life. Someone who turned 20 years of age in 1976 would now be in their 60’s during the Covid Era.

This is consistent with what has been widely reported among Nembro men, with cancer being theleading cause of death in this demographic and lung cancer being the most common type of cancer.

Austerity Measures and Health Infrastructure

Compounding the abysmal environmental conditions facing the people of Northern Italy are  austerity measures of the past two decades which have decimated Italian public services, severely decreasing health care resources.

Examining the state of the hospitals in northern Italy, long before the “pandemic”, a pattern starts to emerge.

A 2019 review on the current state of Italian hospitals, “Health & Hospitals in Italy. 17th Annual Report”, noted a “significant increase in 2019 of people on waiting lists and for longer times, compared to the already problematic situation in 2018,” and a, “pronounced deterioration, over the last 5 years, of the “connection” systems between general medicine and hospitals and between these and post-hospitalization services (rehabilitation, long-term care, assisted living homes and home care service).”

The charged atmosphere and resulting firestorm created by a trumpeted “viral invasion” brutally exposed the effects of 20 years of cuts to the national health care system.

A 2013 Oxfam report on the impacts of austerity measures, “THE TRUE COST OF AUSTERITY AND INEQUALITY Italy Case Study” highlighted the decline in Italian health services.

The report noted that in 2000, Italy was 2nd in the world for health coverage. The reports cited thatby 2011, due to yearly declines in health spending, “more than nine million people declared that they could not access some health services for economic reasons.”

Further cuts magnified an already volatile situation. Over the period 2010–19, the Italian National Healthcare Service suffered financial cuts of more than €37 billion as it experienced a progressive privatization of health-care services. Government spending on healthcare, decreasing for years, spiraled down to a rate below what the WHO considered capable of offering basic health care.

These comprehensive cuts also had severe effects on the healthcare workforce and available hospital beds and equipment, effectively hampering the ability of care facilities to effectively treat patients.

The period from 2009 to 2017 saw 5.2 percent of healthcare staff cut. In the last 10 years, 70,000 beds were lost.  In acute medical units bed availability dropped from 922 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1980 to 262 per 100,000.

Data from 2020 show a total of 5,179 beds in intensive care units (approx. 8.9 beds per 100,000) for all of Italy, a population of just over 60 million in 2020.

At regular operational level in 2020 the 74 Lombardy hospitals, servicing a population of 10 million, had approximately 720 ICU beds, with up to 90% of them usually occupied in the winter.

By  March 10, 2020 there were 877 people hospitalized in ICUs, units in Lombardy were saturated and requests to transfer patients to other regions were prevalent.

The net effect of these radical cuts to hospital infrastructure and services in the context of the covid hysteria were predictable; for years Italian ICU physicians have been reporting that flu outbreaks cause ICU units to fill up as was the case in locations across the world.

The roaring silence from the media on these inconvenient facts kept the public in the dark on the realities of the crumbling Italian health care system.

Only “the virus.”

In light of this data, it is no surprise that individuals with routine and mostly reversible seasonal respiratory infections once admitted to hospitals might not be treated appropriately or successfully.

Iatrogenic deaths/hospital protocols

In Spring 2020 Italian health officials introduced unprecedented health protocols specifically for Covid.

These new protocols, including early intubation and accompanying sedation, were deemed necessary to protect doctors and nurses at a time when the viral load of the alleged lethal pathogen was purportedly lower.

Were these new protocols appropriate for treating upper respiratory problems?

Mechanical ventilators, that push oxygen into patients whose lungs are failing, quickly became the accepted go-to practice throughout the Italian hospital system. Doctors made extravagant claims that ventilators had “become like gold.”

Employing ventilators involves sedating the patient and placing a tube into the throat. Drugs such as midazolam, morphine sulfate and propofol are used in accompaniment with this procedure; drugs that come with contra-indications and warnings of side effects including respiratory depression and respiratory arrest. Midazolam and propofol are two drugs that are regularly used for assisted suicide and to put down death row inmates.

During the initial wave of hysteria in March 2020 the Italian government requested and received an emergency procurement of midazolam from Germany as their hospitals “suddenly needed  3-4 times the normal amount of this drug.”

The Italian Civil Protection undertook a fast-track public procurement to secure 3800 additional respiratory ventilators.

As early as April 2020 the reliance on mechanical ventilation came under fire from Italian experts. Luciano Gattinoni, a world-renowned Italian intensive care specialist suggested that “mechanical ventilation was being misused and overused.”

Marco Garrone, an emergency doctor at the Mauriziano Hospital in Turin, Italy remarked, “We started with a one-size-fits-all attitude, which didn’t pay off,” Garrone said of the practice of putting patients on ventilators right away, only to see their conditions deteriorate. “Now we try to delay intubation as much as possible.”

Even as some health officials pushed to get more ventilators to treat coronavirus patients, some doctors were moving away from using them.

Questions surrounding actual causes of “Covid deaths” of the frail and elderly placed on ventilators began to surface for the simple reason that doctors were noticing  unusually high death rates for coronavirus patients on ventilators.

Could it be that it was medical malfeasance, and not a novel pathogen, that was igniting this tinderbox in the hospitals and creating a feedback loop of public panic?

Could it be that what spread through the Italian hospitals in Spring 2020 was an epidemic of iatrogenesis?

Was it possible that the Spring 2020 mortality event in Northern Italy was not an epidemiological or biological aberration but the result of an unprecedented set of administrative mandates by the Italian government and public health officials?

Emergency Measures and Lockdown Impacts on population

Image: March 1, 2020 shows medical supplies, including masks, gloves and protective suits, donated to Italy by Lishui City, east China’s Zhejiang Province. (Xinhua)

The Italian government, public health officials and  regional doctors  proclaiming a “novel virus” had landed in Northern Italy, insisted that emergency preparations be activated to prepare for this “massive” increase in Covid-19 patients. That these forecasts were speculations, using linear model forecasts, coming from doctors with conflicts of interest  was of little interest to reporters.

A progressive set of restrictive decrees, including lockdowns of villages and cities, were  swiftly implemented. These directives served to further terrify and disorient an already panicked populace.

Citizens were told to stay home and were banned from entering certain areas; fines were levied for those who transgressed. Most shops and businesses were ordered to shut down.

Residents described the abandoned streets as surreal and “fearful.”

Farm owner Rosanna Ferrari said, “We’re experiencing a bit of a panic. Supermarkets have been stormed since last Friday. There are queues outside of the chemist. They said they’ll come, house to house, to collect saliva samples today.”

Angelo Caperdoni, the mayor of Somaglia, described the alarming situation, “It was difficult to contain the panic at first, especially as a lot of false news was circulating on social media that people believed to be true. There is still panic regarding food provisions. Many people went to Codogno yesterday to try and stock up.”

Franco Stefanoni, the mayor of Fombio, also under lockdown, described the harried scene in military terms as he noted the town’s two mini-markets had been “besieged”, as “people have been racing to the supermarket to buy 20kg of pasta or 30kg of bread.”

Former president of Italy’s higher health council, Roberta Siliquini, provided a more reasonable explanation for the excitement:  “We have found positive cases in people who probably had few or no symptoms and who may have overcome the virus without even knowing it.”

Cooler heads advising calm were systematically buried beneath a barrage of draconian government edicts, manufactured hype from vested interests and the sustained onslaught of media agitation and deceptive reporting.

Deceptive Reporting

Mainstream news outlets and social media channels kicked into high gear warning of “waves of death” cutting across Northern Italy from a rampaging virus which was creating overcrowded emergency rooms and requiring convoys of army vehicles to transport corpses.

Television images of stacked coffins in Bergamo were catapulted across the airwaves and reported in lockstep, terrifying the Italian populace and much of the world.

A detailed inspection of these reports revealed that the media fear mongering fastidiously avoided all reasonable explanations when not outright lying.

The media kept silent on the fact that as recently as 2018 hospitals in Milan were overrun with viral lung infections. Due to the aforementioned pollution problems, decimated health infrastructure and aging population, overrun hospitals have become a seasonal feature of the  national profile of Italy over the last few decades.

Mainstream news also refrained from mentioning the reality of hospital worker shortages and the reasons for this. Due to panic-mongering and the government edict of border closures the Eastern European workforce of nurses, who comprise a large portion of the labor force in Italian health care, quickly fled the country leaving the hospitals and care centers with skeleton crews.

This resulted in sudden abandonment of the fragile elderly and the disabled by those who normally attend to them leading to an avalanche of deleterious consequences as many of the abandoned elderly from care homes  were shipped to already overstretched hospitals.

This vicious cycle of worker shortages in care homes leading to runs on short-staffed hospitals led to complete collapse of care for the elderly and the disabled adding to the chaos in hospital systems in regions where harsh government policies were enacted.

Covid Case Creation

Upon entry into the hospital the de facto response for incoming patients was the ubiquitous PCR swab used to determine if the patient had “Covid-19.” If deemed a “positive case” this activated the deployment of deadly hospital protocols – yet another vicious cycle of medical malfeasance which ensured the proper dosage of fear would continue.

Though it was noted as early as March 2020 that there were major problems with PCR as a diagnostic tool, the media, and general public, accepted at face value the validity of this technique as a diagnostic method.

High cycle thresholds were one of the problems cited. This created absurd numbers, as high as 97%, of “false positives”, leading to a grossly exaggerated number of Covid cases and deaths.

Even earlier, in February of 2020, test reads from PCR results in Italy were called into question. as they were using a single SARS-CoV-2 target gene as clinical proof of a “positive” test.

Italian Nobel Prize Candidate Dr Stefan Scoglio, in noting this scientific fraud stated: “Today I discovered a new element of this real fraud, the choice to reduce the positivity to the swab by detecting only one of the three genes that would define SARS-CoV-2. If the virus were present, all 3 would have to be found, because if the virus is intact, the only case in which it can have a pathogenic role and infect, the test must find all 3 genes.”

The misuse of PCR led to the confounding issue of whether people in the Italian hospitals were

actually dying from “Covid” or from the effects of mass social breakdown and then being mislabeled as a “Covid death” as determined by this fraudulent process.

Manufacturing Covid Deaths

The answer to that question is found in later reports which made clear that nearly all of the “Covid deaths” were not in fact caused by a viral pathogen- nearly all of the individuals who died from the alleged pathogen had multiple comorbidities.

A March 17, 2020 report from the Italian Institute of Health (ISS) noted that 99.2% of Covid-related deaths were from people who had pre-existing chronic conditions.

One week later, as reported in a March 23,2020 article in the UK Telegraph, professor Walter Ricciardi, scientific adviser to Italy’s minister of health remarked:

“The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.

On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 percent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 percent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three.”

Ricciardi was citing a March 20, 2020 follow-up report from the ISS (in English here) and either misread the actual figures in the report or was misquoted. While 12% having zero comorbidities indicated a gross exaggeration of the impacts of “Covid”, the accurate figure in the report was 1.2% meaning 98.8% of the listed “Covid deaths” had pre-existing chronic conditions.

By the early summer of 2020 even the mainstream press admitted that virtually all Covid fatalities from Italy suffered from previous chronic conditions.

By October 2021 Italian newspaper Il Tempo reported that the Italian Institute of Health revised the number of people who have died “from covid” rather than “with covid” from 130,468 to 3,783.

It is a well established fact that Italy labeled anyone who died with a “confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection”, confirmed via a dubious PCR result regardless of the real causes of death, as a victim of “Covid-19.”

At the same time according to Istat (National Institute of Statistics) there was a general increase in mortality from all causes from March 1 to April 4, 2020 compared with the average for the same period in 2015-2019. Bergamo sat at the top in the growth of mortality among municipalities with a staggering 382.8% increase in deaths.

This mortality increase resulted not from a host of causes associated with alleged SARS-CoV-2 infection but from multiple other factors. Canceled cancer screenings, delayed treatments, reluctance to call ambulance services in the event of an accident or emergency became commonplace in the midst of the Corona hysteria allowing conditions to worsen beyond possible treatment.

Delayed medical care is known to increase morbidity and mortality  associated with both chronic and acute health conditions.

A mere two day delay in seeking treatment of a myocardial infarction can turn a simple and treatable condition into a dangerous and life threatening defect.

Research by the Italian Society of Cardiology established that heart attack mortality more than tripled during the Covid emergency as patients fearing infection stayed away from the hospital.

Ciro Indolfi, Professor of Cardiology at the Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, noted that, “the organization of the hospitals… in this phase was dedicated almost exclusively to Covid-19 and many cardiological wards were used for infectious patients. Furthermore, for fear of contagion, patients delay access to the emergency room and arrive at the hospital in increasingly serious conditions, often with arrhythmic or functional complications, which make therapies that have proven to be life-saving such as primary angioplasty much less effective.”

Reports of exaggerated and manipulated “deaths from covid” were kept far from public view and certainly no match for stories of military trucks hauling away human carcasses and images of piled up coffins in Bergamo that were burned into people’s brains.

Always and only “the virus.”

The Lies of Bergamo

The now infamous Bergamo image of three long rows of lined up coffins spread like wildfire and shocked the world without any investigation of the veracity of the photos by the duplicitous media hyenas who instead fanatically fanned the Covid flames at every turn.

Responsible reporting would have authenticated that the photo in question was taken in a hangar at Lampedusa Airport back on October 5, 2013.

The coffins in that photo were filled with corpses of African migrants who perished in a shipwreck, the body count was an estimated 360 deaths, off the coast of Lampedusa, an Italian island off the coast of Tunisia.

The reports of trucks hauling away corpses and crematoria in Lombardy being overrun had more mundane explanations which were anathema to the prevailing media narrative.

The need for trucks to haul away corpses, which the media repeated elsewhere, was readily explained by a combination of congruent factors. The dead were being removed by the military as funeral directors fearing “the killer virus” refused to pick up the bodies as they would during normal times.

The fabricated and magnified fear that made funeral directors eschew their normal duties was compounded by an emergency national law banning civil and religious ceremonies, including funerals. This unprecedented move, for an overwhelmingly Catholic country that normally relied on ritual burial, was put into effect in early March.

The danger of a “highly transmissible and deadly new disease” now firmly etched into the psyche of Italian citizens added to the frenzied situation.

Families who would normally follow the Catholic practice of burial were opting for cremation of the deceased in unprecedented numbers for fear of catching the disease from the dead.

In the north of Italy there was a 50% increase in requests for cremation which quickly overwhelmed the few small crematoria that did exist in Italy.

A Regional Curiosity

Interestingly not all of Italy was hit by the purportedly “super-spreading” virus. The excess deaths in Spring 2020 were limited to Northern Italy and to specific areas within Northern Italy.

The epicenter of the covid virus was reportedly located in the Lombardy region. The localized Lombardy crisis, portrayed to the world as the “Italian” zombie apocalypse, appeared not in the streets, shops or homes in Lombardy, but solely in hospitals and care homes situated in urban centers.

How did the alleged deadly pathogen bypass Central and Southern Italy which have similar demographics?

Data from March 26, 2020 confirms “the virus” did not migrate South honoring jurisdictional boundaries. Four regions in Northern Italy accounted for 89 percent of all Covid “cases.” This pattern would remain the same even as an onslaught of testing was rolled out across the country.

One theory that surfaced suggested that since Lombardy has a high number of Chinese workers in the garment industry the “virus” was brought to Italy by Chinese migrant workers and spread through the region. This hypothesis fell apart when it was noted that Tuscany, a region in Central Italy, which has the largest concentration of Chinese people in Italy and all of Europe, somehow wasn’t hit by the “virus.”

The fact that Southern Italy didn’t get hit by the “virus” also turned the official narrative on its head.

A significant difference in the social structures between North and South Italy entails most elderly in the South living with or very near to their children. This tradition of extended familial support is known to create conditions conducive to well-being and security.

Per capita there are  more long term care facilities (LTCF’s) in the north of Italy with many more residents living in these precarious conditions.

With what we now know it is reasonable to conclude that for a large number of individuals in the north residing in LTCF’s, where conditions are often unhygienic, the nutrition is poor and the care is often negligent, a perfect storm for wholesale death was created.

The subsequent mass departure of overburdened and terrified staff and creation of mass anxiety within a disabled, fragile and abandoned populace virtually guaranteed  a mass death event in this sector of the Northern Italian populace.

Critical thinking 101 informs us that with 50 percent of the “COVID deaths” in Italy occurring among nursing home residents and the average age of “Covid death” being at or above normal life expectancy, this was decidedly not an issue of “COVID deaths” per se but an issue of social conditions.

Terrorizing and isolating elderly people living in care homes, denying them visits from relatives and reducing or eliminating in-person visits from health and social carers combined with any respiratory illness could, and does, sweep through any unsanitary nursing home and wipe out a significant number of the frail.

There was no need to invent a new contagion to explain why people were dying.

The social contagion of government mandates and the media hysteria from social networks became a disease more dangerous than any alleged biological contagion.- but the machinery of the state can conveniently sweep these factors under the rug by curating the swirling madness of “The Virus.”

Why Italy?

To suggest that there was no aberrant viral event in N Italy in Spring 2020 and theorize that Italy was chosen as the launching pad for the Covid Operation, as the evidence indicates, we have to ask, “Why was Northern Italy chosen as the stage set for this pandemic screenplay?

Did Italy possess the means and the motive?

In order to launch the shock-and-awe phase of the Covid Operation into the Western world it was necessary to create the illusion of a viral invasion.

To conjure a post-modern Potemkin plague and the perceived need for shutting down a country’s social and economic order, Italy possessed all the ready-made ingredients. With its already soaring rates of interstitial pneumonia, panoply of pollution induced upper respiratory problems and high cancer rates, Northern Italy needed only a tiny flame to ignite a wildfire of fatalities. That spark came in the form of media generated hysteria, lockdown orders and deadly hospital protocols.

Italy also had the motivation which becomes apparent once you understand the Covid story through the lens of money, power, control, and wealth transfer.

A financially bankrupt country with a financial sector desperate for bailouts and a command structure run by central bankers made for a willing and compliant government.

For reasons unrelated to the poor health of its citizens Italy has been dubbed “the sick man in Europe” for the past decade by the EU financial sector.

Like much of Europe the Italian government was facing extreme economic pressures in 2019.

While Europe as a whole was economically stagnant Italy officially slipped into recession in early 2019. Anxieties in the Eurozone were high with concerns that the “Italian problem” would spread and trigger a meltdown across an already teetering global economy.

Italy’s government debt had mushroomed to the fourth-largest in the world and the biggest in the EU. This crushing debt was placing a strain on the EU creating tension between Rome and Brussels.

By May 2019 Italy’s financial crisis was said to be “posing major threats to the monetary targets of the European Central Bank” and if not reined in, “could shatter market confidence in the entire Euro area, putting the EU in big trouble.”

The predicted tsunami of financial collapse” staring European Central Bankers in the face came to a head in 2019.

With no time to spare, the tried and true bailout scheme was proposed in order to rescue large investors. European commissioner for economy, Paolo Gentiloni, warned “A whopping €1.5 trillion ($ 1.63 trillion) could be needed to “deal with this crisis.”

All chatter about the financial industry bankrupting the nation by looting public funds, politicians destroying public services at the behest of large investors and the depredations of the casino economy were washed away with the fresh telling of a crisis sparked by the ‘outbreak of Covid-19.’

Predators who saw their financial empires coming apart at the seams resolved to shut down society and loot the world in an attempt to salvage their crumbling financial empires.

In order not to solve the problems they created these financial predators needed a cover story.

A cover story big enough to disguise the countless financial crimes they committed and suppress the social problems they created.

That cover story magically appeared in the form of a “novel virus.”

Ultimately the European Central Bank (ECB) agreed to a €1.31 trillion ($1.46 trillion) bailout of European banks followed up by the EU agreeing to a €750 billion recovery fund for European states and corporations.

This fat package of “long-term, ultra-cheap credit to hundreds of banks” was sold to the public as a necessary and benevolent program to cushion the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on businesses and workers.

As part of the EU recovery plan the €750 billion was divided in two parts. One included €500 billion to be allocated as grants based on each country’s “recovery needs.” Italy would be getting the biggest slice of the pie.

Europe’s ‘sick man’ received a much needed infusion- strings attached.

Conclusion

Three years later the indispensable truth of the Italian story is once you scratch beneath the surface of the official narrative of the Covid Pandemic it turns out to be a bottomless snake pit of distortions, manipulations and outright lies.

Any excess deaths in Spring 2020 in Northern Italy were an artifact of already existing health conditions in an aging population, the obliteration of the existing health care infrastructure, massive industrial pollution creating chronic conditions, media generated hysteria, savage government lockdowns and administrative murder of the already fragile.

These iatrogenic deaths of fragile people were the result of the social order and public health despotism and then used to give the impression that there was “a deadly virus” circulating.

The only pandemic was one of violent government and biomedical assault against people.

The evidence from Italy in 2020 exposes the official “Covid” narrative for what it is- a cold-blooded organized deception.

There was no pandemic.

*

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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

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Beef Producers Panic Over mRNA Vaccine News

May 26th, 2023 by Dr. Joseph Mercola

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First published on April 17, 2023

*** 

Pork producers have been using customizable mRNA-based “vaccines” on their herds since 2018, without telling the public

All customized mRNA “vaccines” are untested. Only the mRNA platform itself has been approved

According to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, “there are no current mRNA vaccines licensed for use in beef cattle in the United States.” However, a lobbyist for the association claims to have “double-vaccinated” his own herd with an mRNA “vaccine” against bovine respiratory disease

Iowa State University began trialing an mRNA “vaccine” against bovine respiratory syncytial virus October 1, 2021

Missouri House Bill 1169 would require labeling of products that can alter your genes. Big Ag lobbyists strongly oppose it

*

Last week, I reported that pork producers have been using customizable mRNA-based “vaccines” on their herds since 20181 — without telling the public. This issue really only rose to the surface after attorney Tom Renz started promoting new legislation in Missouri (House Bill 1169,2 which he helped write) that would require labeling of mRNA products.3 In an April 1, 2023, tweet (and no, this was not an April Fool’s joke), Renz stated:4

“BREAKING NEWS: the lobbyists for the cattleman and pork associations in several states have CONFIRMED they WILL be using mRNA vaccines in pigs and cows THIS MONTH. WE MUST SUPPORT MISSOURI HB1169. It is LITERALLY the ONLY chance we have to prevent this … NO ONE knows the impacts of doing this but we are all potentially facing the risk of being a #DiedSuddenly if we don’t stop this.”

The Transhumanist Agenda and Its Focus on Food

Within days, alternative media was abuzz with this story and Renz started making the rounds sharing evidence that shows the U.S. government has been working on the integration of vaccines into foods for at least two decades. In an April 2, 2023, interview with Naomi Wolf, Ph.D., Renz said:5

“[Bill] Gates, the WHO [World Health Organization], a ton of these universities: they’re all talking about including mRNA vaccinations as part of the food. They’re going to modify the genes of these foods to make them mRNA vaccines.”

Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know What They’re Doing 

The pushback by Big Ag lobbyists against this bill to require industry transparency on this important issue has been enormous, and one potential reason for that is because they’d have to admit that all sorts of foods may have been vaccinated with mRNA vaccines, have genetic modifications, or be modified to serve as vaccinations for humans.

Not only might this destroy Big Ag, but it would also seriously impact any surreptitious attempts by Big Pharma to use the food supply as a tool to distribute vaccines unbeknownst to consumers.6 In short, Renz suspects the globalists’ transhumanist agenda is being secretly pushed forward using gene therapy in food production.

I can’t help but wonder whether the industry simply doesn’t understand how mRNA gene therapy in livestock might affect consumers, or whether they want to conceal the fact that they’re using gene therapy because they DO know it can also affect humans.

Globalists like World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab have openly admitted that they intend to alter humanity — both on the genetic level and through the incorporation of artificial intelligence and nanotechnology into the human body.

And, using COVID-19 as the cover, they managed to turn the entire world population into test subjects for this dangerous experimentation. As noted by Renz in the Real America’s Voice interview above, we know for a fact that the mRNA COVID shots have no beneficial impact in terms of preventing COVID infection.

mRNA ‘Vaccines’ in Livestock Are Untested

If the mRNA COVID shots don’t prevent infection, why would we assume mRNA shots for viral and bacterial infections in swine work any better? One of the most disturbing aspects of using mRNA “vaccines” in swine is the fact that all of them are by definition untested. As explained by Merck on its website, its “custom swine vaccine,”

Sequivity, is not a vaccine but, rather, a platform that allows for the endless customization of “mRNA vaccines.” The customized mRNA shots that are created using it are completely untested. Here’s how it works:7

  1. A pathogen is collected and sent to a diagnostic lab.
  2. The gene of interest is sequenced and sent electronically to Sequivity analysts.
  3. A synthetic version of the gene of interest is synthesized and inserted into the RNA production platform.
  4. The RNA particles released from incubated production cells are harvested and formulated into a customized “vaccine.”

As noted by Zoetis, the largest producer of veterinary drugs and vaccines:“Sequivity has safety and efficacy studies based on the platform with a historical initial isolate, not likely the isolate that customers would be requesting in their product.”

What was that initial isolate? Will mRNA against a bacterial disease affect the animals in the same way that mRNA against a viral infection does? What “genes of interest” are being chosen? If spike proteins are selected, might they be as pathogenic as the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein?

In CAFO environments with high populations of animals, won’t mutations become rampant as the bacteria and viruses are subjected to constant “customized” vaccination pressure to adapt and become more dangerous? These are just some of the questions that need answers.

At the end of the day, the fact that mRNA shots can be endlessly customized without safety testing shows just how broken the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration are.

There’s simply no way they can guarantee that customized mRNA shots are safe. The fact that the platform itself works and allows for this customization does NOT prove the safety and effectiveness of the shots being cooked up. Approval of the platform also does not prove the food is safe for consumption after it’s been treated with mRNA.

Cows Milk Used to Immunize Mice

As reported by Dr. Peter McCullough,9 Chinese researchers have demonstrated that food can indeed be turned into a vaccine.10

“The nation’s food supply can be manipulated by public health agencies to influence population outcomes … Now an oral route of administration is being considered specifically for COVID-19 vaccination using mRNA in cow’s milk.

Zhang and colleagues have demonstrated that a shortened mRNA code of 675 base pairs could be loaded into phospholipid packets called exosomes derived from milk and then using that same milk, be fed to mice.

The mice gastrointestinal tract absorbed the exosomes and the mRNA must have made it into the blood stream and lymphatic tissue because antibodies were produced in fed mice against SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein (receptor binding domain) …

[G]iven the damage mRNA vaccines have generated in terms of injuries, disabilities, and deaths, these data raise considerable ethical issues. The COVID States project has shown that 25% of Americans were successful in remaining unvaccinated.

This group would have strong objections to mRNA in the food supply, particularly if it was done surreptitiously or with minimal labelling/warnings …

For those who have taken one of the COVID-19 vaccines, having milk vaccines as an EUA offering would allow even more loading of the body with synthetic mRNA which has been proven resistant to ribonucleases and may reside permanently in the human body.

These observations lead me to conclude that mRNA technology has just entered a whole new, much darker phase of development. Expect more research on and resistance to mRNA in our food supply. The Chinese have just taken the first of what will probably be many more dangerous steps for the world.”

Will Beef Be Treated With mRNA Too?

At present, there’s no evidence to suggest beef cattle are being treated with customizable mRNA “vaccines,” either in Europe11 or the U.S. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has also denied it, saying “there are no current mRNA vaccines licensed for use in beef cattle in the United States.”12,13

That said, the Cattlemen’s Association previously confirmed they do, eventually, intend to use mRNA shots in cattle,14,15 which might affect both dairy and beef. Time will tell whether public outrage will halt such plans. Clearly, the Cattlemen’s Association is concerned about internet rumors that it’s already in use.

April 3, 2023, Texas Department of Agriculture commissioner Sid Miller issued a statement promising to conduct a risk assessment of the technology before its adoption:16

“Since news of the development of mRNA vaccines and mRNA-related treatments for livestock came to the attention of the Texas Department of Agriculture, we have been working towards developing a fact and science-based assessment of the risks associated with this technology.

Our analysis will include the clinical research, the structure of existing Texas law, and the public policy, economic, and production impact of the different policy prescriptions we may adopt. I aim to ensure that Texas agriculture remains safe, trusted, healthy, and wholly uninfected by dangerous or unproven technology.

I personally take this issue very seriously. No political hot takes. Just a well-reasoned and well-researched proposal based on a wide range of input from stakeholders, scientists, agriculturalists, and other experts. We are looking at this issue at TDA and will share your concerns. Please stay tuned …”

Confusion Caused by Cattlemen’s Association Lobbyist

What’s causing significant confusion on this issue is a statement made by National Cattlemen’s Beef Association lobbyist Shannon Cooper17 before the Missouri House.18 Cooper told the House members he had recently “double-vaccinated” his herd with “vaccinations that have this mRNA.” According to Cooper, the mRNA “vaccine” given was for bovine respiratory disease.

Is he confused? Did he mistakenly believe the vaccine he gave had mRNA in it? Or is the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association incorrect in stating there are no approved mRNA vaccines for cattle in the U.S.? Or, are experimental mRNA shots being used without approval? Who knows at this point?

What we do know is that mRNA “vaccines” against bovine respiratory disease are being developed. Iowa State University began trialing an mRNA “vaccine” against bovine respiratory syncytial virus October 1, 2021.19 The project end date is listed as September 30, 2026.

According to the trial submission, mice would be used to establish proof of concept. Cows would be used in year two of the trial. Assuming they’re on schedule, that means cows will be experimented on somewhere in late 2023 and/or 2024.

Is mRNA Jabbed Livestock Safe to Eat?

Considering health authorities insist the COVID shots are safe, it’s no wonder they also insist there are no problems associated with eating mRNA-treated meat. But can we trust them? What about the cells now highjacked by the foreign mRNA instruction to create novel proteins? Are these proteins safe to consume? How long are the nano-lipid particles preserved in the tissue?

Livestock such as swine are routinely vaccinated against several diseases,20 and many of these vaccines must be administered at specific times to ensure there’s no residue left in the meat. So, just when are swine receiving these customized mRNA shots? And could there be mRNA vaccine remnants in the pork you buy?

Vaccines are nearly always given in the hindquarter of the animal, and according to mRNA jab developers, the mRNA remains at the injection site. This theory has long since been proven false, as the mRNA in the COVID jab gets has been shown to be distributed throughout the human body.

But it makes sense that the mRNA might be more concentrated at the injection site. In livestock, this could be bad news, seeing how the hindquarters are usually where the prime cuts of meat come from.

So, knowing whether there’s any mRNA left in the animal at the time of slaughter is important. At present, we have no way of knowing this. We don’t even know exactly how long the synthetic lipid-enveloped mRNA stays in the body.

We also don’t know how long the antigen produced by the animal’s cells in response to a customized mRNA shot sticks around, and whether ingesting that antigen might have repercussions for human health.

Stanford researchers found the spike protein produced in response to the COVID shot remains in the human body for at least 60 days,21,22 and the spike protein is what’s causing most of the health problems associated with the jab. Could the same be true for mRNA jabs used in animals? Hogs can be killed anywhere from the age of 6 weeks to 10 months, which doesn’t allow a whole lot of time for the mRNA and/or antigen to get flushed out.23

Notorious Industry Mouthpiece Defends Livestock mRNA Jabs

Aside from the many open questions, the fact that notorious Big Pharma mouthpieces are the ones cited by media, ensuring us that mRNA jabbed animals are safe to eat is yet another red flag. In this case, we have Dr. Kevin Folta insisting the mRNA is harmless.

Folta, a University of Florida horticulture professor, is a longtime advocate for genetically modified organisms (GMOs). He has also advocated for the safety of glyphosate, and in 2015, he was caught lying about his financial ties to Monsanto. Now, he’s taken up the advocacy for mRNA shots in livestock. As reported by Cowboy State Daily:24

“Lawmakers in Arizona, Idaho, and Missouri have introduced legislation related to the use of mRNA vaccines in food. The Arizona bill only restricts labeling such food as organic. The Idaho bill amends state law to prohibit the sale of such foods unless conspicuously labeled that the presence of the vaccine is in the food.

The Missouri bill requires a conspicuous ‘Gene Therapy Product’ label. Dr. Kevin Folta told Cowboy State Daily the proposed ‘gene therapy’ label is inaccurate.

It ‘means they have no idea what they are trying to regulate,’ Folta said, because ‘there is no integration into the DNA. It’s a transient set of instructions, like a USB drive. Not a hard drive’ … Messenger RNA occurs naturally as part of the function of cells in the body. ‘mRNA is everywhere, and you cant live without mRNA,’ Folta said …

Folta said that the vaccines can’t get into the food people eat. ‘mRNA is an extremely unstable molecule. That’s why it works. It’s very temporary. So when an animal is slaughtered or when a plant dies, mRNA is the first thing to go,’ Folta said.”

Many of you will know exactly what’s wrong with Folta’s arguments that mRNA is “everywhere” and therefore harmless, and that its activity is temporary because it’s so unstable. The mRNA in the shots is synthetic and does NOT break down the way normal mRNA does.

He is clearly misleading people, and it’s hard to believe it’s not intentional, considering the fact that everyone who knows even the slightest bit about mRNA jab technology knows the synthetic mRNA has been designed to prevent rapid breakdown and is further stabilized by the nanolipid. So, Folta’s arguments are null and void from the get-go.

Final Thoughts

Moving forward, it’s going to be extremely important to stay on top of what’s happening to our food supply. Many of us were surprised to realize mRNA shots have been used in swine for several years already. Soon, cattle may get these customizable mRNA shots as well, which could affect both beef and dairy products.

For now, I strongly recommend avoiding pork products. In addition to the uncertainty surrounding these untested mRNA “vaccines,” pork is also very high in linoleic acid, a harmful omega-6 fat that drives chronic disease. Hopefully, cattle ranchers will realize the danger this mRNA platform poses to their bottom-line and reject it. If they don’t finding beef and dairy that has not been “gene therapied” could become quite the challenge.

Will Harris, from White Oak Pasture in Bluffton Georgia, is a rancher who has already come out against mRNA “vaccines” in cattle. An April 10, 2023, White Oak Pastures tweet stated:25

“There is talk about domesticated food animals soon being vaccinated with mRNA. We want our customers to know that we will not vaccinate our animals with mRNA vaccines. We believe there is a time and place for vaccinations, but they must be used sparingly.

If livestock are raised in an environment where they can express their natural instincts, they probably wont need many (if any) vaccines. We hope to one day move away from all vaccines on our farm — we are close, but not there yet.

Everyone should know that over 80% of the antibiotics produced today are consumed by domesticated food animals … It would only make sense that in order for vaccine companies to move from ‘very profitable’ to ‘obscenely profitable’ would be to capture the animal agriculture market.

I’m not sure that this would ever pass legislation, but law or not, Big Ag is highly influenced by Big Pharma. The multinational meat companies would certainly choose to mandate this if there was an opportunity for a shared profit.

In closing, please know: We don’t believe in a blanket, one-size-fits-all approach to our health or our livestock. We will not add vaccinations for our livestock — we are moving in the other direction hoping to give fewer. (And, we already give very few).

If this is adopted and there is a ‘panic’ for food from livestock that hasn’t had the MRNA vaccine, we will choose to honor the demand from our loyalty members and employees first. If you are not a part of that group, we cannot guarantee we will have any product for you.

We are certainly not trying to promote panic — but, we do intend to notify our customers of how we will operate in times of growing demand. We screwed up during the pandemic — we won’t do that again.”

Think Globally, Act Locally

National vaccine policy recommendations in the U.S. are made at the federal level but vaccine laws are made at the state level. It is at the state level where your action to protect your vaccine choice rights can have the greatest impact.

It is critical for EVERYONE to get involved now in standing up for the legal right to make voluntary vaccine choices in America because those choices are being seriously threatened.

Not only are lobbyists representing drug companies, medical trade associations and public health officials trying to persuade legislators to strip all vaccine exemptions from public health laws, but global political operatives lobbying the United Nations and World Health Organization are determined to take away the human right to autonomy and protection of bodily integrity.

We must take action to defend our constitutional republic and civil liberties, including the right to autonomy, in America. That includes reforming oppressive mandatory vaccination laws and stopping the digital health ID that will make vaccine passports a reality for us, our children and grandchildren if we don’t take action today.

Signing up to use the free online Advocacy Portal sponsored by the National Vaccine Information Center at www.NVICAdvocacy.org gives you immediate, easy access to your own state and federal legislators on your smartphone or computer so you can make your voice heard.

NVIC will keep you up to date on the latest bills threatening to eliminate — or expand — your legal right to make vaccine choices and give you guidance about what you can do to support or oppose those bills. So, please, as your first step, sign up for the NVIC Advocacy Portal. Click here to join.

Share Your Story With Your Legislators and People You Know

If you or a family member has suffered a serious vaccine reaction, injury or death, please talk about it. If we don’t share information and experiences with one another, everybody feels alone and afraid to speak up.

If you want to protect your legal right to say “no” to vaccines you do not believe are safe or effective, make an appointment to personally talk with someone you have elected to office at the local, state and federal level or write a letter in your own words stating your concerns.

Attend school board and city council and town hall meetings in your community that will impact your right to know and freedom to make decisions about how you or your children will live and stay healthy. If you have a different perspective on a story about vaccination that appears in your local newspaper, write a letter to the editor.

I must be frank with you: You have to be brave because there is a lot of censorship of conversations that challenge “official” narratives about vaccination. You likely will be strongly criticized for daring to talk about the “other side” of the vaccine story and for defending your informed consent rights. Be prepared for it and have the courage to stand your ground.

Only by sharing our perspective and what we know to be true will the public conversation about vaccination open up so people are not afraid to talk about it.

While our rights are being threatened, the vaccine injured are being swept under the carpet and treated like nothing more than statistically acceptable “collateral damage” of one-size-fits-all mandatory vaccination laws. Way too many people are being put at risk for injury and death and there is nothing scientific or moral about that. We should not be treating human beings like guinea pigs.

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Notes

1 YouTube Global Ag Media 2018

2 Missouri House bill 1169

3 Conservative Treehouse April 9, 2023

4, 14 Twitter Tom Renz April 1, 2023

5 Daily Clout April 2, 2023

6 Tom Renz Substack April 2, 2023

7 Merck Animal Health, Sequivity

8 ZoetisUS.com Product Comparison Chart

9 Peter McCullough Substack April 7, 2023

10 bioRxiv December 20, 2022

11 Vaccines December 2021; 9(12): 1403, Section: 5.6. mRNA Vaccines

12 NCBA Statement April 6, 2023

13 Southeast AgNet April 10, 2023

15 Agri-pulse June 22, 2022

16 Texas Department of Agriculture April 3, 2023

17 Missouri Times Lobbyist Profile

18 Twitter Tom Renz April 10,k 2023

19 Iowa State University Novel mRNA Vaccine for Bovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus

20 Swine Vaccine Protocol

21 Cell January 24, 2022; 185(6): 1025-1040.E14

22 Clark County Today February 14, 2022

23 FAO Meat Cutting

24 Cowboy State Daily April 5, 2023

25 Twitter White Oak Pasture April 10, 2023

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Those vaccinated against COVID-19 have a 26 percent higher mortality rate on average compared to those who declined the jab – and the death toll is even more staggering for vaccinated people under 50 years old, where mortality is 49 percent higher than for those unvaccinated.

The shocking numbers are based on government data from the United Kingdom and were brought to Senator Ron Johnson’s (R-WI) attention by Josh Stirling, one of the nation’s top insurance analysts and formerly Senior Research Analyst for U.S. nonlife insurance at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

“Worst of all – the people who only took one dose of the vaccine have an approximately 145 percent worse mortality rate,” Stirling said and explained that this even higher death rate applies to those who took the first shot and then had adverse reactions, making them stop the planned vaccination schedule.

A slide from a presentation on excess mortality by insurance analyst Josh Stirling.

“If you were to take these numbers and apply them to the United States, that ends up being something like 600,000 excess deaths per year,” Stirling concluded.

Watch Josh Stirling’s and former Blackrock executive Edward Dowd’s testimony on vaccine-induced excess mortality below.


 

 

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*** 

At the end of April of this year, the two of us ventured together to Russia. We went with the purpose of fact-finding and also to make a point that we do not believe that Russia should be isolated from the world through sanctions and travel bans.

At this moment, Russia is more isolated from the West than it has ever been, quite possibly in history. As just one example, while V.I. Lenin was able to famously travel from Finland via train to St. Petersburg, even during the height of WWI, the train from Finland to Russia ceased operating after February 24 of 2022. And indeed, it was through Finland that we decided to travel to Russia, simply because there are now very limited ways to travel there. Thus, while for years, even during the Cold War, one could easily fly directly from the US to Russia on Aeroflot and other airlines, that is no longer possible due to sanctions. Now, one can only fly there through Serbia, Turkey or the UAE, but those flights are quite expensive.

And so, we ended up choosing to fly to Helsinki, Finland and have a Russian friend who has a non-Russian passport (Russians with only Russian passports cannot travel to Finland) drive from St. Petersburg to pick us up. This turned out to be more easily said than done as our friend’s car broke down at the Finnish/Russian border. And so, we took a very expensive, three-hour cab ride to the border, met up with our friend and crammed ourselves into the cab of a tow truck to drive the remaining three hours to St. Petersburg – a quite inauspicious beginning to our journey.

Saint Petersburg (Leningrad)

Our first several days were spent in St. Petersburg, formerly “Leningrad.” We stayed strategically at the Best Western in Uprising Square – so named by the new Bolshevik government in 1918 to commemorate the Great October Revolution of 1917. In the Square is located the Moscow train station which we used to great effect during our journey, as well as the Leningrad Hero-City Obelisk. The Obelisk commemorates Leningrad’s designation as one of 13 “hero cities” in the Soviet Union which distinguished themselves for their exceptional sacrifices in resisting the Nazis during WWII. Two other cities we visited on our trip (Moscow and Sevastopol, Crimea) are also honored with this designation, as is Kiev, Ukraine and of course Volgograd (formerly “Stalingrad”).

During our stay, the city of St. Petersburg sure seemed more like Leningrad, for it was beginning to be decked out in red flags with hammers and sickles and stars to commemorate both May Day and Victory Day over the Nazis on May 9. We were told by long-time residents that the ubiquitous display of such symbols of the USSR was something new (at least since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991), and was spurred on by Russia’s Special Military Operations beginning in February of 2022. It appears that the Russian people, and the Russian government as well, are looking to the legacy of the Soviet Union as a source of strength, pride and unity during this time of war – a war that they view, we believe quite rightly, was forced on them.

Dan takes his turn playing guitar on St Petersburg street at 11 pm (Source: Rick Sterling)

The newly released Russian Federation “concept” on foreign policy states quite explicitly that Russia’s current foreign policy is informed by the two main objectives and successes of the USSR – the defeat of Nazism and global decolonization. Certainly, on paper at least, this belies the claim of some Western leftists that Russia is motivated in its relations with other nations by imperialist concerns.

While in St. Petersburg, we visited the site of the terrorist attack which claimed the life of Russian journalist Vladlen Tatarsky and wounded over 30 others, at least 10 gravely. The attack involved the bombing of a cafe in the picturesque University district of St. Petersburg along the Neva – a soft target if there ever was one. The cafe remains closed, and three sets of memorials for Tatarsky are set up around it, consisting of flowers and photos. Of course, the Western press has tried to do everything it can to justify this vicious attack upon civilians, writing off Tatarsky as “pro-Kremlin” and “pro-war” (as if the Western press can’t be fairly characterized as “pro-war” and “pro-Pentagon”) and simply glossing over the numerous other civilians wounded in the assault as collateral damage.

Rick and Dan at the site where Russian journalist was killed (Source: Rick Sterling)

Moscow

As planned, we left St. Petersburg by train to Moscow after several days. We took the faster “Sapsan” (Falcon) train to Leningrad Station in Moscow (it is still called that). The train ride, reaching 120 mph,  was smooth and comfortable. We sat across from two Russian women, one of whom was quite friendly. She told us of her son who lives in Boston and who, quite sadly for her, she hasn’t seen in years. She kept sliding over hard candy to share with us. And, when she saw Dan nervously biting his nails, she kindly handed him her nail filer for him to use. This type of sharing on the train is quite common in Russia as we would continue to discover on our journey.

Rick with train compartment companions (Source: Rick Sterling)

Moscow too was being decorated for the May 9 Victory Day celebration. Red Square was sealed off from the public to prepare for the event, and the city was on high alert for possible terrorist attacks, one of which would come while we were in Russia with the drone attack upon the Kremlin itself. Despite the fears of attack, Muscovites were out on the streets day and night. Both Moscow and St. Petersburg were incredibly vibrant – much more so than our cities back home which are still feeling the effects of the lockdowns during the pandemic. Gorky Park was particularly lively with throngs of families with children enjoying the spring weather, swings and slides. Colorful tulips were in full bloom.

From appearances, Russia largely did not appear to be a country at war. However, everyone we talked to confided in us about their concerns for the war – for the loss of life on both sides, the fact that it was lasting much longer than people had expected, and the danger that the war could expand into a greater conflagration. Some Russians expressed their fear that nuclear weapons would end up being used before this was all over, though they believed that the US would be the first to launch them. At the same time, the Russians showed their usual stoicism in the face of such dangers, with one family with whom Dan had dinner stating almost matter-of-factly that “Russia has always had difficult times, and it will have them again.”

Memorial to Children of the Donbas on Arbat Street, Moscow © Daniel Kovalik

After several days in Moscow, and our hopes for visiting the Donbass falling through, we took the long, 27-hour train ride to Crimea – a region now fully in the crosshairs of the proxy war.

Arriving in Crimea

Ukrainian President Zelensky says he will “take back” Crimea. US leaders Victoria Nuland and Jake Sullivan say they support him. Indeed, Sullivan recently suggested Ukraine is free to use the F-16 fighter jets in attempting to “recapture” Crimea.” We traveled to Crimea to see the situation and learn details of how and why Crimea seceded from Ukraine in 2014.

A highlight of the train ride was passing over the new 12-mile long Kerch Strait bridge which connects mainland Russia to the Crimean peninsula. As our train approached the bridge, we could see that saboteurs had been active. There was a fuel tank on fire in the near distance. A couple passengers did not want us to photograph this, probably thinking it gives publicity to the enemy.

As we departed the train in Crimea at the beautiful station in the Capitol city, Simferopol, the loudspeakers on the platform greeted us with traditional Russian songs.

We then drove the roughly two hours to Yalta where we stayed while in Crimea. Along our drive, we saw the giant mosque which the Russian government is building along the highway in an area where Tatars, who generally practice the Islamic faith, protested to have land to live and worship. The Tatars had been persecuted during WWII as suspected collaborators and forcibly removed from Crimea to other Soviet Republics.

A number of Tatars have moved back to Crimea over the years and now make up about 12 percent of the population of Crimea.  Meanwhile, about 65 percent of the Crimean population is ethnic Russian and about 15 percent is Ukrainian, though about 82 percent of the population overall speaks Russian on a daily basis.

As we were told while in Crimea, one of the first things President Putin did after Crimea returned to Russia in 2014 was to try to make good relations with the Tatar community by “rehabilitating” them from the claims of collaboration made by Stalin government, giving them the land they protested for, providing them with modest monetary reparations and building them the new Mosque.

Historical Background 

All in all, we spent five days seeing the sights and meeting people in the capital Simferopol, Sevastopopol and Yalta. We were guided by translator and native Crimean Tanya. In the past, Tanya worked for US Aid for International Development (USAID), teaching Russian to US Peace Corps volunteers.

Crimea has a rich agricultural sector. It was severely hampered after Ukraine dammed the canal bringing fresh water from the Dnieper River. After Russian forces intervened, they removed  the dam and agriculture is once again thriving. Crimean cities are busy with the streets and sidewalks full. In the parks, there are teens skate boarding and seniors playing chess.

The situation in Crimea is emblematic of the Ukraine crisis overall. In both Crimea and the Donbass (eastern Ukraine), the majority of people are ethnically Russian, their native language is Russian and they voted overwhelmingly for the elected but overthrown President Yanukovich.

From the 15th century Crimea was part of the Ottoman Empire. It became part of the Russian Empire in 1783 after the army of Catherine the Great defeated the Turks.

In 1921, Crimea became the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as part of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic.

In 1954, Soviet Premier Khrushchev designated Crimea to be part of the Ukraine republic. This was done without consulting the Crimean people but it was not a major change since they were all part of one country, the Soviet Union. As we were told in Crimea, “Nobody could imagine the Soviet Union breaking up.”

As the Soviet Union was breaking up, Crimeans held a referendum in January of 1991. They voted overwhelmingly (94% in favor) to become the “Autonomous Republic of Crimea” and to separate from Ukraine. There was contention with Kiev and ultimately it was agreed that Crimea would be autonomous but within Ukraine. There was desire but not the urgency to secede from Ukraine at this point.

Mural of an old woman protecting the red flag in Donbas © Daniel Kovalik

The desire to separate from Ukraine became more urgent in late 2013 and early 2014 as Crimeans watched with alarm as Russophobic ultra-nationalist and neo-nazi groups increasingly dominated violent protests in Kiev’s Maidan plaza. The book “To Go One’s Own Way” documents how the Crimean parliament and presidency issued statements, pleas and warnings about the threat to Ukrainian unity beginning in November 2013.

As we discuss in an upcoming article, the government of Ukraine reacted to the Crimean referendum to reunite with Russia quite punitively, and it continues to punish the Crimeans for their decision. At the same time, Russia has actively invested in the peninsula and made major improvements in the overall infrastructure there. In light of the foregoing, it is safe to say there are relatively few Crimeans who ever wish to return to Ukraine.

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Dan Kovalik is a human rights attorney and author of seven books.

Rick Sterling is a journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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*** 

Russians are proverbially slow to react, but when they do get started … it is prudent to be careful. We have been wondering what Russia’s war crimes Investigative Committee was doing since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine and what legal instruments it was prepared to use in the pursuit of its objectives. The answers to these questions even now are not entirely clear, but at least some encouraging news has recently emerged on the legal front.

Readers scarcely need to be reminded of the political weaponisation of the International Criminal Court [ICC] which took place in March 2023, when at the behest of its masters that Court issued a preposterous arrest warrant targeting the President of Russia. The rationale behind it was that, allegedly for their own nefarious purposes, Russian authorities had “kidnapped” an unspecified number of ostensibly Ukrainian children in the Donbas and moved them involuntarily to Russia.

Missing from this “rationale” are key pertinent facts. For years since 2014, long before the current conflict started, along with the rest of the population of the Donbas, those children were targets of relentless and lethal Nazi Ukrainian bombardments which have claimed 14,000 lives. The children eventually were evacuated to Russia for their safety, which ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan regards as kidnapping. Those children were being killed, maimed, and orphaned in artillery and missile bombardments staged by the neo-Nazi Ukrainian proxies controlled by Prosecutor Khan’s bosses.

And that explains a great deal about ICC’s legal travesty. In fact, a more manifest clue to the existence of an egregious conflict of interest is difficult to find. As a consequence, Khan did not take the trouble, even pro forma, to inquire into those long-standing and grave violations of international humanitarian law presumably committed by his mentors. Neither has he evinced the slightest professional interest in using the legal tools at his disposal to call the perpetrators of those crimes – on whose munificence his job, salary, and benefits depend – to account.

On his bosses’ orders (and most likely also to repay them the favour for dropping paedophilia charges against his brother, a “Conservative” member of the British Parliament) Khan instead filed an indictment against the head of the state which acted with impeccable propriety, to ensure the safety of the Donbas children. Khan was untroubled that since 2014 those children, for whom he feigns concern, have been targeted with lethal weapons furnished by his controllers and operated by their Ukrainian Nazi proxies.

Now, chickens have come home to roost, as they say, for servile colonial lackey Karim Khan. Khan himself has been indicted by the Russian judicial authorities and his name has been placed on a wanted list. Russian investigative organs have sent him a clear message that the party is over and that there is a steep personal price to be paid for recklessness and impertinence. And not just by Khan, but by his gang as well. Also indicted with him are a number of ICC judges who thought that in the “rules based order” political opportunism was the name of the game and that when sitting on their masters’ bench they did not really have to practice what they were taught in law school.

There is evidence already that the message was received and understood. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, the ICC is whining that it “regrets  these acts of intimidation and unacceptable attempts [by Russia] to undermine the mandate of the International Criminal Court to investigate, sanction and prevent the commission of the gravest international crimes.”

Oh, the touching complaint of righteous innocents! From the standpoint of the bully, unaccustomed to being opposed, any resistance is “intimidation,” just as moving children from a war zone to safety when politically expedient is “abduction.” Not just Khan, but all his associates, partners, and mentors have now been put on notice that they better think their actions through before undertaking them.

One of the reasons ICC finds the arrest warrant issued for its Prosecutor “unacceptable” is that it “did not specify his alleged offence.” But why should such a lapse bother ICC? It mirrors exactly the practice of ICC itself and its inglorious model, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [ICTY]. Both of these quasi-judicial institutions have amply engaged in the practice of indicting first, and contriving the grounds later. After Khan is arrested and put in the dock to answer for his legal buffoonery, there will be plenty of time to specify all the particulars.

I have repeatedly argued that the bad faith conduct of collective West political tool ICC requires a robust mirror response.

Issuance of the arrest warrant to apprehend and call to account juridical hack Karim Khan is a step in the right direction. But much more conceptual and practical work needs to be done to lay the groundwork for the accountability of his evil globalist string pullers and their pathetic errand boys, perfectly exemplified by Karim Khan. (For Russian speakers, Andrei Fursov’s elaboration of this general topic is highly recommended, starting at about 6:20 minutes.)

To someone with an insiders’ understanding of the Western (or in the words of ICC’s distinguished Russian indictee, “Anglo-Saxon”) mind-set, especially in conjunction with the practice of their bogus “courts,” ICC and ICTY, it is crystal clear where the accusation of child abduction and deportation is going. Slobodan Milošević put his finger on it when he said that “they are not attacking Serbia because of Milošević, they are attacking Milošević because of Serbia.” The head of the Russian state, for plenty of reasons, is the subject of their venomous hatred, but their real and ultimate target is Russia itself.

The accusation involving the involuntary transfer of children was formulated with a specific goal in mind, and that is to pin on Russia the charge of genocide. All other charges from their arsenal that could have been and perhaps will eventually be concocted have been put on the back burner, in the expectation that this one will gain traction. The objective is to destroy Russia morally prior to its hoped for partition into a dozen or more repentant, prostrate, and plundered statelets. The Genocide Convention and the “jurisprudence” of the Hague Tribunal have set the stage and the only additional tool they need is a corrupt court to pronounce the verdict. They have it in the ICC.

It is all there in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Article 2(e) declares that forcible child transfer committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such, amounts to genocide. Note that ICC’s perfidiously formulated allegation against the head of the Russian state dovetails precisely with Convention language and requirements. The inclusion of the forcible child transfer clause in the Genocide Convention was ostensibly connected with the vulnerability of children, their “dependence, futurity, and malleability” as well as the destructive consequences of this practice for the viability of group survival, it is argued in a scholarly article on this topic.

To debate with moral and intellectual perverts is useless. Their twisted mind-set and satanic world system, including the entire range of its pernicious manifestations, must be uprooted and demolished. Otherwise, neither Russia nor mankind will be likely to survive.

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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:  ICC prosecutor Karim Khan meets with Ukrainian President Zelensky, March 2023 (Source: The Grayzone)

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*** 

The Hill reported that US military funding to Ukraine could be suspended indefinitely due to proceedings in Washington over the public debt ceiling. Effectively, the public debt situation will force the US to reduce its financial support to Ukraine since it is no longer possible to expect as much support as before.

Congressman Andy Kim, a House Armed Services Committee (HASC) member, was quoted by The Hill as saying that lawmakers had conversations about what needs to be a part of the following package but expressed doubts about the timing of the legislation and highlighted that the ongoing fight over the debt ceiling was putting Ukraine aid at risk.

“It’s delaying our ability to focus on these issues,” Kim said. “That really shows that it has national security implications because we’re not able to have that kind of earnest conversation about Ukraine or the [National Defense Authorization Act] until they’re done with that.”

For his part, Congressman Bill Keating said aid to Ukraine would ultimately depend on its counteroffensive, something that will seemingly miss its long-anticipated spring deadline.

“It’s not a precise science to say what because it could be gains that were made that make more support less necessary,” Keating said. “Or there could be damage inflicted where there has to be more” assistance.

Ukrainian authorities have been promoting its upcoming counteroffensive, and NATO officials have indicated Ukraine has nearly all the promised weapons and equipment needed. Last year’s support was phenomenal, but sustaining such aid at this level is difficult. The public debt situation has affected and will continue affecting public opinion because out of all the spending, people will sacrifice those least sensitive to American society, and not such huge expenses as funding a war in Eastern Europe.

Congress is determined to cut spending, making funding difficult for Ukraine. The only thing that was announced by Congress Speaker Kevin McCarthy and confirmed by the White House was the spending cuts. Military spending is not discussed, but the funding for Ukraine now is many times less than last year. Ukraine can hardly expect the same funding it received as in the past.

The Treasury Department warned in a letter to Congress that as early as June 1, the US may not be able to fully meet its obligations if lawmakers do not authorise an increase in the borrowing limit by that time. Normally, Congress almost automatically raises the borrowing limit, but this time, the Republican opposition, who controls the House, has demanded that it reduce spending by several trillion dollars. The Republican bill passed the House of Representatives but has no chance of being approved in the Senate by Democrats, and even if the document reaches Biden, he will most likely veto the bill.

At the same time, the US finds it very difficult to accept the loss of Artemovsk (Bakhmut). With Ukrainian forces losing control of Artemovsk, the long-mooted counteroffensive becomes more politically urgent than ever for Kiev.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tried to keep his promise to launch a counterattack and for this reason, he continually requested the West for more weapons. As they lost control of Artemovsk, launching an offensive operation is the best way for Kiev to restart its plea for weapons from its NATO allies.

Zelensky is clearly in a difficult situation because the Ukrainian army is not ready for a counterattack and desperately needs ammunition. However, the Russian army almost immediately destroys any weapon concentration, which is starting to raise a series of questions about the success or failure of the Ukrainian counterattack.

This comes as many high-ranking military officials, including Polish Chief of the General Staff Rajmund Andrzejczak and US General Christopher G. Cavoli, acknowledged Russia’s ability to continue fighting without significant loss. Meanwhile, 40% to 60% of Ukrainian soldiers who completed their training in France in 2022 have no contact with their trainers and have likely died in battle or abandoned the battlefield.

Despite the propaganda pushed by the Kiev regime and Western media, Ukraine is clearly unable to launch its long-awaited spring offensive, and instead this is all a show to procure more weapons. The desperate situation for Ukraine coincides as Republicans and Democrats face off over the debt ceiling, proving problematic for Kiev’s quest to rearm.   

House Republicans insist on spending cuts before they approve raising the nation’s debt ceiling past $31 trillion. Democrats claim Congress has already spent the money and must be allowed to repay America’s debtholders without leading to an economically disastrous default.

Negotiations are continuing to unfold to reach a debt limit deal, but the US default clock is ticking down despite it not being entirely clear when the US will officially run out of cash. When seen through this context, it is understandable why massive and reckless funding of the Ukrainian military is increasingly scrutinised.

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

Featured image is from InfoBrics

NATO’s Dirty War in Ukraine

May 25th, 2023 by Vanessa Beeley

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*** 

A recent report published by the Russian Federal News Agency suggests that NATO is preparing wide scale use of chemical weapons against civilians in Donbass and in ongoing military campaigns.

The news agency spoke to the advisor of the Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Jan Gagin.

According to the article during the defence of Artemovsk (Bakhmut) Ukraine used drone-delivered ammunition containing toxic substances. The neo-Nazi ‘Birds of Madyar’ air reconnaissance team were identified as deploying these weapons. Since April 2023, Ukrainian-manufactured Teren 6 gas grendades have also been delivered by UAVs. Jan Gagin stated:

The enemy uses chemical weapons not only in Artemovsk but in other areas of the Front. The end of last year myself and my comrades came under attack by such ammunition in the direction of Ugledar. I experienced eye pain, nausea, respiratory spasm, dizziness and general weakness

The gas grenades were either foreign manufactured or local Ukrainian production. We saw this in videos shared by the Madyar Brigade or other Nazi groups: foreign marking was visible on the grendades. They did not conceal it. It is clear that NATO member states were deliberately supplying these weapons.

A video of one of these attacks has been circulated by Ukrainian Telegram channels and can be seen here.

It is worth pointing out that terrorist groups in Syria, which include ISIS, have been accused of deploying chemical weapons against civilians, Syrian Arab Army and in 2016 against members of the REAL Syria Civil Defence in Aleppo interviewed by myself in 2018:

The RSCD team leader spoke:

“We arrived at the area and knew we had to enter the tunnel to save the soldiers who were trapped down there. We got to the deepest part of the tunnel and we started to feel the effects of whatever gas had been used. One of my crew radioed me that he couldnt feel his limbs. I shouted for him to come back and we grabbed him to pull him out of the tunnel” ~ RSCD team leader.

Then the affected RSCD crew member told me what happened to him:

“I entered the tunnel and immediately began to feel strange. My whole body seemed to lose control. I couldnt breathe. I pulled on the rope. Red spots appeared on my hands and there was a strange smell in the air, I still cant describe it” ~ RSCD crew member.

It has recently been proven that there are ISIS or ISIS-friendly militants fighting alongside the various Nazi battalions in Ukraine. So, the alleged use of chemical weapons in the NATO war against Russia should come as no surprise.

All this while in Syria the same NATO member states, the corrupted OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) and other aligned UN agencies are maintaining the discredited narrative that the Syrian government carried out alleged chemical weapon attacks against their own civilians. Civilians that the Syrian Arab Army was liberating from NATO-member-state-proxy-terrorist occupation.

According to Jan Gagin the efficacy of the Ukrainian gas grenades was compromised due to their being deployed in open areas with high winds. For these weapons to be effective, they should be used in enclosed, urban areas according to Gagin.

Gagin points out that the Ukrainian forces have used other prohibited weapons against civilian targets which include lethal petal mines described by journalist Eva Bartlett on one of her many visits to Donetsk. Flechette shells have also been used:

“an anti-personnel weapon that is generally fired from a tank. The shell explodes in the air and releases thousands of metal darts 37.5mm in length, which disperse in a conical arch 300 metres long and about 90 metres wide”.

Flechette darts kill and maim indiscriminately as do the “petal” mines that are often trodden on by unsuspecting children causing terrible mutilation. Jan Gagin reiterated:

Ukraine does not hide that it uses prohibited weapons precisely against civilians. There were official statements on their part about the physical destruction of the inhabitants of Donbass and Crimea. Similar actions — are nothing more than the genocide of the Russians in these territories. And the use of chemical munitions and other similar prohibited methods proves that Ukraine — is a terrorist state.

We must understand that Ukraine in this war has no limiters at all, no “ stops ”. Great Britain supplied depleted uranium shells. And what did it lead to? To the mass flight of citizens from those areas where warehouses with these ammunition were destroyed. And this is not we measuring the radiation background in Ukraine, it is the citizens themselves who measure it and see that the level has risen.

It is also worth following Professor Chris Busby on the radiological fall-out from the use or destruction of Depleted Uranium weapons in Ukraine. Busby, a British scientist and radiation expert said the following after the huge explosion near the city of Khmelnytskyi in Western Ukraine earlier in May:

The radiation detectors sited in Poland to the NW of the explosion in Ukraine show a highly significant increase in gamma radiation. The wind direction is SE so this fits with a plume from the explosion site. Uranium daughters Thorium-234 and Protoactinium 234m have gamma ray decays. The 94kev gamma ray from Th-234 is a 6% decay but there is a lot of Uranium. So they would show up on the Eurados detectors.

Access to the European gamma detectors network has been blocked by the German server.

The IAEA have predictably dismissed such claims as “false” but watch this interview with Prof. Busby to decide for yourself:

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Whichever way one games it out, there’s close to no chance that Kiev’s counteroffensive will meet the Western public’s expectations absent some black swan event, which means that Biden will be running for re-election with two losses under his belt in Afghanistan and Ukraine. It’s difficult to imagine that Americans will give him and his team another four years in office after they humiliated the US so badly, but tens of thousands more might still die before these warmongers are removed from power.  

Senior Ukrainian presidential advisor Mikhail Podolyak told Italian media that his country’s much-hyped counteroffensive already began a few days ago, which is curious since that timeframe coincides with its proxy invasion of Russia’s Belgorod Region that was just copium for deflecting from Artyomovsk’s loss. That media-driven stunt tremendously failed to achieve any tangible gains, however, thus raising even more questions than ever before about whether the counteroffensive will succeed at all.

The Washington Post raised awareness in March about how poorly Kiev’s troops were faring in the NATO-Russian proxy war, which was followed by Politico citing unnamed Biden Administration officials a month later who worried about the consequences of it failing to meet the public’s expectations. Former Russian chess champion Garry Kasparov then concocted a conspiracy theory wildly speculating that Kremlin agents infiltrated the White House and sabotaged the counteroffensive before it even began.

This popular pro-Kiev figure seemed to have been spooked by Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul telling Bloomberg that “I think there’s going to be a lot riding on the line with this counteroffensive. If Ukraine is successful in the eyes of the American people and the world, I think it will be a game-changer for continued support. If they are not, that will also have an impact, in a negative way, though.” In other words, its failure could lead to the US severely curtailing aid to Kiev.

Therein lies the real reason why the counteroffensive is still going ahead despite the overwhelming odds against its success that were detailed in the preceding months by the Washington Post and Politico. Biden’s re-election hinges on the success of this campaign after NATO already sent over $165 billion in taxpayer-provided aid to Kiev, the vast majority of which came from the US. He needs anything that his perception managers can spin as a victory to justify this ahead of next year’s election.

It’s not just for the sake of placating taxpayers either in this increasingly partisan conflict that’s seen a rising number of Republicans calling for more pragmatism and restraint as opposed to their Democrat rivals who remain gung-go about going all in for as long as it takes. Biden presided over the US’ most humiliating military loss in history after August 2021’s chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan, which infamously resulted in leaving a large number of Americans and allied locals behind to an unknown fate.

He and his team don’t care how many tens of thousands of Ukrainians have to be sacrificed in this conflict so long as they can achieve something that the Democrats can distort as having made the most geostrategically significant conflict since World War II worth provoking. A failed raid into Russia and an unsuccessful assassination attempt against President Putin aren’t considered by most Americans to be worth the risk of a Third World War by miscalculation.

After 15 months of fighting, Kiev has only managed to reconquer part of the territory that it claims as its own, which is unimpressive when considering that it has the full backing of what the US portrays as supposedly being the world’s most powerful military alliance in history. The NATO chief’s self-proclaimed “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with Russia that he declared in February inadvertently proved that Russia’s military-industrial complex can compete with the entire West’s.

That was an unintended self-inflicted blow to this de facto New Cold War bloc’s reputation of being a military superpower and also thus discredited their information warfare narrative that the Russian economy is collapsing. In late January, the New York Times admitted that the West’s sanctions failed, and then they admitted at the end of February after the NATO chief’s dramatic declaration that they also failed to isolate Russia too.

The abovementioned facts already make Biden look like a bumbling fool for provoking this conflict, which only proved just how limited the US’ influence and power have become in recent years, but he looks even worse when considering the bigger picture. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, former US National Security Council member Fiona Hill, and Goldman Sachs’ President of Global Affairs Jared Cohen all acknowledged earlier in May that multipolarity is now a geopolitical reality as a result of this conflict.

It’s only the Biden Administration and allied propagandists abroad that remain in denial about this, which places even more pressure on their proxies in Kiev to achieve something tangible throughout the course of its counteroffensive that they can then spin as having made it worth provoking this conflict. The clock is ticking too since there’s a growing consensus across the globe that this is their side’s “last hurrah” prior to likely commencing ceasefire and peace talks by year’s end or early 2024 at the latest.

The West’s military-industrial crisis will inevitably limit the pace, scale, and scope of armed aid to Kiev, not to mention the US’ election season that’ll see this conflict unprecedentedly politicized. Instead of soberly admitting his side’s shortcomings and proactively trying to reach some sort of peace agreement that could then be exploited as the pretext for him winning the Nobel Peace Prize and thus boosting his re-election prospects, Biden is gambling against the odds that the counteroffensive will succeed.

Even Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley foresaw in late January that it’ll likely be impossible for Kiev to remove Russia from all the territory that it claims as its own by this year, which means that Biden and his team are trying to prove the US’ top military official wrong. This in turn confirms that they’re prioritizing politics over military advice, thus extending credence to the claim that this counteroffensive is all about Biden’s re-election and not pushing Russia back to its pre-2014 borders.

If it fails to achieve this maximum objective as expected by Milley and the earlier cited US media, then the Republicans will rightly pounce on Biden to accuse him of cooking up the worst conflict since World War II in a desperate bid to win re-election by deflecting from his humiliating loss in Afghanistan. With his back against the wall, it can’t be discounted that his team will advise him to escalate to unthinkable levels, though Russia’s hypersonic missiles will likely keep him from crossing the ultimate red line.

Whichever way one games it out, there’s close to no chance that Kiev’s counteroffensive will meet the Western public’s expectations absent some black swan event, which means that Biden will be running for re-election with two losses under his belt in Afghanistan and Ukraine. It’s difficult to imagine that Americans will give him and his team another four years in office after they humiliated the US so badly, but tens of thousands more might still die before these warmongers are removed from power.  

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This article was originally published on Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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US Mulls Complete Withdrawal from New START

May 25th, 2023 by Drago Bosnic

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Back in late February, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow will suspend its participation in the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between Russia and the United States. Putin cited several major reasons for such a decision, including the illegal sanctions imposed by the political West. These restrictions led to an effective halt of the treaty’s implementation in early 2022, as Washington DC refused to honor it by allowing regular mutual inspections, which was an integral part of the New START. As Russia had no legal or practical way of verifying any of the Biden administration’s claims about the state of the US strategic arsenal, it was forced to suspend its participation in what essentially became a mere formality.

“Russia did its best to solve the problem in Ukraine peacefully, but the statements of Western leaders turned out to be fraudulent and untrue,” Putin slammed the behavior of Western political elites during his February 21 speech.

And indeed, the Eurasian giant simply had no other choice as the treaty became largely ceremonial. In addition, considering the series of recent admissions by various Western leaders that nearly all treaties with Russia were there to “just buy time”, Moscow has every reason to doubt every single word uttered by any US/EU/NATO official. However, Putin also stated that his country would continue abiding by the New START limitations on its strategic arsenal and that the suspension concerned only the mutual inspections and further direct cooperation with the political West in matters of nuclear disarmament. However, as per usual, the belligerent power pole saw this as a perfect opportunity to escalate instead of doing the opposite.

On May 18, Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas (and an aspiring warhawk), introduced a bill that would formally accuse Russia of breaching the New START and use that as a pretext for the US to completely withdraw from the agreement. Worse yet, Cotton’s No START Treaty Act would also introduce plans to expand America’s strategic arsenal while placing major limits on US participation in any potential arms control negotiations and treaties in the future. As of this writing, at least 10 other senators (all of them Republican) supported the bill, so this piece of legislation is yet to get any Democrat co-sponsors, but given the recent bipartisan support for escalation virtually everywhere, including the sending of US F-16 jets to the Kiev regime, this is only a matter of time.

“The New START Treaty handcuffed America while Vladimir Putin has taken advantage of the treaty’s flaws for years. President Biden should never have extended this treaty that has only made Russia and China stronger and America weaker. We should withdraw from the treaty and bolster our nuclear forces,” Cotton said in a public release.

The No START Treaty Act would also effectively ban any future arms control talks between Russia and the US if it didn’t include China. This issue is most likely the main reason why Washington DC did everything in its power to undermine the New START in the first place. The bill would further “prohibit unilateral reductions and prohibit the bargaining away of US missile defenses”, as well as “prohibit the use of funds to implement the New START Treaty or any future arms control agreement unless it meets the bill’s required stipulations”. Such requirements would put severe constraints on America’s ability to ever negotiate a potential arms control agreement with both Russia and China, either separately or otherwise.

Very influential senators such as Florida Republican Marco Rubio and his Idaho counterpart Jim Risch publicly supported and spoke in favor of the bill, with Risch stating: “Our legislation will correct these mistakes by conditioning future arms control agreements with Russia to include all classes of nuclear weapons as well as China. We must be prepared for a strategic environment in which the United States faces two nuclear peers – China and Russia.”

Russia’s response to the No START Treaty Act shows clear confidence in its deterrence capabilities, but Moscow’s top-ranking officials still expressed concern with Washington DC’s incessant escalating rhetoric and actions. Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that “we can now only state with regret that there are no serious, substantive contacts on these issues between Moscow and Washington”, adding that “the last remnants of the international legal framework in this area are slipping away”. It should be noted that this is only the last in the long line of US violations and unilateral withdrawals from crucial international arms control agreements, starting with the 2002 ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Treaty under former president Bush.

In addition, Washington DC’s obsession with including China in potential future nuclear arms control treaties is perhaps the best proof of the rising strategic schizophrenia in America’s foreign policy, where the belligerent thalassocracy is creating enemies wherever it can and then continuing to escalate to a point where it now faces two global superpowers, both of which are either already heavily armed (Russia) or have the potential to get heavily armed in the foreseeable future (China).

While Beijing’s thermonuclear arsenal is nowhere near that of either Russia or the US, it has been growing steadily, precisely in response to America’s “geopolitical containment” policies directed against China. Taking this into account, China has already started revamping its strategic posturing, a move Russia already implemented in response to similar US/NATO aggression on its borders.

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Looming Mutiny Among Kiev Regime Forces?

May 25th, 2023 by Drago Bosnic

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It’s hardly breaking news that the relationship between the Kiev regime and its armed forces has been anything but harmonious. However, in recent months, growing fault lines and factionalism have continued to escalate and are reaching dangerous levels, almost to the point that serious military opposition to Zelensky and his henchmen is currently being formed. Nowadays, the former Ukrainian military is a largely dysfunctional conglomerate of the old Soviet cadres, the more recent “NATO-ized” officer corps and special services, as well as the various openly Neo-Nazi units that have certain NATO training, although their combat experience mostly comes from fighting the Donbass republics.

As of last year, we could also add tens of thousands of mercenaries and volunteers to this volatile mix, as well as NATO special forces that have been operating, training and directing the regular Kiev regime troops. It truly is a laborious task to coordinate and command so many divergent groups within the junta’s armed forces, particularly when taking into account that the political West is imposing effectively impossible tasks on these people, ones that are designed for an infowar rather than actual military operations that accomplish attainable goals. The recent abortive attack on several villages in the Belgorod oblast (region) serves as a gory testament to that.

For the Kiev regime frontman Volodymyr Zelensky, it’s rather easy to order such operations, because he’s not the one being sent to certain death just so the political West can use those strategically (and even tactically) meaningless “offensives” to denigrate the Russian military. This is precisely why many of the aforementioned groups within the armed forces are deeply dissatisfied with Zelensky and his administration. Although this is not to say there’s a “Ukrainian Claus von Stauffenberg” or a “conspiracy of generals” going after him, the outlines of a strong military opposition are already certainly visible. This could be extremely dangerous for Zelensky, particularly if these groups were to set aside their differences.

Zelensky isn’t only disliked (to say the least) by the old Soviet cadres, but also “NATO-ized” commanders, involving top-ranking officers whose careers are intertwined with former president Petro Poroshenko. This includes the Chief of the General Staff Serhiy Shaptala, former commander of the Airborne Assault Troops Mykhailo Zabrodsky, Navy commander Oleksiy Neizhpapa and Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces Oleksandr Syrsky, to name a few. These military leaders received both Soviet and NATO military education, a laborious and time-consuming process that lasted decades. Thus, they are disappointed and even disgusted by the sudden rise of Zelensky’s henchmen such as the head of GUR Kyrylo Budanov.

On the other hand, Zelensky is treated with undisguised contempt by the top commander Valery Zaluzhny, who enjoys almost unquestioned authority in the military. This includes virtually all of the aforementioned divergent groups, but particularly the Neo-Nazi units that are disgusted by the propaganda that lionizes Zelensky. The regime frontman’s attempts to self-promote as some kind of a military leader despite the sore absence of a clearly defined plan of action have pushed most of the military elite into opposition. This mostly revolves around the fact that Zelensky essentially turned the military into some sort of a theater of his with the sole purpose of waging an infowar, resulting in needless massive casualties for the Kiev regime forces.

Bakhmut is the best (or perhaps the worst) example of this. Despite Zaluzhny’s repeated requests for a withdrawal, Zelensky insisted on its defense, as he was afraid that the loss of the city could reduce Western support and cash flow. Such militarily unsound decisions have resulted in an atrocious death ratio for the Neo-Nazi junta forces. Sources on this vary significantly, but the best-case scenario is that approximately 250,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and severely wounded so far. On the other hand, back in February, the Turkish press (citing Israeli intelligence services) reported in detail that irretrievable losses amounted to nearly 400,000, of which approximately 160,000 were KIA, with the rest being severely wounded.

The Kiev regime’s horrendous casualties have been confirmed by several high-ranking officials, including its own UK ambassador Vadym Prystaiko, Zaluzhny himself in a conversation with US counterpart Mark Milley and even Ursula von der Leyen, although her admission was later censored by the mainstream propaganda machine. All the while, Zelensky has been hoarding massive wealth outside Ukraine, with his family’s lavish lifestyle being starkly contrasted by the deteriorating living conditions of millions of regular Ukrainians. This is also mirrored by Zelensky’s associates, including the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk (moved his family to Poland) or the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov (son Maxim evaded conscription and fled to Miami).

Zelensky must be perfectly aware of just how unpopular such behavior is among Ukrainians, particularly the military that has been trained by NATO for approximately a decade and is now stuck fighting a war against a military superpower next door in ways that the belligerent alliance itself never could (complete lack of air superiority). Perhaps all this could explain Zaluzhny’s strange disappearance, as he hasn’t appeared in public since April 13. We can only make assumptions about his fate and many sources do, as some have suggested that Zaluzhny had been arrested and isolated from his supporters, while others are going as far as to say he’s been killed. Whatever the truth may be, the growing divide within the Kiev regime is bound to escalate.

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The phenomenon of colonialism created the Africa Day 60 years ago. And Africans always remember May 25th, a momentous occasion observed with receipt of friendly messages from across the world. While its primary continental goals include ‘sustainable peace and development’, and ‘unity in diversity’, these still remain integral challenges. Despite recognising the significance of some achievements during the past 60 years, Africa extends far beyond.

The African Union itself said in an official statement posted on its website that “celebration of the 60th anniversary is an opportunity to recognize the role and contribution of the founders of the continental organization and many other Africans on the continent and in the diaspora who have contributed greatly to the political liberation of the continent, and equally, to the socio-economic emancipation of Africa.”

Further, it is an opportunity to share the information, knowledge and best practices of the past and to encourage each other to take on the vision of the African Union, as well as to drive the realization of the “Africa We Want” under Agenda 2063. It is also an opportune moment for the African Union to reflect on the spirit of pan-Africanism, which connects the past to the present and to the continent’s aspirations for the future.

Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, stated clearly that the world is rapidly changing and “the shocks linked to the classic factors of fragility, such as excruciating debt service or the fall in the prices of raw materials, have been added the consequences of the intensification of the hegemonic struggle between the big powers. In this international context of confrontation of divergent geopolitical interests, the will of each side threatens to transform Africa into a geostrategic battleground, thereby, recreating a new version of the Cold War that is very detrimental to the effectiveness of multilateralism, on which global peace and security depend.”

Across the world, Africa is considered as a burgeoning economic powerhouse, it holds immense potential and deserves to be acknowledged for the remarkable strides it has made. In fact, Africa’s economic growth has been nothing short of remarkable. With a burgeoning middle class, expanding industries, and a rising wave of entrepreneurship, the continent is experiencing an economic transformation that cannot be ignored. Gone are the days when Africa was seen solely as a land of challenges; it is now a land of extraordinary opportunities.

According to the popular belief, Africa’s vast natural resources, including oil, gas, minerals and agricultural produce, are driving global industries to invent a new future. The continent’s potential for renewable energy, particularly solar and wind power, is unrivalled. As the world increasingly shifts towards sustainable solutions, Africa stands at the forefront, poised to become a leader in the clean energy revolution, even while suffering the climate consequences caused almost entirely by the so-called developed countries.

However, it would be remiss to discuss Africa’s economic growth without addressing the challenges that persist. Poverty, inequality, and lack of infrastructure continue to hinder progress. It is our collective responsibility to work towards addressing these issues, ensuring that the benefits of Africa’s economic growth are inclusive and sustainable.

The beauty of Africa lies not only in its economic potential but also in its vibrant and diverse cultures. From the pulsating rhythms of Afrobeat music to the captivating tales woven into African literature, the continent’s cultural contributions enrich the global community. Africa’s arts, fashion, and cuisine resonate across borders, fostering cultural exchange and mutual understanding.

Despite the growing hatred for the United States and Europe, the condemnation for colonial policies and blamed for under-development in Africa, the leaders have recieved congratulatory messages. Africa’s “non-Western friends” such as China and Russia also sent goodwill messages.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his message for example, described Africa Day, a holiday that has become a symbol of the victory of the peoples of your continent over colonialism, their striving for freedom, peace and prosperity.

“This year marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Organization of African Unity. This representative international structure has played an important role in the development of multilateral dialogue and cooperation for several decades. Today, its good traditions are continued by the African Union, within which all states of the continent actively cooperate,” he noted.

“Thanks to their joint efforts, it was possible to establish mechanisms for collective response to local crises, to launch regional integration processes in various formats. This undoubtedly contributes to the social and economic development of Africa and the enhancement of its role in international affairs,” he added.

Russia has always attached particular importance to strengthening friendly relations with African partners. The holding of the first-ever Russia-Africa summit in 2019 served to intensify ties in many areas. The second Russia-Africa summit, which to be held in St. Petersburg in July, would make it possible to define new tasks for expanding our country’s constructive cooperation with African partners in the political, trade, economic, scientific, technical, humanitarian and other fields. Putin said in conclusion.

Similarly, President Xi Jinping sent a message to the African Union (AU), extending warm congratulations to African countries and the African people. In the message, he pointed out that the AU has united and led African countries to actively respond to global challenges and speed up the development of the African Continental Free Trade Area, and played an important role in mediating hotspot issues in Africa, which has boosted Africa’s international status and influence.

He, however, expressed his sincere wishes that African countries and people will continue to achieve greater success on their path of development and revitalization. He emphasized that China-Africa relations maintained sound momentum of development, and China-Africa cooperation has moved ahead to be all-round, multi-tiered and high-quality, taking the lead in international cooperation with Africa.

President Xi expressed his readiness to work with leaders of African countries to further strengthen friendly cooperation between China and Africa, enhance coordination and collaboration on international and regional affairs, and work for the building of a high-level China-Africa community with a shared future.

Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, said “We mark Africa Day at a time when cooperation and solidarity to advance the continent’s future is more needed than ever.” Africa’s dynamism is unstoppable; its potential is breathtaking, from the vibrancy of its huge number of young people to the possibilities of free trade. The African Union has designated 2023 the year of the African Continental Free Trade Area. When fully established, the world’s largest single market could lift 50 million people out of extreme poverty by 2035, driving progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2063.

António Guterres looks forward to African governments continuing to seize the opportunities presented by the continent’s natural, human, and entrepreneurial richness, by working to increase private investment and raise resources at home.

He urges the international community to stand with Africa. Currently, historic and economic injustices hamper its progress. Multiple crises – from COVID to climate and conflict – continue to cause great suffering across the continent. African countries are under-represented in global governance institutions, from the Security Council to the Bretton Woods System, and denied the debt relief and concessional funding they need.

António Guterres noted further that Africa deserves peace, justice and international solidarity. The continent should be represented at the highest level of the international financial system. Multilateral Development Banks should transform their business models and leverage funds to attract massive private finance at reasonable cost to developing countries. Developed countries should provide the support they have promised for action on climate change, and go further. And we must support efforts to silence the guns across the continent.

The United Nations will continue to be a proud partner in advancing peace, sustainable development and human rights for the people of Africa. With international cooperation and solidarity, this can be Africa’s century.

Exactly 60 years ago, on this day in 1963, the founding of the Organization of African Unity was announced, which marked the beginning of the progressive movement of the continent along the path of political and economic integration. Today, the successor to its cause is the African Union, whose task is to develop collective approaches to the problems of maintaining peace and security, strengthening democratic processes, developing human potential, and ensuring socio-economic growth.

In the context of a multipolar geopolitical order, African leaders and the African Union should strengthen their positions regarding external partnerships. If not, the continent risks being left behind and used as a pawn in an increasingly divided global order. The African Union (AU), an organization uniting 55 African states, has to consistently place focus on its empowerment, support its status and in practical tems, to remain overwhelmingly committed to the development Agenda 2063.

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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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The UK is using job search outlets to recruit mercenaries from North Africa NA and the Middle East ME to take part in Ukraine’s counteroffensive, under the guise of “military maintenance technician,” a job advert published on Adzuna revealed.

The job network platform operates in 20 countries and has monthly visitor traffic of at least 10 million work seekers and employers.

“We invite citizens from the Middle East and North Africa to participate in a voluntary program to assist Ukraine on a competitive basis… Military specialists with good health and psychological stability are required to participate in the Ukrainian counteroffensive,” the job ad said.

The vacancy post was advertised by the London-based EU Citizenship Program, looking for applicants in NA and the ME to join a “High Contract” payment program of 20,000 pounds sterling ($24,816).

The employer also guarantees that, upon contract expiration, accelerated citizenship in the UK or the EU would be provided to individuals enlisted in the program.

“Participants must understand all risks and sign a waiver of claims,” the ad stressed.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry earlier provided data showing that thousands of mercenaries from more than 60 countries were recruited to Ukraine to fight alongside Kiev forces.

The total UK military aid to Kiev has surpassed £2.3 billion since the start of the Ukrainian crisis, which makes Britain the second largest supporter of Zelensky’s regime after the US.

Earlier this week, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he opposes any peace initiative for a ceasefire in Ukraine that does not entail a complete Russian withdrawal. 

His comments came in the British Parliament after Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the Labour Party, had asked Sunak to comment on the ceasefire initiative proposed by South Africa and condoned by the UN Secretary-General and the Pope.

“A ceasefire is not a just and lasting peace for Ukraine,” Sunak stated.

The UK has also promised earlier that it would train Ukrainian pilots this summer and would aid Kiev “hand in hand” in “efforts to work with other countries on providing F-16 jets” to Zelensky’s government.

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Featured image: UK instructors train Ukrainian marines as part of Operation Orbital in Odessa, Ukraine in January 2019. Image: Ukrainian Naval Forces

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*** 

Arriving for my bone density test at a downstate New York hospital, I’m delighted to again find Belinda in Radiology. When she does my annual mammogram, I learn more than about cancer. Although she readily shares her own breast cancer experience as she prepares her half-million-dollar machine. How she delights in describing its new features. 

Our conversation begins with my observation about heightened security at the hospital. “More guards at the main door?” I note. “Yes, more protocols. Now they’re armed!”, she adds. 

The bone scanning machine is a sleek new model: silent too; our chat can proceed uninterrupted. “Registration took unusually long today; are there staff shortages here too?” I ask, stepping onto the table. “Don’t get me started”, replies Belinda. “Lots of money some places – not where it’s needed. Nurses work just to pay off student debt.” 

How this led to China, I’m unsure; maybe something about growing public anxiety. The radiologist, watching her computer screen as the scanner slides over me, offers a simple assessment. “It’s China. There’s going to be war!” 

I risk disagreeing; then proceed: “Why should we expect war with China?” I begin. (If she’s not listening, there’s no harm. So I continue.) “A remarkable country; I visited there in ’82. What advances – barely 25 years. What are the signs of their aggression? How many places has China invaded compared to USA?” (I left Tibet aside; it was the only invasion I remembered.)

My remark sets Belinda off, but not in the direction I feared. “Yes. And what did we get from Afghanistan? All our equipment left there (planes, tanks – just abandoned), billions of dollars stolen). PTSD; nuts in our streets; homeless vets everywhere!”

“My son is in the military; he says it’s China we have to watch.”

My turn. “That’s the picture media and our government give. They’re stirring Americans’ fears to justify money for weapons? How is China going to invade the US, and for what?” Silence from Belinda; I continue: “We have 800 foreign bases, many of them encircling China and Russia. Ask your son how many bases China has near us.”

“Good point. Never thought about that.” 

Belinda returns to the issue of PTSD and veterans. “They return home traumatized, unable to manage.” She must have seen some extreme cases, maybe a family member, surely inside this hospital. “They’re taught their gun is their best friend; they’re ready to shoot at anyone; they’re scared.”

Even to strangle someone, I think. I remember Jordan Neely being attacked in a NYC subway car just 3 weeks ago. 

Belinda stops the machine to set my leg at a better angle for the camera. 

Am I disturbing you Belinda? “Not at all. Do you know they’re charging that veteran with murder?” I hadn’t heard. But I see she’s angry about that. “Well,” I argue; “He did kill someone.” 

“But the guy was acting crazy; he could have a gun, a knife. People were afraid.”

“We can’t go around killing like that; he wasn’t armed. There are other ways to subdue a person: grab his arms, stop the train. But to choke the guy to death? Likely learned that in the military”, I venture.

I continue: “Everyone is afraid, even in the countryside now—we’re all on edge. Look at our schools; doors locked; armed guards there too. Kids are told to hide – in classrooms!”

Belinda had thought about this: “Know what I’d do? I’d build a fence around every school and lock it, lock it. Keep everyone out.”

“Come on Belinda. Schools are already locked; cameras all over the place. Next, it will be armed teachers. Fencing will make everyone more nervous. We can’t imprison ourselves!” 

The scanning ended, not our talk. “Well, look at all the crazies! Doped up, won’t work, expect free housing. I see plenty in the hospital”, Belinda confides. “They dope themselves to deal with the fear. Look at our homeless veterans; most are doped. Boys in Vietnam were shot up before going into battle. They brought their addictions home.”

“Like they bring their guns home”, I retort.

Belinda, having passed her lunch break, is wound up about government waste and is eager to return to excess spending. “We’ve got to look after our own people. Why billions to Ukraine? Let them deal with their problem. Why take money from Americans for them?” This I did not expect; no one where I live dares criticize Washington’s largesse to Ukraine.

“Don’t get me started on that Belinda. I can’t discuss this even with friends (who say they’re progressive).” But I can’t help adding, “I’ve read that weapons we give to Ukraine were being exported from there for sale – to where, we don’t know.” 

“Yeh? I haven’t heard; I believe it though.”

“I haven’t had a talk like this in months Belinda”, thanking her as I prepare to dress. 

“Me too; I can’t talk politics to my husband. We stopped long ago.”

As I gather my things, Belinda announces: “I have to escort you to Reception. Increased security; every wing is locked; more protocols, more security even for us staff.”

Exiting past two of the hospital’s three armed guards, I thought: Hmm. Which party Belinda votes for never occurred to me. I expect she didn’t think about me through that lens either.

*

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Barbara Nimri Aziz whose anthropological research has focused on the peoples of the Himalayas is the author of the newly published “Yogmaya and Durga Devi: Rebel Women of Nepal”, available on Amazon

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from FX Mislang / Flickr


“Yogmaya and Durga Devi: Rebel Women of Nepal”

By Barbara Nimri Aziz

A century ago Yogmaya and Durga Devi, two women champions of justice, emerged from a remote corner of rural Nepal to offer solutions to their nation’s social and political ills. Then they were forgotten.

Years after their demise, in 1980 veteran anthropologist Barbara Nimri Aziz first uncovered their suppressed histories in her comprehensive and accessible biographies. Revelations from her decade of research led to the resurrection of these women and their entry into contemporary Nepali consciousness.

This book captures the daring political campaigns of these rebel women; at the same time it asks us to acknowledge their impact on contemporary feminist thinking. Like many revolutionaries who were vilified in their lifetimes, we learn about the true nature of these leaders’ intelligence, sacrifices, and vision during an era of social and economic oppression in this part of Asia.

After Nepal moved from absolute monarchy to a fledgling democracy and history re-evaluated these pioneers, Dr. Aziz explores their legacies in this book.

Psychologically provocative and astonishingly moving, “Yogmaya and Durga Devi” is a seminal contribution to women’s history.

Click here to order.

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Two very establishment, Anglo-American media in the UK finally – and bitterly – have admitted it, ‘out loud’: Sanctions on Russia failed. The Spectator (once edited by Boris Johnson), writes, the West adopted a two-pronged strategy: one was military support for Ukraine, and the other was:

“Unleashing financial ‘shock and awe’ on a scale never before seen. Russia was to be cut off almost entirely … Putin’s Russia, went the theory, would be impoverished into surrender”.  Few people in the West are aware of how badly this aspect of the war is going. Europe has itself paid a high price to effect a partial boycott of Russian oil and gas.

“But [any limitations to the EU energy boycott] do not explain the scale of the failure to damage the Russian economy. It soon became clear that while the West was keen on an economic war, the rest of the world was not. As its oil and gas exports to Europe fell, Russia quickly upped its exports to China and India – both of which preferred to buy oil at a discount than to make a stand against the invasion of Ukraine. 

 “The West embarked on its sanctions war with an exaggerated sense of its own influence around the world…The results of the miscalculation are there for all to see…The Russian economy has not been destroyed; it has merely been reconfigured, reorientated to look eastwards and southwards rather than westwards”.

Allister Heath in The Telegraph too laments:  

“Russia was meant to have collapsed by now.  Britain, America and Europe’s gambit was that drastic trade, financial and technological sanctions, a cap on the price of Russian seaborne oil, and substantial help to Ukraine would be enough to defeat Moscow. It hasn’t worked…The reason? China has quietly stepped in, bailing out Putin’s shattered economy on a transformational scale, swapping energy and raw materials for goods and technology. The sanctions are a joke”.

For some, reading these words, their reaction will be one of utter amazement: How come it took this long for the British Establishment to ‘wake up’ to that which all the world knew?

The Spectator, in fact, gives us the answer: An ‘exaggerated sense of Western influence around the world’. Or simply put: delusionary hubris placed ‘blinders’ on western policy-makers; they could not see what was before their own eyes.

American and British Intelligence analysts, consumed by their conviction that Russia’s was a small, fragile economy that could never withstand the entire weight of the western economic system, ranged against it; they persuaded the Europeans that Russia’s ‘collapse’ was a ‘Slam Dunk’ certitude.  The Russian financial collapse would de-stabilise Moscow’s élites, and President Putin would be ‘out’.  And, under reaffirmed US hegemony, Russia’s economic affairs would be returned to ‘how they were’ — Russia as purveyor of cheap commodities to the West.

It was a huge error (on a par with that of claims that war on Iraq would generate a ‘New Middle East’). And now, Europe is paying the price. And will continue to pay the price for a long time to come.

It would be difficult however, to under-estimate the effect of these ‘insights’ percolating to the surface of the western Establishment ‘mind’.  Clearly, someone in the US ‘Permanent State’ wanted them surfaced in ‘twin’ vehicles (UK media regularly serves this function for spreading messages unattributably).  

Hybrid financial war — since the Iraq conflict — has been the mainstay of the Western strategy for extending its hegemony.  To see that strategy so iconically debunked in Russia; to behold the ‘rest of the world’ saying that Ukraine may be a European concern, but it is not their’s; to see the widespread abandonment of the dollar for trade becoming the key mechanism for replacing the US-led unipolar world, with a multipolar world, explains much of the bitterness expressed in the two British editorial think-pieces.

That The Spectator should say that this episode of strategic miscalculation hails from over-inflated Western self-importance and represents an extraordinary moment of self-reflection, even if it is one drenched in bitterness at what ‘the mirror’ reflected back to the two authors.

But let us not get carried away. Such delusions are not about to vaporise. The Western neo-cons do not possess ‘reverse gear’; when defeated in one sphere, they never apologise; they simply move on to the next colour-revolution.

Even as I write this piece, a bill introduced by Rep Wilson and Sen McCaul, aims to bar the US government from recognizing President Assad as Syria’s President, and as a warning to other countries contemplating normalising with President Assad’s government that they could face severe consequences (i.e. financial sanction), under the Caesar Act. 

The West is preparing to sanction Turkey for its links to Russia; the US continues to sanction Iraq as part of an attempt by Washington to pressure Iraq into avoiding energy cooperation with the Islamic Republic of Iran; and the US is preparing to boost its ‘defence posture’ in the Persian Gulf, with officials claiming that the Pentagon will deploy additional assets to the region to patrol commercial shipping lanes and ‘protect private vessels’ from Iran. 

The sanctions mindset will not fade until the West experiences a catharsis sufficient to bring transformation to its zeitgeist.  The revelation that sanctions have not worked — and that the rest of the world now sees emancipation from the hegemony of the dollar to be emancipation from US political hegemony — has come as a traumatising experience.

*

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Alastair Crooke is Director of Conflicts Forum; Former Senior British Diplomat; Author.

Featured image is from AME

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Excess Deaths Are Exploding, Experts Remain Stumped

May 25th, 2023 by Dr. Joseph Mercola

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*** 

According to a May 11, 2023, report by the British Express, Britons are dying by the tens of thousands, “but no one knows why”

Between May and December 2022, there were 32,441 excess deaths in England and Wales, according to data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), and that doesn’t include COVID-related deaths

In 2022, the No. 1 cause of excess deaths in the U.K. was signs and symptoms of “ill-defined conditions.” In England, this nebulous cause of death was 36.9% above the five-year average, and in Wales, it was 30.4% above average

The U.K. was the first European country to approve the Pfizer COVID jab and began its mass injection campaign December 8, 2020. It currently has the highest COVID-19 jab rate in all of Europe

The misuse of mechanical ventilation created the appearance that COVID was exceptionally deadly, which in turn helped promote acceptance of the experimental COVID shots that are now a leading cause of frequent sickness, chronic disability and excess deaths

*

According to a May 11, 2023, report by the British Express,1 Britons are dying by the tens of thousands, “but no one knows why.” Between May and December 2022 alone, there were 32,441 excess deaths in England and Wales, according to data2 released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), and that doesn’t include COVID-related deaths. As reported by the Express:3

“Excess deaths are defined as the number of people who died above the five-year average — worked out excluding 2020 due to how COVID spiked death figures that year … The shock revelation has raised alarm bells amid health professionals …

Professor David Coleman, Emeritus Professor of Demography at Oxford University, told the Mirror that no one knew for certain what had caused so many deaths throughout last year.

He pointed out that, post COVID, the UK’s population had been changed through the deaths of a significant proportion of the elderly due to the virus. He explained: ‘Once those poor people have been packed off, the remaining population should be healthier, there should be a period afterwards where deaths are lower than usual but that hasn’t happened.’”

No. 1 Cause of Excess Deaths: ‘Ill-Defined Conditions’

According to the Express, two of the primary causes of excess deaths were ischemic heart diseases and dementia. This, the article suggests, might be an indication that obesity and an increasingly older population are to blame for the excess mortality.

However, if the population was altered due to a significant portion of the elderly dying from COVID in 2020, leaving a younger and supposedly healthier population, as stated by professor Coleman, those puzzle pieces don’t exactly fit together. 

What’s more, the Express failed to specify that dementia and Alzheimer’s were only the leading causes of death during the month of December 2022. For 2022, the No. 1 cause of excess deaths was signs and symptoms of “ill-defined conditions.”4

In England, this nebulous cause of death was 36.9% above the five-year average, and in Wales, it was 30.4% above average.5 Now, what does that remind you of? “Sudden adult death syndrome” perhaps — a historically rare cause of death that suddenly skyrocketed after the COVID jabs came on the scene.

As illustrated in the video above, during 2021 and into 2022, mainstream media kept drilling the false and incredibly offensive narrative that the unvaccinated were the enemy, that every COVID death meant they had blood on their hands and ought to be punished accordingly.

And now, as countries where most people have been jabbed experience skyrocketing excess death rates unrelated to COVID, they feign mind-numbing ignorance.

An experimental gene transfer injection was introduced as a vaccine and death rates continue to climb even as COVID is vanishing. What a mystery! Everyone is stumped. The scientific consensus is at a standstill. No one knows why people are dying.

Possibly, not enough people got the jab. That’s what the BBC insinuated in early 2023.6 No one wants to admit that medical experimentation on the public was a terrible idea. No one wants to consider the possibility that too many took the toxic jab, and that’s why excess mortality is so far above norm.

As cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough has repeatedly stated, we had a clear safety signal all the way back in February 2021, and it’s only gotten more pronounced over time. Despite that, not a single safety review has been conducted, and our health authorities refuse to address the astronomical death toll.

UK Has Highest COVID Jab Rate in Europe

In the U.K., 2020 was the deadliest year on record since 1918. More than 695,000 deaths were logged that year. The culprit at that time was COVID, or suspected COVID. But what happened next?

The U.K. was the first European country to approve the Pfizer COVID jab and began its mass injection campaign December 8, 2020. It currently has the highest COVID-19 jab rate in all of Europe, in large part due to having “the most positive attitudes to vaccine safety in Europe,” according to Statista.7

If the COVID shots were safe and protective, you’d expect excess mortality to decline from there on, but that didn’t happen. The third week of January 2021 saw a huge spike above norm, and the rate has dipped and peaked ever since.8 In 2022, excess deaths exceeded 650,000, which was 9% higher than 2019. So, why are so many people dying? And why are so many dying from inexplicable causes or “ill-defined” conditions?

In January 2023, BBC news blamed the excess death rate in 2022 on “pandemic effects on health and NHS pressures.”9 Ambulance response times were more than doubled, hospital waits were long, and “people are more likely to have heart problems and strokes in the weeks and months after catching COVID,” the BBC said.

The BBC also claimed there was “no evidence of vaccine effect,” and that cases of myocarditis and pericarditis were “too rare — and mostly not fatal — to account for the excess in deaths.”

But myocarditis and pericarditis are FAR from the only side effects caused by these shots, so the fact that these conditions aren’t among the top causes certainly doesn’t mean that the shots are safe and aren’t causing people to die prematurely.

Aside from foolhardy medical experimentation, the excess death rates may also have something to do with the fact that hospitals around the world have been killing “suspected” COVID patients with lethal treatment protocols, as detailed in “How COVID Patients Died for Profit.”

Massively Anomalous Data Put COVID Shots in the Crosshairs

In the March 24, 2023, “Ask Dr. Drew” interview above, Drew interviewed Ed Dowd, author of “Cause Unknown.” As noted by Dowd, data from the insurance industry, funeral home industry and various government databases strongly indicate that the COVID shots are killing people, primarily working age adults, many of whom had to get the shot to keep their jobs.

While some countries are now pulling back from the shots, in the U.S., the COVID injections have been added to the childhood and adult vaccination schedules, and no one has proposed removing them.

According to Dowd, Denmark, for example, stopped recommending COVID boosters for anyone younger than 50, as their excess deaths in 2021 and 2022 shot up to around 20% above norm. Clearly, decision-makers there connected the dots and decided it was better to be safe than sorry.

Dowd goes on to review absence rates and lost worktime data10 for the U.S. Among full-time employees aged 25 to 54, there was a stark deviation in 2020, 2021 and 2022 from the 2002 through 2019 trend. In 2020, it was a three-standard deviation, which is reasonable considering governments were shutting down businesses. But then, in 2021, it rose to five standard deviations and in 2022, it skyrocketed to 11 standard deviations, which makes no sense whatsoever.

Compared to 2019, the absence rate for working age adults was only 3.6% higher in 2020, when lockdowns were in effect and many businesses were closed. In 2021, the absence rate was 10.7% higher than 2019, and in 2022, it was 28.6% higher. In short, in 2022, nearly one-third more employees missed days of work compared to 2019, which amounts to an enormous loss of productivity, and this at a time when there were no lockdowns in the U.S.

Looking at the number of hours lost per absence, the 2022 numbers were 13 standard deviations higher than 2019, which Dowd says is “unheard of.” Compared to the 2019 baseline, lost worktime rates were 28.6% higher in 2020 and 2021, and then suddenly jumped to 50% in 2022. This too equates to a major loss of productivity and therefore economic losses.

So, what is going on? In short, people are missing work due to vaccine-related sickness. As noted by Dowd, we have studies showing the shots impair your immune function, and these data show that, yes, people are getting sick and calling out from work at an unprecedented frequency and they’re out sick 50% longer than normal.

mRNA COVID Jabs Had No Effect on Mortality

In related news, we now also have evidence11 showing the mRNA COVID jabs have no mortality benefit. As reported by Epoch Health:12

“The Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines did not impact overall mortality, a reanalysis of clinical trial data found.

The two vaccines, both based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, protected against deaths from COVID-19 but that effect was offset by vaccinated trial participants being more likely to die from cardiovascular problems, Christine Stabell Benn, a health professor at the University of Southern Denmark, and other researchers reported in April in the Cell journal.13

The research analyzed data from randomized clinical trials (RCTs) reported by the companies that manufacture the vaccines. ‘In the RCTs with the longest possible blinded follow-up, mRNA vaccines had no effect on overall mortality despite protecting against some COVID-19 deaths.”

Meanwhile, the Johnson & Johnson shot, which uses an adenovirus-vector, was associated with lower non-COVID-19 mortality and overall mortality, but had NO effect on COVID-19 mortality. So, in essence, all the COVID shots are useless in one way or another. The mRNA versions cause greater overall mortality, and the adenovirus-vector ones don’t protect against COVID-related death. Take your pick.

Interestingly, out of all the brands, AstraZeneca’s adenovirus-vector shot performed the best, and that’s the one that was maligned the most by health regulators and media across the world, as it was associated with lethal blood clots early on.

More Evidence COVID Jab Does More Harm Than Good

Another reanalysis of randomized COVID jab trials concluded that the shots are far more likely to land you in the hospital than COVID-19 itself. This study,14 which focused on serious adverse events highlighted in a World Health Organization-endorsed priority list15 of potential adverse events relevant to the COVID-19 shots, found Pfizer’s shot was associated with an increased risk of serious adverse events at a rate of 10.1 events per 10,000.

The rate for Moderna’s jab was 15.1 events per 10,000. The researchers also stressed that this level of risk for a post-injection event was significantly greater than the risk reduction for COVID-related hospitalization, which was only 2.3 per 10,000 participants in the Pfizer trial and 6.4 per 10,000 in the Moderna trial.

In short, for every 800 jab recipients, one person will suffer a serious injury. Meanwhile, some 5,000 must get the Pfizer jab to prevent a single COVID hospitalization. This is what risk-benefit analysis is all about — comparing and weighing the benefit against the risk — and when it comes to the mRNA COVID shots, they clearly do more harm than good.

Considering the high rate of injury, is it hard to believe that people are calling out sick from work more often or that excess mortality is skyrocketing? There’s not a single piece of evidence so far that exonerates the COVID shots, yet the media want you to believe it’s an inexplicable mystery.

AI Links COVID Deaths to Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia

Another piece of news that’s been making the rounds is that artificial intelligence (AI) has linked COVID mortality to unresolved ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), basically, a secondary bacterial infection caused by intubation that didn’t respond to treatment. As described in the abstract, published April 27, 2023, in the Journal of Clinical Investigation:16,17

“We performed a single-center prospective cohort study of 585 mechanically ventilated patients with severe pneumonia and respiratory failure, 190 of whom had COVID-19, who underwent at least one bronchoalveolar lavage [BAL].

Given the relatively long ICU length of stay among patients with COVID-19, we developed a machine learning approach called CarpeDiem, which groups similar ICU patient-days into clinical states based on electronic health record data.

CarpeDiem revealed that the long ICU length of stay among patients with COVID-19 is attributable to long stays in clinical states characterized primarily by respiratory failure. While VAP was not associated with mortality overall, mortality was higher in patients with one episode of unsuccessfully treated VAP compared with successfully treated VAP (76.4% versus 17.6%, P < 0.001).

In all patients, including those with COVID-19, CarpeDiem demonstrated that unresolving VAP was associated with transitions to clinical states associated with higher mortality.

Conclusions: Unsuccessful treatment of VAP is associated with greater mortality. The relatively long length of stay among patients with COVID-19 is primarily due to prolonged respiratory failure, placing them at higher risk of VAP.”

Use of Ventilation Is Likely the Core Problem

While many have argued that this study shows secondary infections are to blame for many a COVID death, Modern Discontent18 on Substack calls for prudence when interpreting these results, stating that upon closer scrutiny, the study doesn’t offer much in terms of substantial evidence.

Moreover, whenever you’re using AI, what comes out depends on what was put in, and in this case, CarpeDiem did not supply important data variables, and this may have skewed the results. Since “key factors have been excluded from the analysis there’s going to be several flaws in interpreting the correlative power of some of CarpeDiem’s results,” Modern Discontent warns, adding:

“Overall, I’ll argue that the study has serious issues in outlining their data. There’s a ton missing here, including which bacteria were cultured from BAL samples.

The timing of BAL collection is up in the air, and the study also doesn’t make it clear early on how many patients actually experienced an episode of VAP, whether in the COVID group or the other groups (you have to dig into the actual body to find a reference to VAP episodes).

The lack of organization makes the study rather difficult to read, and I won’t say that I have it figured out yet … It’s quite clear that many of these individuals are already in various states of severe respiratory distress and failure as noted by the clinical states and relative mortality rates, making these people more at risk of death irrespective of from SARS-COV2 or a bacterial infection …

It’s not necessarily the secondary infection that is cause for concern, but the fact that many patients require ventilation.

Upon ventilation, the secondary concern may be the secondary bacterial infection, although the researchers don’t provide any insights into why some patients were not able to resolve their VAP episode. This is, again, an issue with the lack of data provided by the researchers themselves.”

COVID Jab Accepted Due to Ventilator-Driven Death Toll

Now, aside from the massively coercive PR campaign, one of the reasons that many accepted the COVID shot without much deliberation was the fact that hospitalized COVID patients were dying in droves. They didn’t want to end up on a vent and die, and all the pundits said the shots would prevent you from getting seriously ill and dying.

The problem, of course, is that mechanical ventilation should not have been a standard treatment for COVID, and some doctors realized this within a few weeks. High-flow cannulas and proning were far more effective.19

The reason mechanical ventilation was promoted as an early intervention was not because it was helpful for the patient, but because it was thought to protect the staff from the virus. It was a strategy to reduce contagion.20 This was detailed in provider guidance21 from the World Health Organization in March 2020.

The guidance recommended22 escalating treatment to mechanical ventilation as rapidly as possible to isolate the virus inside the mechanical vent machine. In other words, they put patients on a treatment they knew would likely kill them to “save” staff and other, presumably non-COVID, patients.

Considering this context, blaming the death of vented patients on secondary infections may be little more than an attempt to shift blame away from hospitals that adhered to these ineffective and dangerous protocols.

I disagree with Modern Discontent when he or she says that the primary concern is “the fact that many patients require ventilation.” There’s plenty of evidence that says they don’t, and without ventilation, the risk of ventilator-associated secondary bacterial infection drops to zero, does it not? Secondary bacterial infections may still occur, but they won’t be VAP.

So, in conclusion, the misuse of mechanical vents created the appearance that COVID was exceptionally deadly, which in turn helped promote acceptance of the experimental COVID shots, which are now a leading cause of frequent sickness, chronic disability and excess deaths.

*

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Notes

1, 3 Express May 11, 2023

2, 4, 5 ONS Mortality Analysis, England and Wales, December 2022

6, 9 BBC January 10, 2023

7, 8 Statista Excess Deaths UK and Wales

10 Phineas Technologies US Absence Rates and Lost Worktime Data March 2023

11, 13 Cell May 19, 2023; 26(5): 106733 (Archived)

12 Epoch Health May 13, 2023

14 Vaccines September 22, 2022; 40(40): 5798-5805

15 SPEAC October 26, 2021

16 Journal of Clinical Investigation April 27, 2023

17 Journal of Clinical Investigation April 27, 2023 Full Text PDF

18 Modern Discontent Substack May 16, 2023

19 Newswise April 23, 2020

20 Wall Street Journal December 20, 2020 (Archived)

21 WHO Clinical Management of Severe COVID-19

22 WHO Infection Prevention and Control for COVID

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*** 

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky made an unexpected trip to Britain last week on a whistle-stop tour of European capitals, pleading for more powerful and longer-range weapons to use in his war against Russia. 

What was hard to ignore once again was the extent to which the UK is playing an outsize role in Ukraine.

Last year, shortly after the start of the war, the then-prime minister, Boris Johnson, hurried to Kyiv – presumably on Washington’s instructions – apparently to warn Zelensky off fledgling peace talks with Moscow. 

At around the same time, the Biden administration made clear it favoured an escalation in fighting, not an end to it, as an opportunity to “weaken” Russia, a geo-strategic rival along with China.

Since then, the UK has been at the forefront of European efforts to entrench the conflict, helping to lobby for the supply of weapons, training and military intelligence to Ukrainian forces.   

British tanks and thousands of tank shells – including, controversially, some made from depleted uranium – are being shipped out. Last week, the UK added hundreds of long-range attack drones to the inventory. 

And an unspecified number of £2m-a-blast Storm Shadow cruise missiles, with a range of nearly 300km, have started arriving. Last week Ben Wallace, Britain’s defence secretary, said the missiles were already in use, adding that Kyiv alone was deciding on the targets.

Storm Shadow allows the Ukrainian military to strike deep into Russian-annexed parts of Ukraine – and potentially at Russian cities too.

A recent leak revealed that the Pentagon had learnt through electronic eavesdropping of Zelensky’s eagerness for longer-range missiles so that his forces were “capable of reaching Russian troop deployments in Russia”.

Lip service 

Britain now pays little more than lip service to the West’s claim that its role is only to help Ukraine defend itself from Russian aggression. The supply of increasingly offensive weapons has turned Ukraine into what amounts to a proxy battleground on which the Cold War can be revived.

During Zelensky’s visit to the UK last week, Johnson’s successor, Rishi Sunak, effectively acted as an arms broker for Ukraine, joining with the Netherlands in what was grandly dubbed an “international coalition” to pressure the Biden administration and other European states to supply Kyiv with F-16 fighter jets. 

Washington appeared not to need much cajoling. Three days later, Biden dramatically changed tack at a G7 summit in Japan. He effectively gave a green light for US allies to supply Ukraine not only with US-made F-16s but similar fourth-generation fighter jets, including Britain’s Eurofighter Typhoon and France’s Mirage 2000.

Administration officials surprised European leaders by suggesting the US would be directly involved in the training of pilots outside Ukraine. 

After a highly staged “surprise” visit by Zelensky to the summit at the weekend, Biden said he had been given a “flat reassurance” that the jets would not attack Russian territory.

British officials, meanwhile, indicated that the UK would start training Ukrainian pilots within weeks. 

‘Rightful place is in Nato’ 

No 10 has made clear that Sunak’s purpose is to build “a new Ukrainian air force with Nato-standard F-16 jets” and that the prime minister believes “Ukraine’s rightful place is in Nato”.

These statements seem intended once again to block any potential path towards peace. President Vladimir Putin repeatedly spoke out against Nato’s growing, covert involvement in neighbouring Ukraine before Russia launched its invasion 15 months ago.

It is hard to imagine that the UK is heading off-script. More likely, the Biden administration is using Britain to make the running and soften up Western publics as Nato becomes ever more deeply immersed in the military activities of Russia’s neighbour.

Ukraine is being gradually turned into the very Nato forward base that first set Moscow on course to invade.

At the same time, Britain appears to be exploiting the Ukraine war as a showcase for its weaponry. After the US, it has been the largest supplier of military equipment to Ukraine. 

This week it was reported that UK arms exports hit a record £8.5bn, more than double last year’s total. The last time Britain was so successful at selling weapons was in 2015, at the height of the Syrian war. 

Risk to health

Europe’s weapons largesse is, we are told, the precondition for Ukraine to mount a long-awaited counter-offensive to take back territory Russia has seized in the eastern and southern parts of Ukraine. 

Speaking candidly in Florence this month, Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, ruled out peace talks. Ukraine needed massive supplies of arms because otherwise “Ukraine will fall in a matter of days”, he said.

Borrell’s warning not only suggested the precariousness of Ukraine’s situation but implied that, out of desperation, its leaders might be prepared to approve ever riskier combat scenarios.

And thanks to British meddling, the heavy toll of casualties as the war rages on – among the Ukrainian population and Russian soldiers, as well as potentially inside Russia’s borders too – may be felt not just over the coming months but for decades.

In March, Declassified broke the story that some of the thousands of tank shells Britain is supplying to Kyiv are made of depleted uranium (DU), a radioactive heavy metal produced as waste from nuclear power plants. 

Keir Starmer’s opposition Labour party has said it “fully supports” the UK government’s supply of these armour-piercing shells to Ukraine, despite the long-term risk they pose to those exposed to the chemically toxic contamination left behind.

DU shells fragment and burn when they hit a target. One analyst, Doug Weir, from the Conflict and Environment Observatory, told Declassified that the ammunition produces “chemically toxic and radioactive DU particulate [microscopic particles] that poses an inhalational risk to people”.

Nonetheless, British ministers insist the threat to human health is low – and worth the risk given the military gains in helping Ukraine to destroy Russian tanks. 

Cancer deaths 

As Declassified has highlighted, however, a growing body of evidence following the use of such shells by the US in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and by Britain and the US in Iraq a decade later undermines these reassurances.

Italian courts have upheld compensation claims against the country’s military in more than 300 cases where Italians who served in the police or as soldiers in Bosnia and Kosovo have died of cancer after being exposed to DU. 

Many thousands more Italian former service-people are reported to have developed cancers.

In 2001 Tony Blair’s government downplayed the role of DU in Italy’s deaths to avoid upsetting the new administration of George W Bush. Both leaders would soon approve the use of DU rounds in Iraq, though the UK admitted a “moral obligation” to help clean up some of the contamination afterwards.

The West has taken little interest in researching the effects of DU weapons in Iraq, even though local civilian populations have been the most exposed to its contamination. DU shells were used extensively during both the 1991 Gulf war and more than a decade later during the US and British-led occupation of Iraq.

Iraqi government statistics suggest the rates of cancers leapt 40-fold between the period immediately before the Gulf war and 2005.

The city of Fallujah, which the US devastated after the 2003 invasion, is reported to suffer “the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied”. Birth defects are said to be roughly 14 times the rate in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki regions of Japan, where the US dropped atomic bombs. 

In 2018 the British government reclassified a 1981 report into the dangers of DU weapons by the Ministry of Defence’s Atomic Weapons Research Establishment it had made available three years earlier. 

Meanwhile, James Heappey, the armed forces minister, has misleadingly suggested that international bodies such as the World Health Organisation and the United Nations have found no long-term health or environmental hazards associated with DU weapons.

But as Weir told Declassified in March: “None of the entities cited by the MoD has undertaken long-term environmental or health studies in conflict areas where DU weapons have been used.” 

In other words, they simply don’t know – and possibly don’t care to find out.

Weir added that the WHO, UN and International Atomic Energy Agency had all called for contaminated areas to be clearly marked and access restricted, while at the same time recommending that risk awareness campaigns be targeted at nearby communities.

British officials have also recruited the Royal Society to their efforts to claim DU is safe – as the US did earlier, in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, citing two of its reports published in 2001 and 2002.

However, the Royal Society has vocally distanced itself from such claims. A spokesperson told Declassified that, despite the British government’s assertions, DU was no longer an “active area of policy research”. 

Back in 2003, the Royal Society rebuked Washington, telling the Guardian that soldiers and civilians in Iraq “were in short and long term danger. Children playing at contaminated sites were particularly at risk.”

At the same time, the chairman of the Royal Society’s working group on depleted uranium, Professor Brian Spratt, warned that corroding shells could leach DU into water supplies. He recommended removing ordinance and conducting long-term sampling of water supplies.

Voices silenced 

By lobbying for more overtly offensive weapons and introducing DU shells into the war, Britain has raised the stakes in two incendiary ways.

First, it is driving the war’s logic towards ever greater escalation, including nuclear escalation.  

Russia itself possesses DU weapons but is reported to have avoided using them. Moscow has long warned that it regards use of DU in Ukraine in nuclear terms: as the equivalent of a “dirty bomb”. 

In March Putin responded to the UK’s decision to supply DU tank shells by vowing to move “tactical” nuclear weapons into neighbouring Belarus. Meanwhile, his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said it put the world “fewer and fewer steps” away from “nuclear collision”.

But Britain is also creating a situation where a catastrophic move, or miscalculation, by either Russia or Ukraine is becoming ever more likely, as events last week highlighted only too clearly.

Russia struck a military ammunition depot in western Ukraine, creating a giant fireball. Rumours suggested the site may have included British DU shells.

Whether true or not, it is a reminder that Moscow could hit such a storage site, intentionally or accidentally, spreading contamination widely over a built-up area.

With Ukraine soon to be in possession of a full array of offensive weapons, largely courtesy of the UK – not only long-range drones, cruise missiles and tanks but fighter jets – it is not hard to imagine terrifying scenarios that could quickly bring Europe to the brink of nuclear conflict.

Moscow hits a DU ammunition depot, exposing a large civilian population to toxic contamination. Ukraine retaliates with air strikes deep inside Russia. The path to a nuclear exchange in Europe has never looked closer.

Those who warned that peace talks were urgently needed rather than an arms race in Ukraine are looking more prescient by the day. For how much longer can their voices continue to be silenced, not only by western leaders but by the western media too?

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Just when one is tempted to conclude that Ukraine’s sycophantic backers in the West can’t embrace policies that are more detached from reality, leading figures in that faction manage to plumb new depths of absurdity. The latest example is a May 22 Wall Street Journal op-ed by Bernard-Henri Lévy. He fumes that one of Vladimir Putin’s chief weapons in his war against Ukraine “is Russia’s status as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, which entails the power to block any resolution. It’s a legacy of World War II and the decision to reserve this status to the five victors, including the Soviet Union.”

But “the Soviet Union no longer exists,” Lévy emphasizes. Consequently “Russia’s permanent membership and the veto power it confers have no legal basis.” After delineating Russia’s “war crimes” since 1991 (real or exaggerated) while ignoring similar international behavior by the United States and its European allies, Lévy finally comes to the meat of his proposal. “Ukraine can and should inherit the rights of a fallen Russia. Remove the Russian Federation from its seat as a permanent member and transfer it to Ukraine.”

Unfortunately, Lévy is not the only figure to advocate expelling Russia from the Security Council. In October 2022, the Helsinki Commission made a similar proposal. Representatives Steve Cohen (R-TN) and Joe Wilson (R-SC) introduced a congressional resolution in December 2022 endorsing that objective.

Expelling a permanent member of the Security Council from its seat is dubious from a legal standpoint and recklessly provocative from a geopolitical one. The closest legal analogy for removing Russia was the U.N.’s decision in 1971 to transfer China’s Security Council seat from the exiled Kuomintang government of Taiwan to the communist government in Beijing. However, that situation was vastly different from what Lévy and Ukraine’s other advocates are proposing. Beijing effectively ruled all of mainland China, but Ukraine inherited only a small portion of the defunct Soviet Union. Most of the USSR’s territory, the majority of its population, as well as the bulk of its military and economic infrastructure, went to Russia.

From a geopolitical standpoint, expelling Russia from the U.N. Security Council makes even less sense. Supporters of the United Nations habitually overemphasize the organization’s importance. The U.N. is primarily an arena for diplomatic posturing and a dumping ground for annoying issues that the great powers regard as low-priority. The one exception is that the five permanent members on the Security Council routinely use their veto power to shield their own unsavory actions and those of favored allies. Small countries that do not have such protection are fair game for either unilateral or multilateral coercion—including military coercion. Serbia, Iraq, Georgia, and Libya are among the recent, pertinent examples.

Depriving Russia of its Security Council veto would constitute a dangerous escalation of the West’s already alarming confrontation with Moscow. Russian leaders increasingly charge that the United States and its allies are determined to eliminate Russia as a great power—and remove the country as a barrier to their aspirations for global hegemony. Putin and his colleagues portray the Ukraine fight as a NATO proxy war against Russia to achieve those goals.

U.S. officials have given such accusations considerable credibility. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin candidly admitted that NATO’s goal in Ukraine was to severely weaken Russia. A gratuitous move regarding Russia’s U.N. Security Council seat would fully confirm Moscow’s suspicions about the West’s motives and objectives. Any hope of a post-Ukraine war rapprochement with Russia would evaporate, and the world would become decidedly more dangerous.

The most preposterous aspect of Lévy’s scheme, though, is his proposal to transfer Russia’s seat to Ukraine. If he had suggested Germany, Japan, India, or Bazil, the idea would at least be relevant to the real world and great power relations. But Ukraine? That country is a second or third-tier power by any measurement.

Its $112 billion economy ranks a meager 60th in the world in terms of annual Gross Domestic Product—just ahead of Morocco and just behind Sudan. No person could suggest adding either of those countries to the U.N. Security Council and expect to be taken seriously. Ukraine’s population of 43.7 million puts it 35th in the world, just ahead of Iraq and just behind Sudan (again). Ukraine is a nondescript, middling power, at best.

Why would anyone propose making such a minor country a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, and by implication, according it the status of being a major player in the international system? It is another measure of the foreign policy establishment’s intense love affair with Ukraine. People who contend that Volodymyr Zelensky is a champion of democratic liberty and the second coming of Winston Churchill are capable of any fawning measure of devotion to Ukraine.

For those of us in the real world, America’s support for Ukraine is seen as both unprincipled and reckless. Fortunately, the latest proposal to give Russia’s seat on the U.N. Security Council to Ukraine likely will be greeted with the dismissive laughter it deserves, as it was immediately by knowledgeable analysts such as Eunomia’s Daniel Larison. The United States should work to repair relations with Russia, not engage in feckless, needlessly provocative posturing.

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Ted Galen Carpenter is a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute, following a 37-year career at the Cato Institute. Dr. Carpenter is the author of 13 books and more than 1,200 articles on international affairs. His newest book is Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy (2022).

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6 ways to make your labour and delivery easier (yes, it's possible)

On April 4, 2023 I wrote a substack article titled: “Pregnant women having heart attacks, strokes and dying – a dark side of Pfizer & Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccination no one is talking about – 15 cases

This is a continuation of that article, as there have been many new deaths. Recent sudden deaths of pregnant women include:

  • Sue Maroroa Jones (age 31) – died on May 11, 2023
  • Crystal Candler (age 35) – died April 27, 2023
  • Dr. Sheena Nageli (age 34) – died April 25, 2023
  • Meaghan Riley Elizabeth Seipp (age 29) – died April 21, 2023
  • Kelsey Holder (age 32) – died March 21, 2023
  • Rocio “Rose” Michelle Roberts (age 27) – died March 15, 2023
  • Alona White (age 25) – died March 13, 2023
  • Laura MacDonald Seymour (age 44) – Died Oct.30, 2022

New Zealand – International NZ Chess Champion Sue Maroroa Jones, age 32, died suddenly after giving birth to her 2nd child, on May 11, 2023, due to “post natal complications” (click here)

Narrows, VA – 35 year old Crystal Candler, who worked as a Child Care Director, died while pregnant at 35 weeks on April 27, 2023 (click here)

She suffered an unspecified “medical emergency” at 35 weeks gestation and died 5 days later on April 27, 2023. Her baby survived.

Boerne, Texas – 34 year old Dr. Sheena Nageli, a pediatric chiropractor, delivered baby Juliette on April 20, 2023 and died on April 25, 2023 (click here)

Sheena had her baby girl with a home birth on April 20, 2023. In the process of recovering from the birth, it was determined on April 24, 2023 that she was battling a localized infection “unrelated to her pregnancy”. Sadly, that infection, for inexplicable reasons, spread quickly. Despite quick medical intervention she died the following day on April 25, 2023. (click here)

Saskatchewan nurse, 29 year old Meaghan Riley Elizabeth Seipp died during delivery on April 21, 2023

This has been my most controversial Twitter post this year. I have been threatened repeatedly over it. But why?

“It couldn’t have been the vaccine”, I was repeatedly told.

This is the longest version of the story I received privately on Instagram:

“She was induced because her doc wasn’t going to be there the next week so babe wasn’t ready. Due to the storm, the surgeon couldn’t get to the hospital so an inexperienced doctor had to perform the C-section after hours of pushing since the babe’s heart rate was dropping and he was so stuck they broke his leg getting him out. They stitched her back up and noticed how pale she was so reopened her and she was internally bleeding due to missing something. Due to the storm, helicopter couldn’t come so doc was FaceTiming another and being coached through a certain stitch to stop the bleeding. She was transferred to a bigger hospital by ambulance, but, the closest one is an hour and a half away and she didn’t live long after arriving.”

There are too many questions with this story to simply say “couldn’t have been the vaccine”. Bleeding/clotting issues are central when it comes to COVID-19 vaccine complications.

Brentwood, TN – 32 year old 5th grade teacher Kelsey Holder, died suddenly on March 21, 2023 with her stillborn baby (click here)

Guatemala – Pennsylvania mother of two boys, 27 year old Rocio “Rose” Michelle Roberts died suddenly on March 15, 2023, 4 days after giving birth, from a pulmonary embolism. (click here)

Detroit, MI – 25 year old Alona White died of brain bleed 5 days after giving birth to her 2nd child on March 13, 2023 (click here)

Puyallup, WA – 44 year old mother of 5 Laura MacDonald Seymour died suddenly and unexpectedly during birth of her sixth child and first daughter on Oct. 30, 2022 (click here)

My Take…

COVID-19 mRNA vaccines were never tested for safety in pregnancy. But these vaccines were pushed on unsuspecting pregnant women en masse. To this day, Alberta Health Services continues to recommend unsafe, toxic experimental mRNA products to unsuspecting pregnant women.

COVID-19 mRNA vaccines have caused a sharp increase in miscarriages and stillbirths, as well as perinatal maternal complications including death.

Pregnant women who take COVID-19 mRNA vaccines face the same or higher risks of serious adverse events as the rest of the population: cardiac arrests, strokes, pulmonary emboli, blood clots, bleeding, infections and more.

Any unexpected death of a COVID-19 vaccinated pregnant woman, occurring in the perinatal period, must be viewed with a strong suspicion of having been caused by COVID-19 mRNA vaccination.

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

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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page.

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Whether Israel’s escalating threats of war with Iran over its nuclear program are saber-rattling or something more serious is a mystery even to the CIA, according to a portion of a top-secret intelligence report leaked on the platform Discord earlier this year. The uncertainty about the intentions of one of the U.S.’s closest allies calls into question the basis of the “ironclad” support for Israel publicly espoused by the Biden administration.

The report — which was first covered by the Israeli channel i24 News and subsequently posted by DDoSecrets, a group that publishes leaked documents — reveals an undisclosed military exercise conducted by Israel. “On 20 February, Israel conducted a large-scale air exercise,” the intelligence report, produced by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on February 23, states. The exercise, it says, was “probably to simulate a strike on Iran’s nuclear program and possibly to demonstrate Jerusalem’s resolve to act against Tehran.” There have been several joint U.S.-Israeli military exercises in recent months, including one proudly billed by the Pentagon as the largest “in history.” 

“CIA does not know Israel’s near term plans and intentions,” the report adds, speculating that “Netanyahu probably calculates Israel will need to strike Iran to deter its nuclear program and faces a declining military capability to set back Iran’s enrichment program.”

That the U.S.’s premier intelligence service indicated it had no idea how seriously to take Israel’s increasingly bombastic threats to Tehran means that, in all likelihood, neither does the White House. But despite this lack of clarity, Biden has not opposed a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran — and his national security adviser recently hinted at blessing it. 

“We have made clear to Iran that it can never be permitted to obtain a nuclear weapon,” Jake Sullivan said in a speech earlier this month, reiterating the administration’s oft-repeated line. The rhetoric reflects what military planners call “strategic ambiguity,” a policy of intentional uncertainty in order to deter an adversary — in this case, around how far the U.S. might go to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But Sullivan went a step further, adding, “As President Biden has repeatedly reaffirmed, he will take the actions that are necessary to stand by this statement, including by recognizing Israel’s freedom of action.” 

Sullivan’s statement represents the strongest signal yet that the administration would not oppose unilateral action by Israel. The rhetoric has also been echoed by other administration officials. In February, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, said that “Israel can and should do whatever they need to deal with [Iran] and we’ve got their back.” 

“In the current context this constitutes glibness,” said Paul Pillar, a retired national intelligence officer for the near east, of Sullivan’s statement. Pillar is now a senior fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Security Studies. “I believe the administration is playing with fire with this kind of rhetoric and with the joint military planning.” Last week, Axios reported that the U.S. recently proposed cooperating with Israel on joint military planning around Iran but denied they would plan to strike Iran’s nuclear program.

“Biden has dangerously shifted America’s policy on Israeli military action against Iran,” Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told The Intercept. “Previous administrations made it crystal clear to Israel – including publicly – that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program would be destabilizing, would not prevent a nuclear Iran and would likely drag the US into a war it could do well without.

“Obama’s clear opposition played a crucial role in the internal deliberations of the Israeli cabinet in 2010 and 2011 when Israel was on the verge of starting war,” Parsi pointed out. In 2009, after then-Vice President Biden said “Israel can determine for itself … what they decide to do relative to Iran,” Obama clarified that his administration was “absolutely not” giving Israel a green light to attack Iran.

Israel’s own military officials concede that an attack on Iran would likely metastasize into a broader regional war. Earlier this month, retired Israel Defense Forces Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi reportedly said that “Israel might have to deal with the Iranian nuclear program,” adding that “this will mean an Israeli attack on Iran which will probably result in a regional war.”

IN JANUARY, JUST weeks before Israel’s secret exercise referenced in the intelligence report, the U.S. and Israel conducted what the Defense Department touted as their largest joint military exercise in history. Called Juniper Oak, the exercise involved “electronic attack, suppression of enemy air defenses, strike coordination and reconnaissance,” which experts said “are exactly what the U.S. and Israel would need to conduct a successful kinetic attack on Iran’s nuclear program.” 

The unprecedented exercise was made possible by a little-noticed order by President Donald Trump just days before Biden’s inauguration. Using his authority as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Trump ordered Israel be moved from European Command’s area of responsibility, where it had been located since 1983 to avoid friction with its Middle East neighbors, to that of Central Command, the Pentagon’s Middle East combatant command. 

Under Biden, CENTCOM, whose area of responsibility includes Iran, has continued to coordinate closely with Israel. In March, Biden’s CENTCOM chief, Gen. Michael Kurilla, said in Senate testimony thatthe decision to move Israel from EUCOM to CENTCOM “immediately and profoundly altered the nature and texture of many of CENTCOM’s partnerships,” adding that “CENTCOM today readily partners with Arab militaries and the Israel Defense Force alike.”

“In fact, the inclusion of Israel presents many collaborative and constructive security opportunities,” Kurilla said. “Our partners of four decades largely see the same threats and have common cause with Israel Defense Forces and the Arab militaries in defending against Iran’s most destabilizing activities.”

Put simply, for the first time, the U.S. and both its Arab and Israeli allies are structurally aligned against a common foe: Iran.

At the same hearing, Sen. Tom Cotton, who had advocated for the relocation of Israel to CENTCOM weeks before Trump gave the order, raised the possibility of training Israeli pilots in the use of mid-air refuel aircraft. The lack of such aircraft, which allow fighter jets to travel long distances, is a key impediment to Israel’s ability to reach Iranian nuclear facilities.

“One of the opportunities I see is having Israeli Air Force personnel training alongside American personnel on KC 46 tankers, which we expect to provide them in future,” Cotton said. Kurilla, for his part, demurred, replying that training might be better “when they get closer to getting their aircraft … so they can retain that training and go right into the execution of operating them.”

THOUGH BIDEN CAMPAIGNED on reinstating the Iran nuclear deal — also called JCPOA, which Obama established and Trump pulled out of — the deal is all but dead. 

“With Iran, any concerns about a nuclear program have sometimes been overwhelmed by a desire — based on partisanship in the U.S. and heavily influenced by the government of Israel — to isolate Iran and not do any business or negotiations with it at all,” Pillar told The Intercept. “Hence you had Trump’s reneging on the JCPOA agreement in 2018, with a direct result of that reneging being that there is now far more reason to be worried about a possible Iranian nuclear weapon than there was when the JCPOA was still in effect.”

Should Iran acquire a nuclear weapon, it would likely trigger a dangerous regional arms race. Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has made clear that Riyadh would “follow suit as soon as possible” with its own atomic bomb should Tehran obtain one. 

But one key fact is often left out of discussions about Iran and the bomb: There’s no evidence that it’s actually pursuing one.

As the Pentagon’s most recent Nuclear Posture Review plainly states, “Iran does not today possess a nuclear weapon and we currently believe it is not pursuing one.” More recently, CIA Director William Burns reiterated that point in an interview with CBS in February. “To the best of our knowledge,” Burns said, “we don’t believe that the Supreme Leader in Iran has yet made a decision to resume the weaponization program that we judge that they suspended or stopped at the end of 2003.”

Iran’s policy could, of course, change. And tensions are rising in large part because of the U.S.’s recent posturing. For example, following the Juniper Oak exercise, Iran responded with its own military exercises, which Iranian military commander Maj. Gen. Gholam-Ali Rashid said they consider a “half war” and even a “war before war.”

In April, CENTCOM announced the deployment of a submarine armed with guided missiles in the Mediterranean Sea. This was likely a message directed at Iran, which quickly responded by accusing the U.S. of “warmongering.” 

Earlier, in October, CENTCOM issued an extraordinary press releasefeaturing Kurilla, the CENTCOM chief, aboard a submarine armed with ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads in the Arabian Sea — another message for Iran.

On May 9, Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder announced that the military would be increasing its patrols in the Strait of Hormuz, through which many Iranian vessels travel. In his remarks, Ryder made particular mention of the P-8 Poseidon aircraft and the role it would play in bolstering maritime surveillance of the area.

The same aircraft made international news in 2019, when Iran disclosed that it almost downed a P-8 carrying U.S. service members that it claimed had entered its airspace, opting instead to shoot down a nearby drone. The U.S. military scrambled jets to strike Iran in retaliation, only to be called off by Trump 10 minutes before the attack when a general told him that the strikes would probably kill 150 people. The strikes would not, Trump said, have been “proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.”

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 On May 24, the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies released a critical new analysis of the militarized budget in the United States, “The Warfare State: How Funding for Militarism Compromises our Welfare.”

The new report found that this past year, out of a $1.8 trillion federal discretionary budget, the U.S. spent a staggering $1.1 trillion – or 62% – of that budget on militarism and war.

Threats to cut spending for vital domestic programs have featured prominently in the debt ceiling debate in recent weeks, but spending on militarism has been almost entirely exempt from the discussion. Meanwhile, clawing back failed military, homeland security and law enforcement spending could instead fund programs and measures to address the true needs of American communities.

Read the full analysis.

Key findings: 

  •  In FY 2023, out of a $1.8 trillion federal discretionary budget, $1.1 trillion – or 62% – was for militarized programs that use violence or the threat of violence or imprisonment, including war and weapons, law enforcement and mass incarceration, and detention and deportation.
  • Less than $2 out of every $5 in federal discretionary spending was available to fund investment in people and communities, including primary and secondary public education, housing programs, child care programs, federal disaster relief, environmental programs, and scientific research.
  • The U.S. spent $16 on the military and war for every $1 that was spent on diplomacy and humanitarian foreign aid. The vast majority of militarized spending was for weapons, war and the Pentagon, at $920 billion. Only $56 billion was spent for international affairs, diplomacy, and humanitarian foreign aid.
  • The U.S. federal budget allocated twice as much for federal law enforcement ($31 billion) as for child care and early childhood education programs.
  • Federal spending on nuclear weapons ($32 billion) was four times spending on substance abuse and mental health programs ($7.5 billion), even as opioid use remains a major cause of death.
  • The U.S. spent $51.1 billion for homeland security, approximately half of which goes to ICE ($8.8 billion) and CBP ($17.4 billion), two punitive border enforcement agencies that separate families and terrorize immigrant communities.

“When we invest so heavily in militarism at home and abroad, we deprive our own communities and people of solutions to problems that pose immediate security threats,”  said co-author Lindsay Koshgarian, Program Director of the National Priorities Project. “We underfund programs to end poverty, provide affordable housing, bolster public education, and protect clean air and water at our peril. Spending on militarism takes up the majority of the federal discretionary budget, and it has grown faster than all other spending. If we keep up these patterns, we are hurtling toward a future where we can’t afford the basics of a civilized society.

“We keep hearing that our government can’t afford nice things — or necessary things — for everyone. And yet militarized spending in the US has almost doubled over the past two decades, and the military budget is now approaching its highest point since World War II,” said co-author Ashik Siddique, Research Analyst at the National Priorities Project.

“All this serves the profits of a wealthy few war profiteers, at everyone else’s expense. Meanwhile, public goods that benefit all of us are under attack. For a fraction of the cost of U.S. militarism since 2001, we could have instead ended homelessness in this country, or invested in a fully renewable national electric grid to help address the climate crisis. A better world is possible, if we build the power we need to make it happen.”

“Our leaders need to stop putting immigration on the back burner. Tens of billions of dollars is funneled into ICE and CBP every year in an effort to militarize the border, separate families, and detain and deport immigrants and people seeking asylum. People’s lives and well being are at stake here. Immigrant communities are a large makeup of the richness of culture, diversity and the economy of the U.S. and we need to invest in care-based approaches to these communities, such as in rehabilitation and resettlement services and legal pathways to residence and citizenship, instead of turning them away,” said co-author Alliyah Lusuegro, Outreach Coordinator of the National Priorities Project.

Recommendations:

  • Immediately reduce the budget for the Pentagon and nuclear weapons by $100 billion or more, and reinvest the savings in non-militarized discretionary priorities. 
  • Make any future Pentagon spending increases contingent on the Department of Defense passing an audit. 
  • Increase congressional oversight to make it harder for the U.S. to go to war.
  • Restructure the country’s immigration system to support robust legal immigration and current undocumented residents, and cut spending for structures that are built to deter immigration and deport immigrants, including Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
  • End federal support for racist and counterproductive carceral and policing practices, including the war on drugs. 

Read the full report.

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The Ukrainian intelligence service is making multiple attempts to kill Russian President Vladimir Putin. A high-ranking official admitted to actively plotting the Russian leader’s assassination after a recent drone attack on the Kremlin. 

“Putin is noticing that we are getting closer and closer to him,” Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate, told Welt in an interview. He added, Putin is number one on the kill list “because he coordinates and decides what happens.”

The Ukrainian intelligence official claimed his agency had failed to kill Putin because he “stays holed up.” Skibitsky suggested another attempt could be made soon as the Russian leader “is now beginning to stick his head out.”  

Ukrainian officials have admitted to previously attempting to kill Putin. Last year, Kyrylo Budanov, the Head of the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda claimed, “There was an attempt to assassinate Putin…[It was an] Absolutely unsuccessful attempt, but it really happened… It was about [March 2022].”

Three weeks ago, two unmanned aerial vehicles were downed over the Kremlin, where Putin keeps an office. Although, the Russian leader was not present at the complex when the attack occurred. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow considered the drones to be an assassination attempt against Putin.

Kiev has denied any involvement in the attack. However, the New York Times reported on Wednesday that American officials say the attack was orchestrated by the Ukrainian government.

In the first month of the war, then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett engaged Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in talks that nearly ended the war. The peace talks were blocked by Washington, but Putin pledged not to target Zelensky with any assassination attempts during those talks. The Kremlin appears to have upheld that agreement until the most recent attempt on Putin’s life. 

It is unclear if Moscow will continue to abide by the pledge. Zelensky has spent several weeks outside of his nation, traveling to allied countries and meeting with his counterparts. 

In response to the drone attack on the Kremlin, Dmitry Medvedev, a high-ranking Russian defense official, called for Zelensky’s “physical elimination.” A statement from Putin’s office said, “Russia reserves the right to take countermeasures wherever and whenever it deems appropriate.”

Skibitsky revealed another name on Kiev’s kill list is Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin. “We’re trying to kill him.” He added, “Our priority is to eliminate [Prigozhin] who orders his men to attack.” 

The intelligence official went on to name two more targeted high-ranking officials in Moscow. “But in the end, everyone will have to answer for their actions.” He continued, “Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu planned the attack and now they cannot turn back.”

Welt asked Skibitsky if civilians in Russia could be added to the kill list. “We are at war and these are our enemies. If an important figure manufactures and finances weapons for [Russia], then his elimination would save the lives of many civilians,” he said. “According to international conventions, this is a legitimate goal.”

The US government believes Kiev has already carried out targeted assassinations inside Russia. Last year, Darya Dugina was killed by a car bomb. It is suspected her father, Alexander Dugin was the target of the attack.

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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.

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May 25th, 2023 by Global Research News

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People’s Brains and Bodies Are Not Protected Against Attacks by Electromagnetic Waves and Neurotechnologies

By Mojmir Babacek, May 24, 2023

In 2020, the American Academy of Sciences wrote in the report on attacks of American diplomats in Cuba and China, well known as the Havana syndrome, that the most likely cause of their problems was directed pulsed radio frequency waves. It is well known that these attacks are accompanied by artificially produced acoustic hallucinations.

Kiev Used US-supplied Vehicles to Invade Russia

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The US claims that the weapons sent to Ukraine are only used within the borders of the conflict zone, but it is increasingly clear that this equipment is being used by Ukrainian forces to carry out terrorist attacks in the undisputed Russian territory.

“Severe Post COVID-19 Vaccine Syndrome”: Diagnosis Only Available in UK and Europe (Not in Canada or USA)

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently testified in front of a U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee regarding the recent rise of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and the potential for disruption to numerous industries.

In addition to OpenAI’s ChatGPT experiencing a surge in popularity, A.I. generated art and even A.I. generated photography winning prizes make it clear that the age of A.I. disruption has begun. The so-called Godfather of A.I. recently quit Google because he wanted to speak openly about the dangers posed by A.I. generated deep fakes.

In his prepared statements, Altman told the senators “the regulation of A.I. is essential.” Altman also called for what he termed “appropriate safety requirements, including internal and external testing prior to release”. He also expressed support for licensing and registration of certain A.I. systems.

Altman stopped short of calling for complete government regulation, instead stating that governance schemes must be “flexible enough to adapt to new technological developments” while balancing “incentivizing safety while ensuring that people are able to access the technology’s benefits.”

Fortune writes that “Altman’s advocacy for some rules is not surprising. Technology companies know that regulation is likely coming, and they are trying their best to shape it to their advantage”.

The argument is that Altman and other CEO’s of A.I. companies may decide licensing allows them to protect the code to their proprietary models. Also, Big A.I. may fear the rise of open source A.I. models and thus call for licensing schemes which place extra burdens on creators of open source software.

Fortune continues:

“Among the biggest competitive threats these companies face is open source A.I. software. In this rapidly moving field, no one is moving faster than the open source community. It has proved remarkably innovative and agile at matching the performance and capabilities of the proprietary models, but doing so with A.I. models that are much smaller, easier and less expensive to train, and which can be downloaded for free.”

Regardless of the reason, Altman has joined the growing chorus of A.I. advocates who are calling for regulation or licensing of A.I. The CEO’s concerns have also led to politicians and policymakers warning about the dangers of not regulating the technology. CNBC reported that during the Senate hearing on A.I. Senator Josh Hawley compared the emerging technology to the creation of the printing press and the nuclear bomb. Hawley stated that this may lead humanity to two potential futures: one which A.I. empowers humanity, or one with a “huge technological breakthrough” but “severe, terrible” consequences.

The Bilderberg Group in Portugal

Only days after testifying in front of the U.S. Senate, Sam Altman participated in the secretive Bilderberg Group meeting in Lisbon, Portugal. In the weeks and days leading up to the meeting there was not a single report from the mainstream corporate press, with only a handful of independent journalists reporting on the meeting, including Dan Dicks of Press for Truth.

Altman was joined by fellow A.I. proponents and CEO’s, including Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Deepmind’s Demis Hassabis, and former Google CEO and current chair of the Bilderberg Group Eric Schmidt.

As The Last American Vagabond reported in February 2021, the Biden Administration assigned Schmidt to head the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), or the A.I. Commission.

According to a December 2022 report from Politico, Schmidt was funding the salaries of more than 2 dozens employees in the Biden administration. Since at least March 2022 Politico has outlined how Schmidt’s fingerprints were all over the Biden administration. Schmidt’s role as the former CEO of Google, a member of the Bilderberg Group, his role in the Biden admin, and his relationship with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger are more than enough reasons to be concerned with the direction the A.I. conversation is headed.

In fact, Kissinger, a long-time adviser to U.S. Presidents, was also present at the Bilderberg group. Kissinger has been attending the Bilderberg meeting off and on since its founding in 1957. Kissinger has said that his interest in A.I. came after Schmidt persuaded him to attend a lecture on the topic while at the Bilderberg conference in 2016. The two men also co-authored a book in 2021 titled The Age of AI: And Our Human Future.

Sam Altman and fellow A.I. CEO’s were also joined by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, BP chief Bernard Looney, Børge Brende, the President of the World Economic Forum, and co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Peter Thiel. Thiel has come under attack in recent days because of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Due to the lack of transparency surrounding the Bilderberg Group, details surrounding Altman’s involvement in the meeting have not been made public. However, based on the history of the Bilderberg Group shaping important world events, and even likely granting their approval of future political leaders, one can surmise that Altman’s attendance will bode well for his career and the continued rise of OpenAI.

While Sam Altman’s attendance at Bilderberg in Portugal may have something to do with his role at OpenAI, it’s also highly likely that his latest tech project is an even more relevant reason for his appearance.

Worldcoin

Sam Altman and fellow technocrat Elon Musk have a history of collaboration at OpenAI, as well as warning about the potential dangers related to the rapid rise in use of the technology. However, despite warnings, both men continue to fund projects which have the potential to contribute to the rise of the Technocratic State, with A.I. powering biometric digital identities, digital currencies, and the Internet of Things/Bodies.

For example, one day before Altman testified to Congress, the Financial Times reported that Altman was “close to securing around $100mn in funding for his plan to use iris-scanning technology to create a secure global cryptocurrency called Worldcoin”. The Times said three people with knowledge of the deal claimed the team behind Worldcoin is in “advanced talks” to raise the funds in the “next few weeks”.

The source told the Times that the funding is coming from existing and new investors. Previously reported investors in the project includes FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and internet entrepreneur Reid Hoffman.

Altman has promoted the project as a way to prepare for the disruption A.I. is anticipated to cause to a number of industries. Worldcoin executives has stated that their work is focused on helping distinguish between humans and bots by providing a unique ID and providing a universal basic income to offset job losses caused by A.I.

Altman and team have called Worldcoin an “inclusive” global cryptocurrency that will be available to anyone who verifies their “unique personhood” with the “Orb,” a device that scans an individuals unique iris pattern.

“The Orb checks that an individual is real and is unique or has not previously signed up for Worldcoin. It does this by capturing and processing images of an individual and their unique iris pattern,” Worldcoin explains on its website.

Once a user submits to biometric iris scans they are assigned a “World ID” that allows them to receive 25 free Worldcoin tokens at launch of the token. The company claims once the unique identity is created the iris scans are deleted.

While the project is being touted as a method of softening the blow of A.I. disruption, it’s clear such a project also mimics calls for digital identity using biometrics being proposed by the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, and a growing number of international governments. Perhaps, Altman and his cohorts believe the technology will be used for good in their hands, but the relationship to the Bilderberg Group, Silicon Valley, and Elon Musk are — at the very least — a cause for concern and reflection.

One way or another, it appears a world built around digital identities and digital currencies is indeed rapidly approaching. Will it be identities controlled by governments and corporations? Or will open source, decentralized, and distributed versions of technologies like A.I. rise to the top?

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Derrick Broze, a staff writer for The Last American Vagabond, is a journalist, author, public speaker, and activist. He is the co-host of Free Thinker Radio on 90.1 Houston, as well as the founder of The Conscious Resistance Network & The Houston Free Thinkers. https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/category/derrick-broze/

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Kiev Used US-supplied Vehicles to Invade Russia

May 24th, 2023 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

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The US claims that the weapons sent to Ukraine are only used within the borders of the conflict zone, but it is increasingly clear that this equipment is being used by Ukrainian forces to carry out terrorist attacks in the undisputed Russian territory. Photos and videos shared on the internet show that US armored vehicles were used by pro-Kiev forces to attack Belgorod during recent terrorist hostilities. As expected, US officials are denying their involvement and suggesting the images are fake. Now, Washington needs to find a “justification” for the undeniable fact that its proxy regime is inappropriately and illegally using military aid provided by NATO.

The images are being published by Russian war correspondents who covered hostilities in Belgorod. It is possible to find among the equipment captured by the Russian forces several American-made weapons, including some armored vehicles such as M1151A1 Humvees and MaxxPro MRAP. The vehicles were mostly destroyed by Russian artillery or left behind by enemy soldiers as they tried to evade Russian fire.

Reacting to the case, the US authorities argued that there is not enough evidence to confirm the veracity of the photos and videos circulating on the networks. Speaking during a press conference, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller emphatically expressed his skepticism about the veracity of the images, indicating that they could be some “fake” deliberately spread by the Russians to accuse the Americans. He made it clear that an official statement by Washington will only occur after the images are analyzed and there is absolute confidence on their accuracy.

“We’ve seen some of the reports circulating on social media and elsewhere making claims that US-supplied weapons were used in these attacks (…) I will say that we’re skeptical at this time of the veracity of these reports (…) We’ve seen a lot of reports on social media and fuzzy pictures on social media and a lot of kind of armchair intelligence analysts making claims (…) We’re skeptical that they’re accurate (…) We don’t have perfect clarity on the information (…) We’re looking at the same pictures you see, the same fuzzy images, and at this time, we are skeptical of their veracity”, Matthew Miller told journalists during a press conference.

Miller’s argument is vague and weak. Confirmation on the veracity of the images can be obtained in a short time through an expert analysis, which is enough to eliminate any doubts about the case. What Miller seems to be doing is avoiding giving a verdict on the subject, postponing the final assessment to a future that may take a long time or not even happen. With this, the US avoids giving a public response about the participation of its weapons in an illegal attack against Russia.

Some other American officials, however, are already using another argument. In an interview with journalists, the Pentagon’s press secretary, Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder, stated that his country has not approved any transfer of weapons to “paramilitary groups” outside the Ukrainian armed forces.

“So we’ve seen those reports [on images], something that we obviously continue to monitor very closely. I will say that we can confirm that the U.S. government has not approved any third party transfers of equipment to paramilitary organizations outside the Ukrainian Armed Forces, nor has the Ukrainian government requested any such transfers. So again, it’s something we’ll keep a close eye on”, he said.

His words come amid the current discussion about who really carried out the attack on Belgorod. Kiev alleges that those responsible for the attack were exclusively the neo-Nazi groups ‘Freedom of Russia Legion’ and ‘Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK)’, which are militias formed by expatriate Russian-born mercenaries.

The Ukrainian government believes it has no responsibility in the case, as it was not its regular troops who operated the attack. Consequently, the American government wants to avoid any accusation of co-participation due to the use of its weapons, claiming that Washington delivers this equipment only to Kiev, not being responsible in case of use by paramilitary groups.

However, these arguments are inconsistent with reality and international law. These paramilitary groups are at the service of Kiev and directly obey the Ukrainian state, regardless of whether their legal status is one of regular troops or not. These militias are excluded from the norms of humanitarian law, but it means nothing regarding their affiliation with Ukraine, which is why Kiev must be seen as directly responsible for the Belgorod attack.

Accordingly, Kiev’s sponsors are also co-participants in the crime. If pro-Ukrainian terrorists use US weapons to attack Russian civilians in demilitarized territory it is because Washington gives such weapons to Kiev even though the US knows that there are terrorists working for that regime. So, as much as they want to deny it, the US and NATO are in fact co-authors of the attacks on Russia.

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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 Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), after several stages of negotiations has finally approved a 36-month arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) in an amount equivalent to SDR 2.242 billion (around $3 billion, or 304 percent of quota) for the Republic of Ghana.

While this Credit Facility Arrangement for Ghana is presumably necessary for the country’s economic recovery, it is also necessary to examine the governance system adopted in the country. In recent years, Ghana has found itself in a condition of economic crisis – brought about by excessive borrowing – and a resulting need for debt restructuring. As the government seeks to navigate this difficult situation by returning to the IMF, it is important to outline economic restructuring including structural governance.

As we all know that life after COVID-19 will never be the same, several reports monitored indicated that the COVID-19 which began in 2019 combined with the current Russia-Ukraine crisis have had devastating effects across the world. African countries are hit the hardest. Many west African states like Ghana, located on the Atlantic coast and a member of the regional organization Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), are equally facing serious similar economic challenges.

But analyzing the implications of Ghana soliciting the assistance from the IMF, the country is on the brink of entering a period characterized by market stability and diminished uncertainties, following the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) approval of the $3 billion deal.

Many experts have blamed political, economic and energy crisis which spiral negative sentiments and discontent on mismanagement. For example, a renowned American Professor of Economics Steve Hanke has chastised Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta for mismanaging the Ghanaian economy.

Professor Hanke who is a hard critic of Ghanaian authorities in a tweet was surprised about Ofori-Atta’s position that he’s disappointed that foreign lenders have been slow to act in supporting Ghana’s quest to get a programme from the International Monetary Fund.

“As 33 African countries suffer from record debt burden, Ghana’s Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta is disappointed that foreign lenders had been ‘slow to act’ but instead of recognising mismanagement, he is blaming creditors for Ghana’s debt burden,” Professor Hanke concluded.

As an experienced economist who has been teaching courses in economics or related subjects, I would like to suggest that Ghana takes advantage of the current economic challenges to reset interest rates to accelerate private sector growth and quicken the recovery of the economy. In this case, the private sector to lead the economic recovery process post the domestic debt exchange programme. It has further identified the opportunities in the current economic crisis which they can leverage to spur private sector growth.

The next step supports the private sector and their performances as the engine and driver for long-term growth, despite the turbulent economic situation particularly in the country and in the west African region and generally across the world.

Overall, the most critical steps now are improving the quality of governance in Ghana and that would require the government to address issues such as weak institutions, lack of accountability and ineffective public services. This would involve measures such as increasing transparency in government operations, strengthening institutions such as the judiciary, and improving public service delivery.

But one more significant question, as I have already pointed out, is to ensure good governance and confidence-building in the public institutions. It could be a positive indication that the economy needs to bounce back, and attract foreign investment in the areas of public-private collaboration.

Quite apart from that, it is an additional advantage that Ghana hosts the headquarters of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), described as a unique and valuable platform for businesses to access an integrated African market. This could be the strongest dimension to build intra-trade and cooperation with neighbors in West Africa.

With economic growth and sustainability concerns, it is highly suggested that Ghana reviews its imports, attempt to focus more on import substitution policies and the areas it has natural comparative advantages. It refers to the implementation of policies and measures that aim to address a country’s food security and self-sufficiency. It helps to cut import expenditure and redirect finances to supporting domestic food production. It reduces budget deficits and addresses financial imbalances leading to the improvement of economic sustainability.

One way to achieve this is through the implementation of policies and measures that reduce government spending and wastes. This could involve a combination of measures such as rationalizing government programmes, reducing subsidies and cutting non-essential expenditures. The goal is to create a leaner, more efficient government that is better able to manage its finances. This could involve strengthening budgetary controls, improving public financial management systems, and enhancing the transparency and accountability of government finances. By doing so, Ghana can ensure that public funds are used efficiently and effectively – and that the country’s fiscal position is sustainable over the long-term.

As the IMF reported, the authorities’ economic programme, supported by the ECF-arrangement, builds on the government’s Post COVID-19 Programme for Economic Growth (PC-PEG), which aims to restore macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability and includes wide-ranging reforms to build resilience and lay the foundation for stronger and more inclusive growth.

Securing timely debt restructuring agreements with external creditors will be essential for the successful implementation of the new Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement. The Executive Board’s decision will enable an immediate disbursement to Ghana equivalent to SDR 451.4 million (about $600 million). The authorities have taken bold steps to tackle these deep challenges, including by accelerating fiscal adjustment, revenue administration and public financial management, as well as steps to address weaknesses in the energy and cocoa sectors.

However, it is focused on restoring macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability as well as implementing wide-ranging reforms to build resilience and lay the foundation for stronger and more inclusive growth. Ms. Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director, explicitly said in her message that “An ambitious structural reform agenda is being put in place to reinvigorate private sector-led growth by improving the business environment, governance, and productivity.”

Ghana has an economic plan known as the “Ghana Vision 2020”. This plan envisions as the first to become a developed African country between 2020 and 2029 and a newly industrialized country between 2030 and 2039. In 2019, it was the seventh largest producer of gold in the world. It is a leading producer and exporter of cocoa to Europe. The Republic of Ghana with a population of over 32 million is located on the coast of West Africa.

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Professor Maurice Okoli is a fellow at the Institute for African Studies and Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is also a fellow at the North-Eastern Federal University, Russia.

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*** 

The Biden administration has signed off on both F-16s for Ukraine and attacks on Crimea using US-made weapons. Both of these moves have drawn dire warnings from nuclear-armed Russia, and both would have been unthinkable a year ago.

In a Sunday interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper from the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan made it clear that Washington would approve of US weapons being used in an offensive to recapture Crimea, a horrifying prospect that many experts have agreed is the most likely scenario to lead to nuclear warfare in this conflict. Sullivan told Tapper that while the US has forbidden the use of American weapons to attack Russia, the US considers Crimea to be part of Ukraine, not Russia.

Here’s CNN’s transcript of the exchange:

TAPPER: In February on this show, you would not say whether the U.S. would support Ukrainian efforts to recapture Crimea. That’s one of the concerns that has been expressed about whether or not the Ukrainians are given the ability to hit Russian targets in Crimea. Do you think that Crimea is part of Ukraine?

SULLIVAN: Of course.

TAPPER: So, what would be the objection of giving…

SULLIVAN: Crimea is Ukraine.

TAPPER: Right.

SULLIVAN: I mean, that’s a very straightforward thing.

TAPPER: Well, yes you answered it directly. I mean, Russia doesn’t think so, obviously. But do you think that Ukraine should have weapons that can reach Russian targets in Crimea?

SULLIVAN: Yes. We have not placed limitations on Ukraine being able to strike on its territory within its internationally recognized borders. What we have said is that we will not enable Ukraine with U.S. systems, Western systems, to attack Russia. And we believe Crimea is Ukraine.

TAPPER: OK.

Moscow has considered Crimea a part of the Russian Federation since its annexation in 2014, meaning efforts to recapture it would — at least in theory — be treated the same as an invasion of any other part of Russia. It was only by way of an arbitrary bureaucratic fluke that Crimea wound up a part of Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union, and Crimeans overwhelmingly prefer to be a part of the Russian Federation. That we may soon be staring down the barrel of a nuclear third world war over something so pedantic is a very dark shade of absurd.

In the same interview, Tapper questioned Sullivan about the Biden administration’s policy shift toward approving F-16 fighter jets to be sent to Ukraine, demanding to know why the war planes weren’t approved sooner.

“President Biden told the G7 leaders that the United States is going to support this joint effort to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets,” said Tapper. “As you know, just a few months ago, the president said there was no basis militarily for giving Ukraine jets and that Ukraine didn’t need them at all. What changed? And would these jets not have been more effective if Ukraine had been trained and had them in time for the upcoming counteroffensive?”

It’s so obnoxious how the only time you ever see these mass media propagandists challenging the US government on its warmongering is when they’re pushing it to be more warlike and demanding answers on why it isn’t warmongering more. This creates the illusion of brave adversarial journalism, when in reality these empire cronies are just manufacturing consent for the increased aggressions the US wants to wage anyway. 

These escalations have drawn stern warnings from Moscow, which have just been casually hand-waved away by Biden like he’s rejecting jello for dessert. In an article titled “Russia Says West Providing F-16s to Ukraine a ‘Colossal Risk’”, Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp writes the following:

A Russian official said Saturday that the Western plans to provide Ukraine with American-made F-16 fighter jets bring “colossal risks” after the US announced it would sign off on European countries delivering the aircraft.

“We see that Western countries are still adhering to the escalation scenario. It involves colossal risks for themselves,” said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko, according to TASS.

“In any case, this will be taken into account in all our plans, and we have all the necessary means to achieve the goals we have set,” Grushko added.

During the last day of the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan, President Biden was asked about Russia calling the F-16 plan a “colossal risk.” He replied, “It is for them.”

As Tapper noted, both the F-16 decision and the Crimea decision marked a sharp policy shift by the Biden administration in just a few months. This proxy war just keeps escalating and escalating, with aggressions once deemed unthinkable due to their likelihood of sparking a nuclear exchange now becoming commonplace. Every time a new once-unthinkable escalation is enacted, the hawks are already pushing for the next one.

As we’ve discussed previously, this pattern of continually escalating nuclear brinkmanship in Ukraine has built-in incentives for Russia to ramp up its own aggressions against NATO itself. Every time the west ramps up its brinkmanship and crosses another once-taboo line in the sand without Moscow responding with direct military confrontation, the west takes this as a sign that it can ramp up the escalations again. This has put things on a trajectory toward more and more direct western-backed attacks on the Russian Federation unless Russia lashes out at NATO powers in some way to show them it’s not worth it. Which would be about as dangerous an occurrence as you could possibly imagine.

It is not okay for our rulers to play games with our lives like this. It is not okay for them to keep rolling the dice on nuclear escalation more and more often in the name of securing US unipolar hegemony. These people are making it abundantly clear that sanity and level-headedness are not in the driver’s seat here. Everyone on earth should be shouting a loud, unequivocal “no” to this at the top of their lungs.

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Argentina – Efervescencia de yuanes

May 24th, 2023 by Néstor Restivo

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*** 

Lotifi Hassan Misto was going about his business herding sheep in Syria’s Idlib province May 18 when a US drone strike blew him to smithereens.

Pentagon officials immediately trumpeted ‘We murdered an al-Qaeda leader bent on terrorizing the homeland’. That could well have been a recorded response that has been played hundreds, maybe thousands of times since the War of Terror began 22 years ago this September.

But the Pentagon fable quickly fell apart when family members came forward to defend Misto and were backed up by terrorism experts. They told the Washington Post Misto was likely not affiliated with al-Qaeda.

A Pentagon official offered an ‘oops’ stating “We are no longer confident we killed a senior AQ official. But another official claimed the person they killed was al-Qaeda without offering an iota of evidence. “Though we believe the strike did not kill the original target, we believe the person to be al-Qaeda.” With that the Pentagon has gone silent, refusing to release any details of the sheepherder killing attack.

That’s what we get folks for our trillion dollar annual military and intelligence budget. Murder and mayhem around the world. And less sheepherders to threaten the Homeland.

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*** 

Burgess Hill, UK – Roz McGinty is one of the most athletic women in the world. She is also a nurse and she is COVID-19 mRNA vaccine injured.

Roz McGinty’s athletics resume is stunning: (click here)

  • 12 time Ironwoman 
  • World Long Course Triathlon Championships
  • Has reached 7 podiums & 2 wins in 19 triathlons (click here)
  • Innumerable Triathlon and Diathlon races spanning 22 years
  • World & European Long Course Kona 22 VI Guide
  • Nurse

Roz McGinty suffered serious COVID-19 vaccine injuries after her 2nd dose:

My Take on Roz McGinty…

Roz McGinty is one of the most athletic people in the world. She truly believed in the COVID-19 vaccine and after her 2nd dose, she was severely injured and has been injured for 2 years and 2 months.

It is extremely rare to see a top athlete diagnosed with “severe post COVID-19 vaccine syndrome” as Roz McGinty was.

The vast majority of people never get a diagnosis of any kind that they can work with.

Such a diagnosis would never be made in Canada, where the very existence of COVID-19 vaccine injuries is denied. I have seen this kind of diagnosis made in several countries in Europe.

Roz was COVID-19 vaccine injured starting March 25, 2021. She has cardiac injury (could be myocarditis, she doesn’t go into detail), several neurological injuries (tinnitus, tremor, skin numbness), and some autoimmune injuries (joint and muscle pain).

Roz talks about excruciating pain, struggling to work, “drugs I’ve had to take”, “fear for my life”.

She has clearly been through a lot and has put in a great amount of work to stay on top athletically. She doesn’t tell us what treatments she has taken to deal with her COVID-19 vaccine injuries.

Germany – 11 year old boy Nabil Maytan diagnosed with “Severe Post COVID-19 Vaccine Syndrome” (click here)

“Nabil has been sick and has not been able to attend school since November 2021. Instead of playing with friends, instead of playing sports and piano, instead of going for outings with his family Nabil is confined to a wheelchair and needs help with everything from using the restroom to getting dressed. He can’t move his legs, he can’t talk, he can’t sit up. He is extremely sensitive to sound which makes even going outside painful.

After over a year of doctors getting his diagnosis wrong, with treatments that made him worse doctors finally tested him for and diagnosed him with a severe case of post-vac syndrome. Nabil’s neurological symptoms developed soon after he had the covid vaccine. The medical community is still trying to figure out what helps and what doesn’t help with post-vac since it is so new. Also, each case can be very different with its own subset of diseases and symptoms. Right now, the agreed approach seems to be ‘trial and error’, trying various therapies and medications to see what works.

I should be clear and say that I’m not ‘anti-vax’. I know the vaccines have done a lot of good. I just want my boy to walk and talk again and live a normal 11-year-old life. I also want to say that like most other vaccine-injured people, we have registered this injury with our government.”

My Take…

I believe a diagnosis such as “post COVID-19 vaccine syndrome” is very important for victims of vaccine injuries, not only for the peace of mind that a firm diagnosis brings, but also in that it gives the victims something to work with.

We need more “Post COVID-19 Vaccine Syndrome” diagnoses to be made, but for that to happen, doctors in Canada and the US must find their courage and ethics again.

For now, COVID-19 vaccine victims are on their own.

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

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page.

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*** 

A neo-Nazi militia launched a cross-border raid from Ukraine into Russia’s Belgorod region on Monday using US armored vehicles, Financial Times reported Tuesday.

Denis Nikitin, leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps, said his fighters who attacked Belgorod were in possession of US armored vehicles, including at least two M1224 MaxxPro armored vehicles, known as MRAPs, and several Humvees. Videos and pictures posted by Russia’s military corroborated Nikitin’s claims.

Nikitin is a well-known extremist who has ties to neo-Nazis across the world and has his own white nationalist clothing line. According to Financial Times, the Russian Volunteer Corps “includes self-avowed neo-Nazis.”

The group was formed in 2022 and is said to be comprised of Russian citizens who have volunteered to fight for Kyiv. Some of its members signed up to fight in the Donbas war back in 2014 and are Azov Battalion veterans.

Nikitin would not say how his fighters acquired the US-made armored vehicles. Ukrainian intelligence officials have acknowledged that they cooperate with the Russian Volunteer Corps and another group that launched the assault, the Freedom of Russia Legion.

“Of course, we communicate with them. Of course, we share some information,” Andriy Chernyak, a Ukrainian military intelligence official, told Financial Times. “And, one might say, we even cooperate.”

Chernyak denied supplying the Russian volunteers with equipment and claimed that they launched the operation on their own. However, The Times of London reported that Discord leaks show Ukraine had been planning attacks on Russian territory using Russian volunteer groups for some time. One document said the Russian citizens fighting for Ukraine are armed with “various qualitative types of NATO weapons.”

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller was asked about the news of US weapons being used in attacks on Belgorod and said he was “skeptical” of the reports. He insisted the US does not “encourage or enable strikes inside of Russia” but said it’s “up to Ukraine to decide how to conduct this war.”

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Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.

Featured image: International MaxxPro Category 1 MRAP (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

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*** 

The Times of Israel has deleted a column calling for the obliteration of Palestine on the same day extremist nationalists marched through occupied East Jerusalem chanting “death to Arabs”. 

“Palestine must be obliterated,” the now deleted column read, “in order to make peace”. 

Jeffrey Camras, the author of the piece, is an American writer who reportedly lives in Chicago.

While telling Palestinians to give up their idea of homeland – saying that “if you want rights, you have to give up your nationhood” – he even offered Palestinians descended from Jewish residents of historic Palestine, and willing to reject their Palestinian identity the opportunity, for “their return to our civilisation”. 

“Shame on the Times of Israel for publishing such a venomous article,” tweeted Jamal Dajani. 

In 2014, when Israel was pounding Gaza and killing scores of civilians, Yochanan Gordon from The Times of Israel asked readers “what other way then is there to deal with an enemy of this nature other than obliterate them completely?”

Then, as now, The Times of Israel’s article was published and then quickly deleted after a furious backlash from Palestinians. 

The rejection of Palestinian identity is common among many in Israeli society, particularly the hard-right who are now in power in Israel. 

Extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich earlier this year declared there are “no Palestinian people”.

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Britain might have fallen out of love with Boris Johnson. But Ukraine’s allies in the U.S. reckon the charismatic ex-prime minister is still the perfect messenger to shore up support for the war in wavering Republican heartlands.

Pro-Ukraine think tankers on Monday brought Johnson to a private lunch in Dallas, Texas, to meet two dozen of the state’s leading conservative figures, including politicians, donors and captains of industry.

The message Johnson was there to deliver was simple: America must stay the course in Ukraine.

“I just urge you all to stick with it,” Johnson told those seated in the grand, wood-panelled dining room in downtown Dallas, where POLITICO was also in attendance. “It will pay off massively in the long run.”

The former U.K. prime minister flew to Texas as a growing number of conservative lawmakers, candidates and activists have started to question the size of the U.S. support package for Ukraine as it attempts to fight back against the invasion launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin in February 2022.

Political tensions over the war are expected to rise further as the 2024 U.S. election draws nearer.

The two most high-profile potential candidates for the Republican nomination — former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — have both voiced skepticism about America’s unwavering support for Ukraine. Trump has pledged to cut a “deal” to “end that war in one day,” while DeSantis dismissed it as a “territorial dispute” which does not involve America’s “vital national interests” — though later partially backtracked.

Click here to read the full article on Politico.

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Featured image: Creator: syllogi Admin / No10 Downing Str

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On Friday, members of the Arab League welcomed the Syrian regime back to the organization. Representatives from several Arab member states shook Syrian leader Assad’s hand and gave him, a “warm” reception according to several news outlets. Syria was suspended from the league in 2011, but on May 7 in Cairo the league agreed to reinstate the Assad regime. 

This represents a reversal from years of isolation placed on the regime, and a break with US policy which remains staunchly opposed to Assad. Indeed, the League’s rapprochement with Assad should be seen as a repudiation of US policy, and especially as a sign of how Washington’s influence among Leage members—the most powerful of which are Saudi Arabia and Egypt—has waned.

Moreover, this is just the latest bad news for Washington’s influence in the region coming mere weeks after Iran and Saudi Arabia reestablished diplomatic relations.

In both cases, we find regimes that Washington had sought to isolate and sanction, but both states have instead been expanding their relations with other states in the region with the help of China. Meanwhile, both Beijing and Riyadh have increased their ties with Russia. These development help illustrate how growing US attempt to impose—or threaten to impose—hard line sanctions against a growing number of regimes has only accelerated a global movement away from the US dollar and away from Washington’s orbit. 

Saudi Arabia Increasing Ties with Iran and Syria

In March of this year, Saudi Arabia and Iran announced a resumption of relations following a deal brokered by China. The Saudi regime—a longtime Washington ally—had apparently not told the Biden administration of the meetings with Iran and China. Shortly after the agreement was announced, the administration dispatched CIA Director William Burns to Saudi Arabia where he reportedly “expressed frustration with the Saudis,” telling “Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that the U.S. has felt blindsided by Riyadh’s rapprochement with Iran and Syria.”

Although the White House now claims to be supportive of the new agreement between Riyadh and Tehran, this support is really just an admission that there’s not much Washington can do about it. After all, for decades, US policy has been to isolate Tehran and in recent years, Washington has imposed harsh sanctions, including Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure campaign” designed to cripple Iran even more. The Biden administration took no significant steps to reverse the Trump position. The Saudi regime’s newfound openness to Iran is thus contrary to US policy, and it is not plausible that Washington is in any way pleased with the change. 

From Washington’s perspective, the situation got even worse this month when the Arab League readmitted Syria, also apparently without consulting Washington. Since 2011, the US has imposed draconian sanctions on Syrian in a manner similar to Iran. Syria’s newfound reintegration into the Arab League is thus also contrary to the US’s ongoing efforts to isolate the Assad regime which the US has repeatedly claimed must by subjected to “regime change.” 

Growing Ties with Russia

New overtures by the Saudis toward both Syria and Iran also run afoul of Washington because both Iran and Syria are important allies of Moscow. With the US now inflicting harsh sanctions on the Russian regime, anything that helps Damascus and Tehran has the potential to help Moscow as well. 

Both the Saudis and the Chinese have shown growing efforts to forge ties directly with the Russian regime as well. At a Chinese-Russian summit in February 2022, both regimes stated they plan to forge even closer ties. This has apparently not changed even after a year of heightened hostilities from the US and NATO aimed at Moscow. In fact, it is likely that Russia-China relations are closer than they’ve ever been in the post-Soviet era. This has clearly been a problem for Washington as China continues to provide an important market for Russian exports in the face of US sanctions. Both states have also made efforts to move away from the US dollar and settle international trade in other currencies. 

This might all be dismissed as the scheming of foreign powers that were never reliable “partners” or allies of the US in the first place. But Saudi Arabia is another matter, and the Saudis are apparently willing to play nice with the Russians, Chinese, and other members of the latest supposed “Axis of Evil.” 

The Saudi regime has grown closer to Moscow in the wake of US sanctions against Russia. For example, “Saudi Arabia and the UAE, traditional Middle Eastern allies of the United States, are not shying away from importing, storing, trading, or re-exporting Russian fuels despite American efforts to persuade them to join a crackdown on Russian attempts to evade the Western sanctions on its oil.”

In other words, US efforts to get the Arab world to isolate Russia are failing, and Russian ties with the Middle East are actually improving

This can be seen in the fact that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)—which is dominated by its largest producer, Saudi Arabia—has shown no interest in helping the US in its sanctions war against Russia. Instead, OPEC has cut production levels to raise oil prices, which benefits Moscow. The US has opposed these cuts, and now some anti-Russia factions in the US are exploring ways to punish OPEC for its lack of enthusiasm in cooperating with US efforts against Russia. 

At this point, a trend has clearly emerged: as the US further attempts to tighten its geopolitical grip on the global economy through economic sanctions, fewer and fewer states worldwide appear interested in playing along. 

Indeed, the spread of US sanctions provides good reason for other regimes to increase efforts to forge close ties with other regimes as insurance against becoming the victims of US policy. After all, the US has been quite free and easy with threatening “uncooperative” countries with so-called secondary sanctions as a punishment for doing business with states like Syria and Russia. The US has been explicit in this and in February, as CNN reported at the time, “the United States is ramping up efforts to choke off Russia’s economy and it has set its sight on the Middle East. . . . A top US Treasury official arrived in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Monday to warn the regional business hub that helping Moscow evade sanctions wouldn’t be without consequences.” China had already been “warned” in a similar fashion. 

Yet, it appears that the US’s ongoing sanctions war against a growing percentage of the world population is having the opposite of its intended effect. The US threatens to sanction Saudi Arabia and China, and in return, both countries become even more willing to seek cooperation with some of the regimes Washington has attacked the most.

While Washington pursued a divide-and-conquer strategy throughout the Middle East, Beijing brokers deals to increase regional stability. While the US ratchets up efforts to isolate its many enemies, the Chinese, the Saudis, the Arab League, and OPEC all shrug and look to increasing international communication and trade. The Washington foreign policy establishment shows few signs that it is even noticing. The US regimes foreign policy “tool box” continues to be centered on sanctions, violence, and making demands on both its allies and its professed enemies. The rest of the world is moving on, however, and Washington may be among the last to accept the new reality.

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Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is executive editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and Power and Market, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in public policy and international relations from the University of Colorado. He was a housing economist for the State of Colorado. He is the author of Breaking Away: The Case of Secession, Radical Decentralization, and Smaller Polities and Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

The EU Is Over-Invested in the Ukrainian War-Project

May 24th, 2023 by Alastair Crooke

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The European Union, by any standards, is over-invested in the Ukrainian war-project – and in its romance with Zelensky too. Just earlier this year, the western (and EU) narrative was that the coming post-Winter offensive by Ukraine would ‘break’ Russia and render a ‘coup de grace’ to the war. MSM headlines spun a regular tale of Russia on its last legs. Now, however, the Establishment messaging has done a 180°. Russia is not ‘on its last legs’ …

Two very Establishment Anglo-American media in the UK (in which U.S. Establishment messages often surface) finally – and bitterly – have admitted: ‘Sanctions on Russia failed’. The Telegraph laments: They “are a joke”; “Russia was meant to have collapsed by now”.

Belatedly too, the realisation also is dawning across Europe that Ukraine’s offensives will not prove decisive, as had been expected only weeks earlier.

Foreign Affairs, in an article by Kofman and Lee, argues that, given an inconclusive Ukrainian offensive, the only way to move forward – without sustaining an historically humiliating loss – is to ‘kick the can down the road’ and focus on building a pro-war coalition for the future, one that can hope to match Russia’s long term military-economic sustainment potential.

“Kofman-Lee slowly build the case for why any sort of dramatic or decisive success should not be expected, and why instead the narrative needs to shift towards building long term sustainment infrastructure for Ukraine to be able to fight what is now likely to be a very long, drawn out conflict”, independent commentator Simplicus notes.

Put simply, European leaders have dug themselves into a deep hole. European states, by emptying what remained in their armouries of old weapons for Kiev, had grimly hoped that the coming Spring/Summer offensive would settle everything, and they would not have to deal with the problem – the Ukraine war – anymore. Wrong again: They are being invited to ‘dig-in deeper’.

Kofman-Lee do not address the question of whether the avoidance of humiliation (NATO and U.S.) is worth a ‘long drawn out conflict’. The U.S. ‘survived’ their Kabul withdrawal.

Yet, European leaders do not appear to see that the next few months in Ukraine are a key inflection point; Should the EU not firmly refuse ‘mission creep’ now, a slew of adverse economic consequences will ensue. Ukraine is not a stand-alone foreign policy issue, but rather the pivot around which Europe’s economic prospects will rotate.

Zelensky’s F-16 blitz through Europe last week is indicative that, whilst some European leaders want Zelensky to end the war,he – conversely – wants (literally) to take the war to Russia (and likely all of Europe).

“So far”, Seymour Hersh has reported, “[a U.S. official says], “Zelensky has rejected advice [to end the war]; and ignored offers of large sums of money to ease his retreat to an estate he owns in Italy. There is no support in the Biden Administration for any settlement that involves Zelensky’s departure, and the leadership in France and England “are too beholden” to Biden to contemplate such a scenario”.

“And Zelensky wants yet more”, the official said. “Zelensky is telling us that if you want to win the war you’ve got to give me more money and more stuff: “I’ve got to pay off the generals”. He’s telling us, the official says, if he is forced out of office, “he’s going to the highest bidder. He’d rather go to Italy than stay and possibly get killed by his own people”.

European leaders are coincidentally being given – by Kofman-Lee – a message echoing that of Zelensky: Europe must address Ukraine’s long-term sustainment needs by re-configuring its industry to produce the weapons necessary to support the war effort – well beyond 2023 (to match Russia’s formidable logistics weapons manufacturing capacity), and to avoid pinning their hopes on any single offensive effort.

The war is now, in this way, being projected as a binary choice: ‘End the war’ versus ‘Win the war’. Europe is tergiversating –standing at the cross-roads; hesitantly starting down one road, only to reverse, and indecisively take a few cautious steps down the other. The EU will both train Ukrainians to fly F-16s; and yet is coy about providing the planes. It smacks of tokenism; but tokenism is often the father to mission-creep.

Having thrown in their lot with the Biden Administration, an unreflective EU leadership eagerly embraced financial war on Russia. It unreflectively embraced too, a NATO war on Russia. Now European leaders may find themselves pressed to embrace a supply-line race to match ‘logistics’ with Russia. That is, Brussels is being urged to re-commit to ‘winning the war’, rather than ‘ending it’ (as a number of states want).

These latter EU States now are becoming desperate for a way out of the hole they dug into. What if the U.S. were to cut Ukraine’s funding? What if Team Biden pivots rapidly to China? Politico is running a headline: The End of Ukraine Aid is rapidly Approaching. Reupping it Won’t be Easy. The EU could be stuck with financing a ‘forever conflict’ and the nightmare of a further refugee flood – draining EU resources and exacerbating the immigration crisis already roiling EU electorates.

Member States seem still to be wishfully thinking again, half-believing the tales of divisions in Moscow; believing the Prigozhin ‘mind-omelettes’; believing the Russian slow-cooking of Bakhmut to be a sign of force exhaustion, rather than a part to the patient Russian incremental degradation of Ukrainian capabilities that has been under way, across the spectrum.

These war-sceptic States, doing their token share of ‘pro-Ukrainism’ to avoid being castigated by the Brussels nomenclature,gamble on the improbable notion that Russia will accede to some negotiated settlement – and more than that, to a deal that is favourable to Ukraine. Why would they believe that?

“Europe’s problem,” Seymour Hersh’s source says, in terms of getting a quick settlement to the war, “is that the White House wants Zelensky to survive”; and ‘yes’, Zelensky has his cadre of Brussels’ fanciers, too.

The Foreign Affairs pair predict that an armaments race would be – again – well, ‘slam dunk’:

“Russia does not seem well positioned for a forever war. Russia’s ability to repair and restore equipment from storage appears so constrained that the country is increasingly reliant on Soviet gear from the 1950s and 1960s to fill out mobilized regiments. As Ukraine acquires better Western equipment, the Russian military has increasingly come to resemble an early Cold War–period museum”.

Really? Do these U.S. journalists ever cross-check or fact-check? It seems not. More tanks were produced in Russia in the first quarter of 2023 than in the whole of 2022. Extrapolating, Russia had previously manufactured upwards of 150-250 tanks per year, with Medvedev promising to upscale this to 1600+. Though this number includes refurbished and upgraded tanks (which actually make up the bulk), it is still indicative of vast industrial outputs.

The EU does not discuss these crucial decisions affecting Europe’s role in the war in public. All sensitive matters are debated behind closed-doors in the EU. The problem with this democracy deficit is that the sequalae to these Russia-related issues touch almost every aspect of European economic and social life. Many questions are posed; little or no discussion follows.

Where and what are Europe’s ‘red lines’? Do EU leaders really ‘believe’ in providing Zelensky with the F-16s he seeks? Or are they betting on Washington’s own ‘red lines’ – letting them off the hook? Asked on Monday whether the U.S. had changed its position on supplying F16s to Ukraine, the White House National Security Council spokesperson, John Kirby, said: “No”. This F-16 issue is no game-changer; however it can become the thin edge to ‘forever war’. It could also be the thin edge to WW3.

Will the EU end support for the Ukraine project militarily (in line with U.S. earlier warnings to Zelensky), as the Ukrainian offensive peters out – absent any gains?

What will be the EU response, if invited by the U.S. to enter a munitions supply-line race against Russia? Just to be clear: restructuring the European infrastructure to a war-orientated economy carries huge consequences (and costs).

Existing competitive infrastructure would have to be re-purposed away from manufactures for export, to weapons. Is there the skilled manpower today to staff this? Building new weapons supply-lines is a slow complicated technical process. And this would be in addition to Europe swapping efficient energy infrastructure for new Green structures that are less efficient, less reliable, and more expensive.

Is there a way out from the ‘hole’ the EU has dug for itself?

Yes – it is called ‘honesty’. If the EU wants a quick end to the war, it should understand that there are two options available: Ukrainian capitulation and an agreement on Moscow’s terms; or the continuation of full-spectrum attrition of Ukraine’s capacity to wage war, until its forces are overtaken by entropy.

Honesty would require the EU to ditch the delusional stance that Moscow will negotiate a settlement on Zelensky’s terms. There will be no solution by following that latter path.

And honesty would require the EU to admit that joining the financial war on Russia was a mistake. One that should be corrected.

*

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Is This Why Pediatricians Push Vaccines?

May 24th, 2023 by Dr. Joseph Mercola

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Primary care providers across the U.S. were bribed with incentive programs to coerce patients into getting the toxic COVID shot. Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield paid doctors $50 for each Medicaid patient aged 6 months and older, who got the experimental jab

Doctors have been financially incentivized to vaccinate children for a long time. In 2016, Blue Cross Blue Shield paid pediatricians a $400 bonus for each patient that completed 10 vaccinations before their second birthday, provided 63% of their patients were fully vaccinated

“Client and family incentives” also exist. In 2015, the Community Preventive Services Task Force recommended boosting vaccination rates by giving small, inexpensive incentive rewards to patients

Bribery is also par for the course when it comes to vaccine mandates. Pfizer paid undisclosed sums to front groups that advocated for COVID jab mandates, thereby hiding their conflict of interest

While the COVID-19 pandemic furthered many globalist goals, it inadvertently tanked childhood vaccination rates. To get childhood vaccination rates back on track, a global alliance has launched “The Big Catch-Up” initiative. It’s touted as the largest childhood immunization effort ever

*

In April 2023, I reported how primary care providers across the U.S. were bribed with incentive programs to coerce patients into getting the toxic COVID shot. Since there was no medical malpractice liability, doctors profited while patients risked their lives as participants in an unprecedented medical experiment, all while being lied to about the safety and effectiveness of these injections.

Even more egregiously, once the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the COVID shot for children, similar vaccination incentives were extended to pediatricians as well. As detailed in an Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Medicaid provider bulletin1 dated July 2022, doctors received $50 for each Medicaid patient aged 6 months and older, who got the experimental jab.

Pediatricians Are Financially Incentivized to Vaccinate

As it turns out, doctors have been financially incentivized to vaccinate children for a long time. According to a 1999 JAMA Pediatrics article,2 the average patient load of American pediatricians is 1,546, although the number of patients was “significantly higher in less populated areas and solo practices.”

Of these, 8.3% were younger than 1 year, 9.5% were 1 year old and 8.6% were 2 years old.3 That means approximately 26.4% of the average pediatrician’s patients were 2 years old and younger. More recent data,4 published in 2021, show 75% of pediatricians have between 1,000 and 1,800 patients and 21% have around 1,200 patients; most practices, 65%, are in the 1,000 to 1,500 range. 

As shown in the 2016 provider incentive program document from Blue Cross Blue Shield below,5,6pediatricians were getting $400 for each pediatric patient that completed all the 10 vaccinations listed — 25 doses in all7 — before their second birthday. (Keep in mind that incentives can vary by state. The example provided is part of Michigan’s Blue Cross Blue Shield Performance Recognition Program.)8

How Much Money Is at Stake?

The math from there is pretty straight-forward (although keep in mind that we’re dealing with presumed averages and aged statistics here). Just multiply the number of patients under age 2 times $400. Using the average statistics from 1999, if a pediatrician has 1,000 patients, 264 can be expected to be 2 years old or younger. If all are fully vaccinated, the pediatrician would be eligible for a $105,600 year-end bonus.

childhood immunization - combo 10

While $400 per fully vaccinated child might seem incentivizing enough, there’s an added pressure here, because Blue Cross Blue Shield also has (or at least had, in 2016) a “target” level of 63%.

This means that if the pediatrician fails to vaccinate 63% of his eligible patients, he or she gets nothing. So, the pediatrician has a VERY high incentive to get as many toddlers fully vaccinated as possible, so as not to miss that target. It’s not just $400 that is at stake when parents decline one or more shots. Tens of thousands of dollars could be on the line. As noted by Dr. Bob Sears:9

“Such incentives … end up forcing a doctor to consider the financial implications of accepting patients who even just want to opt out of one vaccine … Maybe a few such families wouldn’t make them fail the chart reviews, but if they have too many, there goes their year-end bonus.”

Why Pediatricians Become Adversaries

Anytime financial incentives are part of the equation, one can reasonably assume that the lure of self-enrichment will win. With tens of thousands of dollars at stake, pediatricians can easily be lulled into complacency when it comes to digging deeper into the science.

After all, who wants to see evidence that what they’re doing is causing more harm than good? These kinds of incentives also encourage pediatricians to simply toss questioning parents out of their practice, to make room for more compliant patients that don’t put their income at risk. As reported by Children’s Health Defense back in 2018:10

“… the 11 well-child visits recommended by the AAP over a child’s first 30 months (with annual visits thereafter through age 21) ensure a steady stream of repeat customers and revenue for pediatricians.

In accordance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine schedule, pediatric practices are expected to administer vaccines (often as many as six at a time) at about half of well-child visits through the adolescent years, making vaccination a foundational bread-and-butter component of pediatricians’ job description …

It is quite common for pediatricians (and family doctors) to encounter parents who refuse one or more infant vaccines, most often due to safety concerns. These concerns also mean that pediatricians frequently get requests to modify or delay the vaccine schedule — nearly three-fifths (58%) of pediatricians reported such requests in a 2014 AAP survey …

Rather than recognize the validity of parents’ safety concerns or admit to their own ambivalence about some of the newer vaccines, many pediatricians — nearly two in five according to some estimates — choose to boot uncooperative families out of their practice …

Ultimately … subtle and not-so-subtle financial incentives and social pressures are likely to maintain widespread adherence by pediatricians to the vaccine schedule — even in instances where contraindications are present.

Although pediatricians have a legal duty to fully inform patients about vaccine risks and side effects, the lure of monetary perks and the desire to fit in may lessen their motivation to do so.”

Patients Are Bribed Too

In addition to the financial incentives given to physicians, “client and family incentives” also exist. A nongovernmental panel of public health and prevention experts called the “Community Preventive Services Task Force”11 in 2015 published a guide12 on how to boost vaccination rates using incentive rewards for patients.

The task force was established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 1996 “to develop guidance on which community-based health promotion and disease prevention intervention approaches work and which do not work, based on available scientific evidence.”13 As explained by this task force:14

“The Community Preventive Services Task Force recommends client or family incentive rewards, used alone or in combination with additional interventions, to increase vaccination rates in children and adults.

Client or family incentive rewards are used to motivate people to obtain recommended vaccinations. Rewards may be monetary or non-monetary, and they may be given to clients or families in exchange for keeping an appointment, receiving a vaccination, returning for a vaccination series, or producing documentation of vaccination status. Rewards are typically small (e.g., food vouchers, gift cards, lottery prizes, baby products).”

The scientific evidence supporting bribery of patients with food vouchers, gift cards and other products of limited value was said to be 4 out of 4, meaning very strong. In other words, incentives, even near-worthless ones, work.

Indeed, we saw this during COVID-19 as well. People were lining up for experimental COVID shots in return for a doughnut, hamburger and fries or even a free lap dance at the local strip club. The pattern is the same. Throw the patient a bone and they’ll agree to things that bring others big profits.

As patients, we need to get savvier about these kinds of tricks and interpret them for what they are. These kinds of “gifts” are not given out of kindness or concern for your well-being. It’s a compliance bribe, and your compliance is making someone rich. Meanwhile, any risks involved are on you.

Bribery and Vaccine Mandates

Bribery is also par for the course when it comes to vaccine mandates. As detailed in a previous article, Pfizer paid undisclosed sums to front groups that advocated for COVID jab mandates, thereby hiding their conflict of interest. In part due to the fake “grassroots” work of these groups, Pfizer was able to rake in a record-breaking $100 billion in sales in 2022.15

Of course, the U.S. government also paid news media a staggering $1 billion to promote and build public confidence in the jab, and Pfizer itself spent $2.8 billion on ads in 2022 alone.

But the pressure from consumer groups, civil rights groups, patient groups and doctors’ groups — all of which had been paid off — was probably why COVID jab mandates could even be officially considered by the government. They created a false consensus that people desperately wanted vaccine mandates to keep everyone “safe.”

Special interest groups paid by Pfizer16 to push for COVID jab mandates and coercive vaccine policies included the Chicago Urban league (which argued that the jab mandate would benefit the Black community), the National Consumers League, the Immunization Partnership, the Advertising Council and a long list of universities and cancer, liver diseases, cardiology, rheumatology and medical science organizations.

Each of these organizations received anywhere from several thousand to hundreds of thousands of dollars from Pfizer in 2021 alone. Is it any wonder, then, that more than 50 major health care organizations called for vaccine mandates that year, including for their own workers?17

Childhood Vaccination Rates Tanked During COVID

While the COVID-19 pandemic furthered many globalist goals, it inadvertently tanked childhood vaccination rates, as many parents ended up missing routine well-child visits due to clinic closures, lockdowns and fear of taking their children outside. As reported by the American Medical Association (AMA) in November 2021:18

“… recently published research sheds new light on how the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted some of those routine vaccinations, as parents and their children didn’t just stay home — they stayed away from the doctor.

The JAMA Pediatrics study19 … found that vaccine-administration rates were significantly lower across all pediatric age groups as the pandemic first surged in the U.S. … For example, only 74% of infants turning 7 months old in September 2020 were up to date on their vaccinations, a drop from 81% in September 2019.

And just 57% of infants who hit the 18-month mark in September 2020 were up to date, down from 61% the year before. The proportion of children up to date for routine vaccinations was lowest among Black children, with inequities more pronounced in the 18-month-old group.”

The Big Catch-Up Initiative

To get childhood vaccination rates back on track, Chelsea Clinton is now making the rounds promoting a new vaccine initiative called “The Big Catch-Up.” In a recent interview with Fortune Magazine,20 Clinton promised it would be “the largest childhood immunization effort ever.” Over the next 18 months, this initiative will attempt to “catch as many kids up as possible,” she said.

Partners in this effort include the World Health Organization, UNICEF, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Immunization Agenda 2030, and several other “global and national health partners.” As reported by the WHO, April 24, 2023:21

“The pandemic saw essential immunization levels decrease in over 100 countries, leading to rising outbreaks of measles, diphtheria, polio and yellow fever. ‘The Big Catch-up’ is an extended effort to lift vaccination levels among children to at least pre-pandemic levels and endeavors to exceed those …

While calling on people and governments in every country to play their part in helping to catch up by reaching the children who missed out, The Big Catch-up will have a particular focus on the 20 countries where three quarters of the children who missed vaccinations in 2021 live …

The 20 countries where three quarters of the children who missed vaccinations in 2021 live are: Afghanistan, Angola, Brazil, Cameroon, Chad, DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea], DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo], Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Somalia, Madagascar, Mexico, Mozambique, Myanmar, Tanzania, Viet Nam.”

Vaccine Program Is Run ‘Soft Mafia’ Style

When you look at all these areas of bribery and financial incentives, doesn’t it seem as though the entire vaccine program runs on financial coercion? A sort of “soft mafia” kind of operation, where the threats and promises all revolve around money and public/professional shaming versus accolades.

What would happen if all financial incentives were removed? All the performance bonuses paid to doctors, the freebies given to patients, the “charitable donations” to industry-friendly organizations and payments to front groups?

What would happen if parents were simply given unbiased evidence and no one was financially driven to pressure them either way? I don’t have the answer. It’s a thought experiment. But I suspect that vaccination rates would drop dramatically.

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Notes

1 Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Medicaid Provider Bulletin July 2022

2 JAMA Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine 1999;153(1):9-14

3 JAMA Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine 1999;153(1):9-14, Table 2

4 Chipsblog.PCC July 6, 2021

5, 8 BCBS 2016 Performance Recognition Program, Page 15

6 Twitter Jessica Rojas April 7, 2023

7, 9, 10 Children’s Health Defense March 18, 2018

11, 13 Community Preventive Services Task Force

12, 14 Community Preventive Services Task Force, Vaccination Programs: Client or Family Incentive Rewards 2015

15 Fierce Pharma April 21, 2023

16 Document Cloud Pfizer 2021 Funding Report

17 ABC News July 26, 2021

18 American Medical Association November 10, 2021

19 JAMA Pediatrics 2022;176(1):68-77

20 Twitter Chief Nerd May 7, 2023

21 WHO.int April 24, 2023

Featured image is from Mercola


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page

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The troubled Biden administration “finally gave in to pressure” and decided to greenlight the delivery of F-16s to the Kiev regime.

In an effort apparently spearheaded by the UK and the Netherlands, NATO’s European members will now have the legal basis to deliver their old F-16s to the Neo-Nazi junta.

The almost endemically Russophobic London doesn’t even operate F-16s and yet it stands at the forefront of this extremely escalatory initiative. The White House has been mulling this for months, while Ukrainian pilots have been training in several NATO countries, the United States included. This is a clear indicator that the supply of these (First) Cold War-era fighter jets was planned for quite some time.

A bit more than half a dozen European nations operate F-16s, of which at least three are actively replacing them with the troubled F-35s.

Some, such as Norway, officially retired all of their F-16s and replaced them with F-35s, so Oslo might be the first “unexpected” candidate to send its decommissioned fighters to the Kiev regime. The Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark still operate the jet and could also send theirs. On the other hand, members such as Poland and Romania are extremely unlikely to do so, as the move would undermine their own security. The same (or even more so) goes for Turkey and Greece, which both operate F-16s extensively, but are locked in a long-time rivalry that makes either unwilling to weaken themselves for Kiev’s sake.

The US is by far the largest operator of F-16s, but it still hasn’t announced plans to deliver them to its favorite puppet regime. The belligerent thalassocracy’s propaganda machine insists that Washington DC is supposedly “reluctant to do so to avoid escalation with Moscow”. However, this is a moot point, as the US has so far done everything in its power to antagonize Russia through a series of moves that have pushed the world dangerously close to a world-ending thermonuclear conflict. Still, this doesn’t seem to stop Washington DC from going ahead with such plans, at the very least covertly. National Security Council coordinator John Kirby recently admitted this, stating that “the US has been forward-looking about future capabilities and needs”.

Kirby later added that “F-16s were not on the agenda at the G7”, but hinted that “the fighter jet would certainly come up on the sidelines of the summit”. According to CNN, this issue is expected to be one of the main topics of the upcoming NATO summit in Lithuania’s Vilnius in July. To avoid directly implicating the belligerent alliance, some have even suggested that the training of Ukrainian pilots could be relegated to the F-16 manufacturer, Lockheed Martin. Still, several high-ranking US officials insist that the process would require a great deal of the Pentagon’s participation, particularly in terms of providing weapons for the jet. In essence, there is simply no way for the US to provide F-16s without getting involved directly, a move that Russia won’t forget or leave unanswered.

According to CNN, back in March, the US hosted two Ukrainian pilots at a military base in Tucson, Arizona, where USAF has been evaluating their skills to assess how much time they would need to learn to fly various American military aircraft, including the F-16. However, the infamous neoliberal mouthpiece, citing yet another unnamed senior US official, insists that “the US has no plans as of now to expand that training”.

But, according to their own admission, Congress has already set aside funds in the 2023 budget precisely for such training. Once again, this is a clear indicator that Washington DC is only pretending to care about “avoiding escalation with Moscow”. Still, this leaves the obvious question of how effective the F-16 would be against clearly superior Russian jets, such as the Su-35S or MiG-31BM, to say nothing of the Su-57.

CNN admits that even US officials are skeptical in this regard, noting that “Russia also has extensive anti-aircraft systems that could easily shoot down the F-16s”, adding that “Ukraine has not been conducting many air missions with the fighter planes it already has for precisely that reason”. Indeed, while the mainstream propaganda machine will surely present F-16s as yet another “wunderwaffen”, the jet is a light single-engine platform dating back to the late 1960s/early 1970s. Since the end of the (First) Cold War, Russia has been operating exclusively heavier classes of fighter jets, including several variants and iterations of its legendary Su-27, in addition to other top-of-the-line fighter jets, such as the superfast, high-flying MiG-31BM. The F-16’s chances of survival against such opponents are minimal.

In the virtually guaranteed case that any Russian jet shoots down an F-16, this could easily destroy its reputation, which the American war propaganda has been building for decades, primarily based on its usage against largely helpless opponents during countless US aggressions and invasions. This could also translate to major financial losses for the manufacturer, as was the case for Raytheon, whose stocks plummeted after its much-touted “Patriot” was destroyed in a recent Russian airstrike. Such a loss could also affect the sales of newer variants of the F-16, particularly the Block 70/72 model which has been earmarked for delivery to China’s breakaway island province of Taiwan. In addition, as already mentioned by the “unnamed US officials”, Russia’s second-to-none air defenses would make short work of even much heavier and more advanced targets, let alone an F-16.

*

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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  • Comments Off on F-16s for Kiev Regime Will Only Prolong Ukrainian People’s Suffering
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It has been just over two months since the launch of GPT-4, but users have started anticipating the release of GPT-5. We have already seen how capable and powerful GPT-4 is in various kinds of tests and qualitative evaluations. With many new features like ChatGPT plugins and internet browsing capability, it has gotten even better. Now, users are waiting to learn more about the upcoming Open AI model, GPT-5, the possibility of AGI, and more. So to find in-depth information about GPT-5’s release date and other expected features, follow our explainer below.

When GPT-4 was released in March 2023, it was expected that OpenAI would release its next-generation model by December 2023. Siqi Chen, the CEO of Runway also tweeted saying that “gpt5 is scheduled to complete training this December.” However, speaking at an MIT event in April, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said “We are not and won’t for some time” when asked if OpenAI is training GPT-5. So the rumor of GPT-5 releasing by the end of 2023 is already quashed.

That said, experts suggest that OpenAI might come out with GPT-4.5, an intermediate release between GPT-4 and GPT-5 by October 2023, just like GPT-3.5. It’s being said that GPT-4.5 will finally bring the multimodal capability, aka the ability to analyze both images and texts. OpenAI has already announced and demonstrated GPT-4’s multimodal capabilities during the GPT-4 Developer livestream back in March 2023.

GPT-5 Release Date

GPT-4 Multimodal Capability

Apart from that, OpenAI currently has a lot on its plate to iron out on the GPT-4 model before it starts working on GPT-5. Currently, GPT-4’s inference time is very highand it’s quite expensive to run. GPT-4 API access is still hard to get by. Moreover, OpenAI just recently opened up access to ChatGPT plugins and internet browsing capability, which are still in Beta. It’s yet to bring Code Interpreter for all the paying users, which is again in the Alpha phase.

While GPT-4 is plenty powerful, I guess OpenAI realizes that compute efficiency is one of the key elements for running a model sustainably. And well, add new features and capabilities to the mix, and you have a bigger infrastructure to deal with while making sure that all checkpoints are up and running reliably. So to hazard a guess, GPT-5 is likely to come out in 2024, just around Google Gemini’s release, if we assume government agencies don’t put a regulatory roadblock.

GPT-5 Features and Capabilities (Expected)

Reduced Hallucination

The hot talk in the industry is that GPT-5 will achieve AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), but we will come to that later on in detail. Besides that, GPT-5 is supposed to reduce the inference time, enhance efficiency, bring down further hallucinations, and a lot more. Let’s start with hallucination, which is one of the key reasons why most users don’t readily believe in AI models.

GPT-5 Expected Capabilities Reduced Hallucination

GPT-4 Accuracy Test

According to OpenAI, GPT-4 scored 40% higher than GPT-3.5 in internal adversarially-designed factual evaluations under all nine categories. Now, GPT-4 is 82% less likely to respond to inaccurate and disallowed content. It’s very close to touching the 80% mark in accuracy tests across categories. That’s a huge leap in combating hallucination.

Now, it’s expected that OpenAI would reduce hallucination to less than 10% in GPT-5, which would be huge for making LLM models trustworthy. I have been using the GPT-4 model for a lot of tasks lately, and it has so far given factual responses only. So it’s highly likely that GPT-5 will hallucinate even less than GPT-4.

Compute-efficient Model

Next, we already know that GPT-4 is expensive to run ($0.03 per 1K tokens) and the inference time is also higher. Whereas, the older GPT-3.5-turbo model is 15x cheaper ($0.002 per 1K tokens) than GPT-4. That’s because GPT-4 is trained on a massive 1 trillion parameters, which requires a costly compute infrastructure. In our recent explainer on Google’s PaLM 2 model, we found that PaLM 2 is quite smaller in size and that results in quick performance.

A recent report by CNBC confirmed that PaLM 2 is trained on 340 billion parameters, which is far less than GPT-4’s large parameter size. Google even went on to say that bigger is not always better and research creativity is the key to making great models. So if OpenAI wants to make its upcoming models compute-optimal, it must find new creative ways to reduce the size of the model while maintaining the output quality.

A huge chunk of OpenAI revenue comes from enterprises and businesses, so yeah, GPT-5 must not only be cheaper but also faster to return output. Developers are already berating the fact that GPT-4 API calls frequently stop responding and they are forced to use the GPT-3.5 model in production. It must be on OpenAI’s wishlist to improve performance in the upcoming GPT-5 model, especially after the launch of Google’s much-faster PaLM 2 model, which you can try right now.

Multisensory AI Model

While GPT-4 has been announced as a multimodal AI model, it deals with only two types of data i.e. images and texts. Sure, the capability has not been added to GPT-4 yet, but OpenAI may possibly release the feature in a few months. However, with GPT-5, OpenAI may take a big leap in making it truly multimodal. It may also deal with text, audio, images, videos, depth data, and temperature. It would be able to interlink data streams from different modalities to create an embedding space.

Recently, Meta released ImageBind, an AI model that combines data from six different modalities and open-sourced it for research purposes. In this space, OpenAI has not revealed much, but the company does have some strong foundation models for vision analysis and image generation. OpenAI has also developed CLIP (Contrastive Language–Image Pretraining) for analyzing images and DALL-E, a popular Midjourney alternative that can generate images from textual descriptions.

It’s an area of ongoing research and its applications are still not clear. According to Meta, it can be used to design and create immersive content for virtual reality. We need to wait and see what OpenAI does in this space and if we will see more AI applications across various multimodalities with the release of GPT-5.

Long Term Memory

With the release of GPT-4, OpenAI brought a maximum context length of 32K tokens, which cost $0.06 per 1K token. We have rapidly seen the transformation from the standard 4K tokens to 32K in a few months. Recently, Anthropic increased the context window from 9K to 100K tokens in its Claude AI chatbot. It’s expected that GPT-5 might bring long-term memory support via a much larger context length.

This can help in making AI characters and friends who remember your persona and memories that can last for years. Apart from that, you can load libraries of books and text documents in a single context window. There can be various new AI applications due to long-term memory support and GPT-5 can make that possible.

GPT-5 Release: Fear of AGI?

In February 2023, Sam Altman wrote a blog on AGI and how it can benefit all of humanity. AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), as the name suggests, is the next generation of AI systems that is generally smarter than humans. It’s being said that OpenAI’s upcoming model GPT-5 will achieve AGI, and it seems like there is some truth in that.

We already have several autonomous AI agents like Auto-GPT and BabyAGI, which are based on GPT-4 and can take decisions on their own and come up with reasonable conclusions. It’s entirely possible that some version of AGI will be deployed with GPT-5.

In the blog, Altman says that “We believe we have to continuously learn and adapt by deploying less powerful versions of the technology in order to minimize ‘one shot to get it right’ scenarios” while also acknowledging “massive risks” in navigating vastly powerful systems like AGI. Before the recent Senate hearing, Sam Altman also urged US lawmakers for regulations around newer AI systems.

In the hearing, Altman said, “I think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong. And we want to be vocal about that.” Further, he added, “We want to work with the government to prevent that from happening.” For some time, OpenAI has become quite vocal about regulations on newer AI systems that would be highly powerful and intelligent. Do note that Altman is seeking safety regulation around incredibly powerful AI systems and not open-source models or AI models developed by small startups.

It should be worth noting that Elon Musk and other prominent personalities, including Steve Wozniak, Andrew Yang, and Yuval Noah Harari, et al called for a pause on giant AI experiments, back in March 2023. Since then, there has been a wide pushback against AGI and newer AI systems — more powerful than GPT-4.

If OpenAI is indeed going to bring AGI capability to GPT-5, then expect more delay in its public release. Regulation would definitely kick in and work around safety and alignment would be scrutinized thoroughly. The good thing is that OpenAI already has a powerful GPT-4 model, and it’s continuously adding new features and capabilities. There is no other AI model that comes close to it, not even the PaLM 2-based Google Bard.

OpenAI GPT-5: Future Stance

After the release of GPT-4, OpenAI has gotten increasingly secretive about its operations. It no longer shares research on the training dataset, architecture, hardware, training compute, and training method with the open-source community. It has been a strange flip for a company that was founded as a nonprofit (now it’s capped profit) based on the principles of free collaboration.

In March 2023, speaking with The Verge, Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist of OpenAI said, “We were wrong. Flat out, we were wrong. If you believe, as we do, that at some point, AI — AGI — is going to be extremely, unbelievably potent, then it just does not make sense to open-source. It is a bad idea… I fully expect that in a few years, it’s going to be completely obvious to everyone that open-sourcing AI is just not wise.

Now, it has become clear that neither GPT-4 nor the upcoming GPT-5 would be open-source in order to stay competitive in the AI race. However, another giant corporation, Meta has been approaching AI development differently. Meta has been releasing multiple AI models under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license (research only, non-commercial) and gaining traction among the open-source community.

Seeing the huge adoption of Meta’s LLaMA and other AI models, OpenAI has also changed its stance on open source. According to recent reports, OpenAI is working on a new open-source AI model that will be released to the public soon. There is no information on its capabilities and how competitive it will be against GPT-3 .5 or GPT-4, but it’s indeed a welcome change.

In summation, GPT-5 is going to be a frontier model that will push the boundary of what is possible with AI. It seems likely that some form of AGI will launch with GPT-5. And if that will be the case, OpenAI must get ready for tight regulation (and possible bans) around the world. As for the GPT-5 release date, the safe bet would be sometime in 2024.

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The new phenomenon of unusually virulent and fast-acting cancers and a massive increase in AIDS – what can be done about mitigating the damage from mRNA and spike protein.

Click here to view the interview.

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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.

Israel Pushes Law Banning Palestinian Flag

May 24th, 2023 by Middle East Eye

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Israeli lawmakers are pushing a new bill that would see flying the Palestinian flag punishable by up to one year in prison.

The bill is backed by members of the far-right Jewish Power party and states that three or more people waving the flag of a “hostile entity” will be considered a prohibited gathering and therefore punishable.

The Israeli Knesset has already voted its approval at a preliminary reading of the bill and it will need three additional votes to pass.

“As a democracy, Israel enables its citizens to protest decisions they don’t agree with the authorities on,” reads the explanation of the bill, according to Haaretz.

“But the proposal draws a red line between legitimate protest and one in which there are flags of those who don’t recognise the state of Israel, those who aren’t friendly toward it or don’t enable Israel to raise its flag in its territory.”

Since coming to power earlier this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has introduced a raft of legislation aimed at appeasing the far-right in Israel.

Legislation aimed at restricting the power of the judiciary has already sparked off months of protests across the country.

On Thursday morning, Israeli settlers and politicians stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque ahead of thousands taking to the streets of Jerusalem for a divisive annual ultra-nationalist march

Security officers cleared the Qibli prayer hall of Palestinian worshippers following the Fajr dawn prayers, according to Palestinian media. 

Then at 7 am local time, the Moroccan Gate (Bab al-Magharib) to Al-Aqsa’s courtyards was opened and hundreds of settlers stormed into the holy site.

Several lawmakers were in their ranks, including Negev and Galilee Development Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf, who belongs to the Jewish Power party. 

Three MPs in Netanyahu’s Likud party, Dan Illouz, Amit Halevi, and Ariel Kallner, were also involved.

Though many Jews believe it is forbidden to stand upon it, and the status quo agreement states Jewish prayer must also be avoided, far-right Israelis, most often settlers, have increasingly flouted these rules with the backing of Israeli forces.

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Visits of Justice: Stella Assange’s Plea to Australia

May 24th, 2023 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

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It certainly got the tongues wagging, the keyboards pressed, and the intellectually dead aroused – at least for a time. Given how many of those in the Australian press and media stable have been, for the most part, unconcerned, and in some cases celebratory, regarding the prosecution of Julian Assange, it was strikingly poignant to have his wife, Stella, present at the centre of Australia’s press epicentre: the National Press Club in Canberra.

For those familiar with the ongoing prosecution of the WikiLeaks founder by the United States via the extradition processes of the United Kingdom, a brutal carnivalesque endeavour that continues to blight that legal system, there is not much to be said. Stella had to get her point across to a pack of the uninitiated – most of them, anyway – and state the obvious fact that her husband is facing gloomy prospects across the pond for spilling the beans on the US National Security State. Once the doors open to such a prosecution on US soil, bets are off on the subject of publishing national security information in the public interest. For the first time in US legal history, a journalist, defamed and harassed, will be conveyed into the bowels of a carceral state so revolting it makes Belmarsh look like a modest retreat.

The method, however, lay in the personal touch, one that draws out Assange as the dedicated, loving, and intellectually stimulated everyman. There is talk about the “fledging rainbow lorikeet” that her husband reared when he was on Magnetic Island off the coast of Townsville in Queensland. Remembering the “chestnut coated mare which he would ride when he stayed in the Northern Rivers.” There was also surfing in Byron Bay in his teens, and beekeeping in the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria.

Stella’s agenda is clear, direct, and powerful. There is no time for frills. She knows that the realm of ideas has little truck with the breakfasting, lunching and dining journalists who titter across Canberra and offer the rest of Australia information of an embarrassingly poor quality. It was important to keep matters simple.

The adopted technique, then, is uncomplicated: focus on the man in prison, in captivity, and suffering because of it. “I can tell you exactly what Julian is doing right now. It is 3 a.m. in London. Julian is lying in his cell, probably awake and struggling to fall asleep. It’s where he spends twenty-two hours a day, every day.”

She mentions how “Julian’s feet only ever feel the hard, dull, even cement on the prison floor.” Relief and respite cannot be found during the exercise routine. “When he goes to the yard for exercise, there is no grass, no sand. Just the bitumen pavement surrounded by cameras and layers of razor wire overhead.”

The cell Assange occupies is but a mere three by two metres, a situation scandalous in the absence of any conviction, and all the more so for that fact. The cold draft that comes in through the window is nullified, to some extent, by books, something poignant, given his intellectually curious state. In this sense, literature does not merely nourish the mind but literally offers a buttressing shield against the elements.

The walls of the compressed space are also covered in pictures of his and Stella’s children, and of them together. In the ensemble, science is never neglected. “A large colourful poster of a nebula taken by NASA’s James Webb Telescope” also finds its pride of place in the cell.

As for the visits, Stella remains direct and impressively unsentimental. “When the children and I go to Belmarsh, usually on the weekend, we leave our belongings in a locker. We check in with the prison authorities in the visitor’s centre building, my fingerprint is scanned, and we get a stamp on the back of our hands.” After that: the entrance, the “endless queues”. One of the children conflates the prison with the queue, a beautifully grim parable that could apply to any penal system on the planet that fuses the procession with captivity itself.

Having given her audience personal slices and offerings there are even more serious reflections. “There is now near universal recognition of the enormous implications that this case has for press freedom and the future of democracy.”

The herculean efforts by Stella and Assange’s father, John Shipton, have certainly gotten the attention of the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. In an interview with the Australian broadcaster, the ABC, earlier this month, he claimed to be doing in private what he was saying in public: “that enough was enough.” Diplomatic channels were being used, but the PM lamented the lack of success thus far. “I know it’s frustrating, I share the frustration. I can’t do more than make it very clear what my position is.”

That measure of frustration should indicate the extent, and worth, of Australia’s influence and pull over their brute of an ally. Despite essentially gifting the country to Washington’s military industrial complex, gratitude towards Australian requests is not in ample supply on the Assange affair. In refusing to meet Assange’s wife (he does not believe in “grandstanding”), Albanese continues to claim that “[n]othing is served from the ongoing incarceration” of the publisher. He was also pleased that the position on Assange was now a bipartisan one – the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, had also joined the pro-release advocates.

For all this, the prime minister is also entertaining a doomed equation: that Assange’s release will probably be achieved only after the time he has already served is deemed sufficient relative to the time he would get were the allegations against him proved. Given that the 18 charges levelled against Belmarsh’s most prominent political prisoner would yield prison sentences anywhere up to 175 years, expectations must be dampened. For all that, Stella’s observation that her husband’s life was “in the hands of the Australian government” remains powerfully pertinent. If not now, when?

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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]

Don’t Let Them Rewrite History: Ventilators Killed People… and It Was No Accident

By Kit Knightly, May 23, 2023

A new study from Northwestern University has concluded that the majority of “Covid19” patients put on ventilators were actually killed by bacterial pneumonia, not the alleged virus.

“There Is No Safe Place in Gaza”: Palestinians Speak Out During Israeli Assault

By Prof. Marjorie Cohn, May 24, 2023

On May 18, thousands of Palestinians in Gaza joined the “Palestine Flag March” to protest Israel’s “Flag March” happening the same day. On “Flag Day,” tens of thousands of ultraright-wing Israeli settlers, who illegally live on stolen land, attacked Palestinians and journalists, chanting “Death to Arabs” and “Your village will be burned.”

COVID-19 Vaccine Injuries: Multiple Heart Attacks or Multiple Strokes

By Dr. William Makis, May 23, 2023

I have not seen any doctor or scientist discussing the phenomenon of multiple heart attacks or multiple strokes in COVID-19 vaccinated individuals. Seven heart attacks, nine strokes, this is not normal. These strange events are occurring in young people and often in rapid succession. Sometimes fatal.

Grand Delusion – The Rise and Fall of American Ambitions in the Middle East

By Jim Miles, May 23, 2023

It should be obvious that U.S. policy in the Middle East is now losing influence. Steven Simon’s new book “Grand Delusion – The Rise and Fall of American Ambitions in the Middle East” purports to cover the era from Jimmy Carter (mostly as it leads into Ronald Reagan’s presidency) to the current Biden administration.  

Belgorod Attack Helps Kiev to Disguise Its Military Disaster in Bakhmut

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, May 23, 2023

Two days after the Russians took control of the Donbass’ key city of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut), pro-Ukrainian saboteurs invaded the undisputed sovereign space of the Russian Federation and created moments of terror among local civilians.

Biden’s Running Out of Ukraine Money? Good.

By Rep. Ron Paul, May 23, 2023

When the smoke finally clears, President Biden’s Ukraine debacle will go down – along with Afghanistan and Iraq – as one of the greatest foreign policy disasters in US history. Hundreds of thousands have been killed on both sides in the service of the US neocons’ long standing desire to “regime change” Russia.

Adding Indirect Deaths, Total Death Toll in the ‘War on Terror’ Is 4.5 Million

By Bharat Dogra, May 23, 2023

An important point made by the study is that while war-devastated countries may lose much of the attention of the world and ‘the international community’ once the actual fighting ends, in many contexts the longer-term effects of war continue to cause more and more deaths, disabilities and distress.

“Atrocity Fabrication and Its Consequences,” by A. B. Abrams

By Carla Stea, May 23, 2023

In a phenomenally well documented study of the fraudulent accusations of atrocities leveled against countries targeted for military intervention by US-NATO, fraudulent accusations then used as  “justifications” or rationalizations for “humanitarian military intervention” which devastates the targeted country, ravaging the “infrastructure necessary for sustaining human life” and plundering that country’s opulent  resources, A.B. Abrams describes savage US-NATO military interventions that trivialize the scourges of Attilla the Hun. 

It’s Good News Week. Joe Biden Is Creating Enemies Everywhere

By Philip Giraldi, May 23, 2023

Well, if you thought the American Civil War ended back in 1865, you are apparently wrong. No less an authority than President Joe Biden, in a May 13th commencement speech to historically black Howard University’s graduates, told the overwhelmingly black students and their families that “The most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy. And I’m not saying this because I’m at a Black HBCU, I say it wherever I go.”

Rein in the FBI: Put an End to the FBI’s “Gestapo Tactics”

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, May 23, 2023

According to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the FBI repeatedly misused Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in order to spy on the communications of two vastly disparate groups of Americans: those involved in the George Floyd protests and those who may have taken part in the Jan. 6, 2021, protests at the Capitol.

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On May 18, thousands of Palestinians in Gaza joined the “Palestine Flag March” to protest Israel’s “Flag March” happening the same day. On “Flag Day,” tens of thousands of ultraright-wing Israeli settlers, who illegally live on stolen land, attacked Palestinians and journalists, chanting “Death to Arabs” and “Your village will be burned.”

“The Israeli Flag March means nothing, they walk in our streets, and the land denies their existence,” Gaza resident Amna al-Banna told Mondoweiss. “Raising the Israeli flag in Jerusalem will not make people ignore that it’s Palestinian land, and that Israel occupies it.”

On May 13, Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad had reached an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire agreement following a five-day Israeli military onslaught against the people of Gaza. Although Palestinians fired some rockets into Israel, the death toll was lopsided.

During the Israeli assault, dubbed “Operation Shield and Arrow,” Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) killed 33 Palestinians, including six children, and injured at least 147 Palestinians. The airstrikes damaged 2,041 houses, destroyed 31 buildings, and rendered 93 families homeless and 128 homes uninhabitable.

The Biden administration not only refused to condemn Israel for the devastation it wreaked in Gaza; it blocked the United Nations Security Council from issuing a statement condemning the Israeli airstrikes as well as the rockets fired from Gaza.

This was the sixth such attack on Gaza since the Israeli blockade of the strip (which is a crime under international law) was permanently imposed in 2007. Two million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip, often called “the world’s largest open-air prison” because Israel controls the ingress and egress of all Gazans.

“A friend in Gaza said to me recently, ‘What is worse than dying in Gaza is living [in Gaza],’” Palestinian writer and publisher Michel Moushabeck wrote in a recent article for Truthout.

The Gaza Palestine Hearing: International People’s Tribunal on U.S. Imperialism

Several hours before the May 13 ceasefire was announced, the Gaza Palestine Hearing of the “International People’s Tribunal on U.S. Imperialism: Sanctions, Blockades and Coercive Economic Measures” convened. Some of the co-organizers of the tribunal include the National Lawyers Guild, International Association of Democratic Lawyers, Alliance for Global Justice, CODEPINK, Black Alliance for Peace, Franz Fanon Foundation, Confederation of Lawyers of Asia and the Pacific, Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

As a juror for the tribunal, I attended the hearing and was stunned by the powerful statements of people who testified from Gaza as the Israeli bombs were falling on their neighborhoods.

In 2021, Riyad Iskhuntana’s residence was the target of a direct Israeli bombing. “My four kids and my wife were killed in the apartment that I lived in, and they were killed in a brutal way. In one moment, I lost my four kids and my wife,” he testified. “And I remained under the rubble for 12 hours with my youngest daughter, not knowing if my kids had died or not. But eventually they were all dead except me and my youngest daughter.”

Iskhuntana spoke about the traumatic IOF bombing of Gaza on May 12. “Yesterday,” he said, “my neighbor also was bombed, and this even deteriorated the psychological condition of myself and my daughter beyond what we had lived through in 2021. One of the psychological issues that we’re experiencing is that we began to forget things, and now with the restarting of the bombings again, the trauma is back. And we’re scared and trembling all the time.”

“I’m speaking to you as the enemy’s planes are bombing all civilian places,” Iskhuntana added. “All the rockets are getting even more aggressive. There is no such thing as civilian or military target; it’s all civilian targets being targeted. Nothing is safe and secure.”

Malak Nidal is a 16-year-old girl who’s in 10th grade. “There is no safe place in Gaza,” she testified. “I prefer to stay at home and die in my home, better than living in this area,” Nidal said. “I’m talking with you now when we have war, and I don’t know if I’m going to die now in this moment. The plane is over my head, and we hear a lot of noise right now while I’m speaking with you.”

Wafa-al-Udaini is a prominent Palestinian journalist. “I covered several Israeli aggressions here in Gaza,” she testified. “Always, it was so risky for me to go outside and interview people because, as Palestinian journalists based here in Gaza, we don’t have immunity. And actually, for the occupation, we are a target because they want, indeed, to silence the truth.”

Al-Udaini added that many of her colleagues were murdered, injured and maimed while reporting on the events in Gaza. “So far, nobody holds Israel accountable for their crimes against the Palestinian journalists.” She noted that cameras and camera accessories are not allowed to enter Gaza, which poses a major obstacle to the work of photojournalists.

“Every Palestinian in occupied Palestine is a target,” Al-Udaini said. “The main mission for the occupation here in Palestine actually is just to end or eliminate any existence of Palestinians.” Since 2007, “the Israeli occupation authorities imposed a land, air and ground siege on the people of Gaza, which is considered like a collective punishment.”

Collective punishment is considered a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Gazans Support “Freedom Fighters” Who Resist the Occupation

The people in Gaza support the “freedom fighters” who “manage to resist the occupation by all means they have,” Al-Udaini testified. “Everyone, every child, you just go in the street and ask the people, ask the children about the resistance. They all honor the resistance and the freedom fighters because they believe that they are the only ones who can defend them from the occupation.”

Yasser al-Dirawi is a Palestinian lawyer who wrote his thesis about the authority of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). “I apologize, the internet is weak and got disconnected because of an Israeli attack that just happened to us,” he said while testifying. “The bombs are falling next to us. I’m feeling the vibrations happening to my civilian neighbors.”

Al-Dirawi testified, “[The Israelis] don’t distinguish between a child, a woman, an elderly. They kill all civilians without any distinction between different targets.” (Targeting civilians constitutes a war crime prohibited by the Fourth Geneva Convention.) “There is no distinction between civilians or non-civilians, and there is no distinction between children and non-children, women and not women.”

The lawyer described the inability of the people of Gaza to import agricultural products and seeds “which literally led to the destruction of the agricultural sector and the inability of the fishermen and the fishing industry to survive,” adding that “it has a component of revenge on the people who live in Gaza.” The blockade of Gaza also prevents the importation of medicine and medical equipment, he said.

“The economic situation overall in Gaza is a humanitarian catastrophe,” al-Dirawi stated. “This is a targeted project. The U.S. is the primary supporter of the blockade. We call it the ‘United States of Imperialism’ that supports the Israelis.” Al-Dirawi noted that two days before this hearing, the U.S. had squelched any criticism of Israel’s assault in the UN Security Council.

Two years ago, former ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda opened a formal investigation into war crimes committed in Gaza since 2014, but there has been little progress in the probe, thanks to U.S. pressure on the ICC.

When I asked al-Dirawi whether he thought Karim Khan, the current ICC prosecutor, would file war crimes charges against Israeli leaders, he said that Khan was acting with “intentional slowness.” Al-Dirawi contrasted Khan’s delay in investigating Israel with his immediate commencement of “a very serious” investigation of war crimes committed during the war in Ukraine. Although al-Dirawi has sent copious evidence and testimonies to Khan for the Israel investigation, he has received no formal response.

On May 13, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights called on ICC prosecutor Khan to issue a public statement condemning the Israeli aggression in Gaza and expedite the investigation into the situation in Palestine. To date, Khan has not responded.

On May 15, Palestinians commemorated the 75th anniversary of al-Nakba (Arabic for “the catastrophe”), when Israelis ethnically cleansed nearly 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland and destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages and towns during the creation of the state of Israel.

Also on May 15, for the first time in history, the UN General Assembly (which is comprised of 193 UN member states) officially condemned the Nakba. The International Commission to Support Palestinians’ Rights, based in Gaza, called it “a unique and unprecedented step,” adding that it should be “translated into enabling the Palestinian people to exercise their right to independence and return.”

The U.S., which unconditionally provides Israel with $3.8 billion annually in military assistance, did not attend the General Assembly’s commemoration of the Nakba.

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Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a member of the national advisory boards of Assange Defense and Veterans For Peace, and the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues. She is co-host of “Law and Disorder” radio.

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Thousands of Palestinians protests along the fence separating Gaza from Israel against the racist Flag March taking place in occupied East Jerusalem on 18 May 2023 [Mohammed Asad/MiddleEastMonitor]

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Kelly Sue – A Canadian woman who used to walk 10 miles a day and ride her bike 24 miles every 2 days had 9 strokes after her 2nd COVID-19 vaccine dose.

Kelly Sue had her 2nd COVID-19 vaccine on June 12, 2021. Three and a half weeks later she had back-to-back strokes. From July to early November 2021, she had 9 TIAs (mini-strokes) and strokes. She spent 31 days in the hospital.

She had blindness in her eyes, couldn’t use her mouth, couldn’t talk, would wake up and didn’t know who she was or where she was.

Tallahassee, FL – 35 year old Maxwell Arline died suddenly of a 2nd heart attack after surviving 1st one a few days earlier, died on April 28, 2023 (click here)

Penedo, Brazil – 42 yo Brazilian soccer player Marcus Vieira Ferreira (Marcos Bala) died after suffering three cardiac arrests taking a walk on Mar. 28, 2023 (click here)

16 year old Justus Danielli collapsed at calculus exam on Mar. 23, 2023, was shocked back to life with defibrillator 5 times (had 5 cardiac arrests) (click here).

Lexington, SC – Mari Murton collapsed, lost consciousness and ended up in ICU after each COVID-19 vaccine injection, was diagnosed with Sudden Cardiac Arrest Dissection (Feb. 20, 2023).

Ukraine – 28 year old professional soccer player Oleh Danchenko suffered a cardiac arrest and his heart stopped 3 times during training in Turkey (Feb. 16, 2023) (click here).

Eglinton, UK – 22 year old Aoife Boyle collapsed during a lunch with friends at a pub and needed her heart restarted 7 times in 11 days (Feb. 2023).

Brazilian reporter, Rafael Silva, age 36, collapsed live on air and had 5 cardiac arrests on the way to the hospital (Jan. 3, 2022). He had his COVID-19 booster shot one week prior on Dec. 28, 2021 (click here).

Melbourne, Australia – 38 year old Australian woman, Rupika Chopra had 7 heart attacks, doctors consider it a miracle she is alive (Dec. 2022).

Bengali actress Aindrila Sharma, age 24, died after suffering multiple cardiac arrests on Nov. 20, 2022.

My Take… 

I have not seen any doctor or scientist discussing the phenomenon of multiple heart attacks or multiple strokes in COVID-19 vaccinated individuals.

Seven heart attacks, nine strokes, this is not normal. These strange events are occurring in young people and often in rapid succession. Sometimes fatal.

The nature of these events suggests a mechanism of injury that may be unique to COVID-19 vaccines and as such should be investigated by cardiologists.

COVID-19 vaccine induced myocarditis that leads to cardiac arrests and COVID-19 vaccine induced blood clots that lead to heart attacks or strokes, behave differently than other causes.

How do we prevent these incidents, how do we treat them? No one knows because doctors are too afraid to lose their medical licenses to even begin asking the questions.

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

Featured image is from the author


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page.

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Abstract

Despite the efforts of the federal government, particularly the Central Intelligence Agency, to conceal evidence of the actual operation of the “enhanced interrogation techniques” (“EITs”) it deployed on detainees in dark sites and at Guantanamo, a steady drumbeat of disclosures has provided an unparalleled view into this disgraceful episode in the nation’s history.

One of the most dramatic revelations has been the drawings by Detainee Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn aka Abu Zubaydah (hereinafter “Mr. Abu Zubaydah”), the first victim of such EITs. These drawings viscerally convey the brutal reality the CIA sought to hide with its calculated destruction of video recordings of torture conducted by its agents. These drawings also depict the kinds of torture — in which the FBI was also complicit — inflicted on the artist and his fellow detainees. These tortures are, if possible, all the more disturbing as to Mr. Abu Zubaydah himself because even the torturers—CIA and FBI – now recognize that his was a case of mistaken identity. Nevertheless, he remains in detention – albeit uncharged – until this day. His drawings dovetail with the recent accounts of Dr. James Mitchell, a chief architect of the torture regime, who both wrote a book on EITs and testified in hearings on Guantanamo.

These sources, together with the report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, provide the most complete – and compelling – account to date of America’s torture program.

Click here to read the full report.

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Featured image: By 2006, at least 100 prisoners had died in US custody in Afghanistan and Iraq, most of them violently, according to government data. (Photo: US torture Image by Witness Against Torture)

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*** 

 

 

 

 

 

It should be obvious that U.S. policy in the Middle East is now losing influence. Steven Simon’s new book “Grand Delusion – The Rise and Fall of American Ambitions in the Middle East” purports to cover the era from Jimmy Carter (mostly as it leads into Ronald Reagan’s presidency) to the current Biden administration.   In his writing for the most part he highlights the bad decisions and illogical thinking of most of those presidents concerning the Middle East.  Unfortunately he starts off with a major flaw:  after a brief presentation on the policymakers acting in the best interests of the U.S. based on its “exceptionalism, frontier mythology [and] invulnerability as a continental power” he states, “Yes, we meant well and our anger was righteous.”  

Unfortunately for that argument, meaning well relates only to a particular sector of the U.S. – big oil and big money (the two are one and the same) – and righteous anger is really self-righteous anger displaying a holier than thou attitude in face of way too many contradictions.  It comes back to the saying, “What you do speaks so loud I cannot hear what you are saying,” and what the U.S. is saying by its actions is that our military and economic power are intended to rule the world in our favour.  Freedom and democracy are reduced to rhetoric and propaganda in face of U.S. support for Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and the use of covert and overt military support for anyone interested in overthrowing a government not aligned with the U.S. (too many to enumerate here).

Morals

He follows that introductory statement up with “the book avoids moral judgements about the key players, although it should provide the context for the readers to make up their own minds.”  Unfortunately it does neither.   Moral judgements abound, and context is often lacking, especially for events preceding his focus and for contemporary events with Russia, China, and Iran and Saudi Arabia in reshaping the Middle East and the entire global context.  

HIs first moral lapse is with the Shah of Iran who he believes “genuinely sought to lift his country’s quality of life but failed” because of the “king’s dilemma:  the tragic reality that reform empowers opposition that can then be suppressed by violence.”  But the real kicker is his statement, “You cannot do good without doing evil.”  The “king’s dilemma” is a falsehood probably contrived by some ancient kingly nobles  arguing in their reasoning to kill off their enemies and stay in power.  But to then add his own token twist destroys his argument.  

Yes, you can do much good without even entertaining evil, but it seems to be an admission that for all the good democratic elections in the world that went against U.S. interests, some kind of war or rebellion that involved murder and mayhem (Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo (Zaire), Mossadegh in Iraq, Arbenz in Guatemala, Pinochet in Chile….) was required.  

Further to morality, he discusses the “lack of moral clarity” in foreign policy during the Reagan administration, a president of “deep if not universal compassion.”  It makes one wonder then why Reagan was a strong opponent of unions, talked about “rugged individualism” in the Ayn Rand dislike for altruism kind of thinking (“Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps”), and continued support for the CIA operations in Central America.  Reagan’s actions fit perfectly within the “what you do…what you say” paradigm.

Simon discusses Bush Jr.’s “moral vacuity” – with which I cannot argue, but supposedly he was not going to write about morality.  He says the U.S. mission to protect the Syrian Kurds had “moral and strategic obligations” for the military.  In the final chapter on Biden he mentions the “profound ethical challenge” he had to navigate in Syria, and while the word “moral” is not used, the very definition of ethical is “relating to moral principles.”

While Simon does not fill his writing with “moral” discussions it certainly has an influence on his perceptions of events, retaining the overall impression that these years were filled with ill-considered actions based on a false rhetoric.  

Political history and context 

Having said all that, it is a reasonable precis of U.S. interventions in the Middle East in the period under discussion without presenting anything revelatory or brand new.  It would be a good place for an introductory overview of the era and place, keeping in mind the author’s typical view of U.S. intentions compared to what was actually done.  

So what of the context?  First off, remember this is written from a U.S. perspective, one that sees the country as a necessary buttress against evil in the world, the “exceptional” nation, and whether the author upholds these beliefs are not, he is marinated in its propaganda and carries it with him.  There are two other big misses that cannot be filled by a book of this scope.  

For a reader to truly understand the contextual position of the presentation, an understanding of history going back to the First World War, the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the followup to the secret Sykes-Picot agreement, and the power of the Balfour letter, all mismanaged at the Versailles peace discussions (1919).   The second miss is at the opposite end of the story, where Simon’s understanding of the Middle East and the U.S. position appears to be relatively weak concerning events between Russia, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.  

Israel

Israel is presented within the overall political context, but by omission the reader can not truly understand how the Israelis arrived at where they are, and more importantly, how they now treat the Palestinians under occupation.  The settlements are the main point of discussion, and while they present a roadblock to any peace agreement – as Simon argues by creating a non-contiguous Palestinian area of ‘control’ – that is as far as he goes.  Part of this is due to the contextual misses presented above, the other part is simply by ignoring the situation on the ground in Israel as it has existed over the past several decades.  

A critical read of U.S. foreign policy in the region necessitates an understanding of the creation of the Israeli state and its ongoing colonial settler policy.  Beyond that it needs to get into the nitty-gritty of the occupation – the house demolitions, the extra-judicial killings, the restrictive imprisonment of political actors (administrative detentions), the road blocks, the illegality of the ‘fence’ and the settlements, the torture and retention of children, the use of weapons of war on an occupied population, essentially the ongoing nakba and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Overall, a true understanding of the Middle East cannot be complete without understanding the history of Jewish immigration and Israeli settlement in an already inhabited space.   But it goes beyond Israel and yet still includes Israel today as a key player in the current global shift in power structures.

Into the future

Most works that write history up to the moment the work is published, including as many contemporary elements as possible, always seem to suffer from the very lack of hindsight needed to make a decent ending or conclusion.  Simon’s work surmises prospects for the future of the Middle East and the U.S. role there.  

Simon does discuss the role oil plays in his discussion, but never gets to the bottom line:  the petrodollar.  The U.S. does not need Saudi or Iranian oil, what it needs is for that oil to be sold using US$, the so-called petrodollar.  The oil embargo by the Saudis during the Yom Kippur war (1973) led finally to the Saudis agreeing to sell their oil only using the US$ for its transactions, and as everyone needs oil, all countries were brought into and under the financial control of the U.S.  Part of this also included the U.S. going off the gold standard created by the Bretton Woods agreement (1944) and having huge inflationary and debt pressures caused by the Vietnam War (context matters).  

There is a bouquet of misses concerning the Middle East and Simon’s conjectures about the future – some of them are simply time related to publication date, but the main ones are simply not seeing – or being wilfully ignorant of – the reshaping of the global financial structures.  By weaponizing the US$ in its over-use of sanctions, the U.S. has given energy to the Russia-China engagement, and with Russia’s reaction to events in Ukraine, a large portion of the “rest of the world” simply ignore the sanctions – extraterritorial – the U.S. has tried to apply to Russia.

There is no discussion of the Shanghai Security Organization and Iran’s accession to that, along with the eighty or so countries waiting to sign up to the BRIC’s agenda and financial plans (the BRIC’s Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank).  Russia has signed deals with Iran involving military and agricultural supplies; China has a five hundred billion dollar trade agreement over many years with Iran.  The Saudis are supporting Russia indirectly by not acceding to Biden’s wishes to keep oil prices low and is selling some of its oil to China in yuan, openly stating it does not have to limit its oil sales to the US$.  Syria has been accepted back into the Arab League under the auspices of Saudi Arabia, while the U.S. still has a military on the ground extracting Syrian oil.  All this needs to be accounted for in order to even attempt to contemplate what might happen next in the Middle East.  

There is no real telling by anybody as to which way Israel will go.  With an ultra-right wing fundamentalist government in place they are having problems with their own Jewish population along with a more unified Palestinian population resisting their occupation.  It is anybody’s guess as to whether they will ditch the U.S. after extracting all they can from it and then join up with the growing power of the BRIC’s and Chinese Belt and Road Initiative.  In the meantime, the violence of their occupation, while slowly growing in global visibility, is at the same time perhaps a symptom of generally being ignored by the mainstream media as U.S. internal problems continue along with their growing domestic and foreign financial problems.

A mixed read

While Simon’s “Grand Delusion” does provide a good political background to events in the Middle East within the last forty-five years, it lacks relevant context.  The moral issue is excusable in that most U.S. writers are so imbued with their own societal “exceptionalist – intentions are good” perspective that it becomes normal to expect it.  

An interesting read in a backhanded sort of way, leading to some good discussion points by its omissions and perspectives. 

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Jim Miles is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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*** 

Two days after the Russians took control of the Donbass’ key city of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut), pro-Ukrainian saboteurs invaded the undisputed sovereign space of the Russian Federation and created moments of terror among local civilians. The case once again shows the real nature of the Ukrainian state, in addition to working as a “psychological operation” (“psyop”) of mass distraction to prevent the media from reporting Russia’s territorial advance on the battlefield.

The intrusion of Ukrainian forces took place on May 22 in the border zone of Belgorod oblast. Some armored vehicles and soldiers invaded the city and started an attack using terrorism tactics, causing at least eight civilian casualties according to information published by the local government. An anti-terrorist operation was implemented in Belgorod with the joint action of the Russian armed forces, the local police and the border guards.

Security in the city was quickly restored after the neutralization of enemy soldiers. There is still mobilization of Russian forces in the region to check the possible presence of enemies and take other necessary measures to guarantee the safety of the local population, however the risks of an escalation of violence in the city seem low.

Spokesman of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, Andrey Yusov, confirmed the attack. However, Yusov stated that there was no mobilization of the Ukrainian armed forces in the operation, having the attack been organized by Russian saboteurs linked to the so-called Legion ‘Freedom of Russia’ and to the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), two dissident Russian organizations that sent neo-Nazi volunteers to fight for Ukraine. There is still no concrete data to confirm Yusov’s words about the participation of Ukrainian citizens, but in any case, these saboteurs are not only in Kiev’s service, but also invaded Russia coming from the Ukrainian territory, so it really does not matter if they are Russian-born citizens.

American officials commented on the case and denied any involvement in the operation. The US State Department’s spokesman, Matthew Miller, stated at a press conference that his country does not approve or encourage attacks outside “Ukrainian borders” (which for the US includes territories like the newly integrated oblasts and Crimea). However, Miller clarified that Kiev has autonomy to decide how to conduct its military maneuvers, since, according to him, in this war the “aggressor” side would be the Russian one.

“We have made very clear to the Ukrainians that we don’t enable or encourage attacks outside Ukrainians’ borders, but I do think it’s important to take a step back and remind everyone, and remind the world, that it – of course it is Russia that launched this war (… )So, it is up to Ukraine to decide how they want to conduct their military operations, but it is Russia that has been the aggressor in this war”, Miller said.

As well known, it has become common practice for the US to deny involvement in Ukrainian attacks carried out outside the combat zone. US officials claim that the Ukrainians alone operated all maneuvers carried out within the (undisputed) Russian territory, and therefore there is no US responsibility for the deaths of Russian civilians in terrorist attacks. Washington does this for a simple reason: it needs to maintain the narrative that NATO’s weapons are used only to “repel the invader”, otherwise direct Russian military responses against the alliance would be legitimized.

However, it is hard to believe that these attacks do not have some level of participation by NATO agents, considering that the Ukrainian state does not have any real sovereignty to decide what to do, depending on direct orders from its American sponsors to conduct any maneuver. Kiev’s intelligence is controlled by Western agencies, so there is certainly Western involvement in all attacks carried out by the regime.

In fact, the attack on Belgorod was weak and militarily unfeasible. The number of troops sent to the region was insignificant, with no possibility of the invasion being successful or resulting in a long-term occupation. It was just a small-scale terrorist incursion, without any strategic gain for the Ukrainian side and which only caused damage to the civilian population, without affecting the Russian military forces.

Analyzing it from a psychological perspective, however, it is possible to say that Kiev profited from the work of the media. Newspapers around the world reported the event as if it were something extremely relevant. With this, it was possible to remove the media focus that was being given to the liberation of Bakhmut by the Russian forces, announced two days before.

Kiev launched a kind of “smokescreen” to disguise the military disaster of its troops in Bakhmut, being successful in promoting a “psyop” by making the western public believe that the country would be “reacting” with the attack in Belgorod. However, the lie was short-lived, as the neutralization of the terrorist threat was achieved by Russian agents within a few hours.

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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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*** 

“IT never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them.”

Sadly, Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize for Literature lecture continues to be as relevant today as when he gave it in 2005.

And nothing confirms the accuracy of the British playwright’s incisive words better than the ongoing US intervention in Syria.

“Do you think the presence of the US military in Syria is illegal?” Chinese reporter Edward Xu asked Faran Haq, deputy spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, during a March press conference.

Haq’s jaw-dropping reply? “There’s no US armed forces inside of Syria… I believe there’s military activity. But, in terms of a ground presence in Syria, I’m not aware of that.”

Back in the real world, US troops have been on the ground in Syria since 2015.

In a 2017 briefing with journalists US army Major General James B Jarrad, who was the then head of the US-led special operations taskforce in Syria and Iraq, let slip there were 4,000 US troops in Syria, before backtracking.

Today, most reports estimate the number of US troops at around 900, though in March Associated Press noted there was also “an undisclosed number of contractors” and US special forces who are not included in the official count.

Part of the confusion is likely because senior US officials deliberately misled the Donald Trump administration — which was keen to withdraw troops — on the size of the US military footprint in Syria.

“We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there,” James Jeffrey explained in an interview with the Defense One website in 2020 after he had stepped down as US special representative for Syria engagement.

Whatever the true number is, in 2018 New Yorker magazine reported there are 12 US bases in Syria, including four airfields — all in the east of the country.

Speaking in May 2022, Joshua Landis, professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Oklahoma, explained the US, working with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), controls around 25 per cent of Syria — an area about the size of Croatia, the New Yorker estimated.

There have been occasional attacks on the US forces there too. In January 2019, four US personnel were killed and in March this year, a drone attack on a US base killed one US contractor and wounded seven US troops.

Other than reports of assassinations of high-level ISIS leaders, I’m not aware of any serious independent investigation into the impact the US troops are having on the local population while in Syria.

Why are US forces on the ground?

An April Agence France-Presse report printed in the Guardian repeated the US government’s initial justification, noting: “US troops remain in Syria… as part of a US-led coalition battling the remnants of [Isis], which remains active in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.”

However, with the military campaign against Isis “nearly completed,” in September 2018 the Washington Post noted the US government “had redefined its goals” in Syria.

These now included “the exit of all Iranian military and proxy forces from Syria, and establishment of a stable, non-threatening government acceptable to all Syrians and the international community.”

Trump himself suggested another reason for the US occupation of Syria.

“We are leaving soldiers to secure the oil,” he stated in 2019. “And we may have to fight for the oil. It’s OK. Maybe somebody else wants the oil, in which case they have a hell of a fight. But there’s massive amounts of oil.”

Some analysts question whether this is correct, though the respected energy expert Daniel Yergin did explain oil “was very important to the Assad regime before the civil war because it produced 25 per cent of the total government revenues.”

According to a March 2018 New York Times report the US forces control most of Syria’s oil wealth, with influential Republican Senator Lindsey Graham arguing by continuing “to maintain control of the oil fields in Syria, we will deny Assad and Iran a monetary windfall.”

Of course, this also gives the US significant leverage with the Syrian government and its international supporters moving forward.

Furthermore, Western media reports rarely consider whether the US occupation is legal, even though their presence is opposed by the Syrian government and not authorised by the UN.

Like the US-Britain-enabled mass slaughter in Yemen, the US occupation of Syria is hiding in plain sight.

There are news reports published in the mainstream media about the US intervention in Syria, but there has never been the kind of sustained, searching front-page coverage the issue deserves.

As Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky argued in 1988’s groundbreaking work on the political economy of the mass media, Manufacturing Consent, “A careful reader looking for a fact can sometimes find it with diligence and a sceptical eye tells us nothing about whether that fact received the attention and context it deserved, whether it was intelligible to the reader or effectively distorted or suppressed.”

A similar US-British government-friendly amnesia courses through the broader coverage and discussion of the Western involvement in the Syrian war.

In February 2017, Dr Jamie Allinson, a senior lecturer in politics and international relations at the University of Edinburgh, argued it is a myth that “the US has pursued a policy of regime change to topple the Ba’athist Assad regime.”

The Middle East specialist went on to make the extraordinary claim that “the amount of weaponry and ammunition actually supplied by the US has been highly limited and the precondition of its supply was that it be used against Isis rather than Assad.”

Similarly, two years earlier a Guardian editorial referred to the West’s “refusal to intervene against Bashar al-Assad,” while in 2016 Paul Mason, then at Channel 4, blindly asserted the US had “stood aloof from the Syrian conflict.”

Contrast these claims with statements from key figures in the US government and mainstream press reports.

“Washington did provide aid on a large scale to Syrian armed opposition,” Steven Simon, the senior director for the Middle East and North Africa at the US National Security Council during the Obama administration, explained in 2018.

While the Pentagon ran a programme to train rebels to fight Isis, according to a January 2016 New York Times report, the CIA ran a separate, larger programme “which focuses on rebel groups fighting the Syrian military.”

According to reports in the New York Times, the US has been involved in helping to send arms to the Syrian opposition forces since at least mid-2012.

Citing US officials, in June 2015 the Washington Post revealed: “The CIA has trained and equipped nearly 10,000 fighters sent into Syria over the past several years,” spending £1 billion a year, making it “one the agency’s largest covert operations.”

Robert Malley, the White House co-ordinator on the Middle East, north Africa, and Gulf region in the Obama administration, made the obvious point to the Real News Network the same year: “We became part of the regime change — by definition, even if we denied it — once we’re supplying the armed opposition which had only one goal… which was to topple the regime.”

US secretary of state John Kerry was even clearer in September 2013: “President Obama’s policy is that Assad must go.”

No doubt the US government is very happy with the media and academic-fuelled memory-holing of US intervention in Syria and beyond.

After all, it creates the unscrutinised political space for the US and its allies, including Britain, to project military and political power with minimal pushback from the general public and civil society.

And while the officials, journalists and academics that have got US intervention in Syria so wrong usually end up “failing upwards,” those on the business end of the Western military machine aren’t so lucky.

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Biden’s Running Out of Ukraine Money? Good.

May 23rd, 2023 by Rep. Ron Paul

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When the smoke finally clears, President Biden’s Ukraine debacle will go down – along with Afghanistan and Iraq – as one of the greatest foreign policy disasters in US history. Hundreds of thousands have been killed on both sides in the service of the US neocons’ long standing desire to “regime change” Russia.

And let’s not forget that $100 billion authorized by Congress to finance the neocons’ “Project Ukraine.”

With Russian control established in the strategic city of Bakhmut over the weekend, the neocon Ukraine project – like all neocon foreign policy projects before it – looks to be progressing rapidly toward failure. But that won’t stop the Biden Administration from attempting to extort more money from an America already teetering on the brink of economic collapse. And let’s not forget the battle over the “debt limit” raging in DC.

The Biden Administration’s profligate domestic spending is a battleground for Republican lawmakers, however when it comes to endless spending on Project Ukraine, with a few exceptions the two parties are in lockstep. At least when looking at Republican party leadership.

One thing is sure: we can count on Congress to throw good money after bad. After all, 20 years fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan got us…the Taliban in Afghanistan! With a cost of perhaps three trillion dollars. But the military-industrial complex and the think tanks pushing war and the mainstream media glorifying war all got paid well.

It may seem bleak, but this is where we have something to be optimistic about. As I’ve always said, you don’t need a majority to change the course of the country. A dedicated minority driven by the principles of liberty can produce incredible results.

The mainstream media is in a panic over the fact that of the $48 billion appropriated for Ukraine, only $6 billion remains. That won’t be enough to sustain “Project Ukraine” for more than a few weeks. With the tide of US public opinion turning overwhelmingly against throwing more money down the corrupt black hole called “Ukraine,” even unprincipled politicians are going to start listening to the emerging progressive/conservative alliance in Congress that’s had enough.

In Congress a principled multipolar minority is going to overtake a corrupt and mindless majority – bolstered by the American people. And that’s a good thing.

Election season is upon us, and although we would prefer to have recruited a majority of progressives and conservative/libertarians in Congress to our view that a hundred billion to Ukraine and possible World War III is not a good idea, we must nevertheless be satisfied that political realities are in our favor.

The communists talked about the “correlation of forces,” which took into account factors beyond military power to include politics and “soft power.” With that in mind, it seems likely that as the public mood in the US turns against sending endless billions to a corrupt Ukraine with the threat of World War III in the mix, the political animals in DC will begin abandoning the sinking ship.

With President Biden clearly flailing – and with the surprisingly strong primary challenge of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – we should look for lawmakers to begin abandoning “Project Ukraine” in droves. That movement, led by principled conservatives and progressives, will sink forever the neocon “Project Ukraine” and thus save us from global nuclear annihilation. Hopefully after this disaster, Americans will turn against neocons one and for all.

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Palestinian song “Ana Dammi Falastini” (My Blood is Palestinian) by Palestinian singer Mohammed Assaf has been removed from music streaming services Spotify and Apple Music over allegations it “incites against Israel”.

Assaf said he felt “shocked” that his signature song was taken down from the widely-used streaming services in a statement on Sunday to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, The New Arab’s Arabic sister site.

“I checked my official page on the Spotify and Apple Music platforms, and was surprised that the song ‘Ana Dammi Falastini’ was deleted,” he said.

“I received an official email about it, on the pretext that the song incites the Zionist enemy, which makes me more honored that my songs express the Palestinian people’s resistance to the occupation,” he continued.

The song, released in 2015, which translates to “My Blood is Palestinian”, is widely regarded as a patriotic Palestinian song that is often played or sung in events marking Palestinian culture.

The 33-year-old singer, who is from the besieged Gaza Strip, derided the claim, saying: “This accusation increases my honour and belonging to my homeland, Palestine and my just cause,” and that “even if they delete this song, it is present in the memory and conscience of every Palestinian and every honourable free man who defends the right of the Palestinian people to obtain their freedom and independence.”

The Dubai-based singer added that the removal indicates “their hostility to freedom and justice, and to the Palestinians cause.”

Spotify denied that it had removed the music from the music platform.

“Spotify aims to offer a wide range of music on our platform, but availability may vary over time and by country,” it said in a statement.

“The removal of some of Mohammed Assaf’s content was not determined by Spotify, but rather by the distributor. We anticipate its return in the near future and apologize for any inconvenience caused.”

The New Arab has contacted MBC for comment on claims that Assaf’s label Platinum Records, which is owned by the entertainment giant, pulled the song.

The removal of Assaf’s anthem has sparked outrage among Palestinian activists on social media, who called the streaming platform “shameless and spineless.”

One user, Hamza, said stressed that the song “doesn’t even mention Israel and is just about Palestinian identity and heritage – yet is somehow still seen as a problem?”.

This isn’t the first time that the Palestinian singer has been on the receiving end of hostility. In 2020, a member of the Israeli Likud party, sought to prohibit Assaf from entering the occupied Palestinian territories.

Avi Dichter said that a special permit – usually issued to Gazans allowing them to enter the occupied West Bank – would be withdrawn.

Assaf, who grew up in the Khan Younis refugee camp, is a widely popular singer in the Middle East and North Africa, having won the second season of the singing competition show ‘Arab Idol’ in 2013.

The Gazan’s win was widely celebrated in the region and was deemed significant due to his Palestinian heritage.

Following his win, Assaf was named ambassador of peace by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).

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Historical Context for Pilot Incapacitations

May 23rd, 2023 by Mike of Mirthless Perspectives

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Pilot Incapacitation Events seem to have been receiving extra attention. We at US Freedom Flyers have been collaborating with Dr Makis on Pilot Incapacitation Event data (Covid Intel). Each event is news and noteworthy, but is the number of Pilot Incapacitation Events in 2023 actually on track to exceed historical averages? While we certainly hope this is not the case, the current data should be examined against the available statistics. To provide this context, we can turn to some prior studies conducted by the FAA.

One such study published by the Office of Aerospace Medicine in October of 2004 was named ‘In-Flight Medical Incapacitation and Impairment of U.S. Airline Pilots: 1993-1998. (See this)

The Results section on pages 3-4 state that there were 39 pilot incapacitations and 11 pilot impairments on 47 flights over approximately 85,732,000 revenue hours of airline flight operations. If we combine both categories, we find that there are 0.58 events per one million revenue hours. (47/85,732,000 * 1,000,000)

More current studies from the Office of Aerospace Medicine show a similar statistic of 0.61 events per one million revenue hours. This can be found on pages A2-A3 of the link below: see this.

If we examine cardiac incapacitations only from 1993-1998, we can see that on page 5 there are only 5 cardiac events out of the total of 47. This breaks down to .058 events per one million revenue flight hours. (5/85,732,000 * 1,000,000). Another way to look at cardiac incapacitation events is that they comprise 13% of all incapacitation and impairment events. ( 5/47=.13 )

If we look for cardiac events from 1993-2015 in the second linked study, the percentage is 11% (page A3 shown above).

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics has data for total airline revenue hours, and also by category such as domestic, international. There are further subdivisions that show revenue hours by type of operator (major, national, regional).

See this.

If we look at the 2018 and 2019 total domestic revenue hours, we can see there is an average of 15,199,682 revenue hours. Currently I cannot find a revenue hour statistic for 2022, however by comparing domestic revenue miles of 2022 vs 2018-2019, we can see that 2022 was at approximately 94% of the previous average. The revenue miles in 2023 are trending higher than 2022, so it appears we are on track to have similar data as 2019. (See this)

If we then assume that domestic revenue hours in 2023 will be approximately equal to the 2018-2019 rounded average of 15,200,000, and if the total pilot incapacitation and impairment events runs at 0.58-0.61 per 1,000,000 revenue hours, then we could reasonably predict 9-10 events in 2023. (0.6*15.2=9.12), or one event every 40 days.

If the total cardiac events runs at the historic average of 11-13% of all pilot incapacitation events, then we could expect 1 such event per year (9.12*.12=1.09).

Currently, Dr Makis’s substack has a detailed list of all Pilot Incapacitation Events that we are aware of this year. As we are tracking these events in real time, we caution against drawing hard and fast conclusions in either direction. Instead we invite all those who are concerned about this issue to take a few action steps.

First, please analyze the list of Pilot Incapacitation Events in the Covid Intel Substack.

Second, please reach out to US Freedom Flyers if you are aware of any events that were not in the list, and to alert us of any new Pilot Incapacitation Events.

Third, if you are an aviation professional, please review the National Transportation Safety Board regulation 830 or if you’re in another country, any respective regulatory analogue. While most operators may be responsible for the reporting, our awareness is key for transparency. Of particular note are the definition of Aircraft Accident, and the Immediate Notification requirements. Accessing specific data on pilot incapacitation requires in-depth research and analysis of various sources. This is because some data may be subject to privacy regulations or limitations imposed by the organizations responsible for its collection and dissemination.

See this.

As always, if you’re an aviation industry professional, please consider filing ASAP reports for any such event or for any safety related issue. The ASAP program is a powerful way to make others aware of safety issues. Thank you for your active participation in this data collection effort, and while we hope that these events are not on the rise, we will revisit the data and compare against the historical statistics we have presented.

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When the Brown University (USA) based Costs of War project had estimated the direct deaths resulting from violence (actual fighting, bombing etc.) caused by the USA’s post 9/11 ‘War on Terror’ at about 920,000 (a little less than a million, or 0.9 million) then many people were shocked by this. However even at that time the project researchers had cautioned that this was merely the number of deaths which were directly caused in the conflicts. They had added that if all the indirect deaths related to the war on terror are also counted (for example deaths caused later by diseases resulting from destruction of sanitation and health facilities in the bombings), then the number of these deaths may turn out to be much higher, in fact it may be several times more.


Blood and Treasure: United States Budgetary Costs and Human Costs of 20 Years of War in Iraq and Syria, 2003-2023

By Prof. Neta C. Crawford, May 12, 2023


Now, in mid-May, this project has also released its estimates of the indirect deaths caused in the War on Terror. These indirectly caused deaths have been estimated at 3.6 to 3.7 million. If these are added to the direct deaths caused earlier, the total number of deaths in the War on Terror goes up to 4.5 million to 4.6 million. So the total number of deaths is about 5 times the number of direct deaths.

The details of reaching this estimate have been provided in a thoroughly researched and thickly referenced paper meaningfully titled ‘How Death Outlives War—the Reverberating Impact of the Post 9/11 Wars on Human Health’. This important paper written by Stephanie Savell is on the one hand a confirmation of past trends (such as in the Korean War) that indirect death continue long after the actual war and can be much higher than the immediate war deaths, and on the other hand this is also very important from the point of view of an assessment of the costs of war which is close to reality in the context of recent wars. Hence this study is of great importance for peace activists and movements all over the world for taking their message of promoting peace and opposing wars among more and more people.

While this study states clearly that the total death toll in the post 9/11 war zones of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen could be at least 4.5 million to 4.6 million, it also says that so many aspects of life are affected by war that very precise estimates may not be possible to obtain and even these estimates are presented in a situation of still counting. As the number of serious malnourished children affected by ‘wasting’ is reported to be very high in these countries, hunger and deprivation are widespread, the tragedy is still continuing.

While the main estimate appears to be concentrated on the five countries mentioned above, the tragic situation in some other countries like Somalia and Libya has also been discussed in this report. In the context of Somalia in particular it is also mentioned that in view of the serious famine-like conditions prevailing here, the counter-terrorism laws could also have adversely affected the relief efforts badly needed by starving people.

An important point made by the study is that while war-devastated countries may lose much of the attention of the world and ‘the international community’ once the actual fighting ends, in many contexts the longer-term effects of war continue to cause more and more deaths, disabilities and distress. What is more, these deaths may even increase with the passage of time. In the case of Iraq, the number of children facing birth defects and disabilities may be very high, although this has been denied by others. There are several such examples of the longer-term health hazards of several extremely dangerous weapons, bombs and ammunitions.

In the contexts of several victim countries but perhaps most clearly in the context of Iraq, there appears to be a very strong case of a very large number of entirely avoidable deaths of entirely innocent persons having been caused, and of other large numbers of entirely innocent people having been exposed to very painful injuries, disabilities and diseases. Hence there is a very strong justice based case for damages in billions of dollars being paid by the main perpetrators of violence to the victims. This process can start by the USA and Britain in particular making these payments to the victims and their families in Iraq, and this can later be extended to other victim countries wherever a strong case for this exists. Such payments cannot undo the great tragedy, the entirely avoidable tragedy of such great distress having been caused to entirely innocent persons just due to the whims and faulty decision making of a small bunch of arrogant persons in positions of powers, but this can help to reduce their distress even if only partially and belatedly. This is the least that can be done at this late stage.

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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Protecting Earth for Children, Earth without Borders and A Day in 2071.

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A new study from Northwestern University has concluded that the majority of “Covid19” patients put on ventilators were actually killed by bacterial pneumonia, not the alleged virus.

You can read that paper here.

This should not come as a shock to any regular OffG reader – or indeed anyone who tried to keep themselves informed during the “pandemic”. Mechanical ventilation is not a treatment for respiratory infection, and quite often makes the situation worse.

Deliberate, institutional misuse of mechanical ventilation probably killed huge numbers of patients during the so-called “first wave”. We cover this in great detail in our “40 Facts” covid cribsheet.

Predictably enough, though, mainstream talking heads are not ready to admit this, and the Northwestern paper has produced a wave of somewhat fevered revisionism among the dwindling covidiot class.

See, for example, this tweet from “Dr Craig Spencer”:

Ironically, while he is accusing others of revisionism, he is the one rewriting history. Ventilators were never recommended for treating Covid, but rather for preventing transmission.

The WHO, CDC, NHS and ECDC all published guidelines instructing healthcare workers to put “Covid patients” on respirators as early as possible, and in every case it was classed as an “infection control measure”.

This is not new information, it was all known at the time.

Further, it was known, that this policy was potentially doing harm, having been reported in mainstream articles (such as this one from Time or this one from The Spectator) as early as April 2020.

But it’s not just the “ventilators saved lives” crowd who are rewriting history, even this new discussion recognizing the role ventilators played in Covid stops several steps short of the truth, characterizing it as a mistake or a panic reaction.

It was neither. It was deliberate policy.

This was recorded by whistle-blowers and becomes glaringly obvious when you consider that, in the US, the CARES Act paid out bonus money to hospitals for ventilating “covid patients”.

So no, it is not revisionism to blame ventilators for many of the deaths usually attributed to “Covid”, that was obviously true, and widely known, at the time.

Real revisionism is pretending there was no way anyone could have known the harm that was being done, or to close your eyes to the fact it was all done on purpose.

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Well, if you thought the American Civil War ended back in 1865, you are apparently wrong. No less an authority than President Joe Biden, in a May 13th commencement speech to historically black Howard University’s graduates, told the overwhelmingly black students and their families that “The most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy. And I’m not saying this because I’m at a Black HBCU, I say it wherever I go.” Indeed, both Biden and his inert Attorney General Merrick Garland nee Garfinkel have delivered that same message on a number of occasions, but this was the first time it was employed in such a racially charged environment. It was clearly a pre-electoral call to arms against white people in America, placing government sanctioned targets on the backs of whites who are generally peacefully struggling to retain their communities, identities, religion, heritage and culture, all of which are being engulfed by the White House’s tidal wave of self-serving and politically motivated “woke” promotions.

Five days later, on the 18th, the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released an 80 page report revealing that the FBI had deliberately miscategorized its investigations into the events surrounding the January 6th Capitol Hill violent demonstration to substantially inflate the numbers suggesting a dramatic increase in domestic terrorism in the United States. The GOP report, based largely on whistleblower testimony, stated that “whistleblowers assert that the FBI pressured agents to reclassify cases as domestic violent extremism (DVE), and even manufactured DVE cases where they may not otherwise exist, while manipulating its case categorization system to feign a national problem.” The FBI’s Washington Field Office deliberately categorized its Capitol disturbance cases to make the rise in DVE cases look more like a national problem than a one-time post-electoral incident.

The report includes “According to whistleblower information, the FBI has manipulated the manner in which it categorized January 6-related investigations to create a misleading narrative that domestic terrorism is organically surging around the country.” The manipulated statistics, based on regarding every individual even peripherally or allegedly involved in an incident as a terrorist suspect rather than as part of a group interaction, were then used to support the Biden Administration’s increasing rhetoric about “domestic terrorism.” One whistleblower explained how “By opening a separate case for each individual as opposed to one case with however many subjects are involved, they’ve turned one case into a thousand cases… And by spreading them to the field, they’ve given the impression that those domestic terror cases are around the country…”

Using the new parameters, the FBI Director Christopher Wray was able to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in August 2022 that “the number of FBI investigations of suspected DVEs has more than doubled since the spring of 2020.” The FBI was, in fact, conducting approximately 1,400 pending domestic terrorism investigations at the end of fiscal 2020, a number that jumped to 2,700 domestic terrorism investigations by the end of fiscal 2021. The Bureau arrested approximately 180 domestic terrorism subjects in 2020, a number that increased to 800 such subjects in 2021.

And then there was the May 15th release of the long-awaited Durham Report on the shenanigans engaged in by Team Clinton in 2016 to use the nation’s security apparatus to make it appear that Donald Trump was being directed by the Russian government. Predictably, there will likely be no political or legal consequences relating to the revelation. No one in the FBI or CIA , or even in the Clinton campaign, will be held accountable for efforts made to influence the outcome of the 2016 election and to denigrate Trump personally using what they knew to be lies. The FBI leadership has reportedly apologized and says it will not engage in such activity in the future, but many are skeptical, particularly as there was something of a repeat performance in 2020 involving the letter signed by 51 members of the intelligence and national security community claiming that the Hunter laptop allegations were nothing more than a Russian disinformation operation. “Will it ever end?” one might ask.

And there’s more. Nina Jankowicz, who made the news briefly back when she was about to assume the post of the Department of Homeland Security Disinformation Czar in April last year before she abruptly resigned three weeks later on May 18th is now, one year later, suing Fox News. She claims the network has been “waging a campaign of ‘vitriolic lies’ against her that amounts to a threat to democracy [by] damaging her reputation as a specialist in conspiracy theories and disinformation campaigns.”

Biden simultaneously got cold feet about systematically criminalizing what Americans were saying and writing and shut down The Disinformation Governance Board abruptly in the wake of attacks by Fox and others that the new DHS division Jankowicz led was itself part of a conspiracy to censor rightwing comment spearheaded by President Biden. Janowicz is claiming that no less than Tucker Carlson, the news channel’s then primetime ratings star fired by Fox recently in the wake of the Dominion settlement, led the charge. In his opening monologue on April 28th 2022, Carlson described Jankowicz as a “moron” and said that what she was doing constituted a “full-scale attack on free speech.” He also referred to the disinformation board as “the new Soviet America”.

Finally, what would the week be like without hearing more about the Biden Administration’s endless war against anti-Semitism? There were predictably numerous anti-Semitism developments during the week but the most compelling was the demand by Deborah Lipstadt, the US government’s renowned holocaust expert who serves as Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, that one of the world’s richest men Elon Musk must be taken to task for daring to criticize George Soros. Lipstadt elaborated how “You can criticize George Soros — many people do — for his economic policies, even for his political programs, for his foundation. But when you turn him into the Rothschild of the 21st century, then you’re engaging in antisemitism. When you link his activities to his Jewish identity, when you disparage his activities — some of which I may disagree with — and when you turn him into this villainous character, which has antisemitic overtures, you’ve crossed the line.”

Lipstadt was responding to Musk’s tweet “Soros reminds me of Magneto.” He was comparing Soros to a Marvel supervillain/hero character named Magneto, who is also Jewish like Soros and, also like him, a claimed holocaust survivor. Lipstadt believes that even mentioning the Jewish globalist Soros, or referring to someone as a “globalist” or “cosmopolitan,” just might be considered as “invoking antisemitic tropes,” as it implies that they are Jews. Per Lipstadt, “What you’re saying is Jews do not have loyalty to the country in which they live in, that they have loyalty one to the other and that they are out to destroy the countries in which they live in.”

And you will be hearing more from Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, who also states flatly that “Antisemitism is not a niche issue…it is an existential threat to democracy,” possibly later this week when President Biden will be unveiling the first-ever national plan to counter “anti-Jewish bigotry.” She explains how “America has never done something like a national plan to fight antisemitism, which involves most of the major agencies of the US government. There will be some things that people will disagree with. But when I see the time and effort that has gone in by White House, by high-ranking individuals, it’s a message that we take this seriously.”

The plan was developed in recent months by an interagency task force created by Joe Biden last December. It incorporates claimed conversations with more than 1,000 Jewish community leaders across denominations in the United States. President Biden, at May 9th’s White House celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month, said it will “include more than 200 measures that government agencies, social media platforms and elected officials can adopt to counter rising antisemitism.”

There is considerable irony in all of this much ado about little based on deliberately inflated numbers promoted largely by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) claiming that antisemitism is surging. Neither the hideous Jonathan Greenblatt of ADL nor Dr. Lipstadt has suggested to their Israeli friends that the sometimes negative perception of Jews in America might improve if the self-declared Jewish state were to stop killing Palestinian children. Indeed, real antisemitic prejudice that produces negative consequences is hard to identify as American Jews have notably become the best educated and wealthiest demographic in the United States. Though only two per cent of the population, they dominate in key economic and social sectors to include finance, entertainment, the media and education. They occupy many if not most of the key policy making positions in the Biden Administration and are greatly overrepresented in Congress and in government in general. They constantly seek and regularly obtain benefits that accrue only to them, like the 90% of Homeland Security discretionary grants that go to them for “security.”

That new “measures” are being implemented to give Jews even more enhanced protected status that directly limits free speech might be considered ridiculous if it were not so downright dangerous, one more step in handing the keys of the kingdom over to an autocratic and self-centered tribe that describes itself as “chosen” by God. We will no doubt be hearing a lot more about their victimhood over the summer to justify what repressive new measures will be put in place. Will criticizing the so-called holocaust and the apartheid state of Israel become hate crimes with large fines and jail time attached? Stay tuned!

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

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

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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